squid dead on beach

Massive Squid Mortality In Chile Illustrates Ocean Pasture Collapse

Chilean Squid Deaths Blamed On Low Oxygen In Ocean Water

Such low ocean oxygen calamities are a result of the collapse of ocean plankton pastures whose plant life is the major source of oxygen for the oceans and the rest of our blue planet!

The cause of ocean pasture collapse is our CO2, and this is not another story about “climate change.”  The best is last so read on to discover how Chilean’s can at a cost of mere millions restore their ocean pastures!


On the island of Santa Maria in southern Chile residents have reported tens of thousands of dead squid started washing up on the beaches five days ago. Squid have been spoiling beaches there every year for the past decade, but residents say there are a far more of them this year.

Horrible Smell

The vast numbers have prolonged the clean-up effort and as the rotting squid carcasses decompose the stench is horrific and people are naturally worrying about the health implications for their families to say nothing of the dire catastrophe clearly impacting the ocean.

Heavy machinery was brought in only Wednesday to begin removing the dead squid. The delayed response has led some to criticize the country’s emergency response infrastructure as well as its dedication to proper management of the nations vast and vital ocean pastures.

Experts say investigations are underway to determine why so many more squid washed up on the shores this year. Experts say preliminary evidence suggests the squid died and washed up on shore due to an oceanographic phenomenon called “upwelling,” which is when dense, cooler and usually nutrient-rich water moves towards the ocean surface, replacing the warmer, usually nutrient-depleted surface water.

Ocean pastures

However in today in the face of decades of Chilean South Pacific ocean pasture collapse this upwelling brings disaster.  When this annual natural upwelling phenomenon occurs and the ocean pastures are healthy the impact of the low oxygen high nutrient deep water upwelling is counter-balanced by ocean pasture plant life, the phyto-plankton, responding with a lush growth and production of abundant oxygen. The same Pacific Ocean crisis has prompted a new paper in the Journal BioSciences which reports that collapse of Pacific Ocean ecosystems portends disaster for all of the world’s Seven Seas.

chile fish catch chart

Chilean Jack Mackerel Fishery boom and bust 1952 – 2012 coincides with ocean pasture collapse

Chile’s ocean pastures are today in such a dire state of decline and collapse that they no longer are able to turn the annual upwelling into a great benefit for its ocean pastures and the Chileans who make their lives by and from the formerly rich Chilean sea.

The crisis comes from us its CO2, but perhaps not for the reason you might think.

The reason for the collapse of Chile’s ocean pastures, and indeed ocean pastures around the world, is the impact of high and rising CO2. While the mass media spins the tale that the harm done by CO2 is all about ‘global warming and climate change’ in fact CO2’s most potent role on this planet is as a primary plant nutrient. This is widely reported as good for the land of the world but those reports always ignore the fact that this blue planet is 72% ocean. Our high and rising CO2 is clearly nourishing plants on land creating a “Global Greening” but while that may be good news for the land it is the worst news possible for the oceans that depend on dust blowing in the wind just as the lands depend on rain blowing in the wind.

More grass growing means less dust blowing.

Hope For Chile’s Ocean Pastures

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Chile’s vital ocean pastures, as seen in the satellite image, once supplied a seemingly endless supply of fish and sea food. Today their collapse is wreaking havoc on Chilean coastal communities.

Chile’s ocean pastures are on the front line of ocean pasture collapse. Due to geography and wind patterns the S.E. Pacific is simply the farthest away from vital wind blown dust of any ocean in the world. As the global drought of vital mineral dust enters into the 60th year of drought it is no mystery that the ocean pastures of Chile are showing critical signs of distress as proven by the vast die offs of squid being seen this week.

Chile’s fisheries have for 2o years been in a state of decline and collapse. This fact make good sense to any person with a mind and will to think of ocean pastures in the same way we all understand pastures on land and know that when the grass disappears so do the animals that depend on those pastures, on land and in our oceans!

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Read here!

Along with this clearly documented ocean pasture collapse there has been a sinister campaign afoot to lay the blame upon the fishing industry as the villains for “overfishing.” The notion of the arch villain in the mystery “Who Killed Jack Mackerel” is misleading.

While overfishing of the dwindling stocks of fish and sea life dying on dwindling ocean pastures is indeed a crisis the far more powerful crisis is the opposition and refusal of the powerful green forces who utterly oppose the management of ocean pastures with the same intelligent care and attention we give to our common pastures on land.

The real villain is us as we have denied vital dust for the oceans via our CO2 emission global greening we should have been, and should be restoring that dust to the ocean pastures to sustain their health and abundance.

How to restore Chilean ocean pastures to health and abundance with 5 years of effort!

The cost of this effort is miniscule and the people of Chile ought to be funding such work. The ocean fishing fleets of Chile would need only dedicate one of the hundreds of large fishing vessels for a few months each year to replenish vital rock dust to its ocean pastures. By doing so its ocean pastures would return to the condition of health and abundance they and Chileans enjoyed decades ago.

By restoring ocean pastures around the world vast ocean catastrophes like the dying squid we see today in chile would disappear and in their place restored, revived, and intelligently managed Chilean and other ocean pastures would sustainably return billions of additional fish into the nets fishers every year, more than enough fish to help end world hunger.

If you are interested in helping and working to restore Chile’s ocean pastures and restore her oceans to health and abundance contact me!

Not convinced the ocean pastures are in trouble? Read this listing (with links) of hundreds of accounts of sea life dying in the past few years!

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