Word: ecosystems
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...stake in the trade. "The hunt is relentless," says Michael Sutton, vice president of the Center for the Future of the Oceans at the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California. "These are the wolves, grizzly bears, lions and tigers of the ocean. If you take the top predators out, the ecosystem begins to get out of balance." On land, when top predators like lions or wolves die off, lesser ones like baboons or coyotes flourish, throwing an entire food chain off. The same goes for oceans. Scientists believe stocks of southern bluefin around Australia have likely fallen over 90% since...
...weight - and they create a lot of waste. But tuna-breeding is one of an expanding list of ideas being rolled out by scientists, activists, chefs, fishermen and entrepreneurs trying to find a happier marriage between the human demand for tuna and the ecosystem. "There is no one silver bullet to end overfishing because there is no one thing causing overfishing," says Mike Crispino of the ISSF. Major canneries that have signed on to the ISSF, such as BumbleBee, StarKist and Chicken of the Sea, are trying to guarantee that the fish going into their cans come from legal...
...legislation proposes billions to repair and protect the largest estuary on the West Coast. The twin goals of the legislation are a massive restoration of the Delta's ecosystem, a project akin to saving the Everglades in Florida, and a new modern conveyance system to move water through the Delta and around the state with conservation and efficiency. It is an intricate one as well because the giant pumps that speed water to state and federal aqueducts have played a part in bringing the Delta to the verge of ecological collapse in the first place...
...reasons for the recent explosion in jellyfish numbers are many. The problems in the Black Sea occurred because Mnemiopsis had been introduced to an ecosystem that had already been severely overfished. In a healthy ecosystem, small fish keep the jellyfish population in check by eating their young. But when the fish population plummets, the tables are turned. By preying on the eggs and larvae of the few surviving fish, the jellyfish prevent them from replenishing their numbers and quickly take their place. "We're shifting from a fish to a jellyfish ocean," says Boero. "We're removing most...
...sure, the Mediterranean's ecosystem is more diverse - and thus more robust - than the Black Sea's. So only time will tell what kind of effect the Mnemiopsis will have. "What these jellyfish are eating are either the young of the next generation or the food of the next generation," says Bella Galil, a scientist at the National Institute of Oceanography in Israel. "We'll know the impact when what they ate does not appear in the nets next year...