From the Deep

Lots of news from the mid-Atlantic today: “Where the Whales Sing,” a documentary film that traces the migratory patterns of humpback whales through Bermuda over a three-year period won “Best Emerging Underwater Filmmaker” at this year’s BLUE Ocean Film Festival in Monterey, California. Shot and edited by Andrew Stevenson, the film originally premiered at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute in March and paints a unique portrait of marine life. Want to see for yourself? Check out this video of humpback whales breeching off Bermuda’s south shore also shot by the Stevenson himself. In other news, famed oceanographer Sylvia Earle is reportedly in Bermuda with TIME magazine environmental columnist Bryan Walsh to study the Sargasso Sea. Writes Walsh on TIME’s EcoCentric blog, “I'll be diving with Earle in the Sargasso Sea, the vast gyre of in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean that is home to the sargassum, the free-floating seaweed that is a floating nursery for aquatic species like eels. Officials and scientists in Bermuda are pushing to make the Sargasso Sea the first protected area on the open seas. Given that most of the ocean is beyond the control of any single nation, we'll need to forge new legal strategies if we're going to protect the ocean where it really needs the help.” Well then, keep up the good work! Finally, areas to the east and west of Bermuda have officially been closed to fishing due to an unusually large population of black grouper, which are gathering there to spawn. Reports the Royal Gazette, the Marine Resource Section of the Department of Environmental Protection has found hundreds of black grouper in the area in addition to Nassau grouper, which are a protected species. Considering the fish will likely be there until November, fishing has been banned in those areas until the 29th of the month. And that’s your latest news from the deep.