During last weekend, Wetpixel Senior Moderator and well-known environmental campaigner, Shawn Heinrichs, was injured in a serious skiing accident. He has sustained injuries to his back and has had to have a plate inserted to repair a fracture to his left wrist. I should point out that despite this, he was on Skype today giving me much needed guidance for an interview that I had scheduled!

I’m sure all Wetpixel members will join in wishing him a speedy recovery and we hope to see him out diving and filming again very soon.

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Over on the Blennywatcher Blog, Anna DeLoach has posted a video showing juvenile Bluespotted Trevally (Caranx bucculentus) that have adopted the striped coloration of the Striped Catfish (Plotosus lineatus). Jack expert, Dr. William Smith-Vaniz explained that this is likely a case of opportunistic mimicry and the jacks may benefit both from access to prey flushed out by the swarming catfish and protection from predators. This is the first time such behavior has been documented between the two species.

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Wetpixel member Dag Leslie Hansen has posted a series of pictures onto the forum showing an attempt to fit the new Canon 5D Mark III into an Aquatica 5D Mark II housing. The short answer is that it doesn’t quite fit! The new camera’s body is deeper and the buttons on the top of the camera do not align with the housing’s controls. Dag seems to feel that if he removes the aperture control gears, he may get the camera in, but will only be able to shoot the camera without exposure adjustment (or possibly in Automatic mode).

If you do not fancy Dag’s DIY approach, is expected that manufacturers will be producing new housings for the 5D Mark III as well as the new Nikon models very soon.

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Times journalist Frank Pope has written in his blog and in his newspaper about an extraordinary interview with Dr. Giam Choo Hoo. In it, Dr. Choo Hoo, the elected Asian representative and longest-serving member of The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Animals Committee, asserts that he will continue to campaign for sharks to be left off the CITES list that he controls (despite them being on the IUCN lists), and he admits that:

“Because Shark fin Soup is the number one most prestigious thing to serve at a big event in China, Chinese people do not want it banned, and therefore he campaigns for that result”.

When pressed, he refuses to answer questions about his possible commercial links to companies supplying shark fin products, and likening the questioning to be akin to asking him questions about whether he was divorced, or how many children he had. In the light of this interview, it is not hard to understand why and how CITES has consistently failed to respond to issues around shark finning.

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As part of his Seacam 60D Prelude field test review, Drew Wong tested Seaflash 150D strobes with it. The Seaflash 150D is the only ETTL compatible strobe for Canon that has 2nd curtain sync. With up to 130° , 4400°K beam and a quick charging Li battery system, the Sea Flash 150D is the top of the line flash system from Seacam. Find out how it does as Drew Wong puts in through the ropes in Bali and South Africa.

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