Tag Archives: Gulf of California
Western Flyer from Steinbeck’s Sea of Cortez returns to Gulf of California after 85 years
A fishing vessel that was built during the Monterey Bay’s sardine boom and made famous by a Nobel Prize-winning author will return to the site of its former glory after 85 years. The Western Flyer, a state-of-the-art purse seiner when it was built in 1937, was chartered by John Steinbeck and his marine biologist friend, Ed “Doc” Ricketts, for a six-week expedition that would be immortalized in the “Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research.” Fully renovated to its original specifications and updated with cutting-edge technology, including a hybrid diesel-electric engine and science lab, the Western Flyer will return to the Gulf of California and retrace Steinbeck’s and Ricketts’ groundbreaking journey of discovery. 18 photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 11:45
Western Flyer relics go to auction this week
The sharp bang of an auctioneer’s gavel, due to sound Thursday, Feb. 13, in Berkeley, California, could echo locally. A Wauna man seems a bit anxious. He’s nursing a years-long emotional tie to the formerly junk-piled maritime items for sale, not to mention a financial stake in the auction outcome. “I’m on pins and needles,” Michael Hemp told Gig Harbor Now last week. A Northern California man, the original salvager and owner of the items for the last 49 years, has a lesser emotional tie to the relics. But he maintains hopeful anticipation for a far bigger slice of a potential cash pie. Because the objects Fry, then a teenager, rescued from a scrap heap in Alaska are original parts of the “Western Flyer,” perhaps the most famous fishing boat in the world. Photos, more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 08:41
Western Flyer scheduled to make historic expedition 85 years after Steinbeck and Ricketts
The historic Western Flyer will return to the Gulf of California this spring, marking 85 years since the famous expedition with John Steinbeck, Ed Ricketts and their crew. Local scientists, educators and conservationists will team up to study the Gulf of California’s ecosystems, exchange knowledge and brainstorm new ideas to protect the marine world. The expedition starts at 3 p.m. March 16, departing from Old Fisherman’s Wharf. The send-off celebration will mark nearly 85 year to the day since the now-famous journey that inspired the book ‘Sea of Cortez. ’more, >>CLICK TO READ<< 14:04
14,000 liters of fuel spilled when shrimp boat sinks after collision with ferry off Sinaloa
A shrimp boat sank Wednesday after a collision with a ferry off Topolobampo, Sinaloa, causing the discharge of 14,000 liters of fuel. Authorities in the nearby town of Ahome have asked beach-goers not to enter the water and are monitoring beaches for any fuel that might wash ashore. According to Baja Ferries, the Mexico Star was following its usual Topolobampo – La Paz route, carrying passengers and cargo, when it struck a fishboat with seven people on board. The ferry tried to communicate with visual and audio signals as well as by radio but the fishing vessel did not respond, Two crew members on the shrimp boat were seriously injured. >click to read< 17:15
Baja shrimp fishermen defy rules designed to save vaquita
Fishermen are defying rules designed to protect the critically endangered vaquita marina porpoise as the new shrimp season begins in the upper Gulf of California. The federal government this week enlarged by 50% a zero-tolerance zone in the gulf’s northern region where the use of a range of fishing nets including gillnets are prohibited. “We’re just looking for a way to keep working,” García said. He said that fishermen are open to different ways of fishing but asserted that the alternatives currently on the table are not viable. >click to read< 09:41
The Squid That Sink to the Ocean’s Floor When They Die
While the lives of squid are mysterious in many ways, one gruesome truth is that after mating comes death. First the male dies. Next the female, after making a little pouch of eggs, begins to starve. “She is unable to feed because the egg mass is in front of the mouth,” explains Henk-Jan Hoving, a deep sea biologist at Geomar Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research in Kiel, Germany. “She probably gets energy from the breakdown of her own tissue, either from the liver or the mental tissue. This is how she stays alive, basically.” Then, once the female is dead and the eggs have hatched, her body will often float to the ocean’s surface and get eaten by birds. >click here to read< 17:43
Fishermen in Mexico shoot down environmental group’s drone
The environmental group Sea Shepherd says fishermen fired 25 shots at one of its night-vision drones in Mexico’s Gulf of California, bringing it down. Various drones have been employed to patrol the Gulf, also known as the Sea of Cortez, to combat illegal fishing and save the critically endangered vaquita marina, the world’s smallest porpoise. Sea Shepherd has been the target of demonstrations by fishermen in the past, but said the Christmas Eve shooting represented “a new level of violence.” click here to read the story 15:39
‘Aquatic cocaine’: Fish bladders are latest Mexican smuggling commodity
One hundred twenty-one fish swim bladders lay before Garcia Pereda on the concrete floor, most of them white, some with shades of pink. The smell of fish guts was overwhelming, a stench Garcia Pereda never grew accustomed to, even as he went from bust after bust of the illegal smuggling. This was a huge haul of “aquatic cocaine”: 39 kilos of totoaba fish swim bladders, with a Hong Kong street value of $750,000. Not quite as big as a recent bust, thought Garcia Pereda, where they’d stopped 600 bladders from getting across the U.S.-Mexico border, flowing eventually to China. The fishermen – Jorge Garcia sat on the back of his truck, selling fish filets and shrimp to tourists wandering the boardwalk in San Felipe. He looked out at the water, disgusted that his two boats are not doing what Garcia was raised to do: fish big game like totoaba. “We’re being punished,” he said. “Young fishermen from out of town are coming in, fishing illegally in the water, making tons of money.” Read the story here 11:04
Environmental Threat Turned Sustainable Business for the Gulf of California
Considered a threat to the biodiversity of marine ecosystems of the Gulf of California, the cannonball jellyfish Stomolophus meleagris is intended to be exploited commercially throughout the Mexican Pacific coast where it occurs, thanks to fishing potential discovered by producers of Sonora and researchers at the Biological Research Center of the Northeast (CIBNOR). more@sciencedaily 17:23
