When it comes to our favorite ocean animals, I think it’s safe to say octopuses are very high on the list. Here at Ocean Conservancy, we just can’t get enough of cephalopods. They are unique, interesting and mesmerizing. And, just when you think you’ve learned all about them—you find out something new!
The marine animal class of Cephalopoda includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses. The name “cephalopod” comes from the fact that their arms are connected directly to their heads. Octopus have eight arms, while squid and cuttlefish have eight arms plus two other specialized appendages, called tentacles.
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You’ve heard of monsters of the deep—but which cephalopod is the biggest? Which is the true monster lurking in the sea? Let’s dive in and find out if it is colossal or giant!
The seven-armed octopus is one of the largest known species of octopus. It can reach lengths of up to 11 feet long. But don’t let its name fool you! It is a true octopus with eight arms. But, in the males, one arm is hidden except during mating. Found in the deep sea, the seven-armed octopus lives in the Pacific Ocean.
The giant Pacific octopus is the largest and longest-living of all octopus species. On average, they are about 12 feet in length and weigh more than 50 pounds. Giant Pacific octopuses are venomous. (All octopuses and cuttlefish are venomous.) They inject their venom into prey through their sharp beaks. The giant Pacific octopus is incredibly smart and can learn to solve mazes, open jars, recognize people’s faces and even escape enclosures.
It’s not quite the longest, but scientists believe the colossal squid weighs more than the giant squid. The colossal squid is found in deep marine environments in the waters around Antarctica, but it may come as far north as the southern waters of New Zealand. Very little is known about colossal squid. They are very rarely captured or seen. Scientists first documented colossal squid in 1925 when the head and arms were discovered in a sperm whale stomach. Since then, a total of only eight adult colossal squid have been reported, six of which were recovered from the stomachs of caught whales.
If you measure all the way out to the tip of their two long feeding tentacles, the giant squid measures more than 40 feet long! To put that into perspective, that is longer than a school bus. Giant squids have the largest eyes in the animal kingdom. They live in the deep sea where it is so dark that they need very large eyes to pick up any amount of light that passes through to that depth. Giant squids are elusive creatures, and because they live at such great depths of the ocean, humans rarely encounter them. They have lived throughout the ages through stories of sea monsters and supposedly tall tales. Some believe that the terrible Kraken of ancient myth may have been partly based on the giant squid.
You Can HELP
Climate change could negatively affect cephalopods through warming temperatures that disrupt egg development, acidification that harms prey items and hypoxic zones that decrease available habitat. Consider making a donation to Ocean Conservancy today—give today and make a difference for the future of our ocean!
“It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” – James Wooden.
This quote came to mind as we at Ocean Conservancy launched our latest report, Recommendations for Recycled Content: Requirements for Plastic Goods and Packaging. After all, this was not the first time that Ocean Conservancy has looked at the issue of recycled content. When we published our Plastics Policy Playbook in 2019, we identified recycled content standards as a promising policy measure to improve recycling and keep plastics out of our ocean.
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When Congress passed the Save Our Seas 2.0 Act in 2020, we saw an opportunity to take a deeper dive. After all, Ocean Conservancy and its Trash Free Seas Alliance® successfully advocated for the legislation; now we could help implement it. SOS 2.0 instructs the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide two reports to Congress: one describing economic incentives to spur the development of end-markets for recycled plastics and another assessing the economic and technical feasibility of recycled content standards in the United States. Our goal was to support these requirements with rigorous analysis.
The report generated many insights, some of which we anticipated, including:
Recycled content standards have multiple benefits—to both society and the environment from reducing greenhouse gas emissions due to reduced extraction and processing to creating jobs and economic opportunity.
While many companies have voluntarily committed to including recycled content in their products and packaging, more efforts are needed. Mandatory recycled content standards would help to level the playing field by requiring all companies to follow the same standards.
Nearly one-third of American households lack access to curbside recycling. As a result, many materials that could be recycled are being landfilled or incinerated instead. Ambitious progress will depend on improving recycling access and collection across the country.
Our report lays out different scenarios on how recycled content could feasibly be scaled up in specific types of plastic packaging and durable goods over the next 10-20 years, but these scenarios are each dependent on increasing collection.
Two of the most important takeaways were similar to those found in our previous research:
No single policy measure can solve this problem. Recycled content mandates will improve the economics of recycling, but to be truly effective, recycled content standards need to be paired with complementary measures that increase supply. Policies like extended-producer responsibility (EPR) —which mandate that companies financially manage their post-consumer waste—can help ensure materials are captured for recycling. Combining measures across the plastics value chain was a topline finding of our Plastics Policy Playbook.
We cannot recycle our way out of the ocean plastic pollution crisis; however, the role of recycling is critical to mitigating the issue. In addition to the policies described above, we need more and faster progress to reduce our use of plastics, especially single-use plastics. To protect the ocean, we need to take a hard look at how and why we use plastics, with a special focus on eliminating those plastics that may have a useful life measured in minutes but persist in the environment for an unknown number of years.
Michele RobinsonThis blog was written by Michele Robinson, advisor to Ocean Conservancy on achieving priority fish conservation and ecosystem goals on the West Coast. As a former state ocean policy manager, Michele represented the State of Washington on the Pacific Fishery Management Council for 15 years before starting her own consultancy. She is passionate about helping fisheries manage their way through climate change and furthering ocean conservation efforts.
Sablefish is my grandma’s favorite fish that she’s never heard of. It’s the same miso-marinated, white, flaky delicacy she knew only as “butterfish.” Also called “black cod,” it is the only species with the genus Anoplopoma and is actually not cod at all. Sablefish is found on menus around the globe and is especially popular in Japan—and in Hawaii, where my grandma grew up.
Sablefish live in the Pacific Ocean in waters from 300 to 2,700 meters deep (that’s 980 to 8,860 feet). They reach maturity at five to seven years, can live to be more than 90 years old and females, which are larger than males, can grow to more than three feet long. Juvenile sablefish have been known to migrate more than 2,000 miles, the equivalent of swimming from California to Hawaii.
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The sablefish population is healthy in the Pacific Ocean along the United States’ coast and in Canada. The fishery has been sustainably managed for decades.
But even well-managed fisheries are impacted by climate change. “Our fishermen experience climate change firsthand and are constantly adapting their fishing operations as these environmental changes occur,” said Bob Alverson, Executive Director of the Fishing Vessel Owners’ Association. The problem is that changes are happening more often and are unpredictable because of climate change. Alverson noted that many fishermen, especially in the North Pacific, are seeing smaller fish in their catch. This is a good sign that the overall population is healthy but frustrating for the fishermen who would rather catch sablefish that are of marketable size now and allow the younger fish to grow and contribute to the population before being harvested. “Everyone is trying their best,” he acknowledged, “but it’s like the management system can’t keep up with the pace of changes that are happening on the water.”
Indeed, the management response can often be delayed. Scientists have regularly assessed the status of the sablefish population for more than 15 years, and many pieces of the puzzle are just now starting to fit together. In particular, scientists are making progress on two key questions regarding sablefish: “How are sablefish populations doing across their entire range—which spans fisheries management boundaries?” and “How do environmental conditions affect recruitment, which is a measure of how many new young fish survive to enter the population each year?” Answering these questions can help tailor better management for sablefish and allow managers to better respond to changes in environmental conditions, including those that result from climate change.
To help answer the first question, Scientist Melissa Haltuch of the NOAA Northwest Fisheries Science Center is one of three regional leads working on a project to collaboratively analyze sablefish data and methods to assess population status range-wide, spanning existing management boundaries across Alaska, British Columbia and the Pacific Coast of the United States. Results of the project and the ongoing sablefish research will be shared with fishery managers and stakeholders through a Management Strategy Evaluation (MSE) process, including a range-wide re-analysis of biological data on growth and transboundary movement of sablefish. The project will offer improved advice to regional fishery managers by better reflecting what is known about the stock across borders. “I am thrilled to be working with an outstanding team of scientists and researchers to improve the scientific advice we can offer to regional fishery managers,” said Dr. Haltuch.
Scientists addressed the second question back in 2009 when they first explored how environmental factors could affect sablefish recruitment and discovered there may be a link to survival tied to sea level. A decade later, this linkage was more clearly confirmed to be a useful indicator for sablefish recruitment numbers when Dr. Haltuch and others conducted another scientific study. Their results showed that deeper sea waters have colder water temperatures and generally produce better habitat and feeding conditions for young sablefish. These deeper waters rise to the surface to replace the surface waters that were blown away by winds through a process known as “upwelling” which can bolster sablefish recruitment.
This discovery has proved helpful in several ways. Because sablefish harvested in the commercial fishery are typically 20 to 40 years old, the number of sablefish we can catch today depends, in part, on the environmental conditions (which can be measured by sea levels) that were present 15 to 35 years ago. Also, the current state of the California Current Ecosystem, where sablefish live (as well as thousands of other species of fish), will affect how many fish we can catch 20 years from now—unless there is a dramatic shift in oceanographic conditions in the next 20 years. How upwelling, and the associated beneficial habitat and feeding conditions it produces, will be affected by global sea level rise is still unknown, but such issues continue to be studied. Many juvenile fish, including salmon and rockfish, generally favor the same kinds of habitat and feeding conditions as young sablefish. Consequently, using these ecological connections to inform decisions can help managers of those fisheries prepare for climate change impacts as well.
I may have been able to teach my grandma a few things about her favorite fish, but in the process of learning about them, they taught me how to be a better steward of, and advocate for, our ocean resources. Being more aware and better prepared for what may happen in the future is our only hope of keeping fisheries sustainable.
Since Mexico is one of 15 countries with the largest marine and coastal areas, it’s not surprising to learn that the presence of abandoned, lost, or otherwise discarded fishing gear (ALDFG) exists in Mexican waters. Also known as ghost gear, ALDFG is a problem anywhere in the world where fishing takes place. Results from the first multi-institutional ghost gear removal program in the vaquita marina area launched in 2016, showed that more than 1,300 nets were removed from the Northern Gulf of California (Sea of Cortez) as of 2020.
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In addition, North America’s Pacific Coast is home to several commercially important fish species and supports a diverse marine economy in the United States, Canada and Mexico. In 2020, Mexico recorded 1.7 million metric tons in total fish catch, the third-highest in Latin America. This impacts income for 300,000 people directly involved in fishing and contributes to the Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) goal of a world without hunger and malnutrition. However, 42% of Mexico’s population lives in poverty which makes addressing ghost gear pertinent to people’s livelihoods and food security.
Eliminating ghost gear as the most lethal form of marine plastic debris requires a targeted and holistic approach across prevention, mitigation and remediation as detailed in the GGGI Best Practice Framework for the Management of Fishing Gear for Capture Fisheries (C-BPF).
Celebrating Mexico’s first GGGI anniversary
So far, 18 countries have joined the GGGI to contribute to a cleaner, safer and more resilient ocean. To address ghost gear in North America, the Canadian government joined the GGGI in 2018 during the G7 meeting, followed by the United States government, the world’s largest economy and a major fishing nation, in 2020. In response to the inclusion of the Government of Mexico in the GGGI in late 2020, the GGGI created the North American Net Collection Initiative (NANCI)-the first-ever transboundary initiative to prevent ghost gear in the coastal waters of the western United States, Mexico, and Canada.
“What could be the main challenge that a country with coastlines as extensive as Mexico could face to combat ghost fishing gear in its territory? Empowering local communities is one of the biggest challenges for our country. For this, it is clear that the conditions for creating capacities for these communities are key factors. Additionally, artisanal fishermen must take ownership of the projects and the sustainable development of their own communities. The lack of coordination and alignment between stakeholders, especially between the 3 levels of government in collaboration with NGOs, private initiative and fishing communities, is another great challenge we have ahead to face in order to solve this crisis.”
Martha Delgado, Undersecretary for Multilateral Affairs and Human Rights, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Sherpa of Mexico before the High-Level Panel for a Sustainable Ocean Economy.
What is NANCI?
The GGGI, along with the Government of Mexico and several local nonprofit organizations (including WWF Mexico, Pronatura Noroeste, Manta Caribbean Project, Wildcoast and Bureo Inc.), and supported by a grant from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Marine Debris Program, the Builders Initiative and a diverse set of funders have come together to tackle ALDFG in a holistic way under the NANCI initiative. The goals of the project include:
Develop knowledge of ghost gear in Mexico
We have initiated research to map areas of high concentration of ghost fishing gear in Mexico’s waters. This will help identify where and how to direct efforts for the tremendous challenge of eliminating the deadliest form of marine plastic debris in Mexico. With our partners of Natural Resources Consultants, Inc., we have developed a probabilitymodel to identify areas of potential for ghost gear occurrence in the Pacific and the Atlantic waters of Mexico. This was made using spatial representation of variables known to influence the probability of fishing gear loss (including the concentration of fishing effort, bathymetric depths, wind speed, current speed, vessel traffic and benthic terrains). This analysis will provide guidance when determining where to apply resources to address ALDFG. The predictive model will be a living product that will be shaped and updated as more data is generated. For example, with our Mexican partners of Pronatura Noroeste and Manta Caribbean Project, we are conducting on-the-ground fisher surveys using a design developed by FAO to evaluate ghost gear impact in Mexico.
Facilitate the development of Mexico’sghost gear action plan
An action plan for preventing, mitigating and remediating ghost gear will be created, incorporating knowledge and expertise from around the world, based on the GGGI Best Practice Framework for the Management of Fishing Gear (BPF), and incorporating Mexico’s social, political, ecological and economic context.
Promote trilateral collaboration
The ghost gear issue is an international one, and the complexity of it cannot be handled by Mexico alone. The United States, Canada and Mexico will support each other in this joint matter. We hope to expand future iterations of this project in these three countries as well as in the Latin American and Caribbean communities.
“Reducing the threat of abandoned, lost or otherwise discarded fishing gear is a priority for NOAA’s Marine Debris Program. We are pleased to support this important effort and work with partners in California and Mexico to help protect our shared environment,” said MaryLee Haughwout, acting director of the Marine Debris Program.
Demonstrating how to remove gear directly supports a healthy ecosystem and raises awareness of the scope and impact of ghost gear among stakeholders in Mexico. It will also provide technical expertise to local NGOs who can continue removal work in the future.
Transform end-of-life fishing nets into high-value consumer goods
Bureo’s Net Positiva program operates through a shared-value model built around the ability to upcycle end-of-life fishing nets into products. This way, nets will be collected for recycling and kept out of Mexican and U.S. waters.
A collection hub is being established in the port of Ensenada, Mexico, where end-of-life fishing nets will be collected and packed for transport to Bureo’s new net processing facility located in Ventura, California.
“Building on Bureo’s experience of operating collection hubs across South America with their need for meeting their increased demand for recycled fishing net material, there is clearly an emerging opportunity to not only allow NANCI to succeed within the parameters of this project but to scale beyond where a permanent solution can be offered to many more fishermen across the country of Mexico. This would enable the program to not only eliminate this pollution but also provide significant employment opportunities and a united effort to empower communities to create a positive solution for this material.”
Ben Kneppers, Co-founder of Bureo Inc.
In the last few months-together with our local and international partners¾we have accomplished activities such as research on the volume of end-of-life fishing gear in Mexico, reached key fisheries stakeholders willing to get involved in the net collection and recycling program, and developed a probability model to identify areas of potential for ghost gear occurrence in the Pacific and the Atlantic waters of Mexico.
We will continue collaborating to: establish and operate a central fishing gear collection hub in Mexico to collect and bale all nets for processing; conduct fisher surveys in the all coastal Mexican states to evaluate ghost gear impact; organize fisheries stakeholder workshops to raise awareness and promote training on best practices for gear management and for gear loss prevention; support a project in the central Gulf of California to raise awareness; collect and properly dispose ghost gear and detect ghost gear in sensitive habitats informing the results through the Ghost Gear Reporter App. The NANCI project is the first ever transboundary initiative of this scale and nature with opportunities to make a real difference on the ground and to provide a model going forward in other Latin American and Caribbean nations!
My fascination with sperm whales was first kindled when I saw a skeleton of two whales in the Te Papa Museum in New Zealand. Above me were two magnificent whales larger than the bus I took to school. Their bones alone weighed 6,000 pounds.
Often when we think about these amazing creatures our minds turn to the past, of stories of whalers and Moby Dick. Sperm whales are very much alive today and are a wonder of the ocean. Let’s dive deep into the lives of these incredible cetaceans.
Where can you find sperm whales?
Sperm whales are found in the deep ocean all over the world. Sperm whales wander throughout the ocean, sometimes traveling a million miles in their lifetimes. They range as far as the Arctic and the Antarctic but tend to migrate to the warmer waters of the equator during mating season.
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How deep can sperm whales go?
Sperm whales can dive more than 4,000 feet in search of prey. That’s about the height of three Empire State Buildings stacked down below the waves. They can hold their breath and stay submerged for well over an hour. That’s because sperm whales have evolved to access oxygen from their blood and muscles which helps them last for so long without a breath. They also have adaptations that prevent the buildup of dangerous gas bubbles in their bodies, also known as “the bends,” that can endanger humans from the increased pressure in the ocean depths.
Was Moby Dick real?
While Moby Dick is a work of fiction. it did draw inspiration from a real white whale. Mocha Dick was a legendary whale in sailor lore known as the “White Whale of the Pacific”. He allegedly evaded a hundred ships, destroying 20 of them in the process. He was taken down after 28 years of daring escapes, and the account of his death inspired Herman Melville’s tale. While white sperm whales are incredibly uncommon, they are occasionally spotted outside the pages of books. Last year one of these incredible white whales was spotted off the coast of Jamaica.
How did sperm whales get their name?
Sperm whales get their name from a unique organ in their heads called spermaceti. When seamen first opened a sperm whale’s noggin, they thought the oily substance was, well, semen. The actual purpose of spermaceti still alludes scientists. It could be a help with buoyancy or provide a way to create powerful sounds that find and stun their prey.
Can sperm whales swallow humans?
While there have been cases where humans end up in a whale’s mouth, generally these human prey get spit out and not swallowed. It’s an extremely rare and unpleasant day for all involved. Technically sperm whales are the only creatures in the ocean with throats large enough to swallow a human. There was one case of a man named James Bartley, labeled as a “modern day Jonah,” who was allegedly swallowed by a sperm whale off the Falkland Islands in the early 1900s. The story claims that he was rescued from the stomach after whalers took down the animal that ate him. This story doesn’t hold up to close inspection, however, and the science suggests that anyone who had the misfortune of being eaten by a whale would probably not live long. It’s just another one of Pinocchio’s lies.
How many sperm whales are left?
Whaling was a huge threat to sperm whales particularly in the 1800s. Before the whaling industry was created there may have been 1.1 million sperm whales worldwide. Now there are about 300,0000 sperm whales left, and they are listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Sperm whales are vulnerable to threats like ship strikes, noise pollution and climate change.
While commercial whaling is long over, people still hunt a particularly valuable sperm whale excretion: ambergris. This substance is produced in a sperm whale’s digestive system, and scientists aren’t exactly sure which end it comes from. While a clump of whale poop or vomit might not sound like something you want to put your hands on, ambergris is known as “floating gold” and can be worth thousands of dollars. It hardens into a very valuable rock that is sought for perfumes, though illegal in the U.S. due to the sperm whale’s endangered status.
Are sperm whales smart?
Sperm whales have the largest brains in the world, over six times larger than our own. This may mean sperm whales develop social connections, culture and bonding associated with mammals with larger and more complex brains. However, we still have lots of questions on what goes on in those big brains of theirs. Since sperm whales are huge, it is hard to run the same intelligence tests that have helped scientists determine the capabilities of dolphins, their cetacean cousins. Observations of sperm whales in the wild throughout history may provide clues as to how smart they really are.
Historical evidence suggests that sperm whales share information about how to avoid whalers and alter their behavior to survive. Sperm whales were able to realize that their usual method of circling an attacker wouldn’t work against the new threat of whaling ships. Instead, they would swim upwind, realizing their hunters needed a favoring wind to chase after them. The result of these new whale strategies was a 58% drop in a whaler’s success in harpooning a whale.
Could we talk to sperm whales someday?
Scientists are currently using recordings of whale sounds and artificial intelligence to try to decode the language of sperm whales. They are ideal candidates because they communicate over long distances, using only sound without the added benefit of body language. Researchers are looking to collect millions of sound clips from whales and use machine learning to map out how they use sound to communicate. The project might help us better understand whales and possibly even communicate with them in the future. Someday the mysteries of sperm whales could be cleared up by talking directly to the source.
What has eight arms, three hearts, uses camouflage and has a very confusing plural form?
The octopus!
The English language can be quite puzzling at times. As a mother of two boys, we have LEGO tiles all over the house. And while there are hundreds of LEGO on the floor that I have to tiptoe around, please notice the plural of LEGO is still LEGO. Confusing? Yes, it certainly is.
Which brings me to today’s blog topic: What is the plural of octopus? How would you tell your friends that your saw a video that featured more than one glass octopus?
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To get us started, let’s take a look at the word: octopus. It is a Latinized form of the Greek word októpus, which translates to “eight foot.”
Disclaimer: Before I dive in, I will acknowledge that people have very strong opinions about grammar: Oxford comma usage as one such example. So, please go easy on the author of this blog.
Octopi
While “octopi” has become popular in modern usage, it’s wrong. Octopi is the oldest plural form of octopus, coming from the belief that Latin origins should have Latin endings. However, octopus is not a simple Latin word, but a Latinized form of the Greek word októpus. Consequently, its “correct” plural form would logically be octopodes.
Octopodes
“Octopodes” stems from the belief that because octopus is originally Greek, it should have a Greek ending. This term might be technically correct, but it is the least-used incorrect form of the word for more than one octopus. Using “octopodes” might cause more confusion than it’s worth.
Octopuses
“Octopuses” gives the word an English ending to match its adoption as an English word. Generally, when a noun enters into English, it is pluralized as an English word rather than in its original form. Octopuses may sound peculiar to some, but this is the preferred plural.
It’s also peculiar to debate octopuses when the octopus is a solitary creature. So, they would very much prefer we didn’t have this discussion in the first place!
The moral of the story is—it’s a good thing to see multiple octopuses! It means we have a healthy ocean.
You Can Help Octopuses
Unlike other species, octopuses don’t have a hard shell or sharp spines to protect themselves, so camouflage is their best bet for avoiding hungry predators. They use this ability to hide in reefs, rocks or sand.
One thing octopuses can’t hide from? Ocean plastics.
The ocean plastics villain may prove deadlier than any of those natural predators ever could.
But we can stop this. We can keep ocean plastics out of these creatures’ homes. Join us in taking action today.Take action on plastic pollution today. Tell Congress to support the REDUCE Act and make it less desirable to create new plastics.
