NYT/AP: Warmer Waters Disrupt Pacific Food Chain

[DeepModem Mom]

Warmer Waters Disrupt Pacific Food Chain
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 22, 2006

FARALLON NATIONAL WILDLIFE REFUGE, Calif. (AP) -- On these craggy, remote islands west of San Francisco, the largest seabird colony in the contiguous United States throbs with life. Seagulls swarm so thick that visitors must yell to be heard above their cries. Pelicans glide.

But the steep decline of one bird species for the second straight year has rekindled scientists' fears that global warming could be undermining the coastal food supply, threatening not just the Farallones but entire marine ecosystems.

Tiny Cassin's auklets live much of their lives on the open ocean. But in spring, these gray-and-white relatives of the puffin venture to isolated Pacific outposts like the Farallones to dig deep burrows and lay their eggs.

Adult auklets usually feed their chicks with krill, the minuscule shrimp-like crustaceans that anchor the ocean's complex food web.

But not this year. Almost none of the 20,000 pairs of Cassin's auklets nesting in the Farallones will raise a chick that lives more than a few days, a repeat of last year's ''unprecedented'' breeding failure, according to Russ Bradley, a seabird biologist with the Point Reyes Bird Observatory who monitors the birds on the islands....

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/us/AP-Marine-Crisis.html

[Stargazer99]

1. Aw but we must make it easy for the business community

even if it means destroying species. The Great God Capitalistic Mammon is too important to let anything get in its way like life! (get the sarcasm?)

[anotherdrew]

2. what? the krill is gone?

Well, then... that's it, we're all as good as dead, if the food chain is disrupted like this, seriously, this is terrible news.

...
Krill occur in all oceans of the world. They are considered a keystone species near the bottom of the food chain because they feed on phytoplankton and to a lesser extent zooplankton, converting these into a form suitable for many larger animals for whom krill makes up the largest part of their diet. In the Southern Ocean, one species, the Antarctic Krill, Euphausia superba, makes up a biomass of hundreds of millions of tonnes, similar to the entire human consumption of animal protein. Over half of this biomass is eaten by whales, seals, penguins, squid and fish each year, and replaced by growth and reproduction. Most of the species display large daily vertical migrations making a significant amount of biomass available as food for predators near the surface at night and in deeper waters during the day.
...
Except for the Bentheuphausia amblyops species, krill are bioluminescent animals having organs called photophores that are able to emit light. Krill photophores are complex organs with lenses and focusing abilities, and they can be rotated by muscles. The precise function of these organs is as yet unknown.

[pfitz59]

3. Krill, and other forage......

are being comercially harvested at unsustainable rates (Think market hunters and passenger pigeons!) East coast menhadden stocks are also in a precipitous decline.

http://www.pcouncil.org/bb/2004/0904/age3a.pdf

"Krill Harvest Ban Proposal"

[Joanne98]

7. Holy shit!

[Chulanowa]

4. With all going on in hte middle east these days

the mention of "no krill" is what makes my testicles retreat in abject terror.

[Straight Shooter]

5. K & R

I'm too horrified to think of anything else to say. 20,000 pairs of auklets, and almost none of their chicks will live beyond a few days. Disastrous omen.

[Gregorian]

6. Humans started burning fossil fuels because they ran out of whale oil.

And because whole forests were removed in the name of heating. And because it's easier.

Go back one step. Why did we run out of whale oil? Why did the forests disappear?

I know why. And everything but that answer is nothing more than a symptom. There were too many people using the resources. It was true then, just as it is today. That alone is why. Cars don't drive themselves. Houses don't just pop out of the ground spontaneously. People do it. The more people, the more damage. There is no argument. But I post this on occassions, even though I most likely stand to endure responses to the contrary. Even on this forum, which I find amazing. But most amazing to me is that more people don't see this clearly.

Now the alternatives are narrow. And with population growth, combined with modernization of one third of the world's numbers, even narrower.

Oh well.