A giant reef in the South Pacific has gotten a major reprieve. The island nation of Kiribati has created the world's largest protected marine reserve, and it's about the size of California:
The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, covering 410,500 square kilometers, is one of the planet's last intact coral archipelagos and is threatened by over-fishing and climate change, [environmental] groups say.
It lies near the equator about half way between Fiji and Hawaii.
This new reserve is bigger than the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument west of Hawaii (137,797 square miles) and the Great Barrier Reef in Australia (345,000 sq km.)
The US-based group Conservation International, along with the New England Aquarium, is helping the Kiribati government to manage and fund the uninhabited area. A tough challenge for the reserve is coastal erosion, but the site is also overfished and thus the Kirbati government will need some money for surveillance.
So get out your wallets people! No, just kidding. We don't think this place is taking donations but we wonder... is it taking tourists?
A rare prehistoric shark normally found a couple thousand feet below was captured off the shallow waters of Japan earlier this week and immediatley taken to Awashima Marine Park for "observation".
Marine biologists had just enough time to count the eel sharks teeth (300 razor sharp fangs), determine the fish was female, and shoot some footage and put it up on YouTube, before the prehistoric shark died. Frill sharks like this one usually inhabit deep sea waters between 400 and 4,200 feet and rarely come to the surface. They do however, show up from time to time in fishermen's nets off the coast of Japan. We are guessing that as soon as the shark was spotted it had little chance of survival, because it was so close to the surface, then again we don't know anything about prehistoric frill sharks.
As for the marine park where the shark spent its final hours, Awashima Marine Park is a small island in Uchiura Bay. The whole island is a maritime park and you can visit by sea-crossing aerial cableway from the opposite side of the sea, Shigedera station. You can learn more about the park on the Awashima Marine Park website, if you know Japanese--the site looks eerily like a Super Mario Brothers world.
0 Comments - Add Yours
by juliana
