The accompanying image was recently forwarded by Team Vonada (Greg, of Fox Island, Washington and dad Larry, from Tigard, Oregon). On March 11, they found the beastie during a dive at the barges of Tolmie State Park, near Olympia, Washington. They were cruising back to shore, along the extensive sandy shallows when they encountered (and Greg photographed) this attractive ¾ inch/2 cm long nudibranch in about 10 ft./3 m of water. It was a creature new to them.

Back in the Spring of 2009, Wendy and Bruce Carey encountered, photographed and collected this nudibranch at their “home base” dive site of Maple Bay, on Vancouver Island, B.C. Suspecting this creature’s sighting was significant, they contacted nudibranch guru Sandra Millen of the University of British Columbia. After closely examining the specimen, she determined it was the Moss Landing aeolid Cereberilla mosslandica. Indeed, the Carey’s were correct as this represented a significant range extension for this species – previously known only from as far north as Bandon, southern Oregon.
According to David Behrens in Pacific Coast Nudibranchs, this species is a burrowing animal and normally lives just below surface sediments. Likely this accounts for a paucity of sightings for this animal. Consequently, a major tip of the hat goes to the Vonadas and the Careys for their observations.
Incidentally, Wendy with the able assistance of husband Bruce, is the author of Up Close and Personal – An Underwater View of Vancouver Island (Badger Castle Publishing, 2006). ■

The South Shore Neptunes, one of Massachusetts oldest dive clubs, recently organized an underwater clean-up on Thompson Island which is in Boston Harbor and is home to the Thompson Island Outward Bound Education Center. The clean-up was part of Coastsweep 2010. This program is part of the International Coastal Cleanup organized by The Ocean Conservancy in Washington, DC which just celebrated 25th anniversary.

During the cleanup participants all over the world collect marine debris. This information is then used to help reduce marine debris. This year there were 55 participants on the Neptunes cleanup including participants from a Boston Inner City Organization, Dive Kulture; Professor Anamarija Frankic, a professor from the University of Massachusetts Department of Environmental Earth and Oceanic Studies (UMASS EEOS); members of Mass Bay Divers, a dive club in Massachusetts; as well as Divers Market of Plymouth, MA; East Coast Divers of Brookline, MA; United Divers of Somerville, MA, and South Shore Divers of Weymouth, MA.

South Shore Neptunes President Steve Marshall noted that, "by bringing folks from UMASS EEOS and Dive Kulture together a great opportunity was created to show the kids the opportunities and benefits available to them by continuing their education. It also gave Professor Frankic a chance to see and meet the kids."

John Blackadar, a founder of the Neptunes as well as the Quincy Massachusetts Underwater Search and Recovery team ran the dive operation. Neptunes' President Marshall says the cleanup was a success. "This was truly a worthwhile effort," Marshall said. "The chance to clean up part of Boston Harbor, an area where our club members dive on a regular basis, is something that is part of our club's mission in 2010. Additionally, the opportunity to introduce the participants from Dive Kulture to the actual conditions of Boston Harbor will give them an opportunity to practically apply the diving skills they have learned. Introducing them to the participants from UMASS EEOS also provides an introduction to field in higher education." For more info visit www.southshoreneptunes.org.

There are many organizations attempting to protect the planet's oceans and marine life but few are as committed to this cause as the Pew Charitable Trust Foundation. An independent nonprofit, the Pew Foundation has created the Pew Environmental Group aimed at the protection of the oceans.

The Foundation is the sole beneficiary of seven individual charitable funds established between 1948 and 1979 by two sons and two daughters of Sun Oil Company founder Joseph N. Pew and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. From its first day in 1948, Pew's founders steeped the new institution with the entrepreneurial and optimistic spirit that characterized their lives and took aim at the issues that they felt were important such as the world's ocean life.

Pew representative Matt Rand says that the group will make a difference in any way that it can. "Our marine work is aimed at preserving the biological integrity of marine ecosystems and primarily focuses on efforts to curb overfishing, reduce by catch and prevent the destruction of marine habitat," Rand says. "There is a lot of work to do."

In the first thorough review of ocean policy in more than a generation, the Pew Oceans Commission released a host of recommendations in 2003 aimed at guiding the way in which the federal government manages America's marine environment. "We took a look at the current policies and realized that many were severely lacking in depth and scope on what to do with our natural ocean resources," Rand says. "Things such as climate change and protecting krill needed more attention so we put together some recommendations."

Pew recommendations included improving the management of the nation's commercial fisheries, establishing networks of marine reserves in coastal waters, increasing the involvement of the Army Corps of Engineers in environmental restoration, applying strong environmental standards to fish farms and regulating the discharge of waste by cruise ships as well as an international campaign to save the oceans' sharks. Recently the issue of shark conservation has made it to the front burner for Pew. "Domestically, we are working to pass a shark conservation act," Rand says. "We are working with international and regional fishery management organizations in an effort to develop rules on international trade and get sharks onto the protected species lists. Of course Japan and China are opposing any efforts we make but we will continue our work. Currently we are proposing 10 different species of sharks be protected from trade."

Rand says that Pew is working with United Nations on the international plan to protect sharks. "There is currently a plan," Rand says. "But very few countries have implemented it. We are working with individual countries however, to create plans to protect sharks. The first country we went to is Palau. The community leaders and the president responded by declaring their waters closed to shark fishing. They have declared their waters a sanctuary for sharks. This was a first in the world." Rand says that Pew is also working with Maldives who has also developed an import and export ban on sharks and declared their waters off limits to shark fishing. He hopes to expand on these countries. "The Great White shark is one of three sharks that are currently listed on endangered list. There is no legal trade of Great White products and it has significantly helped in saving that species," Rand says. "Now we need to see what else we can do to aid our oceans and the species that live there to survive."

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature says that over 305 of ocean's species are endangered. The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today's most challenging problems including saving the oceans and its residents. They welcome partners in this effort. For more info on Pew and it's efforts visit www.pewtrusts.org ■

By Jeffrey Gallant, Director, Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group (GEERG)

Recent headlines from New England resonated back to the summer of 2001, the so-called Summer of the Shark: A spate of incidents on East Coast beaches had induced a shark psychosis in the mainstream media even though 2001 was by no means a banner year for what reporters too eagerly label shark attacks. The unwarranted fear which ultimately led to a shark feeding ban in Florida was soon eclipsed by the events of 9/11.

Sharks are now back in the news. However, the last decade has seen public perception go through a major change. Sharks have gone from maligned killers that should be wiped out to key players in the ocean in need of our help. For some, sharks have gained, or even surpassed, levels of appreciation normally reserved for more endearing and less-threatening sea creatures such as dolphins and whales. For this reason, many people are more attentive to the whereabouts and well-being of sharks. Most used to gawk and even revel at the sight of a bloody shark carcass hanging by its tail on a dock: A good shark was a dead shark. Some of these same people and their children now frown at the same sight today. Shark killings are being reported. Some people even protest at long-established shark derbies. Tour operators and divers keenly report shark sightings out of fascination instead of fear.

Much science has also been accomplished in recent years on both sides of the border. More has been learned about the Greenland shark in the Gulf of St. Lawrence than was learned in the last century. Scientists are also making giant strides in the study of the white shark off the East coast of the United States. And yet, U.S. and Canadian researchers all agree there are less and less sharks in our waters.

Despite the dramatically decreased numbers, sharks may be moving back into areas that have seen a reduction in pollution and the reappearance of prey species. At the center of the recent commotion, the white shark has been observed in New England and the Canadian Maritimes for several decades. Nonetheless, its impressive size and bad reputation ensure that every sighting generates drama, beach closures, and wild ideas as to why the shark is there.

The return of seal rookeries near populated areas may be playing a part in the reappearance of white sharks in New England. The fact that more white sharks as well as other species are being reported may also be the result of more people looking for them. Many more potential sightings may simply have gone unnoticed in previous years. Also, many a porbeagle shark

(Lamna nasus) has been erroneously identified as a white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and the media are only too pleased to announce that Jaws is swimming off your favorite beach. This has happened only recently in my native Quebec. Eyewitnesses that had no real experience with sharks made wild claims on national television. When it comes to sharks, the media is often ripe with disinformation and this is detrimental to their survival. In fact, shark incidents are down and some shark diving hotspots on both sides of the continent are actually reporting fewer, and in some cases, no sightings.

Finning in the U.S. and Canada may be illegal, but the threat to many shark species is ever-present. Several 'local' species migrate far beyond our national boundaries into areas where there are no conservation rules. By-catch and targeted fisheries are also taking an unsustainable toll right here off our own shores. Hopefully, tagging studies will shed light on their migratory patterns and some of the environmental factors that influence the movements of coastal sharks. In turn, this will allow scientists to further understand and describe shark behavior as well as propose sustainable actions that will reduce the risk for both humans and sharks.

Good press or bad, as divers, we should take advantage of all the attention being directed towards sharks right now. This is a great opportunity to inform people on the plight of sharks worldwide and on the need to better understand and protect them rather than perpetuate their negative and undeserved stereotype. Otherwise, the singular form of the Summer of the Shark may soon relate to the sighting of a lone shark somewhere off the coast; a once-frightening ghost from the not-so-distant past. ■

About the author: Jeffrey Gallant is the Atlantic Region Director of GEERG, the Greenland Shark and Elasmobranch Education and Research Group. He is also Managing Director of the Shark Research Institute (SRI Canada) and Executive-at-Large of the Canadian Association for Underwater Science (CAUS).