Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)
Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:
Transcript
Japan kills more whales than any other country in the world. A new proposal would allow Japanese whalers to hunt off their county’s coasts. Mark Brush reports – some think opening up these waters to whale hunts is a bad idea:
The International Whaling Commission passed a moratorium on commercial whaling in 1986. But it allowed some countries to kill whales for what it calls scientific study.
Japanese boats kill hundreds of minke whales in the southern ocean under this designation. Critics say there’s nothing scientific about these hunts.
Now, the Commission wants to stop Japan from killing whales in the southern ocean. Phasing out these so-called scientific whale hunts. But in exchange, they might let the country openly hunt whales off its own coasts.
Jonathan Stern is with the American Cetacean Society. He says whale populations could take a hit, if Japan is allowed to start hunting in these waters:
“I’m just afraid once their fleet starts operating. They’re going to want to take more whales and more different species of whales.”
Japan has long maintained that these hunts are part of their cultural heritage. The International Whaling Commission will meet next month to decide the issue.
Asian carp are one of the invasive species featured in the exhibits in your local museums. (Photo courtesy of USFWS)
The zebra mussel is another invasive species that is hurting the Great Lakes' natural food chain. (Photo courtesy of USGS)
Big, public aquariums spend a lot of money to make fish look like they’re at home in the wild. But lately some aquariums are showing fish that are out of place. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee looks at one aquarium’s effort to give them the spotlight, too:
Transcript
Big, public aquariums spend a lot of money to make fish look like
they’re at home in the wild, but lately some aquariums are showing fish
that are out of place. The GLRC’s Shawn Allee looks at one aquarium’s
effort to give them the spotlight, too:
The federal government’s spending millions to keep Asian Carp out of
the Great Lakes. Biologists worry Asian Carp could devastate the lakes’
ecosystem. Recently, though, several carp were brought within sight of
the Great Lakes, and biologists are happy about it.
Chicago’s Shedd Aquarium is on the shore of Lake Michigan. It’s
holding an exhibit of Asian Carp and other alien invasive species.
Curator Kurt Hettinger captured the aquarium’s carp during a trip on an
Illinois river.
“They’re literally jumping, sometimes over the bow of the boat,
sometimes smacking into the side of the boat. I just looked behind me
and was amazed to see all these fish jumping in the wake of the boat, and
to this day, I’m still stunned by this.”
And Hettinger’s more than just stunned. He’s worried.
Asian Carp are an invasive species, basically … pests that crowd out
native fish, and that river where he caught them hooks up to Lake
Michigan.
Again, Asian carp haven’t made it to the Great Lakes, but more than one
hundred and sixty other invasive species have arrived and are breeding
quickly.
One example’s the zebra mussel. At first, scientists worried about how
much money it could cost us. Zebra mussels multiply so fast they can
block pipes that carry cooling water to power plants. But now, we know
the zebra mussel’s disrupting the lakes’ natural food chain.
In other words, invasive species are a huge economic and ecological
nuisance. That’s why the Shedd Aquarium started the exhibit.
“The public I think has seen enough stories about the damages and the
spread and the harmfulness, but those stories are not very often coupled
with solutions.”
That’s ecologist David Lodge. He says the exhibit tries to show how
people spread these species around. Lodge points to one exhibit tank. It
looks like a typical backyard water garden. It’s decked out with a small
fishpond, water lilies, even a little fountain shaped like an angel. It looks
pretty innocent, but Lodge says plants and fish you buy for your own
water garden could be invasive species.
“All those plants and animals that are put outside, then have an
opportunity to spread. Now, it doesn’t happen very often, but with the
number of water gardens, it happens enough so that they are a serious
threat to the spread of species.”
Birds or even a quick flood could move seeds or minnows from your
garden to a nearby lake or river.
The Shedd Aquarium’s not alone in spotlighting invasive species.
Several aquariums and science museums are also getting on board. For example one in
Florida shows how invasive species have infested the Everglades.
Shedd curator George Parsons went far and wide for inspiration.
“I was in Japan last year when we were planning this, and I just
happened to stumble across one of their aquariums and they had an
invasive species exhibit, except that they were talking about large mouth
bass and blue gill. You know, something that is our natives. So, it was
kind of ironic to see that out there. It was kind of neat.”
Like us, the Japanese take invasive species seriously. Back in 1999 the
humble Midwestern Blue Gill created a national uproar. Turns out, they
had taken over ponds throughout the Emperor’s palace, and how did the
bluegill get to Japan?
Probably as a gift from a former Chicago mayor. Apparently, the mayor
thought blue gill might make nice sport fishing in Japan. It was an
innocent mistake, but it’s just the kind of mishap biologists want all of us
to avoid from now on.
These three monks walked 1600 miles from San Francisco to the Trinity Test Site. They came "full circle" to extinguish a flame kindled by the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima that had destroyed their Buddhist shrine. Keigaku Muchu is in the center. (Photo by Paul Adams)
The obelisk that marks ground zero at the trinity Test Site where the first atomic bomb was exploded on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico. The obelisk is made of volcanic rock taken from nearby mountains to symbolize fire. (Photo by Paul Adams)
The McDonald ranch house, built in 1913 by German immigrants, was used to assemble the Fat Man plutonium bomb that was tested at Trinity. The house was several miles from the first atomic test but was not destroyed by the explosion. It is a popular stop on the open house tour at the Trinity Test Site on the White Sands Missile Range. (Photo by Paul Adams)
Sixty years ago the first nuclear weapon was tested in the New Mexico
desert. A month later two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. It brought
World War II to a swift end. There are tourists who are interested in the
history of these weapons of mass destruction. They find the historical
sites of the atomic age are hard to get to and still controversial. The
Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports:
Transcript
Sixty years ago, the first nuclear weapon was tested in the New Mexico desert, ushering in the dawn of the atomic age. A month later, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan. It brought World War II to a swift end. There are tourists who are interested in the history of weapons of mass destruction. They might find the historical sites of the atomic age are hard to get to and still controversial. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Ann Colihan reports:
(Sound of monks chanting)
Keigaku Muchu is a Buddhist monk. Since the atomic bombs were dropped in 1945 on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japanese monks have walked back and forth between these two cities with a lantern that was lit by a flame captured from the smoldering ruins of their shrine, which had been destroyed.
In Zen Buddhism, sixty years is considered a sacred cycle. So this summer, they took a new pilgrimage to the Trinity Site in New Mexico. That’s where the atomic bomb was first tested. They wanted to close the cycle from where the atomic destruction started to where it ended in Japan. Keigaku says his journey helped him join spiritually to countless supporters who never want atomic weapons used again.
“So if people in northern America want to come physically to the Trinity site, that’s great too. But if they can’t come, they can be connected. I can connect with them spiritually.”
The monks were not alone on their 1600-mile overland trek from San Francisco in searing desert heat to the Trinity site. This walk was organized by Matt Taylor, co-executive director of the Global Nuclear Disarmament Fund. He says the walk has multiple missions.
“The main thing we’re trying to achieve is bringing the atomic claim that has been kindled from the ashes of Hiroshima back to the trinity site where it began, closing a sixty-year cycle.”
The Trinity test site is located on the White Sands Missile Range. The military holds an open house at the Trinity test site just two days per year. Jim Eckles is a spokesperson for the missile range.
“We get two to three thousand folks during each open house, and they come from all backgrounds, all walks of life, from all over the country. You’ll see young families, young kids, students on a science project, old people who were alive at World War II, veterans who come up and say, ‘I was getting ready to go to the Pacific and this saved my life,’ motorcycle gang members – you name it they come.”
Eckles says the Department of Defense is not likely to stop using the missile range just to welcome more atomic tourists. But the military is preserving the Trinity site.
“It’s significant because it is the first atomic bomb explosion or test site. It did change our lives. The Cold War had a different tone to it because of nuclear weapons and them hanging over our heads. And of course, they are still out there so they still influence us.”
And world headlines about nuclear proliferation still make history a flash point.
At another historic atomic site, the job of preserving is a little more difficult. John Isaacson is a resource manager in the environmental stewardship division at Los Alamos National Laboratories. There, the Manhattan Project was the code name for the top-secret program to build the atomic bomb. Isaacson says we’re still trying to understand what to make of the beginning of the atomic age.
“This is history that is gone through a number of different sort of re-analyses in the past fifty years since the end of the war and it’s still very alive for many people, a very real history for many people”
But there’s a problem. Manhattan Project buildings at Los Alamos are deteriorating. Most are wooden and were thrown up hastily by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Although today, the public doesn’t get to see the site because it’s deep within a security zone, Isaacson says it should be preserved.
“I think the Manhattan Project is a real good example of this very controversial, unresolved historical process that, by preserving the buildings, it allows people to think about it, and it’s important to think about it.”
Isaacson wants us to keep the buildings in good repair for the day when they can be opened to the public. He’s getting some help. The Atomic Heritage Foundation in Washington D.C. is helping them and other Manhattan Project sites across the country raise eighty-eight million dollars to refurbish properties that are historically significant to the start of the atomic age.
Honda is well known for its cars, but might soon be known as number one in non-GMO soybean exports. (Photo by Simon Cataudo)
Most people associate Honda with cars and motorcycles. But the company has an interesting sideline: as a cost-saving measure, they’ve been exporting soybeans from the U.S. to Japan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora Flaherty has more:
Transcript
Most people associate Honda with cars and motorcycles. But the company has
an interesting sideline: as a cost-saving measure, they’ve been exporting
soybeans from the US to Japan. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Nora
Flaherty has more:
Honda started exporting the beans as a way to reuse the huge cargo
containers that would arrive at the plant filled with auto parts. Instead of
sending them back empty, they wanted to fill the containers with something that
they could sell, and soy beans were a good fit. Joe Hannisik is the manager
of the plant, called Happy Ohio, where the beans are processed for shipping.
“We basically contract production with about 250 to 280 farmers in Ohio and
southern Michigan, for contract production, back to Happy Ohio, for processing and shipment of
soybeans primarily to Japan the majority of them.”
Honda only buys beans that haven’t been genetically modified, because that’s
what the Japanese prefer. And Honda pays farmers a higher price for their
beans than they’d get on the open market. Hannisik says that this can make a
difference when farmers are making decisions about whether to plant
genetically modified seeds.
A new way to prevent rust in the ballast of ships might also prevent many alien aquatic animals from being transported from port to port. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham has details:
In the next few months, Honda and Toyota each will launch a
new type of super clean car, called a hybrid. The fact that the
Japanese
are
first to market hybrid vehicles concerns some environmentalists.
They’re
worried that domestic auto makers aren’t moving fast enough on this
promising technology. But in an unusual move, environmentalists are not
chastising the big three. Instead, they’re lending a helping hand. The
Great
Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Edelson Halpert files this report:
Two Japanese auto manufacturers soon will unveil a new,
cleaner type of car for the U-S market. It’s called a hybrid. Hybrids
rely
on gasoline, but use an electric engine to double the fuel efficiency
and
emit fewer pollutants. So far, no domestic automaker has come forward
with a hybrid car. And that’s troubling environmentalists. They’re
worried
that the U-S could fall behind its foreign competitors. The Great Lakes
Radio Consortium’s Julie Edelson Halpert has the story:
Mother-calf pair of "Type C" orcas in the Ross Sea. (Photo by Robert Pitman, NOAA)
