Seafood dilemma

I'm having a dilemma over seafood at the moment. I really love good, fresh seafood, although I don't tend to eat a lot of it. But it seems lately that the more I read, the less I feel I ought to eat. This despite the fact I'm constantly hearing on the news that seafood and fish oils are so good for my health and that most people don't eat enough of them.

In a typical week, the only seafood I am likely to eat is some canned tuna or a fresh piece of salmon, maybe a different fresh fish if something else looks good at the markets. If I lived at the coast that might be different though. I'm very careful to avoid species that I know are being unsustainably harvested, such as orange roughy. I know that salmon and tuna aren't perfectly managed either, but I've generally considered them to be better fish to eat from a conservation perspective. But this week I've read several things that have made me think I may be wrong. Perhaps I should give up on fish altogether? Here are some things to think about:

1) On Southern Fried Science, a really interesting post about why "Dolphin friendly" tuna might not be very friendly to anything else apart from dolphins - so maybe I should cut back on the tuna after all?

2) But maybe there is some hope? Tuna fisheries are also notoriously unkind to albatross populations, especially long-line fisheries. The birds try to eat the bait, get caught in the hooks and drown. I have always felt some guilt for these unseen deaths when eating my tuna mayonnaise. Then today I read on The Great Beyond that albatrosses may be saved after all. Changing practices have lead to an 85% decrease in the number of albatrosses killed by the fisheries. This can only be good news, surely?

3) I've also found another reason to worry about eating salmon. BBC Wildlife Magazine has an article in the February 2009 issue (page 39) describing a decline in salmon numbers in British Columbia. Fewer salmon means less food for grizzly bears for starters. So why are the salmon declining? The article points the finger at overfishing and the effects of fish farms on wild fish: sea lice breed in the farms then move out to infect wild fish. The salmon I get all comes from Aussie waters, mostly Tasmanian, but even though there are no bears to go hungry I'm sure the farms have the same problems. Perhaps I shall rethink salmon too?

I think I might just have to fork out a few dollars and get myself a copy of the Australian Marine Conservation Society's Sustainable Seafood Guide. At least then I'll have a better idea where I stand.

Finally, to end this post on marine life, I loved reading about this  in the Telegraph: a biologist on a tagging trip caught a huge stingray, 7 foot by 7 foot!!!

Eaten to extinction?

Another entry for the eaten to extinction section, this time via an article on National Geographic news.

Worcester's buttonquail, known to science only through decades-old museum specimens, was thought to be extinct. Then in January a TV crew, filming at a market in the Philippines, captured one of the birds on camera. The bird was subsequently sold for food. I hope whoever bought it enjoyed their meal. Of course if there is one bird at the market, there is a chance there are others still alive in the wild, although perhaps not many. So the species may not be extinct after all... but realistically, what is its chance of lasting much longer...?

In the news today

Some sciencey stories that have caught my eye this week:

A paper in Genome Research describes the sequencing of the entire mitochodrial genome of the extinct thylacine or Tasmanian tiger. This probably deserves it's own post: it uses new methods and the results are surprisingly different from the sequences previously available. I'll try to review it in more depth later...

Scientific American reports on the discovery of two species of fly in Namibia which are members of a genus previously only known from the fossil record. This is pretty cool, especially given my personal soft spot for Namibia. Maybe I have unknowingly inhaled one of these flies! I am however a little disappointed that the good folk at Scientific American have described the flies as "living fossils". The term is not helpful. If a fly is alive it isn't a fossil. And where should the line be drawn? Many extant species have close relatives known from the fossil record. Are they all "living fossils"? How much divergence is required before they are no longer classed as "living fossils"? I think terms like this can really confuse people.

ABC news reports on the births of ten Tasmanian Devil pups on an island sanctuary. The pups are the offspring of devils chosen for captive breeding because of their good genetics. They have similar genetic profiles to the famous Cedric, a devil who raised, then dashed, the hopes of researchers by first showing immunity to the devastating Devil Facial Tumour Disease, only to later contract the cancer. Maybe these pups will show greater resilience to the disease?

And finally I can't resist posting a link to this: BBC footage of bears catching dead fish with their feet! Apparently they don't like to get their ears wet :-)

A snake and a quoll

I've just been away for a few days, visiting people in Tasmania. It was a nice trip and I hardly went near the internet. Hence no blog posts. It was also a bit of a reminder of the somewhat cloistered world I must live in, sheltered amongst scientists and other like-minded people as I am in my usual daily life. I am clearly a bit of a science geek. My reason for making this statement about this trip? It was great to see people I haven't seen for a while and spend time doing fun things, but the absolute highlights of this trip for me were two fleeting wildlife encounters. 

The first was a tiger snake encounter in a garden. Most other folk there at the time were not happy to see the snake and there was some talk of the only good snake being a dead snake. Perhaps the snake heard because it promptly moved on. Now don't get me wrong, I'm not a crazy herpetologist and I am mostly definitely VERY scared of venomous snakes. I acknowledge that the snake was rather close to peoples' houses and it's probably better for them that it wasn't so close and they'd be a lot happier if it was moved elsewhere. I was certainly very careful where I put my feet for the next few days. But still, above all else it was just a wonderful thing to see. Here, judge for yourselves:

The second wildlife encounter was, if you can believe it, even more fantastic than the snake. Actually I'm sure a lot of people would find this the more favourable option. This because it involves a cute furry mammal. I saw a quoll! I have never before seen a quoll in the wild, although I've been in the right sorts of places many times. So this was very exciting. We were driving to the airport early in the morning. It was still dark and we were paying close attention to the roadside vegetation for fear of colliding with suicidal wallabies, when what should saunter across the road in front of us but an unmistakably spotty quoll. It was an Eastern quoll, I know this because it was black with white spots. We had to pretty much stop the car to avoid hitting it. It was only a quick look, but it made being up and about at 4am most definitely worthwhile!