The Tagging of Pacific Pelagic (TOPP) research project explores the Pacific, using a carefully selected group of animals from its ecosystems to gather data about their world. As a pilot program of the Census of Marine Life (COML), an international endeavor to determine what lives, has lived and will live in the world’s ocean, TOPP scientists will tag individuals from 21 species of marine predators in the Eastern Pacific to obtain an “organism’s eye” view of their world. Jointly run by Stanford’s Hopkins Marine Lab, the University of California, Santa Cruz’s Long Marine Laboratory, NOAA’s Pacific Fisheries Ecosystems Lab, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium, TOPP also includes team members from several countries.
TOPP tests the effectiveness of using animals to gather biological and environmental data, tracking the individuals’ movements while recording valuable oceanographic and ecosystem data from their immediate surroundings. TOPP tags have collected and returned massive quantities of this data, helping scientists build a rich picture of key travel corridors and “ocean hot spots,” or gathering zones where animals feed and breed. While several projects have tagged limited numbers of individual species, TOPP scientists and engineers lead the animal-tagging research community in building a broad, multi-taxa (group of species), interdisciplinary approach to data collection and sharing.
Read more about this great project here...
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Showing posts with label New Zealand. Show all posts
Tuesday, 10 April 2007
Full protection for great white sharks
1 April 2007 Media Statement
Full protection for great white sharks starts today
White pointer sharks will now be fully protected within the 200 nautical miles of water around New Zealand, and from fishing by New Zealand-flagged boats further afield, the Ministers of Conservation and Fisheries announced today.
Conservation Minister Chris Carter said despite the white pointer's reputation as a predator, it was vulnerable to fishing and becoming rarer throughout the world.
"These majestic animals occur naturally in low numbers and, without protection, could be pushed to the brink of extinction. The Wildlife Act provides a strong deterrent against targeting great whites with a $250,000 fine and up to six months imprisonment as a maximum penalty."
Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton said the white pointer shark was not known to be targeted by commercial fishers but was occasionally taken as by-catch. "However, recreational fishers do occasionally target them because there is some demand for jaws and teeth as fishing trophies.
"No one wants to see an animal hunted to extinction for the sake of a jaw or a few teeth, or to be placed under pressure by accidental catch. Under these new regulations no fisher will be able to profit from taking a white pointer, and any fisher inadvertently catching one will have to return it to the sea, intact, and alive, if possible," Jim Anderton said.
New Zealand Fisheries Minister Jim Anderton
However, it is still legal to use shark nets to protect swimmers around beaches in Dunedin, and fishers accidentally catching and killing white pointers will not be prosecuted, provided they register the death with authorities.
The Wildlife Act makes it illegal to hunt, kill or harm a white pointer shark within New Zealand's Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ - 200 nautical mile limit around New Zealand). It will also be illegal in New Zealand to possess or trade in any part of a white pointer shark. As well, New Zealand is a signatory to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals and has an obligation to prohibit the taking of white pointer sharks.
The species will be further protected on the high seas by the Fisheries Act, under which New Zealand-flagged boats will be prohibited from taking white pointer sharks while fishing outside the EEZ.
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