World Ocean Radio - Marine Species
This summer we are revisiting some of our favorite World Ocean Radio episodes that highlight optimism for the ocean. In this episode we highlight The Catalogue of Life, an online database of the world's known species of animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms. It holds the essential information on the names, relationships and distributions of over 1.8 million species worldwide, helping to address the concerns of sustainability and biodiversity on our fast-changing planet.
In this episode of World Ocean Radio we call upon the Canadian government to amend and expand their June 2019 legislative action--the Wild Animal and Plant Protection and Regulation of International and Interprovincial Trade Act--to include a global reserve for whales, dolphins, porpoise and other cetaceans in the fertile Hudson Bay near Manitoba where an estimated 60,000 beluga whales migrate each year to feed and mate.
This week on World Ocean Radio we're discussing trophic cascade: an ecological phenomenon triggered by the addition or removal of top predators, involving changes in populations of both predator and prey through the food chain which often results in dramatic changes in the ecosystem. Shark, manta ray, totoaba, bahaba: all are aggressively harvested from the sea for their supposed medicinal properties and status. In this episode we ask listeners to consider this: if certain endangered species do in fact contain medicinal value, are there not other, more supportive and sustainable ways to meet demand without decimating the supply?
The Catalogue of Life is an online database of the world's known species of animals, plants, fungi and micro-organisms. It holds the essential information on the names, relationships and distributions of over 1.8 million species worldwide. In this episode of World Ocean Radio we discuss the importance of such indices to help address the concerns of sustainability and biodiversity on our fast-changing planet. And we argue that, in addition to the collection of data, we must all put this knowledge to use for the future of the ocean and of all living things.
In this week's episode of World Ocean Radio we discuss publications, reports, and projects that are integral to the evolution of ocean policy and science, including the Atlas of Ocean Wealth, published in 2016 by the Nature Conservancy.
This week on World Ocean Radio we celebrate marine protected areas and discuss their importance to biodiversity, ecosystem resilience, and the mitigation of climate change and other destructive forces at work on the planet.
This week we continue the Earth Optimism Series, a 24-episode project in partnership with the Smithsonian Institution's Ocean Portal, to address ocean solutions and innovative projects in the context of the Earth Optimism Summit, April 2017. In this episode, host Peter Neill talks about the revival of a once plummeting population of a spawning fish species on a river in Maine, made possible in part by conservationist action. He argues that victories for change and renewal are achievable when we engage as citizens at the local level.
As of late March the Obama Administration is no longer considering Cashes Ledge in the Gulf of Maine for national monument designation. This news, delivered to a room of fishing industry regulators, came as a blow to conservationists who have sought monument status for years. In this episode of World Ocean Radio, host Peter Neill will offer his thoughts on the rationale which favors preserving this and other essential, bio-diverse seascapes, and that of the fishermen and state regulators who opposed these additional restrictions.
There are many whale-related hot button topics being discussed today: hunting (particularly by the Japanese), seismic testing, inexplicable strandings, the ingestion of plastic pollution, and the growing controversy over the morality of their captivity and exploitation. In this week's episode of World Ocean Radio host Peter Neill discusses the practice of keeping cetaceans for their entertainment value and explores new and proposed bills and legislation in both Canada and the United States which will help to protect cetaceans in captivity, further strengthen existing Acts to prohibit their import and export, to phase out Orcas from entertainment parks, and to modify the criminal code to prevent the taking of cetaceans such as whales, dolphins and porpoise from the wild or to breed those in captivity.
