Aquarium’s report card focuses on creatures over global warming ...Middle East

In most respects, the Marine Species Report Card, issued recently by Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific, is nothing like the “Undersea World of Jacques Cousteau.”

Most obviously, the report card is an online and print publication packed with college-level science pertaining to the long-term health of exactly 30 different fish, plants, birds, mammals and crustaceans connected to the stretch of the Pacific Ocean off the 840-mile coast of California. It’s not a TV show starring a French national icon leading a team of scientists and filmmakers on well-funded, well-fed explorations of the world’s oceans and other bodies of water.

The report card is direct and clear, something that wasn’t always true of Cousteau.

The report card is based on legitimate science from more than 20 experts who specialize in the species, or clusters of species, that serve as indicators of overall ocean health. It does not dwell on species’ mating habits, a subject that was the focus of at least 12 of the 36 “Cousteau” documentaries that aired on U.S. and British television from 1966 through 1976. And at no point does any scientist in the report card claim to “establish a relationship of trust and friendship” with any species, something Cousteau’s crew claimed in the 1969 episode about fur seals.

But those differences gloss over the fact that the Marine Species Report Card and the iconic TV show share something vital:

Both woo (or wooed) the public with an unabashedly pro-environment idea that protecting the ocean is a good, maybe even essential, thing to do.

Though polling data suggests most Americans still love the ocean, and most still want to protect it, the overall image of environmentalism has flagged in recent years. And the ideals pushed by both the report card and the “Cousteau” TV series were an easier sell in the early 1970s than they are today, six months after the slogan “drill, baby, drill” helped win a national election.

All of that went into decisions to create a report card that sticks to facts, doesn’t overplay or underplay environmental damage, and turns some creatures’ status into stories worth telling.

“Scientific research just for research’s sake isn’t always impactful if it doesn’t inform decision-makers, meaning the public,” said Jennie Dean, vice president of education and conservation for the Aquarium of the Pacific and one of the key authors of the report card.

“Many (marine science research) grants now include a requirement that you have an education component, that you try to reach the public with a message based on your research,” Dean added.

“And the message in this report, our message in a lot of what we do at the aquarium, is about wonder and respect and stewardship.

“I don’t think that’s particularly controversial.”

The report card portrays a blurry picture of ocean health off the coast of California.

Overall, a dozen of the 30 species tracked are in some stage of decline, while seven others are in some stage of upswing and the remainder are holding steady. And while the report card doesn’t offer much in the way of overall projections, the news is neither all grim or all great, something Dean said is both “true, scientifically, and important to note” in terms of public messaging.

On the positive side, science in the report card suggests that conservation and legal protections are working.

For example, in the nearly 30 years since it became illegal to catch and keep a giant sea bass, the once popular sport fish that, at maturity, can reach few hundred pounds, seems to be recovering, possibly at a rate of about 3.5% a year.

But the report card also suggests that the recovery seems to have slowed in recent years, and that even with protections in place the species remains under threat:

“Unfortunately, it’s still not uncommon to encounter giant sea bass with large fishing hooks in their mouths or even spears embedded in them. Plastic pollution also poses a threat, with giant sea bass reported with plastic rings stuck around their necks (‘choked to death’ being the ultimate outcome). In addition, an average of 126 giant sea bass are still caught in gill nets as bycatch and sold in California each year. Lastly, climate change is a big unknown. Giant sea bass have been so rare over the last thirty years that we lack information on the possible impacts of ocean warming, but should be alert to possible further stress.”

The report card offers a similar tale about southern sea otters.

The mammals, which can grow to about 40 pounds, once thrived up and down the California coast. But by the early 1970s – about the time they were the subject of a “Cousteau” episode – California sea otters were nearly extinct, prompting lawmakers to establish rules that prevented hunting of sea otters.

During their half-century living under legal protection, sea otters have recovered and are now fairly common between Half Moon Bay and Santa Barbara.

But the report card also offers a sobering sea otter update.

The total population seems to have stalled out at about 3,000, according to otter counts based, in part, on aerial photography. And their range hasn’t expanded much, or at all, in this century.

As a result, researchers are considering physically moving a few breeding pairs to waters off the coast of Northern California, a move that, if successful, would mimic the reintroduction of some wolf species to Yellowstone National Park.

“Active intervention may be needed because otters have not been able to extend their geographic range naturally for about 20 years, likely due to high shark bite mortality at the range peripheries,” the report card authors note. “In addition, much of their favored kelp habitat has been lost, and that hinders their ability to expand their range to its historical extent.”

Even some of the report card’s seemingly “good” news is, scientifically speaking, a mixed bag.

Purple sea urchins, for example, have been thriving in recent years. The arrow indicator offered as an icon in the report card is pointing up.

But the purple urchins are thriving because their primary predators – sea stars – have been stricken by a mysterious wasting disease for more than a decade. And the rise of urchins means the food they eat – sea kelp – is in decline, something that’s bad for a range of species that need huge, healthy kelp forests for their survival.

“It’s a cascading effect,” Dean said.

“And, like a lot of what you’ll find in the report, it’s a nuanced story.”

Though some individual species updates in the report card mention global warming, the report, overall, doesn’t dwell on the changing environment and shifting water temperatures. Scientists believe those factors are related and that, combined, they are threatening all ocean life, including off the coast of California, but those issues, regardless of how scientists view them, also raise the hackles of some consumers.

Kwasi Connor, an assistant professor at UC Irvine and an expert in invertebrates who contributed to the report card’s data about the California mussel, said the changing environment was a key question driving the entire report.

“Mussels, overall, are on a small decline,” Connor said. “But in the southern region, from Point Conception to San Diego, where we’ve seen the greatest shifts in ocean temperatures, entire mussel beds have disappeared. And we don’t know why.”

He added that mussels, which live in tidepools and are only partially submerged, are an “indicator species,” meaning their status reflects the health of the broader ecosystem. Mussels also serve as filters, so a disappearance of mussels from tidepools and estuaries can mean dirtier water overall.

But when asked if a decline in mussels is a bad omen for the future health of the ocean off the California coast, Connor said it’s too soon to know.

“Predicting the future of fish and their abundance is going to be a major undertaking, so we don’t have an answer in that regard,” Connor said.

“This is a massive project,” he added. “And it’s the first in a series of reports, in which we hope to look at the species in question and establish if their abundance is increasing, decreasing or holding the same.

“The goal of the report is to get more people interested in the conservation of these species. So we’ll see.”

Environment vs. environmentalism

The report card – like many other similar reports from marine institutes, aquariums, government agencies and others – is coming at a time when Americans seem divided on how they feel about the environment.

That said, it’s not true that most Americans think global warming is a myth.

A year ago, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Earth Day (April 22), the national polling company Gallup released data showing that roughly 6 in 10 Americans (59%), believe that global warming has already begun and that roughly the same number (61%) believe global warming is caused by humans.

What polling has found, over a much longer period, is that Americans no longer love the label “environmentalist.”

It’s unclear if Cousteau faced a similar public; there wasn’t much polling on specific environmental issues in the early 1970s.

As of 1989, according to Gallup, roughly 8 in 10 Americans (78%) described themselves as “environmentalists” and nearly 4 in 10 (37%) said they were “strong environmentalists.” But by 2021, the last year Gallup asked the “environmentalist” question, the term was in the tank. Barely 4 in 10 Americans (41%) welcomed that description and even fewer (22%) described themselves as “strong environmentalists.”

Dean, co-author of the report card, isn’t fazed.

Though the report card is written for adults with at least some appetite for wonky science, her primary audience – in the report and at the aquarium – skews younger.

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“I don’t think there’s a decline in interest or awareness of the environment, but the message might be harder to communicate,” Dean said.

“I do think young people care, a lot, about the environment,” she added.

She noted that the Aquarium of the Pacific’s marketing team has created trading cards on various species, including the 30 tracked in the report card.

“Kids can identify more Pokemon characters than real animals. And that’s sad,” Dean said.

“We’re going to change that.”

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