aquatic

Join us this week as we chat with Aquatic Invasives Species Specialist Katie O'Reilly about all things aquatic invasives in Lake Michigan. We take a spooky look at what kinds of species are aquatic invaders and what we can do to combat invasive species in our waterways.

Illinois Indiana Sea Grant Aquatic Invasive Species
Choose Copi
The Sea Lamprey from Illinois Department of Natural Resources

Water is our most important resource. How do we quantify and measure it? With economics of course! This episode is a crash course into the wild world of water economics.

In this episode you will learn all about the economics of groundwater and get a snapshot of what is happening in California from Dr. Ellen Bruno. Dr. Bruno is an Assistant Professor at UC Berkeley where she focuses her time on understanding and developing market solutions to tackling this water economics issue.

You may have already heard about carbon footprints but we talk all about water footprints in this episode too! You will hear from Dr. Lara Wöhler from the Water Footprint Network all about how to calculate your own water footprint. Also get ready to be shocked at how much water it actually took to produce some of your favourite tasty treats and commonly used everyday things!

Can't wait? Check out their Water Footprint Calculator here! and you can Look Up the Water Footprint of common Items here.

We review the book "Super Submarines" by Tony Mitton.

Have you ever wanted to live a retirement lifestyle BEFORE actually retiring?  

Vickie Leuenberger isn't waiting to LivGreater, but doing it now while still young! 

4 years ago, she knew nothing about sailing.  She was an elementary school teacher and felt the call for a different space.  She is living her  biggest dream: becoming a full time sailor.   Vickie is now a digital nomad who lives full time on a sailboat in the Caribbean.  

Join me in learning from Vickie to think out of the box and live your best life now!  Make your dream become a reality.

Connect with Vickie:

Website: RBA Support Society

Offer for only $1 to get help from Vickie to become a digital nomad.

Instagram: @vickie_leuenberger

Thank you so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Instagram, and like us on Facebook!

THANK YOU so much for listening!

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, follow us on Instagram, and like us on Facebook!

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Melissa welcomes Stockton Rush, founder and CEO of OceanGate Expeditions, to talk about the fascinating cross-section of marine science, history, archeology and opening up the deep sea to travelers. 

More than 80 percent of the ocean is unexplored and Stockton is leading the charge to change that statistic. OceanGate is known for their spectacular expeditions to view the wreckage of the legendary Titanic and research the uncharted deep sea. 

Plus, as the holiday season gets into full swing, you won’t want to miss this week’s travel hack on how to handle flight cancellations. 

The future of our pharmaceuticals are from down under.... the surface of course!

Coral reefs are the new tropical rainforests when it comes to drug research. When you think about it, how else do you protect yourself when you are a sea sponge, you can't move, don't have any spines or spikes and are free game for any of the thousands of species living nearby? Well chemistry of course! Turns out some of this chemistry may help with the future of our pharmaceuticals!

In today's episode we chat with Dr. Marc Slattery from the University of Mississippi all about his work trying to uncover the future of pharmaceuticals from reefs around the world.

For more information on the future of drugs from the sea and Dr. Marc Slattery's research click here. To watch his Ted talk "Drugs from the Sea: What do we lose when Coral reefs die?" click here.

Interested in helping our coral reefs? Here are a couple organisations doing great work in Coral Reef Conservation, Restoration and Research!

The Coral Reef Alliance  As one of the largest global NGOs focused exclusively on protecting coral reefs, the Coral Reef Alliance (CORAL) has used cutting-edge science and community engagement for nearly 30 years to reduce direct threats to reefs and to promote scalable and effective solutions for their protection.

Hawai'i Institute of Marine Biology works on coral reefs, tropical marine ecosystems that protect coastlines, support tourism, and provide nutrition to many island nations. Our focus is on defining biological traits that drive the differences in performance among corals and reefs.

The Coral Restoration Foundation We are actively restoring coral reefs on a massive scale, educating others on the importance of our oceans, and using science to further coral research and coral reef monitoring techniques.

The Coral Reef Research Foundation is based in Palau and does original research to acquire the knowledge needed to understand and make intelligent decisions related to conservation, climate change and resource management.

The Mote Marine Laboratory Coral Reef Restoration Program in Florida, US develops and applies science-based strategies with the goal of restoring depleted coral reefs in our lifetime. Specifically, Mote researchers are working to optimize restoration using diverse coral genotypes (genetic varieties), prioritizing native genetic varieties that can resist SCTLD and other stressors such as increased water temperatures and ocean acidification.

We're not in a material crisis, we're in an atoms and molecules crisis. Welcome to the age of metals.

Polymetallic nodules sit on the sea floor and accumulate atoms from the Seawater. Every element on the periodic table is in solution in the Ocean. Halfway between Mexico and Hawaii there is a very high concentration of Nickel, Cobalt, Manganese, and Copper which is all of the metals that we need for electric cars. So why are we still strip mining huge areas around the world when we could just be picking up rocks from the bottom of the ocean?

"We go down from a ship on the surface. Then there’s a vehicle on the bottom. We haven’t come up with the word for it yet, it’s not really mining, it’s more like hoovering or vacuuming. We’re not destroying, we’re not fracking, we’re not grinding, we’re just picking rocks up." - Dr. Greg Stone

Listen to this episode for our full interview with Dr. Greg Stone, Chief Ocean Scientist from The Metals Company.

To learn more about the Metals Company click here. To learn more about Dr. Greg Stone Click Here and to listen to his podcast the Sea Has Many Voices click here.

Canada is the only country in the Pacific Ring of Fire that doesn't utilize geothermal energy production. Why aren't we taking advantage of this renewable resource right below our feet?

In Canada ~80% of our energy use is for heating. In Northern Canada where average temperatures are -20 C, you don't need a lot of hot water t make a big impact to offset your heating needs.

In today's episode you'll hear from Dr. Steve Grasby the President of Geothermal Canada. For more information about Geothermal Canada Click Here.

Today we're discussing wave energy! Oceans cover 71% of the surface of the globe and guess what! Waves are everywhere! It's estimated that just the wave energy potential along the continental US could be 33-65% of the total electricity demand in the US.

You'll hear from Michael Henricksen the CEO of WavePiston. WavePiston is changing the game when it comes to capturing and converting wave energy into electrical potential or desalinated seawater. Based in Denmark, they are creating a non-intrusive, simple, robust and low-cost solution to capturing the energy potential of the ocean.

Interested in learning more about Wave Energy in Canada? Click here!
To learn more about the WavePiston system Click Here.

Whereupon we scrape the barnacles off our sunken book of lore and dredge up new horrors for your seaworthy game of choice. Explore and terrify with titanic creatures, aquatic demons, and beholder sharks.

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Hit us up @goblinscorner on Twitter, and check out all links and socials on our website, www.goblinscorner.com

A Mermaid is a mythical aquatic creature with the upper body of a female human and the tail of a fish.  Legends of these creatures have been reported since the beginning of humanity. 

There is no evidence that mermaids live anywhere on earth. However, there are a lot of scientific reasons why they physically cannot exist. Seriously, fish and human’s last common ancestor was over 170 million years ago. If you’re going to say mermaids are mammals, they’d have to breathe air, which means going to the surface often. (So lots of chances for humans to spot them).  AND even then, a human/water mammal would not have had time to evolve. Whales returned to the ocean 50 million years ago, and humans evolved 300,000 years ago…. So there is just not enough time for evolution to take place.

But, there is a lot of interesting folklore surrounding these creatures. (A lot more interesting than the bigfoot ‘folklore’) 

Tails of merfolks go back to ancient times: from the 2500BC Mesopotamia to the first know tale of an Assyrian queen who turned into a mermaid in 1000BC to current culture.  So, to say mermaids have been in the human psyche forever, would not be in error. 

Listen now to learn why mermaids cannot happen in real life, but are interesting anyways. 

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What's for dinner? Are we having sustainably caught Arctic Char from right here in Canada? Or are we easting an endangered species illegally caught from halfway around the world?

Well unless you have a DNA testing kit there's no way to know. Seafood in Canada has been shown to be labelled incorrectly 47% of the time so you really have no idea what you are actually eating. How can we help support our honest fishermen and women and stop supporting criminal fishing organizations and save our oceans?

Well tuning into today's podcast is a great place to learn from the experts who are working hard to sort this issue out!

Everyone we spoke with directed us to talk to the team from Oceana Canada who discovered 47% of the seafood tested from across Canada was labelled incorrectly. We spoke with  Sayara Thurston who is a Seafood Fraud Campaigner about this complicated issue and how Oceana Canada is taking it head on!

What's for dinner? Are we having sustainably caught Arctic Char from right here in Canada? Or are we easting an endangered species illegally caught from halfway around the world?

Well unless you have a DNA testing kit there's no way to know. Seafood in Canada has been shown to be labelled incorrectly 47% of the time so you really have no idea what you are actually eating. How can we help support our honest fishermen and women and stop supporting criminal fishing organizations and save our oceans?

Well tuning into today's podcast is a great place to learn from the experts who are working hard to sort this issue out!

In today's episode you will hear from Christina Callegari the Sustainable Seafood Coordinator from Seachoice and the Ecology Action Centre. Christina works hard to raise awareness about seafood fraud and to advocate for seafood traceability to be adopted across Canada wide.

To give us an economics point of view on food fraud we spoke with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois from the Dalhousie  University Agri-Food and Analytics Lab. You may have seen him on the news whenever there is a major story about food or may have even tuned into his podcast The Food Professor Podcast. Dr. Charlebois shared many nuggets of wisdom about why food fraud is an issue everyone should be concerned about and how it impacts many sectors of the food world.

Everyone we spoke with directed us to talk to the team from Oceana Canada who discovered 47% of the seafood tested from across Canada was labelled incorrectly. We spoke with  Sayara Thurston who is a Seafood Fraud Campaigner about this complicated issue and how Oceana Canada is taking it head on!

And last but not least you'll hear from Sophika Kostyniuk the Director of Fisheries and Seafood of the Oceanwise Seafood Program. You'll learn all about how buying sustainable seafood can be as easy as looking for a Oceanwise logo when your at a restaurant or grocery store.

As the global population grows to 10 billion by 2050 we will need to find new ways to feed everyone. As our water resources and productive agricultural land get stretched thinner and thinner we will need to find new and innovative ways to produce food! In today's episode we are discussing two innovative approaches to producing food which are very water conscious and that could be providing our food sooner than you might think!

Today we're discussing Aquaponics! Did you know that you can produce fresh vegetables and plant based proteins anywhere in the world using less water than it takes to shower with aquaponics?

You'll hear from the team from Pontus Proteins, an aquaponics company out of Vancouver, BC. Connor, Alson and Steve are taking aquaponics to the next level by integrating robotic harvesting, artificial intelligence and vertical farming.

Interested in learning more about Water Lentils and why you need them in your life?  Click here for more information about PONTUS proteins!

As the global population grows to 10 billion by 2050 we will need to find new ways to feed everyone. As our water resources and productive agricultural land get stretched thinner and thinner we will need to find new and innovative ways to produce food! In today's episode we are discussing two innovative approaches to producing food which are very water conscious and that could be providing our food sooner than you might think!

Today we're discussing Aquaponics and Seaweed Cultivation! Did you know that you can produce fresh vegetables and plant based proteins anywhere in the world using less water than it takes to shower with aquaponics ?The world bank thinks that Seaweed could make up 10% of the food for the world by that point! Think about it you just need an ocean and sunlight and there you go!

You'll hear from the team from Pontus Proteins, an aquaponics company out of Vancouver, BC. Connor, Alson and Steve are taking aquaponics to the next level by integrating robotic harvesting, artificial intelligence and vertical farming. You'll also hear from Mike Williamson the CEO of  Cascadia Seaweed!  You'll hear all about the health benefits, ecosystems services and how seaweed can be integrated into the North American Diet!


Check out Cascadia Seaweeds website here for more information about Seaweed farming and their new innovative products! Do you live near Sydney, British Columbia? You should mark your calendars for Seaweed Days from May 17-23rd, where Cascadia Seaweed will be launching their new products!

Interested in learning more about Water Lentils and why you need them in your life?  Click here for more information about PONTUS proteins!

Is it just me or do we seem to be getting bigger more devastating wildfires every year? If it isn't fires across Canada, it's California, it's Australia, and it's even the Amazon rainforest. Is this more than normal and should we be worried?

Wildfires are a natural part of many forests systems and help maintain forest health, but when we put out fires too quickly we can end up creating bigger fires for ourselves in the future.

In this episode we will be discussing the effects that wildfires can have on our freshwater systems. We'll discuss the benefits, the negatives and how we should be reframing our conversation about wildfires on our landscapes. in this episode you will hear from Dr. Kevin Bladon from Oregon State University who studies how freshwater systems react after wildfires.

Are you interested in getting more involved in managing your local watershed? If you live in Alberta you can find out which one you are a part of at the Alberta Watershed Councils website! Our local watershed councils are a fantastic resource to learn more about our natural areas and how to get involved on a regional scale!  Whether it's the Athabasca Watershed Council , the Bow River Basin Watershed Council or the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance they are all fantastic organizations to get involved with.

To learn more about Dr. Kevin Bladon, his lab and the important research they are doing you can check out his lab website  right here the FEWS Lab.

Interested in the effects of fire on Fort McMurray's drinking water? Click Here!

Is it just me or do we seem to be getting bigger more devastating wildfires every year? If it isn't fires across Canada, it's California, it's Australia, and it's even the Amazon rainforest. Is this more than normal and should we be worried?

Wildfires are a natural part of many forests systems and help maintain forest health, but when we put out fires too quickly we can end up creating bigger fires for ourselves in the future.

In this episode we will be discussing the effects that wildfires can have on our freshwater systems. We'll discuss the benefits, the negatives and how we should be reframing our conversation about wildfires on our landscapes. in this episode you will hear from Dr. Kevin Bladon from Oregon State University who studies how freshwater systems react after wildfires.

Are you interested in getting more involved in managing your local watershed? If you live in Alberta you can find out which one you are a part of at the Alberta Watershed Councils website! Our local watershed councils are a fantastic resource to learn more about our natural areas and how to get involved on a regional scale!  Whether it's the Athabasca Watershed Council , the Bow River Basin Watershed Council or the North Saskatchewan Watershed Alliance they are all fantastic organizations to get involved with.

To learn more about Dr. Kevin Bladon, his lab and the important research they are doing you can check out his lab website  right here the FEWS Lab.

Interested in the effects of fire on Fort McMurray's drinking water? Click Here!

Did you know that the lands around Alberta's Rocky Mountains could become open pit coal mines? This has become quite the hot topic in the Province of Alberta as it was a decision that the government took without any consultation to the public or any stakeholder groups. This is precious land to not only Albertans but to many Canadians. It is also where Albertans and many people in Saskatchewan get their freshwater from and this is important because of the risk of pollution and contamination from new potential mines in our headwaters.

In this episode we learn about the potential, environmental, economic and social impacts that these mines could impose if they are approved. You will hear from Colton Vessey, an Environmental Geochemistry PhD student from the University of Alberta. Colton is an expert on how mines affect water quality and how future mines might impact everyone in Alberta.

Of course with any type of resource extraction we need to weigh the benefits and the drawbacks. Do you have an opinion on whether the coal mines should go forward or not?

The Alberta Governments has its initial consultation survey that closes next monday April 19th, 2021 and they want to hear from you! Click Here to Fill it Out!

Click Here to learn more about the Alberta Governments Coal consultation program going forward.

Want to learn More?

The Alberta Wilderness Association and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (North and South Alberta Chapters) have lots of great information about this issue!

Click here to read the opinion article Colton Vessey described about water licensing and the potential downstream effects from Benga Minings proposed Grassi Mountain Coal Mine at the headwaters of the Oldman River in Alberta, Canada.

If you want to reach out to Colton Vessey with any questions about coal mining and the effects on water you can email him at vessey@ualberta.ca

Click Here to learn more about the Aquatic Biosphere Project!

Did you know that the lands around Alberta's Rocky Mountains could become open pit coal mines? This has become quite the hot topic in the Province of Alberta as it was a decision that the government took without any consultation to the public or any stakeholder groups. This is precious land to not only Albertans but to many Canadians. It is also where Albertans and many people in Saskatchewan get their freshwater from and this is important because of the risk of pollution and contamination from new potential mines in our headwaters.

In this episode we learn about the potential, environmental, economic and social impacts that these mines could impose if they are approved. You will hear from Colton Vessey, an Environmental Geochemistry PhD student from the University of Alberta. Colton is an expert on how mines affect water quality and how future mines might impact everyone in Alberta.

Of course with any type of resource extraction we need to weigh the benefits and the drawbacks. Do you have an opinion on whether the coal mines should go forward or not?

The Alberta Governments has its initial consultation survey that closes next monday April 19th, 2021 and they want to hear from you! Click Here to Fill it Out!

Click Here to learn more about the Alberta Governments Coal consultation program going forward.

Want to learn More?

The Alberta Wilderness Association and Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society (North and South Alberta Chapters) have lots of great information about this issue!

Click here to read the opinion article Colton Vessey described about water licensing and the potential downstream effects from Benga Minings proposed Grassi Mountain Coal Mine at the headwaters of the Oldman River in Alberta, Canada.

If you want to reach out to Colton Vessey with any questions about coal mining and the effects on water you can email him at vessey@ualberta.ca

Click Here to learn more about the Aquatic Biosphere Project!

Invasive species are a huge problem around the world. Asian Carp are most well known for flying through the air, striking anyone out for a pleasure cruise on the river, but they have completely changed the ecology and ecosystems they have taken over. They have taken over the Mississippi river and they are headed for the Great Lakes and Canadian Waters!

What are we doing to stop them?

In this episode you will hear from the experts about why Asian Carp were brought to the United States, how they escaped, why they are flourishing and what we are doing to limit their spread.

You will hear from Andrew Reeves, Author of the book "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis", Kevin Irons, Assistant Chief of the Fisheries Division from Illinois Department of Natural Resources, who runs the fishing program to keep asian carp away from the Great Lakes, and from Chuck Shea, US ARMY Corps of Engineers who man the underwater electric barricades keeping fish from the Mississippi river basin out of the Great Lakes.

Want to learn More about Asian Carp?

• Check out AsianCarp.us and AsianCarp.ca for up to date information about Asian Carp in the US and Canada respectively.
• Check out Andrew Reeves book "Overrun: Dispatches from the Asian Carp Crisis".
• Check out I Fish Illinois for information about fishing in Illinois and their Carp Program. 
• Worried about Transporting invasive Species? Check Out Be A Hero, Transport Zero for information on how to make sure you don't accidentally move any invasive species around.
• Click Here for more information about the US Army Corps of Engineers Underwater Barriers.

Want to buy products made with Asian Carp? Check out some products below!

• Check out If You Can't Beat Em Eat Em to find Asian Carp tastings near you!
• Silverfin boneless Asian Carp fish cakes
• Hot Dogs from Two Rivers Fisheries
• Dog Treats from Wilder Harrier
• Dog Food From Root Lab

To learn more about the Aquatic Biosphere Project Click Here.