Category: Cetology

The Ecologically Destructive Technique of Blast Fishing and Cyanide Fishing

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Blast fishing was introduced in Southeast Asia post World War II, by American soldiers who threw grenades into bodies of water to yield a large cache of fish, a technique which is used  during the modern day to produce fish as a food resource in local markets. Dynamite is often used but any explosive will perform the task effectively, even improvised devices which utilize an explosive chemical within a glass drinking bottle with an improvised wick lit by a cigarette. Cyanide fishing is an ecologically destructive method of catching fish in which a diver takes bottled cyanide and pumps it into reef areas where fish reside, stunning the fish and making them easier to catch, so that they can be extracted for the pet and live fish trades. These techniques result in coral reefs losing their color and ultimately dying, eliminating a major food source for marine life within the region. Both methods are extremely damaging to the ecosystem and left unchecked, can decimate entire ecosystems within a few short years. Portions of and entire coral reefs which have slowly built over thousands of years can be destroyed in a matter of seconds by using either of these harmful techniques. Fortunately, both methods of fishing are illegal in most of Southeast Asia

The Discovery of the Sunken S.S. Titanic

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The S.S. Titanic’s shipwreck site was found by the U.S. Navy whilst embarking upon a clandestine military submarine sea voyage operation in 1982. The intent of the mission was to surpass the Russians on every front, including land, sea, air, and space. Geologist and Navy Captain Robert Ballard was the person who developed the mission idea by suggesting that the U.S. Navy scour the seafloor to gather intelligence and search for evidence of Soviet placed hardware. The original intention of the mission was to locate and recover 2 U.S. Navy submarines which were classified as top secret nuclear attack vessels and lost during the 1960’s. The first submarine was the U.S.S. Scorpion, lost in 1968 with 99 onboard, and the second was the U.S.S. Thresher, lost in 1963 with 129 onboard. Recovery of these vessels during the 1960’s was limited to the Sound Navigation and Ranging technology of the era, commonly abbreviated as “SONAR”. Ballard only had 12 days to locate the S.S. Titanic during the mission without exposing his cover story, a feat which was unable to be completed by the French and the Americans, despite having much longer time spans and multiple expeditions to achieve this goal. Ballard narrowed down the search area to 80 square kilometers and focused towards the south as he believed that ocean currents would have carried sunken debris in that direction. Ballard continued searching for a trail of scattered debris from the S.S. Titanic and on the 9th day of the expedition, with time quickly running out, the operators of the remotely operated vehicle ARGO, found wreckage from a modern iron ship which appeared to be from the early 20th century. It was confirmed shortly after on September 1, 1985 at 12:48 AM that these remains were 1 of the 29 boilers belonging to the S.S. Titanic. It had been 73 years since the S.S. Titanic was last seen, resting nearly 4 kilometers below sea level, with it’s 1500 onboard passengers and crew

Preservation​ of Organic Material in The Black Sea

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Black-Sea

The Black Sea off of the coast of the Ukraine is unique in that it has a dense layer of stagnant, oxygen deprived water which blankets its lower depths referred to as the “anoxic layer”. This layer has preserved shipwrecks perfectly, and is thought to preserve human remains as well, although none have been found. Anything organic which should rot away like wood, leather, cotton etc. stays completely intact for thousands of years under these conditions. It is theorized that 7500 years ago, the Black Sea was a landlocked, freshwater lake which crossed over a thin strip of land referred to as the “Bosphorus”, as the world’s oceans began to swell due to melting glaciers. This caused seawater to flood into the Black Sea and because it was more dense than the freshwater already there, it sank it to bottom and settled. The saltwater was cut off from the oxygen supply which it would normally receive from ocean currents. The anoxic layer is approximately 183 meters deep and produces hydrogen sulfide as a byproduct which is poisonous to most living creatures including those which consume and break down ships

The Commonality Between Herbivores and Size

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elephant-herbivore

The largest land animals on Earth today are all herbivores, but this was also true during the age of the dinosaurs. In descending order, the 5 largest living herbivores are the African elephant, the African bush elephant, the Asian elephant, the white rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus. The only living animals which are larger in size than these creatures are whales. Whales are not herbivores, but being a herbivore within the ocean is actually quite uncommon. The only reason whales are able to become larger than the largest land-dwelling mammals is because of the way that the ocean displaces gravity, therefore providing resistance to the pull which would under normal circumstances cause whales to collapse under their own weight. The primary reason the largest land animals are herbivores is because of food resources. There are a staggering amount of plant resources made abundant for herbivores in comparison to the relatively small amount of protein rich resources available to carnivores. Plant resources are also quickly renewable unlike protein resources. Herbivores are apt to survive predation as they increase in size whilst carnivores actually become hindered as they increase in size due to the fact that they become slower and less agile making their ability to catch prey severely reduced

Whale vs Human Being Underwater Time Frames

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Sperm whales make some of the longest dives achieved by mammals, lasting up to 90 minutes in length, whilst dolphins (which are technically whales as well) and other various types of whale can stay underwater for approximately 20 minutes. The current record for the longest time a human being has held their breath under water is 24 minutes and 3.45 seconds, achieved by Aleix Segura Vendrell of Spain in 2016