in this video essay, against a backdrop of coral reefs and mangrove forests, planet 世界杯欧洲预选赛免费直播 kaitlyn copland reflects on her coastal upbringing and connects it to the importance of ocean conservation and education.

“this latest capture is disturbing,” said mark fritts, a u.s. fish and wildlife services ecologist based in lacrosse, wisconsin. “we’ve never seen that many fish caught at the same time in this region.”

in the upper mississippi and illinois rivers, asian carp reproduce rapidly, have no natural competitors and out-compete native fish for food supply and space, which devastates native fish populations – in some streams, they make up 75% of fish biomass. asian carp, which can weigh between 60 and 110 pounds, are also notorious for jumping up to three meters out of the water when spooked by boat motors or loud sounds – creating a public safety risk and threatening a $7-billion sport-fishing market.

despite prevention measures, like government-contracted asian carp fisherman and dam barriers, asian carp have been slowly spreading upstream to the upper mississippi river and the great lakes. prior to this, fritts believed that most of the population in the upper mississippi river was confined below the quad-city region in illinois and iowa. now, he’s not so sure.

james lamer, a large river ecologist with the illinois natural history survey, said heavy flooding in the mississippi river basin last spring may have caused the fish to spawn upstream.

or, it could’ve been sheer luck.

according to lamer’s research, asian carp play favorites. from 2013 to 2016, lamer and his team in illinois tagged and tracked asian carp migration through the illinois and mississippi rivers’ channels in search for some sort of pattern. they found that carp species and hybrids are more or less mobile based on different water temperatures, flow and volume, which makes their spread a little bit more predictable.

“the water temperatures are still really low, and that’s when they can aggregate,” lamer said. “lacrosse might have got lucky and just got a lot of fish in that one haul just because the carp tend to congregate during those cold-water temperatures in certain areas.”

from his research, lamer knows that april weather brings favorable conditions to asian carp in illinois’ contained backchannels, which is a crucial time for government-contracted fishermen and researchers to extract invasive carp from the streams.

but due to the spread of coronavirus throughout the united states, lamer said they might not be able to get out on the water and curb their spread.

“the only thing that we can do in the meantime is analyze data and try to figure out what we have going on with the data we have,” he said.

but lamer isn’t too concerned – his research gives some hope to midwestern waterways. asian carp are finicky about their environment. their preference for deep waters could keep them out of uninfected areas if the water levels continue at their current low levels, like they have been for the last couple of weeks.

“long story short, i think any damage of not fishing for the one to two months off the water due to coronavirus can be mitigated when fishermen return to the water,” he said.

even if water conditions are perfect, history shows the mississippi’s unpredictable environment can be a natural barrier to carp mobility. for example, lamer’s tagged carp had an abundant year in 2016, but had barely any sign of reproduction the next two years. lamer and his team think it’s because changing water flow pushed unhatched carp eggs out of the upper mississippi’s uninfected waters.

lamer is keeping a positive attitude, but the “ifs” are adding up. in the worst-case scenario, asian carp spread to uninfected waters and decimate native fish populations and the fishing economy.

the midwestern waterways’ fate is up to mother nature.

“asian carp have very variable recruitment and reproduction, and so if we had the water conditions are stable for them like they were in 2016, then it could be problematic if we’re not out there removing fish,” lamer said. “if conditions aren’t conducive to spawning or movement and all of the gates stay in the water because we don’t get major flooding, it may not be as problematic.”

“it’s kind of a gamble – we’re hoping for the latter,” he added.

fritts is less concerned, too. last year mississippi’s flooding set back his team’s research, and he said every year has its own challenges.

“my rocket is set on launch as soon as they give me permission to get back out there. but we’ll just do what we can. these forces are bigger than us and we’ll just do our best,” he said.

rio verde, arizona—at bartlett lake and other reservoirs around the state, arizona game & fish department volunteers are building plastic cubes to serve as fish habitat. 

the “fish cities” are called georgia cubes, which were first developed by the georgia department of natural resources. the cube’s design looks like a long-lost prop from a cheap sci-fi movie. pvc pipe is assembled into a 4-foot cube and secured with glue. holes are drilled into lengths of flexible tubing that are woven through and attached to the pvc cube. 

cord is used to lash two cubes together, cinder blocks are attached, then they’re dropped off the back of a pontoon boat. several hundred “fish cities” have been deployed in roosevelt and bartlett lakes this year. 

“these structures are beneficial to the lakes of arizona, especially these low-elevation desert lakes because they’re all very old,” said david weedman, aquatic habitat program manager for game & fish. “so at the end of this part of this phase of the project, we’ll have about 500 structures out here (at bartlett).”

the beds of artificial lakes in arizona are often inhospitable to fish because they’re simply desert floor and soil covered by water, weedman said. 

bartlett lake was created by damming the verde river in 1939. 

“most of the natural structure, the flooded trees that were in existence when the lakes were built, have all decomposed and broke down,” weedman said. “basically the shoreline is a barren sand and gravel flat. very poor habitat for fish.”

anglers also will benefit from the program. gps coordinates and photographs of the georgia cubes are published on the arizona game & fish website to guide anglers to where the fish are. if an angler has a boat equipped with sonar, they’ll also be able to find the cubes underwater.

hunter pauling is an intern with the department’s aquatic habitat program, as well as an avid fisherman. he’s excited for this project, especially because he’s at bartlett lake often. 

“at roosevelt (lake), we installed the same exact structures and got excellent feedback from pro fishermen who were saying that it was just wonderful that fish were just stacked up on it, and it was working way better than expected,” he said. 

weedman said the department finished dropping nearly 500 cubes in bartlett lake in early august. he said funds aren’t available to start similar work in other arizona lakes, but the department wants to continue enhancing habitat for fish in the future. 

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a new multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

grand junction, colo. – the temperature is hovering around 90 degrees as dale ryden and i float down the colorado river near grand junction. the turbid water looks inviting, a blessed reprieve from the heat, but if either of us jumped in, we’d be electrocuted.

“it can actually probably be lethal to people if you get in there,” said ryden, a fish biologist with the u.s. fish and wildlife service.

ryden’s co-workers cruise by in gray and blue inflatable rafts, their bows fitted with a rig that suspends metal spheres the size of disco balls from electric cables. when the balls are lowered into the river, a generator at the back of each raft sends current through the balls into the water. what lies beneath the surface – ryden likened it to ovaltine – is a mystery the biologists intend to explore.

“to get at the animal we’re studying, we have to actually find ways to capture them and take them out of their natural habitat,” ryden said. “and so, one of the ways we can do that is electrofishing.”

fish that venture near the electrified rafts are momentarily stunned and pulled from the water with nets. today’s mission is to remove non-native fish – such as smallmouth bass that feed on the fry of the four endangered species found in the river. the bass will be collected, measured, weighed, stored in bags and eventually sent to a landfill.

any of the four endangered species – bonytail, razorback sucker, colorado pikeminnow and humpback chub – we encounter will be treated with care and released back into the river.

ryden has a tough, and some would say impossible, job. every day, he tries to find ways to help fish that evolved to live only in this river system – one of the most engineered ecosystems in the world – survive.

ancient species

fish in the colorado river are a product of harsh conditions.

over millions of years, the rushing, sediment-laden water sculpted their bodies with characteristic ridges and bumps, making them well-equipped to handle its highs and lows. but human interference in the rivers they call home has pushed a few to the edge of extinction.

“they’ve survived three explosions of the yellowstone supervolcano,” ryden said. “they were here when mastodons and woolly mammoths went extinct.”

however, the era of big dam building in the west fundamentally altered their river home over the past 100 years or so, ryden said. dams and diversions have made life close to impossible for these fish. then people started adding toxic chemicals, pharmaceuticals and a range of invasive fish for sportsmen to catch.

“call it the death by a thousand cuts,” ryden said. “so they could survive any one of those problems probably fairly well. when you start throwing them all on top of them, then it becomes a lot more problematic.”

about an hour into our trip, there’s a flurry of activity on one of the rafts. technician andrew disch dips his net and pulls out the river’s historic top predator – the colorado pikeminnow. it has been listed as endangered for more than 50 years.

the fish is impressive, measuring about 3 feet long. but it pales compared to the pikeminnows that once hunted the river, ryden said.

“back in the day, these guys used to get 6 feet long and a hundred pounds.”

the pikeminnow gulps down prey with a mouth so huge you could put your whole hand inside without touching the sides – something ryden has tested personally. the torpedo-bodied fish is pale green on top with a white belly and pinkish tail.

u.s. fish and wildlife service biologist travis francis scanned a microchip biologists inserted in the pikeminnow years ago.

“we haven’t we haven’t seen this fish since 2004,” he said, adding that biologists make dozens of passes over this section of river each summer. they’ve documented some pikeminnow migrating several hundred river miles from the san juan river, down through lake powell and up to grand junction. early settlers nicknamed the pikeminnow “the white salmon” for such behavior.

ryden estimated 400 pikeminnow exist in the upper reaches of the colorado river, and close to 800 in stretches of the green river, a tributary of the colorado. he likens the pikeminnow to a lioness on the serengeti: each is at the apex of its food chain. now imagine you built a series of concrete walls around the lion, boxing her in, making it difficult to hunt. that’s what dams on the colorado river have done to the pikeminnow, ryden said.

after the fish was measured and scanned, ryden gently picked it up and walked into the river.

“come here, baby,” he whispered.

with both hands he lowers the minnow into the water. it disappears into the murk.

during this day on the river, ryden repeatedly referred to the endangered species as “our fish.” he takes ownership of their protection. they’re something different and more special than the non-native fish that surround them.

“i’ve earned a lot of respect for them,” he said. “i think if you put that many issues in front of people that we had to adapt to in a very short amount of time, i think as a species we would have a very hard time existing in some of the world-changing conditions that these fish have.”

defining success in recovery

since 1988, recovery programs for endangered colorado river fish have cost hundreds of millions of dollars, funded by a mix of hydropower revenues and money from agencies within the department of the interior. ryden said the effort is beginning to pay off.

two species – the humpback chub and the razorback sucker – are on their way to being downgraded from endangered to threatened.

but deciding whether an endangered species is “recovered” is a subject for debate. some environmental groups have questioned the fish and wildlife service’s decision to downlist the two species. in the case of the razorback sucker, they contend, most of its population growth is the result of an intense breeding and stocking program, not reproduction in the wild. going forward, it’s unclear how much government intervention will be necessary to keep the sucker from going extinct.

in its proposal to downlist the razorback, the upper colorado endangered fish recovery program recommends that fish and wildlife revise the program’s goals, and that its current goals for “recovery,” written in 2002, are inadequate and dated.

the program, a partnership of local, state and federal agencies, water and power interests, and environmental groups, is set to expire in 2023. director tom chart said the partners are rethinking what recovery of means, and how best to achieve it. current goals for the program don’t fully address the need for more coordinated management of flows from the colorado river system’s reservoirs, removal of non-native fish and stocking of endangered species past 2023, he said.

“the colorado river is one of the most altered ecosystems in the world,” chart said in an email. “the (fish and wildlife) service should revise recovery goals for this species in these contexts and based on the experiences and information gathered.”

‘some people even kiss them’

although the endangered species act of 1973 requires the government to save these fish, it can be tough convincing the public that they’re valuable and the effort isn’t in vain. a razorback sucker, ryden noted, doesn’t have the charisma of other wildlife.

“basically we’ve made the judgment through the endangered species act that it (the endangered animal) is there for a reason and it has a right to exist,” he said. “and it doesn’t have to be a polar bear or an eagle.”

in our last few miles on the river, the biologists net a razorback sucker – the second of the day – and head toward the river bank to scan it. the grayish-green fish is notable for its pronounced hump, which looks like the keel of an overturned boat.

that’s when the morton family from houston – mom kate and kids simon and claire – floated by on a raft. ryden, seeing an opportunity to educate the public on the value of the razorback sucker, called them over. he pulled the sucker from the livewell of the raft and presented it to the mortons.

“go ahead, give it a pet,” ryden suggested.

simon gently rubbed his fingers along the fish’s scales. claire tentatively placed an index finger on the razorback’s head.

“isn’t that special?” her mother asked. “wow, that is an awesome fish.”

when ryden first started working on the colorado river, razorbacks nearly had been wiped out. he didn’t see one during his first four years on the job. one day, a crew brought one into the hatchery for breeding. he remembers the biologists crowding around it, marveling at the novelty of seeing a wild razorback.

“some people even kiss them if you’re really brave,” ryden told simon. “just right on the cheek.”

ryden leaned in, nearly touching his lips to the fish, and made a kiss sound.

now, after years of stocking tens of thousands into some reaches of the river, ryden says razorback suckers are plentiful enough that you can find one on any summer day and give it a kiss.

this story is part of a project covering the colorado river, produced by kunc and supported through a walton family foundation grant. kunc is solely responsible for its editorial content.

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this story is part of elemental: covering sustainability, a multimedia collaboration between cronkite news, arizona pbs, kjzz, kpcc, rocky mountain pbs and pbs socal.

republished with permission. see the original piece at cronkite news. for more stories from cronkite news, visit cronkitenews.azpbs.org. 

this presentation was actually keeping me awake in the sweltering heat of the cape eleuthera summer. on the screen swam large, finned figures, footage from ‘the medusa’ – a specialized deep-water, baited video camera capable of reaching depths of up to 6,600 ft. it seemed a whole different world from the one i knew above the surface of the water. the world where i sat in class, in my island school polo shirt and khaki shorts, usually fighting the oncoming sleep induced by the fatigue from our morning workouts in combination with the heat. 

but today was different. today we were going out in the field with a team of researchers from the bahamas’ cape eleuthera institute to catch baby lemon sharks for research. this was an overview of their topic of study.

sharks are among some of the most threatened fishes in the world’s oceans, they told us, as we watched a huge bluntnose sixgill shark, hexanchus griseus, swim directly into the camera. i raised my hand and asked them about scale… exactly how big were these sharks?

the bluntnose sixgill can grow up to 26 feet in length, and is completely harmless to humans unless provoked. however, it is listed as near threatened by the international union for the conservation of nature. while the bluntnose sixgill is hunted for both sport and food, severely depleting its population, it is also commonly caught as bycatch, the result of unsustainable commercial fishing practices. according to the final bycatch report, published by oceana.org, some estimates put bycatch as accounting for 40 percent of the world’s catch. that means that for every six fish caught and eaten at a restaurant, four animals are caught by accident and harmed or killed unnecessarily. the result is 63 billion pounds of wasted animal matter each year, according to the report.

and it’s not just wasted matter, it’s a negative space in the ecosystems from which these animals come. sharks are top-of-the-chain predators; the cape eleuthera institute says they are crucial to their ecosystems, providing the “regulation of the distribution and abundance of species at lower trophic levels.” without them, the populations of these lower trophic level species would grow unchecked, resulting in the near extinction of the species in the trophic level directly underneath these, throwing off the entire ecosystem. while the overfishing of lower level fish species is already causing major ecosystemic disruption, the elimination of shark species would be catastrophic.

already, as a group, sharks face possibly the largest global population declines in modern history, which is why the institute focuses a large portion of its research on shark conservation.

we boarded the research vessel from the main dock, and cut through the clear, blue water towards the flats, a low level ecosystem characterized by mangrove trees, hosting many juvenile fish species including our juvenile lemon sharks. we anchored a ways off shore, to account for the outgoing tide, and started wading towards the stretch of beach on the right side of the entrance, where, on the left, an island created by the low tide bordered the stream of water steadily entering the greater ocean. we walked against this current, holding coolers, nets, and equipment overhead.

as the tide goes out of the flats, the water level gets very shallow and hot. so hot that all of the wildlife must move temporarily out of the flats and into the deeper water just outside of their cozy mangrove-protected home. we trekked against the current to the other entrance, where our job was to run through the flats, stomping and churning, chasing the lemon sharks into our trap at the other end. about 10 of us ran through the water, thigh deep most of the way, sometimes deeper, spanning the width of the outgoing water. we shouted encouragement to each other, needing to keep a steady pace so that we maintained an unbreakable line. it was a work out.

after about 30 minutes of this, we reached the stretch of water where our counterparts had already set up a net between island and shore. as soon as we entered this stretch, they hastily threw another net into the water behind us, closing off the section of water from escape. we were now stuck in the trap with the sharks.

there appeared to be about six juvenile lemon sharks in hot water with us – now we had to catch them. they gave us hand held nets, while the others attempted to chase them towards the ready mesh cloth. this was a difficult but time-sensitive task, as we had to catch and store each shark in a cooler before the tide started back in. after our unsuccessful attempts with the nets, the professionals took over, and had logged five out of the six sharks. we could feel the water changing direction as the tide turned, marking the rapid close of our expedition. we started back to the boat with the five sharks in coolers over head, while two research assistants made a last ditch effort to catch the sixth. eventually, they were successful.

we arrived back to the institute’s dock just in time for dinner, but saw the lemon sharks to their temporary homes first. the institute’s researchers would be measuring the energy cost of their capture, and from there, calculating their daily energy budget in order to further assess their crucial ecological role.

understanding the role that sharks play in their fragile, local marine ecosystems will help researchers understand the impact that their population declines will cause. this research-based evidence will help scientists influence policy and find solutions to prevent their decline and the concurrent demise of their ecosystems.

the next week we went back to visit the lemon sharks in their tanks. four of them had already been tagged and released back into the flats, they kept one for study, and another one had died after capture, the energy expenditure being too great. in other words, we had scared it to death.

both local groups and governments alike are starting to recognize this pressing issue. some groups are attempting to grow coral in offsite nurseries in hopes of replanting and salvaging coral populations and some governments are also recognizing the gravity of this situation and passing protective legislation.

but to protect the world’s reefs, action needs to be taken by everyone. the world needs to collectively work limit carbon footprints and work to reduce the impact humans are having on the earth — this is how we will save the coral and this is how we will save our world.

the project is a polyculture based solution, a highly productive floating ecosystem.it is a flexible one able to adapt its dimensions to the local food production needs and can be located close to many mega-cities or dense populated areas with a physical water access (seas-lakes-rivers). in example, but not restricted to, places like ny, chicago, seattle, tokyo, singapore, mumbai, jakarta, cairo, hk, shangai, sao paulo, doha, osaka, bangkok, shenzen, bahrain, abu dhabi,dubai, istanbul, los angeles, montreal, jeddah, kuwait city, seoul, karachi, sydney, and a long etc.

this is not science fiction. it is a serious and viable solution. it is not meant to ‘solve’ all of humanity’s hunger problems or to replace existing traditional agriculture; this is not the idea at all. the driver behind the project is to open a new initiative which can be complementary and compatible with other existing production methods in order to help reduce food risk associated problems in different areas of the globe.

what we propose
the project deals with the symbiosis / combination of different existing technologies in order to produce what we need more of, fresh and healthy food closer to our home. the top level of the smart floating farms will integrate the green energy production facilities (photovoltaic plant combined with skylights). the resultant green power generated along with induction of natural sunlight, will be used for the second level layout of the hydroponic farm (growing crops). the waste byproducts from these crops can be further used for feeding the fishes on the lower level (fish farming), while the waste from the fish farms can recycled as fertilizers for the hydroponic farm – thus a self-sufficient cycle and recycle process. passive and active desalination methods are considered. the facilities will be protected in their perimeter via a series of inflatable wave protectors, thus avoiding wave risks and other climate threats.

the sff project could be built out of well tested materials, technologies, and systems, which are already in use around the globe, in a way, we don’t need to invent new construction technologies, its all available in the market. the sff footprint has a shape of a rectangle inspired by asia’s traditional grid-shape fish floating farms, an efficient configuration which is rational and allows for maximum space for production.

this system is built right in the greenhouse attached to the side of the marine and natural sciences building on roger williams’ campus. this group of talented engineers have designed and built this system that will not only feed the fish, but use no additional water.

its this method of growing food that will sustain the campus community. this ebb and flow system can flood the tray that contains the soil and plants to water them. the excess water drains back into the fish tank, where the freshwater fish will feed off of the nutrient runoff from the plants. that water then goes through a series of filters before flooding the tray, and starting all over again.

the group engineers without borders hopes to travel to developing countries to teach them this way of farming. weather conditions, soil conditions and droughts are no problem for this system. nestled in a greenhouse for temperature control and protection, plants can grow and sustain themselves.

the club is working on getting a solar panel so that there is zero outside energy used to power the pumps circulating the water. they grow plants that are local to rhode island and they sell to local farmers markets and to the dining hall on the very campus they grow on.

with the world’s population taking over farming land, and having all those mouths to feed, hydroponics is the most efficient way to feed all those hungry people. this takes up virtually no floor space and there are companies that are now converting storage containers into full fledged farms.

this is an innovative way to continue to feed the world’s population now, and 50 years from now.

every thursday at 6 o’clock, i meet a friend of mine at our favorite local sushi restaurant. and every thursday at 6 o’clock, the two of us share our favorite rolls – spicy scallop, rainbow, salmon and avocado – and stories at a high top table in the small, second-story establishment, a hidden gem situated above a drug store on a quaint neighborhood street. we started this ritual almost six months ago, and we’ve been meeting once a week, every week since.

i never thought about where my seafood was coming from. and i definitely never thought that it might run out.

according to recent reports, overfishing is a big problem, and my sushi might run out before i know it – maybe even before my friend and i can introduce our grandchildren to the traditional dish.

already, 84% of fish stocks in the world are fully exploited, overexploited, or depleted. another 1% is currently recovering from depletion. this is the effect of overfishing – which itself stems from many different causes. if we don’t do something, experts from science believe that all of our fisheries will collapse by 2048– and then what?

forget about my sushi dates; what about the 1 billion people worldwide, primarily living in developing countries, who depend on fish as their main source of protein?

hopefully we never find out.

if we can cut back on overfishing, we might be able to reverse this trend. after all, the atlantic bluefin tuna was projected to disappear by 2012, but two years later, the fish is still found on seafood menus- though it remains on the endangered species list. illegal fishing, the blurry property rights in fisheries, lack of regulation, persisting government subsidies, and other fishing practices all contribute to the problem.

the average consumer doesn’t need to lose sleep over pirates or international maritime law, though. instead, seeking out sustainably fished or farmed seafood in the supermarket and in restaurants is a good place to start.

here are some tools for the sustainable seafood shopper:

• look for the marine stewardship council label. fish with the msc label comes from a certified sustainable fishery.
• consult national geographic’s sustainable seafood guide – which ranks different types of fish by sustainability and health benefits.
• check out seafoodwatch.org, which also has a helpful guide to choosing sustainable seafood. they even have a special section for sushi lovers like me!

as for my weekly sushi ritual? i did my research: my favorite sushi joint serves msc certified sustainable salmon, chooses sustainable seafood “as much as possible,” and has removed bluefin from at least its most recent seasonal menu. looks like i can keep up this tradition – for now.