The New York Times online has an article about Alexandra Morton, her work with Orcas in Northern BC, and her research into fish farms and their effect on Orca populations.

She’s convinced that Orcas have been driven away from the area by fish farming “in part by infecting the wild salmon the whales eat with parasites called sea lice”.

“Government officials say it would be premature to blame the farms for declines in salmon runs seen here recently, because those numbers fluctuate naturally.

But Ms. Morton and researchers like Martin Krkosek of the University of Alberta and John Volpe of the University of Victoria predict that some local salmon runs will disappear unless the farms are altered or removed. And because salmon loom large in the diets of orcas, bears, eagles and other animals, their disappearance would unravel the region’s web of life.

The article is both inspiring and disconcerting – a definite must read.

Mother Jones online has an interview with eco-bad-boy and head of the Sea Shepherd Conservation society, Paul Watson.

The article is ostensibly about a new Animal Planet TV series called Whale Wars that premiered this week. Watson certainly talks about the series on how every other network passed on it. But mostly the interview provides a glimpse into Watson’s motivation and philosophy.

The best way to explain it is that we represent our clients. And our clients are whales and turtles and sharks and fish and seabirds. For instance, we sunk half of Iceland’s whaling fleet in 1986, something I was never charged for, by the way, even though I made myself available. Iceland realized that to put me on trial would be to put themselves on trial. I had a former colleague from Greenpeace come up to me after that, and he said, “I just want to let you know that what you did in Iceland is despicable, reprehensible, criminal, and unforgivable.” [Chuckles.] And I said, “Look, John, we didn’t sink those whaling ships for you or Greenpeace or anybody else. We sunk them for the whales. You find me one whale that disagrees with what we did, and I promise we’ll take it into consideration.

Check out the New Scientist.com article about the world’s hidden water supplies.

They have a downloadable map showing all the locations in the world where underground aquifers store huge amounts of water.

The map of “blue gold” is the result of nearly a decade of sometimes difficult talks between neighbouring governments, mediated by UNESCO. The hope is that it will help pave the way to an international law to govern how water is shared around the world.

You can download the map here.

I’m clearly on a water theme here – so I might as well include this article from Boston.com.

I’d always thought rogue waves were only a deep sea occurence – but clearly I was wrong…

Dockworker Marcy Ingall saw a giant wave in the distance last Tuesday afternoon and stopped in her tracks. It was an hour before low tide in Maine’s Boothbay Harbor, yet without warning, the muddy harbor floor suddenly filled with rushing, swirling water.

In 15 minutes, the water rose 12 feet, then receded. And then it happened again. It occurred three times, she said, each time ripping apart docks and splitting wooden pilings.

The article goes on to explore the theory behind these waves, there isn’t much data available because they happen so infrequently. This kind of thing always reminds me how little we really know about our world.

XX Auto Innovators…

Over on the north shore of Vancouver we have a cool place called Nics Garage, owned and run by Sandy Spicer. She got the idea for the garage after moving to BC from Saskatchewan, in the process leaving behind a mechanic she trusted – her dad.

She set up Nics Garage (Nic stands for Non Intimidating Car Service – he dad’s name was Nick ) as a place built on trust and a fair auto care facility. EB used to take her parents’ care there for servicing and she raves about the service.

In San Francisco, a group of women run Luscious – a specialty car shop focused on servicing hybrids.

And they’re special enough to catch world-wide media attention, mostly recently in the International Herald Tribune

Luscious is a secular temple built to serve hybrids, the cars powered by both an electric motor (most often engaged when starting or stopping, thus most efficient in city traffic) and a gasoline engine (most efficient on the open road). But its owner’s forte is converting them to plug-in hybrids, which are functionally all-electric cars that can go 12 to 15 miles on one charge.

Given the state of the car industry these days, we’d probably all be better off if more women were driving the industry.

Eco Role Models Where You Least Expect Them…

From Physorg.com, a story about the Cedar Creek Corrections Center just south of us in Washington State. Inmates there are part of growing trend in the US …

Inmates of the minimum-security facility, 25 miles from Olympia, the state capital, raise bees, grow organic tomatoes and lettuce, compost 100 percent of food waste and even recycle shoe scraps that are made into playground turf.