Tag: Extinction

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Final Project Interview Project

Steller Sea Lions: How can we help?

 

Steller Sea Lions live in the Pacific Rim from Japan to California with 70% living in Alaska. Sadly, their population has been drastically declining since the 1970s due to many reasons:

  • predation by killer whales,
  • increase in parasites and diseases
  • nutritional stress due to competition for food with humans.

Some fishing companies even deliberately kill these animals since they view them as competition and a threat to fish stocks. Currently, the western stock is endangered and the eastern stock is listed as threatened.

Check out our video below for what Beth Young and her colleagues are doing now to save the Steller sea lions and to meet these friendly animals!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcueT8-PTPE

 

What is the government doing?

Because Steller sea lions are endangered, several laws have been implemented to protect their survival.

  • Fisheries Act: a license is required to operate a fishery, and records of transactions and operations must be produced on demand of a fishery inspector or conservation officer.  This practice keeps fisheries from over harvesting, which would harm the Steller sea lion population.
  • Endangered Species Act: ensures that federal agencies do not harm any listed species which includes the Steller sea lion. Habitats where the listed animals are found are protected by the Habitat Conservation Plan.
  • Marine Mammal Protection Act:  provides population censuses, health assessments, development of conservation plans, and protection regulations.  This act also appoints staff to conserve and manage the populations of marine mammals that are at risk.

 

What about other animals?

Steller sea lions aren’t the only animals that can benefit from Beth’s research…

 

California Sea Lion (Zalophus californianus) on Morro Strand State Beach, Morro Bay, CA. Photo by Mike Baird.

 

 

The California sea lion is a close cousin to the Steller sea lion. Currently classified as low risk concern on the IUCN endangered species red list, with time, they may become just as threatened as the Steller sea lion.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Northern fur seal at the New England Aquarium, Boston, Massachusetts. Photo by flickr user cphoffman42.

 

Another species that could benefit from Beth’s findings is a much smaller second cousin: The Northern Fur Seal. Currently listed as at risk for endangerment on the IUCN list, they are experiencing a downward population trend.

 

 

 

 

 

With Beth’s results, we could ensure the food requirements of these species are met so they don’t become a forgotten fossil.

 

Check out the SCIE 300 communicating science podcast for more information on the Steller sea lion species, how Beth believes her findings could be applied to other species, and potential sources of error in her experiment.

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Interview with Beth Young

 

In Conclusion…

The Steller sea lion plays an important part in the delicate balance of the ecosystem. Every species of life that it interacts with, from the food it eats, to its natural predators, will be greatly affected if the Steller sea lion population continues to decrease. We hope that our various media (the above video, podcast, and this blog post) are able to convey some of the latest research findings on Steller sea lions in a clear and understandable manner, and bring more attention of this matter to the public eye.

More information on why Steller sea lions are endangered, as well as summaries of the latest research findings made at the Open Water Research Lab can be found at the Vancouver Aquarium website.

 

Categories
Biological Sciences Issues in Science New and innovative science

See Anything Different? Cloning, The Controversy.

Image: Getty

Imagine yourself walking on the street, surrounded by mirrors. You would be seeing myriad of yourself straying alongside and pass you. That may be how the world would be like if cloning is to be successful and legal.

Image: The Roslin Institute

The most renowned successful case of cloning is undoubtedly Dolly the sheep. Born in 1996, Dolly was a shock to the scientific world. However, it raises ethical concerns. Should we be cloning animals?

May it be to bring back the dead to live, to preserve the looks of a being, or for whatever other reasons, cloning is still considered unethical, illegal or both in most countries.

Image: Yorgos Nikas/Getty

Dr. Panayiotis Zavos had been continuously attempting to clone the first human being, working in a surreptitious lab in the Middle East. Over the past 10 years, he had been implanted numerous embryos into anonymous surrogates, though none of the women had become pregnant or gave birth to any infants. As Sample mentioned in his article, “almost every attempt to clone a new animal species has been married with birth defects or worse.”

Cloning animals could give rise to many other problems too. Debates had been carried out on whether we should clone Neanderthals, or resurrecting mammoth from the ice age. Bringing these back to life may be chaotic and cause disorders in the nature’s ecosystem. The food chain could be stressed and scrambled, with new species being re-introduced. Organisms could become extinct, while many others would have to strive for survival.

Image: Action Press /Rex Features

If it does happen that we clone the extinct species from their DNA, we have to be responsible for any difficulties caused. It is difficult to map the whole DNA sequence of a species to clone it without any deficiencies especially if no live specimen is present for comparison.

Despite the arguments over cloning an individual, extensive effort had been put into the researches of therapeutic cloning. Therapeutic cloning, also called “embryo cloning” is the use of embryos and stem cells to generate specialized cell in the human body. This technique is still under research for improvements in human development and disease treatment.

When the technology is mastered, whole healthy organs can be produced from a single cell to replace the damaged ones, and treat diseases and disorders that normally require transplants or other complicated procedures.

Nonetheless, cloning still remains as one of the biggest controversies in the society and will carry on regardless of whether the technology of cloning is improving or not.

Categories
Biological Sciences Issues in Science Science in the News

Who’s Your Mama?!

 

While most of us don’t remember much of anything about our 9 months in the uterus, you would probably be just a little freaked out if you found out that those 9 months weren’t spent in a uterus at all… but in a man-made artificial uterus with several scientists devoted to bringing you to full term.

 

This is exactly what happened to 6 lucky grey nurse sharks.

 

The grey nurse shark or sand tiger shark, as it is also known, is one of Australia’s most endangered marine species and is considered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature to be under threat of endangerment on a worldwide basis. How could this be? Weighing in at over 200 pounds and reaching over 11 feet, the grey nurse shark  is a powerful beast, one you wouldn’t expect of being vulnerable to predators.

 

Grey Nurse Shark. Photo by Richard Ling


 However, they are… and that predator is man. Despite their rather intimidating appearance, they are completely harmless to humans unless provoked; yet humans have been killing the sharks for decades. Most of the time the deaths are accidents as the sharks are caught in commercial and recreational fishing equipment. But several of the deaths are  intentional as the sharks are considered a delicacy in Japan.

To make matters even worse for the shark, they are only capable of producing two pups per year. The mother shark actually starts her pregnancy with about forty fertilized embryos separated in two separate uteri, but as they mature, the embryos undergo adelphophagy where they attack and eat one another. Eventually, only the two toughest embryos are left to mature. Talk about sibling rivalry!

 

Video posted by youtube user Megabeeach.

 

Scientists Nick Otway and Megan Ellis think they have found a way to prevent this.

In a lab at the Port Stephens Fisheries Institute, in New South Wales of Australia, these scientists have made an artificial uterus, which is basically a very complex aquarium.

From a euthanized pregnant female, 6 embryos were extracted and all six were brought to full-term in this artificial uterus. The pups were born to a length of about three feet, an average size for a grey nurse shark pup. After only three months, they were released into the wild.

Whether or not they will suffer a mommy complex has yet to be seen but already, we can conclude these results are amazing.

If we can figure out a way to keep the mother alive, we have the potential to save an endangered species by literally tripling its birthing capacity. Furthermore, if we can extract the embryos even earlier on, we could do a lot more than just tripling it.

 

Pregnancy, Image from Microsoft Word 2000

Now, this brings up an interesting thought for the future of the human race…

Will the exhausting task of carrying a baby for nine months become an event of the past? Will you and your partner simply drop off your eggs and sperm at a lab and a few months later, pick up our baby without ever gaining a pound?

Certainly, this won’t be happening any time soon but it is definitely interesting to think about in a society where convenience is king.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Froese, Rainer, & Daniel Pauly, eds. (2005). Carcharias taurus. Fish Base 09 2005 version. Retrieved from http://www.fishbase.org/summary/Carcharias-taurus.html.

Otway, N. & Ellis, M. (2011). Construction and test of an artificial uterus for ex situ development of shark embryos. Zoo Biology. doi: 10.1002/zoo.20422

Pollard, D. & Smith, A. (2005). Carcharias taurus. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species: Version 2011.1. Retrieved from  www.iucnredlist.org.

Venton, D. (2011, September 29) Baby Sharks Birthed in Artificial Uterus. Weird Science Retrieved from http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/09/artificial-shark-uterus/

Categories
Environment Issues in Science Science Communication

True or False? Presenting Scientific Data Without Evidence

Over the course of Earth’s history there have been many mass extinctions. After each one there is the devastation of a world rid of many forms of life.  Barren and bleak, it must be a hard place to live.  Nevertheless, each mass extinction allows space for new life to grow and develop, such as dinosaurs and humans.  The uprisings, life spans and demises of several creatures have been well documented by scientists throughout history.

It is well known that mass extinctions do occur, but their exact mechanism is often unknown, or speculated at best.  For example, one of history’s greatest mysteries is what caused the massive Permian-Triassic extinction. Caused by a large volcano eruption or a meteor strike resulting in a severe lack of oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean, this extinction is estimated to have killed 85% of all living organisms on the planet. However, a recent Vancouver Sun article cites rising ocean acidity levels as the culprit for the P-T extinction, not a lack of oxygen.

 

A large meteor strike is one of the possible causes of the Permian-Triassic extinction.

While this article raises interesting points, there is a complete lack of evidence for the ocean acidity hypothesis.  As scientists it is important to remember that we haven’t found out everything there is to know about the world, and that new discoveries are being made on a daily basis.  However, each new discovery needs to have accompanying evidence to confirm the finding.  While most scientists are aware of this, and are wary of research presented without evidence, members of the public may not be so cognizant.  Thus, when new information is presented without evidence it can be misleading to people outside the scientific community.  It is therefore important that as scholars we communicate clearly with both the public and the media who will be translating our information.  This will ensure that there is no room for misinterpretation or deceptive statements.  By keeping the language we use to communicate science clear and simple, it will make it easier to convey our ideas to the general public and thereby bolster an interest in the field.

 

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