A research project associated with Sweden’s University of Gothenberg has found the impact from steadily rising ocean temperatures could prove fatal for some fish species. As well as the loss of biodiversity in the world’s oceans, the impact from warming seas on both marine mammals, and human populations that rely heavily on fish as a food source, would also be dramatic.
University of Tasmania senior research fellow Timothy Clark was a member of the Swedish team that conducted tests during 2012 and 2013 on European perch (Perca fluviatilis) from the ‘Biotest’ lake enclosure in the Baltic Sea. For over 30 years, these fish have been subjected to the lake’s ‘elevated’ water temperatures that are heated by the nearby Forsmark nuclear power plant.
The tests were also conducted on ‘reference’ fish populations from outside the enclosure, and results showed that while the fish are able to adapt their resting physiological functions to slowly rising temperatures, their maximum physiological functions are far less flexible.
“The fish can increase their lethal temperature by a certain amount, but they can’t keep up with the current rate of global water temperature increases,” Clark said. Continue reading Fish species failing to adapt to warming oceans
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 Veterinary surgeon and public health physician Professor Rick Speare has died from injuries obtained in a car accident. He was 68. Part-time veterinarian Jenny Wells, 46, who was found dead at a property at Jingili late last month, was farewelled at an impromptu memorial at Rapid Creek, Darwin, 3 June. Northern Territory police are yet to confirm the cause of the popular vet’s death, or those of her two children, whose bodies were found at the same property. Wells graduated from veterinary science at the University of Melbourne in 1992. Continue reading Wells remembered
Exporter Livestock Shipping Service (LSS) said 4179 sheep died in the Gulf of Aden in August last year aboard the Bader III vessel.
LSS is a Perth based Jordanian-owned company based in Perth and they are under investigation by Federal authorities for breaches of export regulations in Jordan and Gaza.
The company issued a statement through a PR firm which said the majority of sheep were loaded in accordance with Australian Standards and most of the sheep died during an extreme weather event on the 21st day of the voyage.
Industry and Government supported heat stress risk modeling computer software was used to assess this voyage and is used by the company to assess all voyages to the Middle East and northern Hemisphere destination,” the statement said.
The statement added the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (DAFF) increased the minimum space requirements for sheep by 10 per cent above Australian Standards for the Export of Livestock requirements for the next consignment of livestock on the vessel.
Pastoralists and Graziers Association of Western Australia (PGA) President, Rob Gillam, conceded the incident is “not really what the industry needed.” Continue reading Sheep deaths spark further export debate There has been a sharp rise in the number of lyssavirus vaccinations following the death of an eight-year-old boy who succumbed to the virus. |
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