Yellow Sea

Organisms

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The Yellow Sea has great biodiversity, being the single most important site for migratory birds on northward migration in the entire East Asia, with a minimum number of two million birds passing through at the time. It also has a huge diversity of fish, crustaceans and invertebrates, and some types of whales and other mammals.

Fish:

Eepouts - many species, like Lycodes reticulatus
Anchovy - Engraulis japonicus
Cods - many species, like Gadus macrocephalus
Brill - Scophthalmus rhombus
Pacific Halibut - Hippoglossus stenolepis
Pacific Herring - Clupea pallasii
Yellow Croaker - Genyonemus seleani
Spotted Sardine - Escualosa thocatta
etc.

Mammals:

Orca - Orcinus orca
Minke Whale - Balaenoptera bonaerensis
Finless Porpoise - Neophocaena phocaeniodes
Seal - Zalophus japonicu
Blue Whale - Balaenoptera musculus
Sei Whale - Balaenoptera borealis
Fin Whale - Balaenoptera physalus

Birds:

Black-tailed Godwit - Limosa limosa
Bar-tailed Godwit - Limosa lapponica
Little Curlew - Numenius minutus
Whimbrel - Numenius phaeopus
Spotted Redshank - Tringa erythropus
Marsh Sandpiper - Tringa stagnatilis
Grey-tailed Tattler - Heteroscelus brevipes
Sanderling - Calidris alba
Red Knot - Calidris canutus
Oriental plover - Charadrius veredus
etc.

Crustaceans:

Fleshy Prawn - Penaeus milicopes

Japanese Shrimp
Reef Lobsters - Enoplometopus
Crabs - many species, like the Japanese Spider Crab (Macrocheira kaempferi)

Mollusks:

150 different species of mussels, clams, oysters and scallops;
Chambered Nautilus (Nautilus pompilius)
Common Cuttlefish (Sepia officinalis)
Common Octopus (Octopus vulgaris)

Invertebrates:

Sea Sponges, anemones and Sea Cucumbers;
The dominant phytoplankton species are Skeletonema costatum, Coscinodiscus, Melosira sulcata, and Chaetoceros. The dominant zooplankton species are Sagitta crassa, Calanus sinicus, Euphausia pacifica, and Themisto gracilipes.

Geography

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Nations that border:
China
South Korea
North Korea

Dephts:
The average depht is 46m, and the maximum depht is 152m.

Climate/Temperature:
The Yellow Sea climate varies from cold temperate in the north to warm temperate in the south. Average sea surface temperatures in the north are between -2°C and 4°C. Drift ice up to 35 cm in thickness is found in North Korea Bay during the winter.

Neighboring bodies of water:

Yellow River (Huang He)

Chang Jiang River

Liao He River

Daling He River

Luan He River

Huai He River

Yalu Jiang River

Nakdong River

Hun He River

Wulong He River

Guan He River

Dagu He River

Geum River

Bo Hai Sea

Korean Bay

East China Sea

Latitude/Longitude:

Between longitudes 117° 35' E and 126° 50'E and latitudes 31° 40' N and 41° 00' N.

Size:

About 1000 km from north to south and 700 km from east to west and has an area of 458000 km².

History

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Significant Events

The Battle of the Yellow Sea

Where?

Yellow Sea, off Shandong Peninsula, China.

When?

August 10, 1904.

What?

Russo-Japanese War.

Who?

Imperial Japanese Navy x Imperial Russian Navy

Result:

700 casualties total. Japanese strategic victory/tactically inconclusive.

The Yellow Sea was scenario for many other naval operations.

November 24, 1999: Ferry sinks in Yellow Sea, killing hundreds.

"The ship had caught fire while in the midst of a storm and nearly everyone on board perished, including the captain. [...] It was snowing and windy when the ship, carrying approximately 300 passengers and 40 crew members, left Yantai. Just a short way into the journey, a fire broke out on board. [...]
The fire forced the passengers to the lifeboats. [...] (Many passengers) died after jumping into the freezing water. Even most of those who made it to the lifeboats ended up freezing to death as they waited for rescue ships. By the time rescuers appeared, most could only try to retrieve the bodies from the sea. Only 36 people survived. [...]

http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history.do?id=52211

History of Usage:

The Yellow Sea is one of the most intensively exploited areas in the world. The number of species commercially harvested is about 100 including cephalopods and crustacea. The resource populations of demersal species such as small yellow croaker, hairtail, large yellow croaker, flatfish, and cod declined in bio-mass by more than 40 percent when fishing effort increased threefold from the early 1960s to the early 1980s.

Political / Human Impact

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Factory on the Yellow Sea -- Pollution.

Among the 63 large marine ecosystems (LMEs) in the world ocean, the Yellow Sea has been one of the most significantly affected by human development. Today the Yellow Sea faces serious environmental problems, many of a transboundary nature, that arise from human impact.

Large cities near the sea having tens of millions of inhabitants include Qingdao, Tianjin, Dalian, Shanghai, Seoul, etc. People of these urban areas are dependent on the Yellow Sea as a source of marine resources for human nutrition, economic development, recreation, and tourism, and the Yellow Sea receives industrial and agricultural wastes from these activities.

The rapid growth of the human populations and economies of China and South Korea is causing serious loss and degradation of coastal habitats, and the declining river flows and high levels of pollution are leading to reduced benthic productivity and, thus, a decline in food supplies for many birds and marine animals.

The resource is also threatened by overfishing. This sea was once one of the most intensively exploited in the world. Today, the major fisheries are at an extremely low level compared with 3 decades ago.

This international waterbody supports substantial populations of fish, invertebrates, marine mammals, and seabirds. Many of these resources are threatened by both land and sea-based sources of pollution and loss of biomass, biodiversity, and habitat resulting from extensive economic development in the coastal zone, and by the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources. Significant changes to the structure of the fisheries has resulted from non-sustainable fisheries, reducing catch-per-unit effort.

Usage

Fishing (human nutrition)

"Port of Dalian" (development of boats technology)

Dalian Harbour (ship transport)

Military (Marines)

Factories

Tourism (money)

Recreation (big cities)

The Yellow Sea has favorable oil and gas bearing prospects. However, no positive results have ever been reported.

Recreation

Beaches

Hot air balloon

Hang gliding and paragliding

Hotels and Resorts

Surfing

Whale watching

Aquarium (about 17 in the area)

Zip line

Best sea food

Shore excursions and cruises

Scuba diving

Marines Memmorial

Shipwreck dive tours

Mini Reports!

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Red Knot (Calidris canutus)

Size: An adult Red Knot is 23-26 cm long with a 47-53 cm wingspan.

Breeding: The female lays 3 to 4 eggs in a shallow scrape lined with leaves and moss Both parents incubate the eggs, but the female leaves before the young fledge.
Migration: After reproduction, they move south (Australia).

Physical description: It has short dark legs and a medium thin dark bill. The body is mottled grey on top with a cinnamon face, throat and breast and light-coloured rear belly. In winter the plumage becomes uniformly pale grey.

Diet: Knots eat mostly spiders, arthropods and larve obtained by surface pecking, and on the wintering grounds they eat a variety of hard-shelled prey such as bivalves, gastropods and small crabs.

Anchovy (Engraulis japonicus)

Size: It is maximum 9 in (~23 cm) in length.

Diet: It eats plankton and fish larvae.

Predator: Fish, mammals, birds, sharks, etc...

Physical description: The anchovy is a small green fish with blue reflections due to a silver stripe that runs from the base of the caudal fin. It has sharp teeth in both jaws.

Dall's Porpoise (Phocoenoides dalli)

Size: up to 230 cm in length and weighing between 130 and 200 kg.

Diet: Fish and Cephalopods. Shoals of fish such as herring, anchovies and mackerel are common meals.

Physical description: " It has a very thick body and a small head. The colouration is rather like that of an Orca— the main body of the porpoise is very dark grey to black with very demarcated white patches on the flank that begin some way behind the flippers, which are small and close to the head. The dorsal fin is set just back from the middle of the back and sits up erect. The upper part of the dorsal fin has a white to light grey "frosting". The fluke has a similar frosting. The adult fluke curves back towards the body of the animal, which is another distinguishing feature."

Mud Snail (Nassarius antipodarum)

Size: can be up to 12 mm(o.5in) long but the average size is 5 mm (0.2 in).

Diet: Mud snails feed on decomposing animal and plant matter, bacteria, and algae.

Predators: Shore birds and many different species of fish.

Physical description: This is an operculate snail, meaning it has a 'lid' that can seal the opening of its shell.
The shell can be either gray or brown in colour, and typically has five to eight 'whorls' coiling out in a clockwise ('right handed') direction.

Breeding: They can reproduce asexually; females "are born with developing embryos in their reproductive system." Each female can produce between 20 and 120 embryos.