Two days to go!

Hello everyone, 

Our third day of Marine Science opened with a rousing and nearly moving rendition of "March on Bahamaland," the national anthem of the Bahamas.

The Bahamian flag

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After singing we participated in a game show to see who could identify the most birds and fish that we learned about yesterday. Doing this is good practice for when we are in the Bahamas because we will want to be able to pick out attributes that will help us to tell animals apart. We were quizzed on 48 birds and fish, many of which we will see in the Bahamas. The highest score was a whopping 34 by Eidan Willis.

Check out this squirrelfish with a really big eye!

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After this activity we were introduced to the Queen Conch, which is a very prevalent species of gastropod in the Bahamas. We learned that they have a very complicated life cycle starting out as only nearly microscopic plankton. They then sprout arms and begin the process of respiration. They then shed their arms and settle to the bottom of the ocean where they start the process of growing into an adult Conch. The Conch reaches maturity when it has the capability of reproduction. When we travel to the Bahamas we will participate in a study that classes in the past have done. We will be counting the adult, child, living and dead queen conch on each of the beaches that we will visit.

Relating to the Conch, we saw videos about the various problems with Conch hunting, including that they are relatively endangered. Many countries have banned the fishing of Conch because they are critically endangered in some areas. We learned that many people have actually begun to farm conch because of the high demand. While this technology is still being explored, it is a promising improvement to the conch fishing industry because fewer of these animals will have to be taken from the wild for food. We also learned about an interesting feature of the Conch, which is that it has a tail like growth, called an operculum, that helps it leap across the sea floor to escape predators.

The eye stalks of a live Queen Conch we hope to see next week!

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Whaling is the hunting of whales and it has been a controversial topic throughout recent history. We discussed whaling and the different viewpoints of countries on whether whaling should be legal or illegal worldwide. We learned about the IWC, which is a coalition of countries around the world that recognize moratorium banning the hunting of whales. Another member of the IWC is Greenpeace which is an environmental protection advocate group who pushes for the passing of the agreement every year. They are concerned with the fact that many countries do not recognize the agreement and some outright violate it. Through this conference, we learned that there are a lot of countries who recognize the law, but do not completely follow it. Japan, for instance, recognizes the law, but they have whale meat on public display in their meat markets. Other countries see whaling as an economic opportunity and want it to become legal to hunt them for the sake of improving the economy and bringing in more revenue. Other countries, like the United States, recognize the agreement, but the IWC has granted native people the opportunity to hunt a certain amount of whale every year.

Greenpeace is a non-voting member of the IWC

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This afternoon we watched a video of the world record of the deepest freedive. The world record is an astounding 101m deep! We learned about the competitive sport of freediving as well. This tied into what we were leaning next which was practicing safe diving and snorkeling in the Bahamas.

Jesper Stechmann is a world-champion freediver!

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Diving is a great way to learn and see new things, but there are also many things we need to do to make sure we stay safe. This afternoon we learned about how long you can stay underwater at different depths and how go for shorter periods of time if you are doing more than one dive. When we dive we will not be going very deep but we learned about the dangers of diving deep and coming up to the surface too quickly. This can lead to ailments such as the bends and can be very harmful for your health. We discussed an article about lobstermen in Honduras who hunt lobster in deep waters without modern diving technology. They suffer from ailments, such as the bends, as well as Nitrogen Narcosis. This is very dangerous, but there have been clinics opened to help these individuals recover from their diving injuries. A method for making sure you are diving for a safe amount of time is to use a dive table. This lays out how much time you can spend underwater at different depths. Learning about this made us very excited to try both diving and snorkeling in the Bahamas!

Our great group of global representatives debating the whale moratorium!

See ya,

Abby and Andrew