Hard News: Let Us Spray: The Aftermath
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I worked out last week why I never get to watch media 7. It is up against "Destroyed in Seconds", surely the greatest television program ever made.
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I'm semi-tempted to go over to the marine biology labs and break in, as I will no doubt find cackling PhD students force-feeding puffer fish to sea slugs, then mailing them to Auckland in a calculated campaign of eco-terrorism.
Or, you know. Something evil. I've never trusted those marine biologists. They have to have a special alarm in case someone gets locked in the freezer. That's dodgy.
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I've never trusted those marine biologists.
I've often wondered at the number of my rock 'n' roll friends who have become marine biologists ...
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I've often wondered at the number of my rock 'n' roll friends who have become marine biologists ...
I think that's probably because shorts, jandals, and dreads are acceptable work clothing. And I imagine a lot of pot gets smoked on those several-month-long research voyages.
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And I imagine a lot of pot gets smoked on those several-month-long research voyages
This might go some way towards explaining SpongeBob Squarepants, produced by marine biologist Stephen Hillenburg. Whenever one of my children comes out with some particularly sophisticated knowledge/surreal humour, and I ask them "Where did you hear about that?", the answer is invariably SpongeBob.
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Freud started out as a Marine Biologist and got distracted.
The burning issue of the day on the Adriatic was where were the male eels testicles ?? -
In addition, having pretty much scraped the bottom of the barrel wrt terrestrial sources of mind altering chemicals. Rumour has it that some of those sea slugs have some pretty funky chemistry going on.
I used to use Tetrodotoxin in research, poisoning with it is not a nice way to die. You can keep someone, or something, poisoned with it alive with CPR until their bodies clear the toxin, they can't breathe for themselves since all their muscles are paralysed. TTX does not cross the blood/brain barrier so the victim is aware all the time . . .
Look on the bright side folks, NZ has a long, long way to go to catch up with all the toxic beasties that ring the coasts of Australia. Stonefish anyone? It shouldn't be fatal to healthy adults but people have been known to blow their own heads off to stop the pain.
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Ping,
Jetstar Media Awards... they'd be cheap, BYO affairs full of tangerine coloured people in tight outfits and inappropriate shoes. And woah betide and one who turns up late!
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I will no doubt find cackling PhD students force-feeding puffer fish to sea slugs, then mailing them to Auckland in a calculated campaign of eco-terrorism.
I suggest phone Mr. Wishart. Unless, of course, he's already on to it.
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Rudman speculates it might be Waikato's dairy runoff causing algal blooms in the Hauraki Gulf:
...Environment Waikato soil scientist Dr Peter Singleton.
Last year, Dr Singleton published a damning report on the parlous state of rural water and soil in the Waikato region, and the effect of intensive farming on the related waterways.
He estimated that run-off caused by excess fertiliser use and animal defecation on farms, was resulting in the equivalent of 97 truckloads of nitrogen-rich urea fertiliser entering the sea at Port Waikato every week and the equivalent of 32 truckloads a week entering the Firth of Thames - the southern reaches of the Hauraki Gulf.
...Unless the situation improved, he warned, a 100sq km oxygen-starved, lifeless anoxic zone could one day stretch out into the Gulf.
...he didn't want "to draw the link between the Waihou River [which drains the Hauraki Plains] and what going on at the moment in the Gulf". But "it's definitely something that has to be thought about".
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I've never seen or heard heard of dogs eating sea slugs before and why did several dogs eat them on the same day?
Dogs lick things as well. This is the more likely scenario, however, if one has a Labrador, one knows how true the scenario outlined by Mr Lacey will be.
And for what it's worth, I hardly think that there is any great conspiracy hiding on the beach, under the shells.
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How did the sea slugs eat the puffer fish? That has to be the big question? According to encyclopedia.com:
"Sea slugs graze on small sessile animals such as coelenterates, sponges, and bryozoans. Certain sea slugs that feed on corals and sea anemones ingest the stinging cells of their prey without discharging them; these then pass from the slug's digestive tract to the ceratia, where they are used by the slug for its own defense".
So they can't eat fish... but if they had eaten the puffer fish they could have used its poison as a defence... against the dog!
Anyway, maybe the algal bloom is liked to: global warming; inshore trawling; dairy farming run-off (as Sacha & Peter Singleton point out); the dredging of sand from Pakiri, Mangawhai et al and the following collapse of sand dunes and vegetation into the sea; the dumping of this sand onto Auckland beaches; the dredging of silt and sand needed to build the new Ports of Auckland wharf near Mechanics Bay; the fact that we pump millions of litres of sewerage directly into the sea through the stormwater system when it rains and the current council just delayed the project to fix it by another ten years.
We need more marine reserves - and less puffer-fish eating sea slugs. -
I did of course mean linked to rather than "liked to"...
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Andre, puffer fish aren't the only source of tetrodotoxin.
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But yes, I agree about the marine reserves. Better catchment management too.
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Dear Auckland,
1 million people crap next to the Manakau and Waitemata. Probably close to that in cars cruise the streets dropping god knows what. Close to 500,000 houses with their acres of iron roof, acres of concrete drive and the cities asphalt roads concentrate water very quickly into storm drains and the the whole shebang sinks into the harbour(s). Lets count the acres of fertilised land adjacent to Auckland and the excess nutrients abound in your waters too. Not forgetting the dairy runoff being dumped via the Waikato and Piako rivers.
It is not surprising that algae blooms, puffer fish or slugs congregate around the area. Nature is poisonous as well. It is a tried and true survival trick. Welcome.
The place can't be clean, will never be clean and will never be the pristine hydro playground the settlers found. ....ever.
So, mitigate is all we can do. Unless sanity prevails and NZ finally understands that letting a city grow at the rate Auckland has for the last 50 years was suicidal. Far better to spread the population out around the country.
An isthmus is a stupid place to plonk 2 or 3 million people. Period.
Its not too late.
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