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September 10, 2007

Last Week in Ocean News …

Do you wonder what’s happening in the world of ocean news? Wonder no more. This week’s Scanner will fill you in on the latest and most thought-provoking ocean news. Read an article you’d like to see featured here? Send it to wavemaker@oceana.org.

….a Manhattan-sized iceberg that had broken off a Canadian island came to a rest in a dead-end Arctic Ocean channel, much to the relief of cargo ships and oil rigs, which may have been threatened by the two-billion-ton berg…

…..a family out sailing in Massachusetts spied a mola mola, a bony sunfish shaped like a mix between a shark and a pancake. Usually found in warmer waters, the mola sometimes migrates north of the tropics….

…a group of scientists announced a plan to wire the Pacific floor so that landbound researchers can remotely view and study the seafloor. “This is a NASA-scale mission to enter the Inner Space,” said one….

…..leaked documents suggested the Canadian government is set to announce fast-tracked economic initiatives in the Arctic later this fall…

….an international conference on penguins announced that a majority of the 17 species are headed for extinction, including the emperor penguin colony immortalized in “March of the Penguins”….

…a Belgian foundation unveiled the first prefab zero-emissions polar station in Brussels. The station is set to be dismantled and moved to the South Pole this month……

……..a cruise ship company announced its intentions to build the world’s largest sailing vessel. The ship will be longer than two football fields and employ 37 sails. Nearly 300 passengers will be able to enjoy its three pools….

….commercial fishermen in the Narragansett Bay say profits are gone. Two fishermen claimed that the terrorist attacks of 9/11 prompted the beginning of the end of the New England fishery….

……Japanese school children were fed dolphin meat that was contaminated by toxic levels of mercury……

…the Zoological Society of London announced that marine mammals were becoming more common in the Thames River thanks to a concerted cleanup effort….

….scientists discovered that moray eels have a second, mobile set of jaws used to drag prey into their mouths….

……a hunter in Canada’s Northwest Territories killed the first walrus seen there in 15 years. “We ended up getting it after probably 10 rounds of shells or shots into it,” the hunter said. He is considering making earrings from the tusks….

….and Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles, once down to just a few hundred mating pairs on American shorelines, continued to make a comeback, and now number in the tens of thousands. The turtles are still far from their historic population levels.