Following its premiere on Earth Day at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and on the Smithsonian Channel, award-winning ocean conservation film An Ocean Mystery: The Missing Catch will screen in Vancouver on April 28, 2017.
Join the Sea Around Us for this free screening at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries – in the AERL Lecture Theatre (Room 120), 2202 Main Mall. Screening will start at 11 a.m. RSVP REQUIRED.
Photo by Matana_and_Jes, Flickr
New research supports the creation of more marine reserves in the world’s oceans because, the authors say, fish can evolve to be more cautious and stay away from fishing nets.
The research suggests that by creating additional “no-take” areas, some fish will stay within marine reserves where they are protected from fishing. While other fish will move around the ocean, these less mobile fish will continue to live in the protected areas, pass this behaviour on to their offspring, and contribute to future generations, increasing the overall stock.
Photo by Kyle Gillespie
Public speaking is an intimidating feat for pretty much everyone.
I am an extrovert who actively strives to listen more than talk (usually unsuccessfully…) while in conversation with any number of people, and yet I have a strong physical aversion to speaking in front of an audience in a professional setting. In part, this is because describing your science in a way that is accessible not only to other researchers but to a generalist, non-scientific audience is surprisingly tough. For example, terms that I use every day like gear, landings, discards, and exclusive economic zone are considered jargon to people who do not work with or study fisheries.
To a scientist, using common words in place of jargon seems imprecise and sensationalist. Science communication is difficult in any forum but can be almost impossible when you are in front of an audience and the immobilizing effects of the “fight or flight” response begin to eclipse your confidence.
Here’s a quick anecdote from a recent such experience of my own:
It is no secret that the proportion of women in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) is much lower than that of men. According to the global non-profit organization Catalyst, women accounted for less than a third (28.4 per cent) of those employed in scientific research and development across the world in 2013.
In Canada specifically, the percentage of women working in the STEM fields has increased only by 2 per cent in the past three decades to 22 per cent in 2015 from 20 per cent in 1987.
Things are slowly improving, but there is still a long way to go. This is why at the Sea Around Us we thought it was important to introduce you, our readers, to the female scientists whose work is key to the success of our project.
Darcy Dunstan
Darcy Dunstan moved to Vancouver in September 2015 and a month later he was already working at the Sea Around Us.
Even though he is from a small town called Shawnigan Lake on Vancouver Island, this 20-something has always pushed to expand his horizons. First, he moved to the British Columbia capital to pursue a biology degree at the University of Victoria. Having grown up close to the ocean and having explored the underwater world since age 10, Darcy was convinced that he wanted to focus his career on marine biology.
Even before finishing his university degree, he was already combining his passion for traveling and his love for nature. In the summer of 2013, he spent a couple of months in Belize researching tropical ecology and culture. Later on, in February 2015, he flew to Thailand to help conduct coral reef and seagrass bed surveys at a marine conservation centre.
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