To solidify the courtroom validity of wildlife forensic techniques, a scientific working group formed two years ago to standardize methodologies and establish best practices for handling many species and evidence types the discipline encounters. Last week the group convened to put final touches on the documents, which should address criticisms in a 2009 report by the National [...]
NOAA researchers recently published An Integrated Biogeographic Assessment of Reef Fish Populations and Fisheries in Dry Tortugas: Effects of No-take Reserves, an analysis of both biological and socioeconomic changes resulting from the remote Florida marine reserve during its first five years. The report indicates that there seemed to be an early increase in certain fish species within [...]
In October, NOAA scientists and partners collected seafloor photos and videos from over 355 locations around the St. Thomas East End Reserve, and in the Virgin Islands National Park and Virgin Islands Coral Reef National Monument. These new data will support management practices such as permitting, restoration, fisheries, climate change and scientific research; the depth [...]
Bluffton resident Jimmy McIntire was fishing from his boat Tuesday afternoon when he noticed something unusual floating near Myrtle Island in the May River. Piloting closer to investigate, he discovered a dead dolphin — with a conspicuous bite taken out of it. “It was definitely from a shark,” he said. “Must have been quite a [...]
In 1996, President Bill Clinton commissioned the National Science and Technology Council to create an award celebrating emerging researchers in the fields of science and technology at the outset of their careers. The result was the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers. The PECASE award is given annually to a group of researchers [...]
Researchers at the (National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science’s) Hollings Marine Laboratory and four partner organizations have measured for the first time concentrations of 13 perfluoroalkyl compounds (PFCs) in five different endangered species of sea turtles. While PFC toxicology studies have not yet been conducted on turtles, the levels of the compounds seen in all five [...]
The rescue of a baby dolphin really was attempted on Folly Beach recently, it turns out. Accounts of Brien Limehouse’s effort to save the stranded dolphin a few weeks ago circulated online after a photo of a baby dolphin on a man’s arm was posted on the Folly Beach page on Facebook last week and [...]
Wildlife forensics experts from NOAA, the Society for Wildlife Forensic Sciences, and other organizations convened last week at NOAA’s Marine Forensics Laboratory in Charleston, South Carolina, for the inaugural meeting of the Scientific Working Group for Wildlife Forensics (SWG-WILD). The experts established the SWG (pronounced “swig”) in response to a 2009 report from the National [...]