“Each year, there are fewer and fewer of these whales left,” said Taryn Kiekow, a staff attorney with NRDC. “Oil and gas drilling activities expose Cook Inlet beluga whales to earsplitting underwater noise that threatens their survival. All that noise in the marine environment makes survival impossible for these endangered whales.”

Apache Alaska Corporation has acquired more than 300,000 acres of oil and gas leases in Cook Inlet. To find and develop oil and gas fields, Apache intends to conduct seismic exploration in the inlet over the next three to five years. Every year that Apache conducts its survey operations, it will spend 160 days surveying the inlet for oil and gas, 24 hours per day. For 10 to 12 of those hours, Apache will deploy in-water airguns, operate pingers and detonate explosives. Airgun noise is loud enough to mask whale calls over thousands of miles, destroying their capacity to communicate and breed; it can drive whales to abandon their habitat and cease foraging, and closer in it can cause hearing loss and death.

“Belugas are sacred to my tribe and part of our tradition,” said Gary Harrison, traditional chief of Chickaloon Native Village. “Because so few of the whales remain, we no longer hunt them. Indigenous peoples are working to protect these whales, yet industry can come into the Cook Inlet and harass 30 beluga whales every year as they look for oil and gas. It’s simply wrong.”

“Our concern is that, with all the attention on the Arctic, Cook Inlet is falling through the cracks. With fewer than 300 beluga left in the Cook Inlet, it is hard to imagine that the ‘incidental harassment authorization’ could not significantly contribute to their extinction. This is a no-brainer for us,” said Center for Water Advocacy President Hal Shepherd.

“Cook Inlet is rapidly losing its belugas, and these smart, beautiful animals are unique and irreplaceable,” said the Center for Biological Diversity’s Alaska Director Rebecca Noblin. “The Fisheries Service should be doing everything in its power to protect them from dying off, not rubber-stamping every risky oil and gas project that comes along.”

Of the five genetically unique beluga populations in Alaska, Cook Inlet belugas number the fewest. The group is under great duress from increasing industrialization of its habitat near Anchorage. In recent years, the population has plummeted from approximately 1,300 to 284 whales. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Alaska Fisheries Science Center’s annual survey of endangered Cook Inlet beluga whales shows a 20 percent decline in population estimates from previous years — 321 in 2009 and 340 in 2010 compared to 284 in 2011. The 2011 estimate is the second-lowest since annual surveys began in 1993. (The lowest estimate was in 2005, when belugas numbered just six fewer than this year’s estimate.)

In April 2006, NRDC and the Center for Biological Diversity joined other conservation groups in petitioning the Fisheries Service to list Cook Inlet belugas as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. The government listed the whales as endangered in October 2008 and designated more than 3,000 square miles of the Cook Inlet as critical habitat essential to the whales’ survival in April 2011.

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The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) is an international nonprofit environmental organization with more than 1.3 million members and online activists. Since 1970, our lawyers, scientists, and other environmental specialists have worked to protect the world’s natural resources, public health, and the environment. NRDC has offices in New York City, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, Livingston, Montana, and Beijing. Visit us at www.nrdc.org.

Chickaloon Native Village is a vibrant, innovative, and culturally rich Ahtna Athabascan Tribe located in Sutton, Alaska, about a 30-minute drive from Cook Inlet. Surrounded by snow-capped mountains, glaciers, and lush boreal forests our Tribe has occupied this area for over 10,000 years – since animals and humans could communicate, according to oral tradition. Many of the Tribe’s ancient stories involve beluga whales, and members of Chickaloon Native Village have depended for millennia on beluga whales and fish in Cook Inlet for subsistence. Threats our culture, language, and traditional way of life have been unwavering for the past hundred years. Chickaloon Native Village was one of the first Tribes to be affected by outside development.

The Center for Water Advocacy is a non-profit public interest conservation organization which strives to promote the long-term sustainability of water resources in Alaska for the benefit of fish and wildlife populations, habitat, aesthetics, recreation, and traditional and cultural activities, using the principles of democracy, environmental justice, and sound ecology as our guide.

The Center for Biological Diversity is a national, nonprofit conservation organization with more than 350,000 members and online activists dedicated to the protection of endangered species and wild places.

OM~

Here is more info about this uniquely cool Oceanminded company:
United By Blue® (UBBTM) is an ocean-friendly apparel brand that, for every one product sold, removes one pound of trash from oceans and waterways around the world through company organized cleanups.
The company designs, manufacturers, and distributes sustainable apparel and accessories under the United By Blue® brand. UBB products can be found in stores throughout the United States, Japan and the Bahamas.
United By Blue’s business model of associating a concrete environmental action with every business transaction allows the company to accomplish tangible environmental good while creating a brand that resonates with the growing number of people who are concerned about the environment. And with on- trend products made from organic fabrics, the brand’s market is not limited to the eco-consumer niche but also includes 18 to 35 year old men and women, specifically in the surf and outdoor lifestyle markets.
UBB is able to accomplish its mission through company-organized cleanups, many of which are co-
UBB uses the power of business, education, and environmental action to save our oceans and waterways from pollution.
Our company is built on 3 pillars:
1. Environmental consciousness
2. Community focus
3. Education
hosted with retail partners that carry the company product. UBB believes in the power of locally driven, community- focused environmental action, and encourages community participation, whether through retail partners or other channels.
Since May 2010, UBB has hosted over 60 cleanups across 15 states in 2 countries and removed 82,527 pounds of trash from beaches and waterways.Though the amount of trash dumped into oceans and waterways every year far surpasses UBB’s scope, one benefit of UBB’s cleanups is the awareness that they draw to the problem of ocean pollution. UBB is dedicated not only to educating cleanup volunteers but also to creating and distributing educational content that addresses issues afflicting our world’s waters. Through videos on YouTube and the company web site, articles in mainstream and eco-niche publications, and conferences for students and professionals, UBB uses the power of its brand to educate.
More information about the company can be found on unitedbyblue.com.

You may now buy your new T’s and help the Ocean while you are at it!
wwww.unitedbyblue.com

Further reading on the matter check out the center for biological diversity website

Even though this report is pretty bleak it is never too late NOAA Invites Comment on Coral Status Review Report and Draft Management Report go to this website and see how you can help

You may now return to your daily occupation

OM~

2012, enter Avatarian-movie superstar-director-blockbuster-manufacturer-deep-ocean-lover James Cameron and super-duper-entrepreneur/adventurer-Virginitall-space-flight-to-necker Sir Richard Branson for the ultimate race to the deep.  Both use two different aquaships, Cameron went for the more traditional sphere design with Triton Sub Inc. and Branson went for the underwater starfighter plane look from Hawkes Ocean Tech. Now to get everything into perspective, here is a brillant graphic sumitallup version of this incredible journey thanks to Richard Johnson of the National Post. Read his  excellent article.

Cameron is taking a 3D camera to get some footage to use on the sequel to Avatar (that takes place in Pandora’s ocean). As for Branson other than putting another adventure under his belt,there is a business model to be developed: Underwater sub tourism. To my understanding there is also an educational and scientific side  to his Virgin Oceanic odyssey. At the time being the teams are concentrating on the testing and improvement of their sub. Who will succeed first in this oceanminded race?  It is for you to decide.

You may now return to your normal life!

nico~

**I am a closet Trekky

After a year online a great steady grow,Oceanminds although still a small fish is now swimming in the big blue ocean. I never wanted to bug peeps with annoying flashing ads, I find them very annoying when I surf the interweb and figured I did not want to expose your poor brain to yet more ads while getting your Ocean News. OM is one year old this month and although I have been spending a tremendous amount of time on curating the news every day and improving both layout and design, oceanminds has been costing me both time and money. One could argue it is a labor of love but love somewhat does not pay the server bills. So what I ask of you is to take a sec and browse our newly opened T’s shop on spreadshirt and spend some green on the blue!

Thanks millions for all your support and nice emails,

Keep on rockin’ the blue world!

merci merci merci!

nico

The concept is simple, you read the news you react in the Incubator oceanminds.com/incubator by proposing relevant ideas to solve environmental Ocean issues. Other people including Oceanminds.com (with its network of peeps working in the blue world) and all of you Oceanminded will brainstorm to help grow your ideas to  maturity !   Think along the line of small/local ideas with big impacts! The only way the incubator will work is if you get into it and join the tribe!

Now if you already have close to maturity idea but miss the funding,  and the peeps to get to the next level just drop a few lines describing your oceanminded idea  in the incubator and let’s bring it to the next level.

To bring a tad more interactive sign in with your facebook, it is easier to connect this way. On the Twitter side of things just type your idea and use #IncubatorOM (hashtags).

Find Oceanminds on:

facebook/oceanminds

pinterest/oceanminds

twitter/oceanminds

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Let’s grow !

OM~