Scientists are calling for mobile, rather than static, marine reserves to help protect those creatures that don’t stick to a single area. They made their call for these new designations at a recent AAAS meeting in Vancouver, Canada.

It’s tracker data that is causing them to rethink the way reserves are set up and giving rise to new ways of preserving our seas.

“Less than 1% of the ocean is protected at this point, and these marine parks tend to be built around things that sit still like coral reefs and seamounts,” explained Prof Larry Crowder from Stanford University.

“But tracking studies show that many, many organisms – fish, marine mammals, sea turtles, seabirds and sharks – respond to oceanographic features that don’t have a fixed point.”

“These features are fronts and eddies that may move seasonally, from summer to winter, and from year to year based on oceanographic climate changes like El Nino or the Pacific Decadal Oscillation.”

As the scientists already know, the hard part of this will be setting up, enforcing and maintaining reserves that can move as dynamically as the animals they protect.

Via: BBC News