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Canadian Scientists Part of Global Plan to Complete Marine Life Census

Posted on: Wednesday, 14 December 2005, 21:00 CST

By DIRK MEISSNER

VICTORIA (CP) - Canadian scientists are part of a global effort to conduct a census of all the marine life in the world's oceans by 2010 that, at the halfway point, has discovered hundreds of unknown species in the deeper ocean waters.

Canadians involved in the Census of Marine Life are also pioneering the use of a tracking device that can follow salmon more than 1,500 kilometres in the ocean, allowing us to learn more about the species than was known before.

"New species continue to appear on an average of 150 new species of fish in a year," says Ron O'Door, who is on leave from Dalhousie University in Halifax to work on the census project.

"We estimate we could add as many as a million of all species of life forms by the end of the census in 2010."

The Canadian Pacific Ocean Shelf Tracking Project, meanwhile, is a pilot program revealing the coastal migrations of endangered British Columbia salmon, said David Welch, a scientist and chief census researcher from Nanaimo, B.C.

Using technology developed in Halifax, salmon are implanted with chips that can monitor their movements for years.

"We've put out a listening array that stretches 1,500 kilometres north to south and it's allowing us to track salmon for the first time over vast distances along the ocean shelf," Welch said.

"We're measuring survival for the first time," he said. "That's a huge step forward because we've never been able to do that."

Scientists are watching where the salmon go when they reach the ocean, Welch said. They, and ultimately fishermen, will soon discover where the salmon travel and perhaps why their stocks are declining during their years in the ocean, he added.

The researchers are tracking salmon in an area that stretches more than 1,550 kilometres, from Washington State, through British Columbia to north of the Alaskan panhandle, Welch said.

By 2010, the project is aiming to cover the entire western coast of North America, with a goal to replicate the network on continental shelves worldwide, he said.

So far, census scientists have discovered 78 new fish species this year. The census now has identified 15,717 fish species and has an inventory of more than more than 40,000 marine species.

Most of the new marine species are being found in the deep ocean waters as scientists use new sensitive tracking technology to make observations in previously unknown waters, O'Door said.

The Norwegians have developed an ultra-sensitive sonar that can locate a tiny shrimp three kilometres below the surface, he said.

The census is also confirming previously held theories that many fish species, especially large predators, are disappearing, O'Door said.

"Part of the importance of the census is raising the awareness of people of what's happening in the world's oceans," he said.

Some 1,700 experts from 73 countries are working on the census, which in 2010 is destined to become a public document used by fishermen, scientists and students.

Areas of exploration include the submerged edges of continents, seamounts dotting the ocean's floor and coral reefs.

The research spans species from microbes to whales, from near-shore to mid-ocean, from the world's deepest mud in the abyssal plains to the foamy and sparkling surface, from hot seafloor vents to the ice oceans at both poles.

Some of the major finds by the census researchers in the last year include:

- Tiny carnivorous sponges found among several new species in the Southern Ocean abyss.

-An eerie underwater dead zone at the 2004 tsunami epicentre.

-Life recorded at smoking seafloor vents, the first ever found south of the equator in the Atlantic.

The program has resulted in the rapid growth of a giant online inventory of marine life, from 5.2 million records in 2004 to 8.4 million today, covering more than 40,000 species.

Using satellite tracking technology, the scientists observed a tagged bluefin tuna making three crossings of the Pacific Ocean in 600 days, a distance of 40,000 kilometres, greater than earth's circumference.

A shark-monitoring team also found that many salmon sharks from Alaska share with humans an attraction to warmer winter destinations and frequently migrate to destinations like Hawaii. The salmon sharks can reach speeds of more than 50 kilometres per hour.

Other researchers found white sharks swim seasonally between South Africa and Australia, a distance of more than 8,000 kilometres across the vast Southern Ocean.

Source: Canadian Press

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