KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) —

KINGSTON, Jamaica (AP) — Jamaica is reporting a big decline in sightings of lionfish, the voracious invasive species that has been wreaking havoc on regional reefs for years and wolfing down native juvenile fish and crustaceans.

Some four years after a national campaign got started to slash numbers of the candy-striped predator with a mane of venomous spines, Jamaica's National Environment and Planning Agency is reporting a 66 percent drop in sightings of lionfish in coastal waters with depths of 75 feet (23 meters).

Dayne Buddo, a Jamaican marine ecologist who focuses on marine invaders at the Caribbean island's University of the West Indies, attributes much of the local decrease in sightings to a growing appetite for their fillets. He said Sunday that Jamaican fishermen are now selling lionfish briskly at markets. In contrast, a few years ago island fishermen "didn't want to mess" with the exotic fish with spines that can deliver a very painful sting.

"After learning how to handle them, the fishermen have definitely been going after them harder, especially spear fishermen. I believe persons here have caught on to the whole idea of consuming them," Buddo said in a phone interview.

Across the region, governments, conservation groups and dive shops have been sponsoring fishing tournaments and other efforts to go after slow-swimming lionfish to try and stave off an already severe crisis. The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration launched a campaign in 2010 urging the U.S. public to "eat sustainable, eat lionfish!"

But just because shallow waters hugging coastlines have seen declines, the fast-breeding species is hardly on the way out. Fat, football-sized lionfish are daily caught in fishing pots set in deeper waters that spear fishermen and recreational divers never see.

In Jamaica, targeted efforts to remove them are ongoing even as a national lionfish project financed by the Global Environment Facility and the U.N. Environment Program project recently ran its course after four-and-a-half years.

"I don't think we'll ever get rid of it, but I think for the most part we can control it, especially in marine protected areas where people are going after it very intensively and consistently," Buddo said.

It remains to be seen exactly how much impact fishing and marketing of lionfish meat can have. For now, it's the biggest hope around. Scientists are still researching what keeps lionfish in check in their native range. In the Caribbean and the Atlantic, they have no natural predators to keep their ballooning numbers in check.

News Release

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

The lionfish is an invasive species that threatens Florida’s native wildlife and habitat. With that in mind, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) on April 16 moved forward with steps to combat the spread of invasive lionfish.

Changes proposed by FWC staff at today’s meeting near Tallahassee will be brought back before the Commission at its June meeting in Fort Myers for final approval. Changes include:

• Prohibiting the importation of live lionfish;
• Prohibiting the development of aquaculture of lionfish;
• Allowing the harvest of lionfish when diving with a rebreather, a device that recycles air and allows divers to remain in the water for longer periods of time; and
• Increasing opportunities that will allow participants in approved tournaments and other organized events to spear lionfish or other invasive species in areas where spearfishing is not allowed. This will be done through a permitting system.

Staff has been working with the Florida Legislature on a bill in support of the initiatives to prohibit the importation of live lionfish and the aquaculture of lionfish.

“By targeting the importation of lionfish to our state, we can limit the number of new lionfish that find their way into Florida waters and, at the same time, encourage further harvest to reduce the existing invasive population,” said State Rep. Holly Raschein, sponsor of the House bill. “These fish pose a significant threat to Florida’s ecosystem, and I am proud to stand in support of the proposed ban. Anything we can do to limit new lionfish introductions and further facilitate the development of a commercial market for this invasive species is a step in the right direction.”

Changes like these will make it easier for divers to remove lionfish from Florida waters and will help prevent additional introductions of lionfish into marine habitats.

Lionfish control efforts, from outreach and education to regulatory changes, have been a priority for FWC staff. In 2013, they hosted the first ever Lionfish Summit, which brought together various stakeholders from the public as well as management and research fields to discuss the issues and brainstorm solutions. The changes proposed at today’s meeting came from ideas that were discussed at the Lionfish Summit.

To learn more about these changes, visit MyFWC.com/Commission and “Commission Meetings.” To learn more about lionfish, visit MyFWC.com/Fishing and click on “Saltwater,” “Recreational Regulations” and “Lionfish.”

The cause of dolphin strandings has long been a mystery but a new study shows that clues about survival rates after release may be found in the sea mammal's blood.

Published online ahead of print in Marine Mammal Science, the study analyzed blood work and body condition values from stranded common dolphins and compared them with survival rates after release. Responders in the field are now using the blood and health data to make better release decisions and predict survival outcomes.

"The establishment of these blood values provides a window into the overall health of the dolphin and, for responders onsite, collecting blood in the field is relatively easy to do," said Sarah Sharp, the paper's lead author and a third-year D.V.M. candidate at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. "Now we have a way to predict which stranded dolphins have a better chance of survival after release and this can help triage care."

The paper's authors -- including Dr. Joyce Knoll, an associate professor at the Cummings School and Sharp's mentor, and researchers from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution -- analyzed blood samples and body condition scores of 26 common dolphins that were stranded alive on the beaches of Cape Cod, Mass., between January 2010 and June 2012, and found significant hematological differences between survivors and non-survivors. Since 2010, IFAW has been operating a satellite tagging program to evaluate the post-release success of stranded dolphins, and the authors used this data to assess survival rates.

Dolphins that didn't survive the stranding or a three week post-release period had anemia and lower levels of red blood cells. Some potential causes of anemia in dolphins are chronic disease, poor nutrition, blood loss, pregnancy or liver disease. When compared to survivors, failed dolphins also had an increased concentration of acid in their blood, were dehydrated and had leaner body mass relative to their length. These health indicators and blood values, in addition to necropsy findings, suggest that the dolphins may have had pre-existing illnesses, stranding-induced conditions such as capture myopathy (a metabolic muscle disease resulting from the physical stress of being stranded on land), or both.

"Our team is already utilizing this new information in our stranding response protocols," said Katie Moore, IFAW's Animal Rescue Program Director. "This study is the culmination of more than a decade of hard work for our staff and volunteers. I have no doubt that it will help us to improve our responses and the care of individual animals."

Prior to starting her veterinary studies, Sharp was the stranding coordinator for IFAW's Marine Mammal Rescue and Research Program on Cape Cod. During her seven years in the field, she responded to approximately 50 mass stranding events, oversaw response to more than 1,200 individually stranded marine mammals, pioneered IFAW's cetacean satellite tagging program, and trained stranding responders both domestically and internationally. She has experienced the challenges of assessing stranded dolphins' overall health, especially with mass strandings when multiple animals need care.

Sharp participated in the 2012 Student Summer Research Program at Tufts University and her research was funded by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Materiel Command. The John J. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue Assistance Program provided support for stranding response efforts during the study period, and the Pegasus Foundation and Barbara Birdsey helped fund the IFAW Satellite Tag Program.

Dolphin strandings occur with consistency on Cape Cod, which has one of the highest cetacean stranding rates in the world. Over the 10-year period ending in 2011, common dolphins represented approximately one-third of the 1,300 cetaceans stranded in this area, making this research an invaluable tool in the rapid response and humane care of these mammals

A deep-ocean exploration company is seeking to recover a lucrative haul of gold aboard the shipwreck of the SS Central America, nearly 160 years after it sank off the coast of South Carolina in a hurricane.

The work that began this week follows a long court battle over treasure salvaged from the shipwreck in the late 1980s by a pioneering young engineer whose efforts were detailed in a 1998 bestselling book, "Ship of Gold in the Deep Blue Sea."

The 280-foot (85 meters) sidewheel steamship carried as much as 21 tons of gold ingots, freshly minted gold coins and raw gold from the California mines, as well as the personal wealth and belongings of its 477 passengers, most of whom were lost when the ship sank in September 1857.

The ship's gold that is thought to remain on the ocean floor was valued at $760,000 in 1857 but worth millions today, according to Odyssey Marine Exploration Inc, a Tampa, Florida-based company, which won the contract to revisit the shipwreck.

"There's no doubt in our minds that there's going to be an economic return," Mark Gordon, the company's president and chief operating officer, said on Monday.

Gold recovered from the ship by a team led by Ohio engineer Tommy Thompson, which discovered the Central America using sonar and robotic technology he developed, became the focus of an extended legal fight over rights to the treasure and return for investors. Thompson has been a fugitive since 2012 when he failed to appear in court.

Last year, a court in Ohio appointed a receiver who will distribute some of the profits from further exploration to the former investors. In March, the receiver awarded Odyssey the contract to revisit the shipwreck, which lies 160 miles (257.5 kilometers) offshore and about 7,200 feet (2.2 kilometers) below the surface.

"We know that the wreck was only partially excavated, only about 5 percent of the site," Gordon said.

The company's research vessel, Odyssey Explorer, sailed from Charleston, South Carolina, last week with 41 crew members for a project he estimated will cost between $5 million and $10 million.The Central America steamship ran between Panama and New York, carrying prospectors and their fortunes made in the California Gold Rush. On its last trip, it held tons of commercial gold valued at about $93,000 in 1857 and passenger gold valued at up to $1.2 million, court experts estimated.

Historians say the ship's sinking triggered a New York banking panic that was part of a larger U.S. financial crisis known as the Panic of 1857.

The worth of the gold found by the Odyssey team will depend on what form they find it in, Gordon said. For example, U.S. $20 Double Eagle gold coins fetch $5,000 apiece on average from collectors, he said.

The market price for pure gold bullion on Wednesday was around $1,300 per troy ounce.

Researchers will remain on site for up to five months, rotating crew around the clock and making occasional port calls on Charleston, Gordon said. The company expects to report in about 60 days what the wreck might yield.

Using undersea robots, satellites and high-speed Internet to send live video from the seafloor to audiences ashore, a team of NOAA-led marine archeologists discovered a ship’s chronometer where time has stood still for about 200 years at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico.

This was the latest discovery made as part of the Gulf of Mexico expedition by NOAA Ship Okeanos Explorer. From an Exploration Command Center in Silver Spring, Maryland, Frank Cantelas, a marine archaeologist with NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research, spotted a partly buried circular object on the live video.

When the ROV’s cameras zeroed in, scientists were amazed to see the ancient timepiece. An expedition a year ago had missed the ship’s chronometer. “Do you see a dial, and a hand inside the circle as well,” Delgado asked the team that day. As the camera zoomed in, a scientist in Galveston added, “You can see Roman numerals.” The chronometer’s hand appeared to be pointing to 6:30.

A large anchor and capstan were previously discovered on the same shipwreck where explorers discovered the chronometer.

In an Exploration Command Center at Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, Jack Irion, a regional historic preservation officer with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said the chronometer’s discovery was rare and significant. While other evidence from the wreck suggests the ship predates 1825, it was unusual for merchant ships to have such an expensive instrument. “For this to appear on a merchant ship in the Gulf of Mexico at this early date is extraordinary,” he said.

A British carpenter perfected the design for the chronometer in 1761, a clock that could keep accurate time on a rolling ship at sea, so that sailors could determine their position by measuring the angle of the sun relative to high noon in Greenwich, England. The devices were so expensive initially that few ships carried them. It wasn't until 1825 that British Royal Navy ships carried chronometers.

”This chronometer is an object worthy of scientific recovery, preservation treatment to reverse the corrosive effects of two centuries in the sea, detailed study and eventually, display in a museum,” said Delgado.

Some scientists conjectured that if sailors survived a crisis at sea, they would have taken the valuable chronometer with them, leading scientists to theorize there may have been no survivors.

NOAA explores the largely unknown ocean to obtain baseline information that is vital to informing decisions by ocean resource managers and policy makers. This includes investigating shipwrecks to determine if they may be significant national maritime heritage sites. Such sites require not only study, but protection in partnership with industry and other federal partners.