Papua dives continued with a little bit of Wyoming, Washington, and BC

Teira batfish - juveniles off the diving dock

I'm not feeling very optimistic about the future of our planet although this shouldn't be surprising to anyone that knows me. Jay and I watched the third and final episode of David Attenborough's Great Barrier Reef last night. The BBC filmed it when the Great Barrier Reef was still "healthy". I put "healthy" in quotes because our perception of what a healthy reef is now is typically incorrect due to our shifting baselines. If you don't know what this means, check out Wikipedia....they actually describe shifting baselines well. “Shifting baseline is a term used to describe the way significant changes to a system are measured against previous baselines, which themselves may represent significant changes from the original state of the system. There is a loss of perception of change that occurs when each generation redefines what is "natural". The term has become widely used to describe the shift over time in the expectation of what a healthy ecosystem baseline looks like.” 

How does this relate to the Great Barrier Reef and my current depressed feeling? Well, what we think of as a healthy reef now is nothing in comparison to what the reef probably looked like when David Attenborough went on a dive there 60 years ago. And what the reef looked like then was probably nothing compared to what it looked like 200 years ago. Since Attenborough first went diving there 60 years ago humans have added so many more stressors to reefs globally - especially by increasing the human population. Attenborough warns of the possibility of these stressors changing the reef for the worse in the third episode. So it is ironic that right when the BBC released these episodes, the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) was in the middle (and still is) of a massive bleaching event. In fact, 93 percent of this massive living structure is bleached. And the GBR isn't alone  - reefs are bleaching worldwide. What has caused this massive bleaching event? Well, El Nino plays a role for sure, but climate change takes hot events and makes them even hotter. Add other stressors like sedimentation, overfishing, pollution, etc.... and the coral passes a threshold and bleaches. Even more disturbing is that scientists thought reefs with less stressors (i.e. further away from humans) would be more resilient to climate change. Alas, even these remote and pristine reefs have bleached in Australia. So much for that idea.

What is bleaching? Well remember that tropical waters are nutrient-poor. So corals have a mutualistic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae that live in the coral's tissue (the algae create the brown color you see in most corals as in the photo to the left). These algae photosynthesize and transfer much of the energy they make to the coral, fulfilling almost 100% of the coral's energy needs. In exchange, the algae are provided with a rich nutrient environment inside the coral from the coral's waste. When corals are stressed, they expel the zooxanthellae and turn white. Sometimes corals can recover and gain zooxanthellae back....but if the bleaching event is particularly stressful and long the coral will die. Without a reef, the life that comes with coral reefs (fishes, crab, turtles, etc.) will also become stressed and we will have many local or global extinctions on our hands.

And what are we doing collectively as members of a global population to curb climate change? Well, effectively nothing. So am I one of those scientists that claim optimism when discussing the future of our planet? Nope. I'm not. I see little evidence of behavior that makes me think I should change my mind. And this current global bleaching event, the third to occur in the last several decades and the largest event recorded in human history, is yet another warning to humans that we will ignore. Although Jay and I don't want children, I mourn these losses for my friends and family with children. They will never be able to see some of these places that Jay and I have been privileged enough to see. I hope that our photos and memories, shifted though they are, provide this next generation with images of what they will never be able to see. The worst part is that this next generation can't change their future climate even if they wanted to fix our mistakes. We have locked them into this future with greed, short-sightedness, and petty politics. 

Now Jay and I, like all humans, contribute to climate change with our own behavior. We recognize that we fly a lot - which drastically increases our individual carbon footprints. But we try to counter this by living low-key lives where we reduce, reuse, and recycle. By eating mostly plants (Jay occasionally goes carnivorous) we eat very low on the food web. I'm obsessed with avoiding using our dryer. We hate single-use plastics. We never waste food. But just being American means we have higher footprints than folks in many other countries because of our addiction to fossil fuels for generating power. I guess I'm trying to say that we don't set the perfect example either, but we are not negligent and we try. We know where our faults lie and we attempt to counter them by our daily lifestyle choices. 

On that note....here are some photos from some dives we did in Papua. Here is a "healthy" reef. I wonder what it looked like 200 years ago? And what about now? Have these reefs joined the masses of corals bleaching right now?

Snorkeling with mantas

These sweet little dragon sea moths walk slowly along the sea floor - one following the other

The hidden gems of the reefs are always tiny. This is cute little pygmy pipefish?? Look closely and you will see the eye and snout on the far left.

Papuans love to sing and I loved listening!

Surface interval on a lovely little island - Pulau Arborek

Two lizardfish duke it out over dead fish dinner - just off Pulau Arborek

YES! Coolest bivalve ever!!??? Electric flame scallop!!!!

Bivalve lover with the biggest and the best. Giant clams also get their brown color from algae in their tissues and yes, they are bleaching in this global bleaching event too.

A wonderful little orangutan crab. Once our guides figured out that I flipped out whenever we saw one, they found tons of them for me!

Obligatory anemone and anemonefish shot.

We love the colorful tunicates on all the reefs. Humans are more closely related to these critters than we are to snails! 

Night dive off the house reef! Leaf scorpionfish pretending to be, well, a leaf.

Flatworm! Who said worms were ugly?

 

Dordanus pedunculatus - amazing hermit crab and anemones

Reef octopus foraging at night

Switching countries back to America....we went to Wyoming in February to celebrate Jay's father's 80th birthday. We are so lucky to be able to visit them at their house in Wilson, WY which happens to be right next to Jackson Hole Resort. Buz and Charlotte, at 80 yrs old, are still tearing it up on the slopes each day in the winter and it is always fun to ski with them.

View of Sleeping Indian and a full moon from Buz and Charlotte's house in Wyoming.

Back in WA we spent a soggy weekend on the Olympic Peninsula and explored Olympic National Park near the Staircase Entrance. I was amazed at the size of this big ol' cedar.

Skokomish River - Olympic National Park near the Staircase Entrance

The river was a tad-bit high

No winter is complete without a weekend at Whistler. This time we rented a sweet little cabin in Pemberton, BC and had a blast skiing and soaking in the hot tubs at the Scandinavian Spa. Pamper time.

My man at Whistler