By Joshua Goodman and David Keyton 13 October 2023 (AP) – The Antarctic Endeavour glides across the water’s silky surface as dozens of fin whales spray rainbows from their blowholes into a fairy tale icescape of massive glaciers. But as a patrol of environmentalists approaches the Chilean super trawler in an inflatable boat, the cruder […]
By Sean Cummings 18 September 2023 (Stanford News) – The passenger pigeon. The Tasmanian tiger. The Baiji, or Yangtze River dolphin. These rank among the best-known recent victims of what many scientists have declared the sixth mass extinction, as human actions are wiping out vertebrate animal species hundreds of times faster than they would otherwise […]
By Ryan Hogg 15 July 2023 (Insider) – Marine conservationists were among the horrified cruise ship passengers who witnessed the slaughtering of 78 whales last week. Ambassador Cruise Line issued an apology on Twitter after its Ambition ship docked in the Faroe Islands at the same time a group carried out its regular hunting of pilot whales. […]
By Amanda Lee Myers 8 July 2023 (USA TODAY) – Jalapeño the sea lion turned up on a crowded California beach in a daze, experiencing seizures and heavily pregnant. Instead of giving birth in a remote location like sea lions prefer, Jalapeño had her pup on Southern California’s Hermosa Beach on a busy Saturday, surrounded by throngs […]
By David Stanway 30 June 2023 SINGAPORE (Reuters) – The target of keeping long-term global warming within 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) is moving out of reach, climate experts say, with nations failing to set more ambitious goals despite months of record-breaking heat on land and sea. As envoys gathered in Bonn in early June […]
By Patrick Whittle 10 December 2022 (AP) – Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, […]
MOSCOW, 5 December 2022 (AP) – A top Russian environmental official said Monday that the thousands of dead seals that washed up on Russia’s Caspian Sea coast likely died from oxygen deprivation. Officials in the republic of Dagestan, which has a long coastline on the world’s largest inland body of water, said this week that […]
By Stuart Greer 3 December 2022 (RFE/RL) – A Ukrainian marine biologist estimates that at least 50,000 Black Sea dolphins have been killed as a result of Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine. Ivan Rusev says he’s shocked by the number of dolphin carcasses that have washed up on the shores of his nature reserve in […]
By Marcie Grabowski 14 January 2022 (UH News) – Mass biodiversity extinction events caused by extreme natural phenomena have marked the history of life on Earth five times. Today, many experts warn that a Sixth Mass Extinction crisis is underway, this time entirely caused by human activities. A comprehensive assessment of evidence of this ongoing […]
By Graham Readfearn 4 January 2022 (The Guardian) – Waters off Sydney are undergoing an extreme marine heatwave with temperatures likely at their highest levels on record for January. Satellite data is showing the ocean surface off the coast of Sydney at 3C above normal, with swimmers and surfers reporting conditions that feel more like […]