Step 1: Guess the body part that’s photographed below.

Step 2: Find out what it really is.

Odontocetophiles of the world, rejoice! The Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals has released a new poster, this one featuring 72 odontocetes – whales with teeth. These toothy whales all share something in common too. They’re in trouble.

No, they didn’t do anything wrong. It’s we humans who are at fault, actually. According to the group’s newest report, toothed whales are still being killed by fishing nets in large numbers. They’re having to look for alternative sources of food as well, because human beings have hauled so many of their prey species of fish out of the oceans.

Pollution is also to blame for some of the decline of the toothed whales, and is behind the saddest story on the poster: The whale that no longer exists. The first whale shown on the poster, the Yangtse river dolphin, Lipotes vexillifer, has not been found at all on the last several expeditions to count its numbers. It is probable that this species of whale has gone extinct.

That’s sad, but there are still many species of toothed whale left to celebrate, ranging all the way from the adorable little Dall’s porpoises, through the weird Stejneger‘s beaked whale, up to the macrocephalusest, the sperm whale. Enjoy the poster, download it, and share with the people you know who need to be reminded that there are remarkable animals underneath the waves that are worth saving.

Just a few hours ago down in Florida, Oceanic Defense joined with other organizations to hold a shark conservation party, an event they’re hoping to hold every year. Proceeds from the party go to efforts to discourage the consumption of shark fin soup.

Oceanic Defense keeps its shark conservation efforts going throughout the year, of course. Part of the group’s shark activism is its Shark-Free Marina Initiative. At first consideration, the initiative seems to make no sense. Why would a conservation organization seek to rid marinas of sharks?

Look into the initiative, however, and it begins to make more sense. The Shark-Free Marina project has to do with sport fishing. A certain sort of person loves to find some sense of worth by hauling in truly big fish – never minding that it’s those fish that are providing new generations for their species. These aren’t Old Man and the Sea fishermen who are just trying to make ends meet, either. They’re the marine equivalent of hunters who seek out great big silverback gorillas to kill, just for the sake of a trophy in the den.

So, Oceanic Defense is seeking to get marinas to agree that they won’t allow boats carrying sharks to dock. Make it difficult for shark fishing boats to dock, and there will be less shark fishing going on.

At least, there will be less shark killing going on. There are catch-and-release shark fishing programs out there. So, instead of hunting and killing endangered animals, people can now hunt and exhaust endangered animals. It’s not perfect, but it is an improvement.

This hot little number was photographed swimming around Similan Island, about 40 miles off the coast of Thailand, by someone working for Bottom Camera. Can you guess what it is?

It’s a nudibranch, a kind of animal also known as a sea slug, a shell-free mollusc. But what kind of nudibranch is it?

In order to find out, you could go to one of the following sources:

- Nudibranchs of the Indo-Pacific
- Nudi Pixel identification system
- Sea Slug Forum

Do not go to the Sea Slugs Anime Blog, unless you like drawings of creatures with really big eyes.

Anyone care to spend the last Saturday night of 2009 trying to figure out just what species of sea slug the photograph above shows?

Last night’s review of environmental news from Tristan Da Cunha is augmented by a separate report from Inaccessible Island, a member of the Tristan island group. Peter Ryan and Rob Ronconi were taken to Inaccessible Island in October, and began their visit with a survey of the impact of seaborne plastic litter on the local ecology.

They report:

“Our first task was to check the litter on the beaches, repeating surveys dating back to 1984. Not surprisingly the amount of litter washing up has increased, with some types of litter (such as plastic bottles and shoes) increasing faster than others. As before, most comes from South America, followed by oriental countries (presumably from their large fishing fleets operating in the South Atlantic). We also checked the amount of plastic eaten by seabirds by examining the pellets regurgitated by Skuas (Seahens). Compared to previous years, there was a marked increase in plastic. “

People have become used to hearing about the great garbage gyre in the Pacific Ocean. Perhaps this new report can give some needed focus to the South Atlantic’s own growing plastic problem.

People tend to think of invasive species as living things that leap from continent to continent, somehow reaching over the vast expanses of ocean. The island of Tristan Da Cunha, however, is dealing with another sort of invasive species problem.

Tristan Da Cunha is part of one of the most isolated island groups in the world, sitting well below the Tropic of Capricorn in the South Atlantic Ocean. Fewer than 300 people, British citizens, live on the island, and there’s only one regularly scheduled boat that arrives at the island just one time per year.

A recently published study of the consequences an unintended arrival at Tristan Da Cunha reveals the way the offshore oil drilling operations can create negative environmental impacts far beyond the occasional oil spill. The Tristan Times reports that 62 non-native species were introduced to the waters around Tristan Da Cunha by just one incident.

In 2007 decommissioned oil rig being towed from Brazil to Singapore encountered rough seas and was abandoned by the company that was moving it. The rig ran aground on Tristan Da Cunha, and brought with it almost an entire reef community of living things. An arrival like that doesn’t just carry macro-organisms that scientists can easily find and count, but potentially pathogenic micro-organisms too. Another crashed oil rig could bring with it a pathogen that decimates the Tristan rock lobster, a crustacean unique to the waters around Tristan Da Cunha.

Such an event would ruin the human settlement of Tristan Da Cunha as well. It’s the harvest of the rock lobster that enables the community of Tristanians to remain self-sufficient.

Oceana estimates that cruise ships dump something like 150,000 gallons of sewage into the oceans every day. The ships spew huge amounts of pollution into the air as well, resulting from the mechanics of powering what are in effect floating cities.

So, what is the Mother Nature Network doing about it? They’re sponsoring a contest to give someone a free ride on one of the newest of these monstrosities, the Ocean Oasis. The Ocean Oasis is the largest cruise ship in the world at more than 220,000 tons, carrying thousands of human beings, plus an army of over 2,000 employees.

The Ocean Oasis provides its paying customers plenty of oasis – including refuge from the ocean itself. The ship contains a swimming pool with a surf simulating wave machine, so that people can pretend to swim in the ocean, in a boat that’s spewing pollution into the real ocean. For the true Mother Nature, this new ship provides no oasis at all, but makes the illness of the Earth’s oceans even more serious.

So much for the environmental sensibilities of the Mother Nature Network. It seems that for the operators of MNN, living green is just a pose.

Way back in the 2nd of March this year, the U.S. House of Representatives passed H.R. 81, the Shark Conservation Act. This legislation would amend previously existing laws (the High Seas Driftnet Fishing Moratorium Protection Act and the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act), to outlaw the practice of shark finning.

Shark finning consists of catching a shark or related species, cutting off the fin and then throwing the rest of the shark back into the ocean, to float down to the bottom and die. It’s an obscenely wasteful process, with a huge amount of usable material – shark skin, meat and cartilage, just tossed overboard. Fishing operations that engage in this practice are seeking easy high profit, selling shark fins to be made into shark fin soup, a luxury food item for which some people will pay a very high price.

Shark finning is much more than just an aesthetic problem. It’s part of a worldwide marine ecological crisis. Sharks are among the top predators in the oceans, and when top predators are removed, food webs come unraveled. Shark populations all over the globe are in severe decline, thanks to practices like shark finning.

So, was the problem addressed when the House passed the Shark Conservation Act? Sadly, no. In order for Congress to pass a law, a bill has to be passed by both houses of Congress, and then approved by the President.

The Shark Conservation Act has been sitting, waiting, in the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation for most of 2009. Finally, in mid November, the committee considered the legislation and reported on it favorably. However, the bill has yet to make it to the Senate floor, and could still be voted down.

Only one in four members of the U.S. Senate have signed on as cosponsors to the Shark Conservation Act. Here’s what you can do: See if the names of your two U.S. Senators are included on this list. If they aren’t, give them a call through the congressional switchboard at (202) 224-3121, and ask them to sign on to S. 850, the Senate version of the Shark Conservation Act.

Yesterday’s announcement by the EPA that the Obama Adminsitration is now willing to list greenhouse gases (carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride) as threats to public health that must be regulated under the Clean Air Act is a major step forward for the United States on the issue of climate change. The Obama Administration can now begin to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions without having to wait for the climate bills in Congress that have been so thoroughly corrupted by fossil fuel industry lobbyists.

However, optimism at this strong move needs to be countered with some skepticism. The Obama Administration can now act, but will it?

The EPA’s announcement came at about the same time that Ken Salazar, Obama’s Secretary of the Interior, announced that offshore exploratory drilling for oil will begin in the Chukchi Sea, an area with a rich marine ecosystem that’s vital for the survival of huge numbers of species that migrate to the area to feed.

Irregular Times criticized the efforts under George W. Bush to open the Chukchi Sea to offshore drilling. We would be hypocrites if we turned a blind eye to the continuation of the same program under Barack Obama.

Early last year, some members of the Senate tried to require the Executive Branch to conduct studies of the likely impact of offshore drilling for oil in the Arctic. Barack Obama would not cosponsor that bill. Now, as President, he has the power to embrace the same idea – that scientific studies of likely environmental impacts should precede drilling. Again, Barack Obama won’t take that sensible stand.

There’s reason to be skeptical about the EPA’s willingness to regulate greenhouse gas emissions as well. In this morning’s New York Times, it’s revealed that the EPA has failed to enforce clean drinking water regulations, leading tens of millions of Americans to drink water with unsafe levels of substances like arsenic, and even radioactive materials.

We need a strong EPA, and we need strong climate action. The time for expanded offshore drilling and limp-wristed EPA regulation is past. President Obama needs to show leadership on environmental issues, and that takes more than promises.

Every year for a few years now, I’ve been writing about the increasing problem with jellyfish. Jellyfish swarms are bursting out in ever-larger numbers, more frequently. On tourist beaches, they’re stinging more people. In fisheries, they’re busting nets and rendering fish inedible to humans.

Swarms of huge jellyfish are back this year again along the shores of Japan in such numbers that they can cause fishing boats to capsize when they’re caught in nets.

These jellyfish used to appear only once every two human generations, but now, they’re around almost every other year. According to studies by scientists Jennifer Purcell and Shin-ichi Uye, the increasing populations of jellyfish are caused by combination of local increases in pollution and globally, the increase of ocean temperatures that’s coming along with global climate change.

The next time you hear someone deny that climate change is real, or that it’s affecting people in a negative way, tell them about the fisheries in japan, where the giant jellyfish are causing many fishermen to not even bother putting out to sea anymore.

It took a blazing inferno to get oil drilling company PTTEP to finally commit the resources necessary to stop it, but after 74 days, the massive oil spill in the Timor Sea has finally been stopped. PTTEP dumped huge amounts of specially prepared mud onto the ocean floor to prevent more petroleum from leaking out into ocean waters.

Of course, a good deal of oil that’s already leaked still has to come up to the surface, and the pollution resulting from the spill is spread out over tens of thousands of square miles. The environmental impact of the spill is likely to persist for decades – long enough for another spill to take place, unless a moratorium on offshore drilling is put into effect.

But hey, let’s look on the bright side. The Montara offshore drilling platform did not collapse into the sea. It just turned into a melted, oily, twisted, smoking, disgusting, useless heap.

Remember, this disaster took place with a platform that was using the most up to date drilling technology – just like the equipment that will be placed up and down America’s coastline if the drill baby drill people get their way.

Yesterday, along with news of two new oil spills along the coasts of the USA, I noted that the Montara oil drilling platform, which has now been spilling between 400 and 2,000 barrels of oil per day for two months and twelve days straight, caught fire over the weekend, forcing an abandonment of what became the 5th failed attempt to plug the leak.

Today, video footage of the fire on the platform, which includes the well head itself, is available. It shows gigantic flames that almost completely engulf the structure. It is predicted that the platform is likely to collapse into the sea.

The fire is described as completely out of control. Jose Martins, spokesperson for PTTEP Australasia, the company that owns and operates the offshore drilling rig, admits that “Measures which we have been able to take so far can only mitigate the fire. They cannot stop the fire.” There is supposed to be a 6th attempt to stop the oil leak today, which will involve dumping huge amounts of mud onto the ocean floor where the leak is thought to be taking place. However, PTTEP had been unable to successfully complete such operations even before the fire began.

The area where the oil spill and inferno are taking place is home to the world’s largest population of humpback whales, as well as an unusually diverse ecosystem of other marine species. The following are among the more recent video reports from Australia and Al Jazeera.

Here in the United States, CNN isn’t showing the footage, and hasn’t even reported on the spill since August 24. They’re too busy keeping track of which celebrities have the flu.

With this disaster happening along Australian shores, why are America politicians still pushing the drill baby drill policy of expanding offshore drilling in our own waters?

It was two years ago that tens of thousands of gallons of oil were spilled in San Francisco Bay when an oil tanker crashed into the Bay Bridge. It will never be allowed to happen again, leaders said. Well, now it’s happened again. South of the Bay Bridge, an oil tanker has spilled its contents in an slick that, just hours after it began, stretched for two miles.

At almost exactly the same time, another oil spill took place in Louisiana near the mouth of the Mississippi River. 12,000 gallons of oil spewed out of a hole punctured in a cargo ship’s hull.

Proponents of expanded offshore drilling have promised that the chances of an oil spill are very low. Recent events have shown that not to be the case, however. In the last three weeks alone, oil spills have hit South Carolina, Texas, Louisiana and California. Half of those spills were from oil tankers. The more tankers and drilling platforms we put out onto the waters, the higher the chances of more oil spills.

As another reminder of the high risks of offshore drilling for oil, the following news of the massive, two and a half month long oil spill in the Timor Sea comes from oil company PTTEP: “They had not actually stopped or killed the leak… and then unfortunately the fire broke out.”.

PTTEP, after a month including three complete failures and several additional delays, was about to complete the first step in finally stopping the leak, when a fire started on the oil drilling platform, and the repair crews had to be evacuated. Now, efforts to stop the oil spill have been put on hold, as PTTEP focuses on stopping the fire.

What’s it going to take for the world to pay attention to the massive oil spill that has been going on for two and a half months between Australia and Indonesia in the Timor Sea? A group of pretty women wearing bikinis, smearing their bodies with crude oil? Okay, if that’s what it takes, the Wilderness Society of Australia is willing to do it. The group organized exactly that sort of protest in Perth yesterday, in order to get the attention the issue deserves.

There’s a lot more going on with the oil spill than just swimsuits, of course. A new biological survey has found many dying animals in the area, contradicting earlier oil company claims that there were no problems for wildlife in the large area of water covered by spill.

It has also now been revealed that yet another fossil fuel leak, this one of natural gas, has been taking place on another offshore drilling rig just 50 nautical miles away from the Montara rig which has been the source of the major oil spill. The gas leak has been going on for about seven weeks, without the public being informed.

A spokesman from the company that runs the second rig says that people ought not to worry, because most spills of this sort are not reported to the public at all. That’s supposed to be reassuring?