Tippets: Shifting Baseline Syndrome, New Method for Counting Salmon

January 9, 2019 By: Erin Block

  • Twenty years ago, fisheries expert Daniel Pauly introduced “shifting baselines syndrome,” explaining generational blindness to environmental destruction. In recent years, this idea has been further developed by George Monbiot, a respected environmental writer. In this interview, Oceana spoke with Monbiot and Pauly “to learn how much we’ve lost, and what it will take to make abundance the ocean’s new baseline.”
  • A new study published in the journal Molecular Ecology Resources outlines a new method for counting Pacific salmon by analyzing DNA from the slime fish leave behind in spawning streams. “This is a major first step for more informed salmon management decisions because it opens up the possibility to affordably monitor many more streams than the few that are currently monitored,” says Taal Levi, an ecologist at Oregon State University and lead author on the study. Via Phys.org.