Brown pelican off endangered species list

Washington, DC (UCTP Taino News) — After being pushed to near extinction caused by pesticides, hunters, and the loss of habitat the brown pelican was removed from the endangered species list on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2009.

"We can all celebrate this victory for our sacred relative.” stated Roger Guayacan Hernandez, a Liaison Officer for the United Confederation of Taino People in Boriken (Puerto Rico).

“Our ancestors saw the Aruna (the brown pelican) and many other water birds as spiritually significant” continued Hernandez. “In many ways, the Aruna is a symbol for the conservation of the region’s wildlife as it took real dedication and partnership between government, conservation organizations, and concerned individuals to archive this success.”

Aruna is the ancient Arawak word for the brown pelican.

According to reports the Aruna population is now back up to more than 650,000 of the birds across Florida, in the coastal regions of the Gulf of Mexico and Pacific Ocean, and in the Caribbean and Latin America.

The Aruna still faces threats including habitat loss from Global Warming. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife service will continue to monitor its progress working with agencies and organizations in Mexico, Boriken, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

UCTP 11.12.2009

Venomous lionfish prowls fragile Caribbean waters

In this image released by Oregon State University, a lionfish swims off Lee Stocking Island, Bahamas in July, 2007. The lionfish, a vibrantly colored spiny and venomous predator from the western Pacific, is rapidly spreading in the Caribbean's warm waters, according to marine biologists who are studying the phenomenon. (AP Photo/Mark Albins/Oregon State University)

By DAVID McFADDEN, Associated Press Writer

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A maroon-striped marauder with venomous spikes is rapidly multiplying in the Caribbean's warm waters, swallowing native species, stinging divers and generally wreaking havoc on an ecologically delicate region.

The red lionfish, a tropical native of the Indian and Pacific oceans that probably escaped from a Florida fish tank, is showing up everywhere — from the coasts of Cuba and Hispaniola to Little Cayman's pristine Bloody Bay Wall, one of the region's prime destinations for divers.

Wherever it appears, the adaptable predator corners fish and crustaceans up to half its size with its billowy fins and sucks them down in one violent gulp.

Research teams observed one lionfish eating 20 small fish in less than 30 minutes.

"This may very well become the most devastating marine invasion in history," said Mark Hixon, an Oregon State University marine ecology expert who compared lionfish to a plague of locusts. "There is probably no way to stop the invasion completely."

A white creature with maroon stripes, the red lionfish has the face of an alien and the ribbony look of something that survived a paper shredder — with poisonous spikes along its spine to ward off enemies.

The invasion is similar to that of other aquarium escapees such as walking catfish and caulerpa, a fast-growing form of algae known as "killer seaweed" for its ability to crowd out native plants. The catfish are now common in South Florida, where they threaten smaller fish in wetlands and fish farms.

In Africa, the Nile Perch rendered more than 200 fish species extinct when it was introduced into Lake Victoria. The World Conservation Union calls it one of the 100 worst alien species invasions.

"Those kinds of things happen repeatedly in fresh water," Hixon said. "But we've not seen such a large predatory invasion in the ocean before."

The lionfish so far has been concentrated in the Bahamas, where marine biologists are seeing it in every habitat: in shallow and deep reefs, off piers and beaches, and perhaps most worrisome, in mangrove thickets that are vital habitats for baby fish.

Some spots in the Bahamian archipelago between New Providence and the Berry Islands are reporting a tenfold increase in lionfish just during the last year.

Northern Caribbean islands have sounded the alarm, encouraging fishermen to capture lionfish and divers to report them for eradication.

The invasion would be "devastating" to fisheries and recreational diving if it reached Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to Eugenio Pineiro-Soler of the Caribbean Fishery Management Council.

"I think at the best they will have a huge impact on reef fish, and at the worst will result in the disappearance of most reef fish," said Bruce Purdy, a veteran dive operator who has helped the marine conservation group REEF with expeditions tracking the invasion.

Purdy said he has been stung several times while rounding up lionfish — once badly.

"It was so painful, it made me want to cut my own hand off," he said.

Researchers believe lionfish were introduced into the Atlantic in 1992, when Hurricane Andrew shattered a private aquarium and six of them spilled into Miami's Biscayne Bay, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Biologists think the fish released floating sacs of eggs that rode the Gulf Stream north along the U.S. coast, leading to colonization of deep reefs off North Carolina and Bermuda. Lionfish have even been spotted as far north as Rhode Island in summer months, NOAA said.

They are not aggressive toward humans, and their sting is not fatal. There are no estimates so far of tourists who have been stung. But marine officials say swimmers will be more at risk as the venomous species overtakes tropical waters along popular Caribbean beaches.

The slow-moving fish, which measures about 18 inches, is easy to snare, though lionfish swim too deep for divers to catch in nets — a common method of dealing with invasive species.

So researchers are scrambling to figure out what will eat the menacing beauties in their new Caribbean home, experimenting with predators such as sharks, moray eels — and even humans.

Adventurous eaters describe the taste of lionfish fillets as resembling halibut. But so far, they are a tough sell. Hungry sharks typically veer abruptly when researchers try to hand-feed them a lionfish.

"We have gotten (sharks) to successfully eat a lionfish, but it has been a lot of work. Most of our attempts with the moray eel have been unsuccessful," said Andy Dehart of the National Aquarium in Washington, who is working with REEF in the Bahamas.

One predator that will eat lionfish is grouper, which are rare in the lionfish's natural Southeast-Asian habitat. Scientists are pinning long-range hopes on the establishment of new ocean reserves to protect grouper and other lionfish predators from overfishing.

Hixon said there is some evidence that lionfish have not invaded reefs of the fully protected Exuma Cays Land and Sea Park, a 176-square-mile reserve southeast of Nassau. But unprotected locations in the vast archipelago are more vulnerable.

Containing the spread of the lionfish is an uphill fight. As lionfish colonize more territory in the Caribbean, they feed on grazing fish that keep seaweed from overwhelming coral reefs already buffeted by climate change, pollution and other environmental pressures.

Dehart said: "If we start losing these smaller reef fish as food to the lionfish ... we could be in a whirlwind for bad things coming to the reef ecosystem."

___

Associated Press Television News reporter Tracy Brown in Washington contributed to this report.

U.S. coral reefs under threat, report finds

By Michael Christie

FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) - Half of U.S. coral reefs are in poor or fair condition, threatened by climate change and human activities like sports fishing, shipping and the release of untreated sewage, a U.S. government report said on Monday.

Reefs in the Caribbean, in particular, are under severe assault and coral in the U.S. Virgin Islands and off Puerto Rico had not recovered from 2005, when unusually warm waters that led to massive bleaching and disease killed up to 90 percent of the marine organisms on some reefs.

"The evidence is warning us that many of our coral reef ecosystems are imperiled and we as a community must act now," said Kacky Andrews, program manager of the Coral Reef Conservation program at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The new NOAA report on the state of coral reefs in the United States and Pacific territories, including Palau and Guam, was presented at a meeting of coral reef scientists in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

It was the third such report and the second to be based on actual monitoring of reefs. The reefs were classified as excellent, good, fair or poor based on such things as water quality, fish population and the threats they faced.

The last report was issued in 2005 when warm Atlantic waters killed off large swaths of coral through bleaching, a condition that occurs when environmental stresses, like heat, break down the symbiotic relationship between coral polyps and unicellular algae that give them color.

Half the coral reefs off the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico were killed that year, said Jenny Waddell, a marine biologist at NOAA's Center for Coastal Monitoring and Assessment. On some reefs, the fatality rate reached 90 percent, she said.

A series of powerful hurricanes also devastated coral reefs off the Florida Keys in 2005.

HUMAN EFFECTS

But scientists at NOAA said coral reefs had been suffering for much longer due to a warming climate and other "stressors," many due to human activity, such as overfishing and damage caused by ship anchors.

"It is important to note that these declines did not happen overnight, they did not happen during the last three years," said Andrews.

"The degradation has happened over the past several decades and recovery may require similar time frames. Although there are a number of measures that we can implement in order to promote conservation, there are no quick fixes."

The NOAA report was based on reef monitoring in 15 areas in the Atlantic and Pacific.

It said that reefs near populated areas tended to suffer more intense threats due to coastal development and recreational activities like boating, diving and fishing, but even remote reefs were affected by climate change.

Reefs in the vast Pacific Ocean tended to be more resilient, with a greater diversity of both coral and fish, NOAA scientists said. While Pacific reefs had been able to start recovering from worldwide bleaching in 1998, Caribbean reefs had not.

Human activity had not just left Caribbean reefs battered, but also pretty tame in terms of marine life, said Alan Friedlander, a NOAA marine biologist based in Hawaii.

"When you dive in remote parts of the Pacific you really feel like an intruder, like you don't belong there and the big guys let you know. You feel way down the food chain," he said.

Tourism Destinations Threatened By Global Warming

UCTP Taino News – The OTBeach News site “ProTraveller” has put together a list of 20 popular travel destinations that will change dramatically as the world continues to heat up. The feature notes that while a “few lucky” places may benefit economically from “extra temperature points”, overall a “great number” of places will not be “so lucky”. As many countries around the world depend on tourism to bring in much needed revenue, global warming is set to devastate economies that depend on the allure of their “natural beauty”.

Two Caribbean destinations made ProTraveller’s “list of 20” places set to significantly change due to the current climate crises. The Belize Barrier Reef and the Virgin Islands are identified as being at risk of being lost to the now annual global rise in temperatures.

Designated as a World Heritage Site, the Belize Barrier Reef is the largest in the Caribbean and one of the largest coral reefs in the world second only to Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. It is one of the biggest tourist’s attractions for Belize and it is already suffering climate related damage despite protections.

“The global climate crises is a reality” stated Roberto Mukaro Borrero, a representative of the United Confederation of Taino People. “Our elders have been noting serious changes in the environment for years but most governments are not taking the wisdom of local people seriously or including them in regional plans to mitigate this crisis.”

Borrero was part of a delegation of Caribbean Indigenous Peoples who spoke out on climate change at the United Nations recently during the Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

Made up of indigenous leaders from Dominica, Barbados, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic, the delegation worked together at the UN under the auspices of the Indigenous Peoples Caucus of the Greater Caribbean. In a special session entitled “Climate Change and Biological Diversity: A Caribbean First Nations Perspective” the group highlighted links between climate change and tourism, as well as human rights issues.

As mandated by international frameworks such as the Barbados Plan of Action, the Caucus called for great inclusion of Caribbean Indigenous Peoples in all processes that affect them especially with regard to the environment and climate change.

Photo: The coastal area of Belize is an outstanding natural system consisting of the largest barrier reef in the northern hemisphere, offshore atolls, several hundred sand cays, mangrove forests, coastal lagoons and estuaries.

UCTPTN 05.14.2008

Carib and Taino Recognized in U.S. Virgin Islands

U.S. Virgin Islands (UCTP Taino News) – An inter-tribal organization in the U.S. Virgin Islands has been officially recognized as an American Indian Tribe in a proclamation by Governor Charles W. Turnbull. The Carib-Taino Confederacy received this recognition on December 29, 2006. In an official communication to Confederacy Chief Fred Vialet and the new U.S. Virgin Islands Governor John de Jongh from the United Confederation of Taino People, Office of International Relations, UCTP President and Chairman, Roberto Mucaro Borrero stated the “proclamation is welcomed by the UCTP as it affirms our calls for the recognition of Taino, Carib, and Arawak peoples who reside throughout the Caribbean region”. Borrero continued stating that the UCTP looks forward to the establishment of a “formal relationship with the Carib-Taino Tribal Confederacy… as this relationship would further our mutual goals to protect and preserve the culture and promote the socio-economic welfare of the Indigenous Peoples of the region.”