In the north Pacific ocean alone between 12,000 and 24,000 tons of plastic end up in fish. This is 9 percent of fish found in the north Pacific, according to researchers at the University of California, San Diego. Keep in mind that this does not include fish that die from ingesting plastic and it doesn’t include fish that pass the plastic through their systems. So in reality, the numbers are likely even higher than study calculations.

The study, published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress Series, came to this conclusion by traveling hundreds of miles throughout the north Pacific Ocean testing fish along the way.

According to The New York Times:

The research team, including the authors of the study, Peter Davison and Rebecca Asch, traveled across hundreds of miles of the North Pacific ocean gyre, collecting fish specimens, water samples and marine debris at depths ranging from the surface to thousands of feet under. Just over 9 percent of the fish caught during the expedition had small pieces of plastic in their stomachs.

These findings are undoubtedly disturbing but they only include a small piece of the plastic pie. These huge numbers only tell the story of the north Pacific though other oceans likely have similar pollution problems.

The main challenge, said Mr. Woodring of Project Kaisei, is that the infrastructure for proper waste management and recycling “simply cannot keep pace with the exponential growth of plastic in our daily lives.”

Therefore, it ends up covering our planet and being ingested by a huge number of marine species, many of which die as a result.

Like this? Follow my Twitter feed.

More on Plastic and Oceans
The Great Pacific Garbage Patch: “Out of Sight, Out of Mind”
“Recycled Island” Turns Ocean Plastic into a Paradise
PSA Shows Life in a Sea of Plastic

Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) reports that today it’s the tourists in Iceland that are consuming much of the whale meat. In fact, 35 to 40 percent of minke whale meat is eaten by tourists.

According to the organization, tourists are propping up the commercial whaling industry:

For [tourists] it’s probably just one of those things they ‘have’ to try while they’re over there; when in Rome, and all that… the irony is that fewer and fewer residents of the country are choosing to eat whale meat now

.

And most recently came the launch of Whale Watching With Whalers. According to Whaler, this is what the trip entails:

• see and hear shot from our harpoon

• taste our grilled and raw whalemeat

• see minke whale and other commonly seen whales

• see our showroom, witch takes you through the history of whaling in Iceland

• see internal organs of the minke whale

The idea that anyone would want to see such a gruesome, painful, bloody travesty is mind boggling. These are gorgeous animals killed in a completely inhumane way. What’s worse, whale meat is showing up on more and more plates in Iceland. Today over 100 restaurants in Iceland serve it up.

Minke whales are the smallest of the baleen whales and the only one that can leap all the way out of the water and reenter like a dolphin. Their numbers are 149,000 in the North Atlantic, 25,000 in the northwest Pacific and Okhotsk sea but there is no clear listing of their numbers in the Southern Hemisphere, according to the International Whaling Commission.

Like this? Follow my Twitter feed.

More on Whaling
Iceland Calls the Whale Thing Off
International Whaling ‘Peace Plan’ Moving Forward
Japan Accused of Bribing Nations to be Pro-Whaling

According to Reuters:

The most poisonous shellfish discovered were baby mussels at a dock in Ketchikan with toxin levels of more than 30,000 micrograms per hundred grams of shellfish meat. This is well over the 80-microgram level considered toxic, the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has warned.

Those levels are so high that a single mussel could kill several people, scientists at the University of Alaska Southeast said in a statement on Thursday.

Warnings about the deadly toxin have been posted throughout the area on beaches, docks, and in area stores. Symptoms of the disease start with tingling in the mouth which then spreads to the rest of the body.

“If it gets to your lungs, it shuts them down,” said Greg Wilkinson, a spokesman for the state health department. Commercially caught fish are tested for the toxin by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation before hitting the market but the toxin is a huge scare for those that catch their own shellfish. Two people have already been hospitalized due to the toxin.

The toxin is due to the proliferation of a certain form of algae. Harmful algae blooms can be caused by coastal pollution from human sewage and agricultural runoff though it’s unclear the cause of this bloom.

Like this? Follow my Twitter feed.

More on Toxic Algae Blooms
Ocean Iron Fertilization Could Stimulate Toxic Algae Blooms in Open Ocean
Blue Water Satellite Scans Toxic Algae Blooms From Space
Massive Algae Bloom Spreading Across Baltic Sea

Researchers say that the number of small fish including sardines, herring, and anchovies has doubled in the last 100 years. They’re just aren’t enough natural hunters like sharks, tuna, cod, and swordfish. In fact, in the last 120 years, these larger fish numbers have gone down by two thirds.

Lead researcher Dr Villy Christensen, of the University of British Columbia, said:

Overfishing has absolutely had a “when cats are away, the mice will play” effect on our oceans. By removing the large, predatory species from the ocean, small forage fish have been left to thrive.

What impact does this have on the sea? Well, sardines feed on floating organisms called zoo plankton and zoo plankton feed on plant plankton. But an overpopulation of sardines means less zoo plankton and more plant plankton. As plant plankton get out of control, blooms of green algae get out of control creating a “green soup.” In the future such algae blooms could choke the ocean.

Eating Sardines Up?
That’s why sardines and other small fish are so much easier on the planet. Rather than eating this delectable oily fish by itself we feed 80 percent of the Pacific sardine catch to bluefin tunas raised in Mexico and Australia. From a nutrition standpoint, sardines are loaded with Omega 3 fatty acids. So you can have that pickled herring and eat it too.

Like this? Follow my Twitter feed.

More on Sardines
On Giving Up Salmon for Sardines
Packed Like Sardines – Density is Good
Stop Feeding Sardines To The Cat: Let Fish Poop Save The World!