Salmon count on Myers Creek, Pender Habour

This short video clip was filmed with a GoPro by Oliver Jähnichen. Oliver has been contributing data to our Pender Harbour Coastal Waters Monitoring Program, funded by the #sitkafoundation, and gaining excellent field experience towards his university conservation program in Germany.

This short video clip was filmed with a GoPro by Oliver Jähnichen. Oliver has been contributing data to our Pender Harbour Coastal Waters Monitoring Program, funded by the #sitkafoundation, and gaining excellent field experience towards his university conservation program in Germany.

The video clip features salmon returning to Anderson and Myers creeks, with several chum hiding under cut banks and one narly coho salmon facing down the camera. Active spawning can be observed easily from John Daly Park viewing platforms. Chum continue to enter streams this week with the arrival of rain and we hope to enumerate more coho in weeks to come.

Welcome to the new PODS generation!

Welcome to the New PODS Generation and Happy Birthday to Evan, Rowan and Vanessa!! Thank you all for your amazing energy and enthusiasm in helping to make PODS a reality!!  We could not have done it without you.

Over the next few weeks you will see lots of improvements to the Irvines Landing Pier and today we have waived goodbye to the ugly planters that have been such an eyesore for us all for so long!

Watch this space for the Regeneration of Irvines Landing and the Countdown to the Launch of PODS for benefit of us all and for future generations to come!

More acidic oceans 'will affect all sea life'

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By Roger HarrabinBBC | Environment analyst

All sea life will be affected because carbon dioxide emissions from modern society are making the oceans more acidic, a major new report will say.

The eight-year study from more than 250 scientists finds that infant sea creatures will be especially harmed.

This means the number of baby cod growing to adulthood could fall to a quarter or even a 12th of today's numbers, the researchers suggest.

The assessment comes from the BIOACID project, which is led from Germany.

A brochure summarising the main outcomes will be presented to climate negotiators at their annual meeting, which this year is taking place in Bonn in November.

The Biological Impacts of Ocean Acidification report authors say some creatures may benefit directly from the chemical changes - but even these could still be adversely affected indirectly by shifts in the whole food web.

What is more, the research shows that changes through acidification will be made worse by climate change, pollution, coastal development, over-fishing and agricultural fertilisers.

Ocean acidification is happening because as CO2 from fossil fuels dissolves in seawater, it produces carbonic acid and this lowers the pH of the water.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the average pH of global ocean surface waters have fallen from pH 8.2 to 8.1. This represents an increase in acidity of about 26%.

The study's lead author is Prof Ulf Riebesell from the GEOMAR Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel.

He is a world authority on the topic and has typically communicated cautiously about the effects of acidification.

He told BBC News: "Acidification affects marine life across all groups, although to different degrees.

"Warm-water corals are generally more sensitive than cold-water corals. Clams and snails are more sensitive than crustaceans.

"And we found that early life stages are generally more affected than adult organisms.

"But even if an organism isn't directly harmed by acidification it may be affected indirectly through changes in its habitat or changes in the food web.

"At the end of the day, these changes will affect the many services the ocean provides to us."

On the agenda

Since 2009, scientists working under the BIOACID programme have studied how marine creatures are affected by acidification during different life stages; how these reactions reverberate through the marine food web; and whether the challenges can be mitigated by evolutionary adaptation.

Some research was done in the lab but other studies were conducted in the North Sea, the Baltic, the Arctic, and Papua New Guinea.

A synthesis of more than 350 publications on the effects of ocean acidification - which will be given to climate delegates at next month's summit - reveals that almost half of the marine animal species tested reacted negatively to already moderate increases in seawater CO2 concentrations.

Early life stages were affected in Atlantic cod, blue mussels, starfish, sea urchins and sea butterflies.

But an experiment with barnacles showed they were not sensitive to acidification. And some plants - like algae which use carbon for photosynthesis - may even benefit.

Dr Carol Turley, an ocean acidification expert from Plymouth Marine Labs in the UK described the BIOACID research as enormously important.

She told BBC News: "It's contributed enormous insights into the impacts that acidification can have on a wide range of marine organisms from microbes to fish.

"It's also explored how in combination with ocean warming and other stressors it might play out at the ecosystem level and affect human society.

"On the lead-up to the UN climate change negotiations in Bonn this November it is clear that the ocean and its ecosystems should not be ignored."

The conference is being held in Germany but it is being chaired by Fiji, which wants delegates to give due prominence to the effects of CO2 on the ocean.

Follow Roger on Twitter @rharrabin

David Attenborough urges action on plastics after filming Blue Planet II

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Naturalist says experience making second series of BBC show revealed devastating threat posed to oceans by plastic.

Sir David Attenborough has called for the world to cut back on its use of plastic in order to protect oceans. His new BBC TV series, Blue Planet II, is to demonstrate the damage the material is causing to marine life.

Speaking at the launch of Blue Planet II, which will be broadcast 16 years after the original series, the broadcaster and naturalist said action on plastics should be taken immediately and that humanity held the future of the planet “in the palm of its hands”.

His comments come amid growing global calls for cutbacks in the use of plastic. Last week, the former boss of Asda, Andy Clarke, said supermarkets should stop using plastic packaging.

A Guardian investigation established that consumers around the world buy a million plastic bottles a minute. Plastic production is set to double in the next 20 years and quadruple by 2050. Around the world, more than 8m tonnes of plastic leaks into the oceans, and a recent study found that billions of people globally are drinking water contaminated by plastic.

Blue Planet II will include evidence that plastic has flowed into ocean waters thousands of miles from land, and will show albatrosses unwittingly feeding their chicks plastic.

The new series of Blue Planet has seven episodes and is expected to be a global hit for the BBC. The programme has already been sold to more than 30 countries and the first episode will air on BBC One on Sunday 29 October.

Attenborough said rising global temperatures and plastic were the biggest concerns for the ocean. “What we’re going to do about 1.5 degrees rise in the temperature of the ocean over the next 10 years, I don’t know, but we could actually do something about plastic right now,” he said.

“I just wish we would. There are so many sequences that every single one of us have been involved in – even in the most peripheral way – where we have seen tragedies happen because of the plastic in the ocean.

“We’ve seen albatrosses come back with their belly full of food for their young and nothing in it. The albatross parent has been away for three weeks gathering stuff for her young and what comes out? What does she give her chick? You think it’s going to be squid, but it’s plastic. The chick is going to starve and die.

“There are more examples of that. But we could do things about plastic internationally tomorrow.”

Attenborough, 91, did not specify what could be done, but cutting back on plastic packaging and plastic bags in supermarkets would be a major step.

He said everyone’s actions had an impact on the ocean. “We have a responsibility, every one of us,” he said. “We may think we live a long way from the oceans, but we don’t. What we actually do here, and in the middle of Asia and wherever, has a direct effect on the oceans – and what the oceans do then reflects back on us.”

PODS on Global News!

Words are not enough!

We are delighted to announce that we reached our target of $2.4m to purchase Irvines Landing with at least four hours to spare!

We could not have done this without the outpouring of support that we received from the local Pender Harbour community and hundreds of supporters from far and wide. On behalf of the Lagoon Society I would like to thank you all from the bottom of our hearts. We are so lucky to live here in this wonderful place and we all gain so much every day by coming together as a generous and forward-thinking community in the true spirit of Pender Harbour!! Thank you all again for your incredible generosity!

We would like to give especial thanks to two of our most dedicated supporters, Denise and Ken Cargill, who have stood behind us on so many occasions since the Lagoon Society was formed back in 2002 and always been willing to help us out when we needed it most - without them the PODS project would never have got off the ground. Denise and Ken were here just recently in Pender and they just loved riding in the Wood Duck Bus with us and visiting the Irvines Landing site. They could not believe how beautiful it was and they absolutely agreed that it was the perfect location for PODS. Denise and Ken have kindly agreed to support us in the next stage of PODS, which will provide the necessary funds for more engineering studies, architectural drawings, and strategic planning which we hope to have completed by Christmas.

Algae explosion 650 million years ago is why we're here today, ANU researchers say

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Researchers say they have solved one of the biggest questions in science — how did humans and animals appear on Earth?

Surprisingly, the answer comes down to algae.

The project's lead researcher, Associate Professor Jochen Brocks from the Australian National University (ANU), said they discovered an algae explosion 650 million years ago that allowed human and animal life to evolve.

"Without that we would not be here," he said.

"There would probably be no large complicated creatures that are big enough that you could see them with your eyes."

The arrival of large algae organisms, at the base of the food web, created a burst of energy needed for a more complex world, the researchers said.

"This was the transition of an entirely bacterial world, to a world that was more complicated," Professor Brocks said.

"No-one knew when this transition happened, it's one of the most profound and most important ecological positions in all of the Earth's history and we had no idea when this happened."

Solving the mystery lay in ancient rocks

The researchers unearthed the answer to that question in ancient sedimentary rocks from central Australia.

With new technology they were able to look at the rocks differently, removing contaminants that had previously hidden molecules.

By crushing the rocks, they could extract ancient molecules.

"What we found was quite spectacular and was really, totally unexpected," Professor Brocks said.

"We found out that these molecules of more complicated algae increased in a big burst around 650 million years ago."

And being able to pinpoint that timeframe was the key to their breakthrough.

"The reason why that is so exciting is it is just before animals appeared and also exciting because it happened after the biggest climatic catastrophe in Earth's history."

Melting 'Snowball Earth' triggered algae explosion

That climatic catastrophe was a global thawing of what Professor Brocks calls a "Snowball Earth".

Fifty million years before the algae began to bloom the Earth's oceans were frozen.

But a global heating event caused the glaciers to melt and as they did they released nutrients into the ocean.

"This increased phosphate fertiliser in the oceans," Professor Brocks said.

And when the Earth cooled to more hospitable levels it created perfect conditions for algae to spread.

"It appears this huge release of nutrients after the melting of this snowball Earth event triggered the evolution of this larger algae and replaced bacteria."

"Algae are incredibly large in comparison to bacteria. And you need large and nutritious organisms at the base of the food webs to create the burst of energy towards higher and bigger organisms," Professor Brocks said.

"This event triggered the evolution of life which was completely unknown and unexpected."