Good News For Republicans

From Iran, of all places.

They are figuring out how to save Beluga Sturgeon from a non-native threat.

(Belugas of course are the source of the caviar that I eat every day. Some people have a smear of them on toast points, but like a good Republican, I pile up a big 'ol caviar Sloppy Joe on a kaiser roll. But why am I telling you? You know. We all get the newsletter.)

The threat is the mnemiopsis jellyfish, which depletes the plankton that the sturgeon feed upon:

A recent study found an average of 37 mnemiopses in every square metre of water in the southern Caspian, he said. The plague has affected millions of people in fishing communities in the five countries that surround the sea -- Azerbaijan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia.

But now Iran has come up with a secret weapon to wage biological war on the invader. Iranian scientists have proposed introducing another kind of American jellyfish, Beroe ovata, which feeds on only one thing -- the mnemiopsis. They have been breeding the gelatinous assassins in special tanks to adapt it to Caspian waters, which are less salty than its normal habitat. Since the beroe feeds only on the mnemiopsis, they say, it will simply die out once it has consumed them.

Thank God. Thank God.

posted by Laura. at 09:56 PM

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