November 21, 2008
The Oceana Scanner Returns
BY: Emily Fisher
As you may or may not recall, we used to do a weekly round-up of ocean news called the Oceana Scanner. Then it got lost in the hustle and bustle around here and we let it go. Well, it’s back! At the end of each week I’ll post the most important ocean-related stories from around the web. Without further ado, this week’s edition: Decisions, decisions.This week in ocean news,…The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) meets in Morocco to discuss quotas for crashing populations of bluefin tuna. …Thanks to the tanking economy, thousands of boat-owners have abandoned their vessels at marinas, leading to toxic “junkyard flotillas.”…Crabbers in Maryland and Virginia are now eligible for disaster relief. Each state will be eligible for as much as $10 million in relief to help watermen hurt by the failure of the Chesapeake Bay’s crab fishery.…Sound waves continued to reverberate over the SCOTUS’ whales v. naval sonar decision….Japan’s whale hunters reportedly set sail on their annual ire-inducing voyage. Last season, Japan caught 551 whales in the northwest Pacific and Antarctic oceans….a whale shark is caught on film with its pants down. Scientists cheer. The rest of us wrinkle our noses.…USDA clears the way for “organic” farmed fish, much to the delight of fish farmers and to the chagrin of environmentalists. …A federal court rules that Shell can’t drill for oil near Alaska because the government failed to examine the environmental impact on whales and local communities before giving the company its permit. D’oh.