On this week's instalment of Ocean Updates, we tackle the last ditch efforts of the collaborative, Mexican-led group, of VaquitaCPR to try to save the last 19 individuals of the endemic Vaquita. If you read the story, you wouldn't think that it was a success as VaquitaCPR caught and had to release the first Vaquita, but the team thinks it was a success. 

Other stories that I am covering today include my thoughts on industry funded fisheries research with a focus on Dr. Ray Hilborn, who is often thought to be a tool of the fisheries industry, but is he looking out for fish or his funders pockets. 

Finally, I found out about a EU fisheries program that gives out yellow and red cards to evaluate countries based on their efforts to reduce/eliminate illegal, unreported and unregulated fisheries. 

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Sign up for the upcoming Webinar by Nick entitled: "Making Your Research Freely-Available with MarXiv:The (free!) research repository for ocean-conservation and marine climate science"

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MPA News (Marine Protected Area News) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Dr. Lyne Morissette, marine mammal scientist and science communicator extrodinnaire, joins us on the podcast today to discuss her takeaways from the 22nd Biennial Conference for the Society of Marine Mammals. That means she gets to spend more than 5 days listening and talking about whales, dolphins, seals, walruses, polar bears and more!!! It's a dream come true!!!

Lyne's highlights were the talks of the Northwest Atlantic Right Whales and what we will do about them, hearing about the Vaquita (only 19 left!!!), and the fusion of collaboration among various professions such as art and conservation. 

By the way, the conference was held in Halifax, Nova Scotia and in true Canadian fashion, the entire conference took place on a hockey rink. The conference shirts were hockey jerseys! 

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Sign up for the upcoming Webinar by Nick entitled: "Making Your Research Freely-Available with MarXiv:The (free!) research repository for ocean-conservation and marine climate science"

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MPA News (Marine Protected Area News) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Open Access to Science is crucial to sharing information across the world. If you think about it, the entire scientific process is all about one scientists being able to duplicate an experiment of a study based on the methods outlined in a paper. However, sharing literature is not always possible.

As our guest today, Nick Wehner from OCTO (Open Communications for The Ocean), will describe to us, many scientific papers that would help Marine Conservationists to their jobs better are stored behind a paywall in the journals in which they are published. The paywall makes it difficult for scientists who do not have expensive subscriptions to the journals to access the important information. 

Nick is here to tell us about a solution that OCTO is going to release on November 14th. You don't need to be a scientist or have an expensive subscription to get access to this literature. 

Enjoy the Podcast!

Here are some links to the articles that we discussed on the podcast:

1) A paper on the usage of primary journal articles by environmental managers (which is behind a paywall...how ironic!!!)
2) A paper describing the impact of Open Access Literature
3) A paper on the history and future of peer review

Sign up for the upcoming Webinar by Nick entitled: "Making Your Research Freely-Available with MarXiv:The (free!) research repository for ocean-conservation and marine climate science"

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

As always, there is quite a bit going on in Marine Science and Conservation field so it's a good thing that the Speak Up For Blue Podcast is here to keep you updated. Here are the stories for today:
1) Open Acces Week (3:34)
2) Salmon populations may be decreasing for many reasons (8:28)
3) Scientists travel too much by plane to go to conferences/meetings (23:00)
4) Master Chef technique used to safely transport Sea Turtle Eggs (30:40)

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Nathan Johnson is back again for another Ocean Talk Friday episode. Nathan makes a special announcement about his career and how being a co-host of the Ocean Talk Friday Episodes helped him attain this new goal. 

We also talk about some articles that we thought you should know about:
1) Countries pushing for another MPA in the Antarctic;
2) Nuie, island in the South Pacific, declares MPA protecting 40% of its ocean; and,
3) Engineers try to replicate the camouflage ability of the Octopus (pretty cool!).

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Marine Conservation is great when we see things like water quality policies and Marine Protected Areas implemented into law by governments; however, enforcing those policies on the Ocean is a huge challenge. It takes a number of tools and experts to create a Management Plan that will deter and prevent future problems. 

Paul Whitaker, from KSAT, is our guest on the podcast today and he is leading projects that track oil spills and illegal fishing on the Ocean around the world, including Easter Island and Gabon. 

Paul gives us the breakdown of how Satellites can help us identify oil spills on the water and identify ships that are fishing illegally with other tools such as AIMS that enhances management and enforcement to further protect the Ocean.

Check out the podcast for more details.

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

The New York Times wrote a great article of fishers in Maine, USA who were diversifying their lone revenue stream of fishing lobsters by farming oysters and kelp. You might wonder, "Why in the world would they want to do that?" 

Apparently, they say they cannot rely on income based on the seasonal fluctuation of wild stocks anymore. The lobster fishery seems to be doing quite well; however, many fishers are cautious in believing that the stock can sustain its population size with the changing temperature and the potential for disease in warming seas.

Listen to the episode to find out more.

Also on the Program:
1) Mexico ready to create the largest Marine Reserve in North America; and,
2) Marine Insurance companies teaming up with Oceana to make it harder for Blacklisted fishers to get insurance for their boats to combat over fishing.

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Climate Change has really been on my mind these days, specifically the people who have been affected by the Hurricanes in Small Island communities such as Barbuda, Dominica, US Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. The magnitude and extent of the damages incurred by these communities are evidence that we are not prepared for the intensity of storms that seem to be occurring more often. 

It's time we have a conversation and share some ideas to find more solutions. I will start and I would encourage you to continue the conversation in our Facebook Group.

I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Seagrass monitoring projects are crucial to the overall health of coastal systems as seagrass beds all around the world are habitats of great biodiversity...and biodiversity make habitats more resistant to degradation. Unfortunately, monitoring projects are hard to start and maintain because it's difficult to find people to do the work on a consistent basis and it's difficult to find money to pay for the program. In comes community programs, or Ocean Citizen Science Projects.

Fiona West is the manager of the Broome Community Seagrass Program in the Kimberley Region of Northwest Australia. Her program has been in place for 11 years (that's a lot of data) that functions based on the work of citizen scientists (locals and tourists) who want to take care of the environment in this part of the world. The program is part of the Seagrass Watch program, an international program that provide citizen science programs with protocols and analysis support for their region.

Fiona describes how the program works and how the Aboriginal People and the Australian government have bee working together to establish a great program monitoring trends in this part of the world. 

Listen as Fiona speaks passionately about Broome Bay and the people who protect it.

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Shark advocates and scientists strive for the same cause: protect sharks from their rapid global decrease in population. However, advocates and scientists don't always agree on the methods. Some people want all finning and fishing of all sharks to stop completely. Others feel it's more realistic to have some sustainable shark fisheries and want to ban finning altogether. A current proposed bill in Congress that will ban finning of any kind is testing the relationship among some advocates and scientists. 

Debate on the methods of science, conservation and protection is healthy. What is NOT healthy is the personal attacks after heated debates online. Personal attacks do not help move ideas forward. They do the opposite. They further divide the rational line of compromise and agreements. 

I discuss this in our second story of this episode because advocates are personally attacking a researcher for their stance on the proposed bill to ban the sale of all fins in the US. 

Listen to the podcast and let me know how you feel this issue could have been solved in our Facebook Group.

Also on the podcast: 
1) Thousands of fish, including 1,000-2,000 leopard sharks die in San Francisco Bay; and,
2) An alliance is formed to track the distribution line to eliminate illegal fishing in our global seafood market.

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

This episode was brought to you by Octo (Open Communications for The Oceans). Check out their recent MEAM (Marine Ecosystem And Management) issue helping inform the Marine Science and Conservation field around the world.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

We continue our introduction to the Octo (Open Communications for The Ocean) team this week as John Davis, Nick Wehner and introducing Sarah Carr join me for Ocean Talk Friday to discuss the articles that were published in the latest Marine Environment And Management (MEAM) edition. 

Today we discuss:
1) How social science is implemented in Marine Conservation projects by looking at a number of examples;
2) Why science is an important component of Ecosystem-Based Management (and what science is crucial); and,
3) We get an update on where Marine National Monuments stand in the Trump era.

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Octo's website

Open Channels Website

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Open Communications For The Oceans (Octo) has become a partner of Speak Up For Blue and we will now work together as a team to further share Marine Science and Conservation to help live for a better Ocean. As you know, Speak Up For Blue is designed to raise awareness about Ocean Issues in the public and let people know about all of the wonderful people and projects going on around the world. I hope that the information inspires you to help protect the Ocean in any way that you can. 

Octo is focused on supporting the Marine Science and Conservation community by helping them do their jobs with shared tools and resources as well as platforms to help share information.

Together we are going to try to increase our reach to help more people and further protect the Ocean.

This interview with John Davis and Nick Wehner, from Octo, will let you get to know our new partners.

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

It's not everyday where you realize your dreams, especially in the field of Marine Science and Conservation. However, it has happened to me today as this is the first day that I am working full time on Speak Up For Blue and getting paid for it. That's right, Speak Up For Blue has it's first sponsor at the Partner Level. That sponsor is Octo (Open Communications for The Ocean). 

This opportunity allows me to do what I haven't been able to do in the past, which is to build a Marine Science and Conservation Media Company. 

Find out all of the details in this episode.

Enjoy the podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign

Shark finning, the act of removing a shark's fin at sea and discarding their mangled body overboard for them to die, is a terrible act and the reason why many marine conservation organizations are trying to ban finning and fins in many countries around the world, including in the US. 

There is a proposed bill that is in Congress right now that is proposing the possession and sale of shark fins in the US. It seems as though its a good plan, right? Well, at least two shark scientists think its a bad idea. How could they you ask? Take a listen to the podcast to find out what they wrote in a peer reviewed journal article in Marine Policy.

Also on the show, I talk about a cool adaptation of the electric eel and how it wards off hungry predators like crocodiles and cats.

Enjoy the Podcast!!!

Let me know what you think of the episode by joining our Facebook Group for the Podcast.

Support Speak Up For Blue's Efforts to create a free pr=resource program for Ocean Citizen Scientists to help move Marine Science and Conservation forward by collecting information for various Citizen Science program. Contribute to our Patreon Campaign