The global Living Planet Index, 1970-2020. The LPI is based on 34,836 monitored populations of 5,495 vertebrate species. The white line represents the index value, and the shaded areas represent the statistical uncertainty surrounding the value. Graphic: WWF / ZSL

Global biodiversity report shows “catastrophic decline” in wildlife populations – “In just my lifetime, 50 years, we’ve seen a decline of 73 percent in the average size of these wildlife populations”

By Molly McCrea 18 October 2024 (CBS News) – A shocking new report on global biodiversity is detailing what it calls “a catastrophic decline” in wildlife populations ahead of a major international conference on biodiversity. On Monday, 21 October 2024, the United Nations will convene a two-week conference in Cali, Colombia called COP16. On the agenda […]

Stormwater flows into Biscayne Bay, 1 June 2024 - 18 June 2024. The flows from the Little River exceeded rates of 2000 cubic feet per second, causing very low salinity in the bay, resulting in large-scale fish kills. Graphic: Miami Waterkeeper

Record flooding yields massive fish kill in miles-long stretch of Biscayne Bay – “These events are anything but normal”

By Margaret Wong 23 July 2024 (The Cool Down) – Biscayne Bay is reeling from its fourth major fish kill in as many years, triggered by recent record flooding in South Florida.  What’s happening? Torrential rains have inundated the region, causing a significant influx of freshwater into the bay, which has led to low salinity […]

Maps of near-bottom dissolved oxygen in the continental shelf waters off the United States Pacific Northwest, 1950-2021. About half of the water near the seafloor off the Pacific Northwest coast experienced low-oxygen conditions in 2021. Data from 1950 to 1980 are from the World Ocean Database32, data from 2009–2018 are from the NOAA Groundfish survey, and data from 2021 are from this study. Graphic: Barth, et al., 2024 / Nature Scientific Reports

Pacific Northwest coast suffers from low oxygen, study finds – “As we keep changing the climate, it’s going to become the norm. What’s pretty remarkable is that 50 percent of the continental shelf is going to be low oxygen.”

By Amanda Zhou 10 June 2024 (The Seattle Times) – About half of the water near the seafloor off the Pacific Northwest coast experienced low-oxygen conditions in 2021, according to a new study. And those hypoxic conditions, which are expected to become common with global warming, threaten the food web, the study found. The study […]

Research into Southern California’s history of ocean dumping was spurred by the discovery of mysterious and corroded barrels dumped off the coast of Los Angeles. Photo: David Valentine / ROV Jason

DDT found in deep-sea fish raises troubling concerns for food web – “Nothing is untouched”

By Rosanna Xia 6 May 2024 (Los Angeles Times) – For several years now, one question has held the key to understanding just how much we should worry about the hundreds of tons of DDT that had been dumped off the coast of Los Angeles: How, exactly, has this decades-old pesticide — a toxic chemical spread across […]

Counts (S) of anadromous adults in eight populations of the Santa Monica Mountains BPG. Counts are adjusted by +1 so that zero counts show up on the log scale Graphic: Boughton, 2022 in SWFSC 2022

Steelhead trout, once thriving in Southern California, are declared endangered – “The negative trend toward extinction has not reversed”

By Ian James 23 April 2024 (Los Angeles Times) – Southern California’s rivers and creeks once teemed with large, silvery fish that arrived from the ocean and swam upstream to spawn. But today, these fish are seldom seen. Southern California steelhead trout have been pushed to the brink of extinction as their river habitats have […]

The most expensive tuna sold at the first auction in 2024. The "Near Threatened" fish sold for 114.2 million Japanese yen, or nearly $800,000, at Tokyo’s largest fish market and is set to be served at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Japan. The 525-pound fish, caught off of the coast of Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, fetched the fourth-highest price since records began in 1999. Photo: Kiyoshi Ota / Bloomberg

$800,000 tuna to be turned into sushi at Michelin-starred restaurant

By Nathan Rennolds 6 January 2024 (Business Insider) – A bluefin tuna sold for 114.2 million Japanese yen, or nearly $800,000, at Tokyo’s largest fish market is set to be served at a Michelin-starred restaurant in Japan. The 525-pound fish, caught off of the coast of Aomori Prefecture in northern Japan, fetched the fourth-highest price […]

A canoe rests on the bank of a dried-out creek in the Amazon rainforest. Transport by canoe became impossible in some places at the height of the 2023 drought. Photo: Lucas Amorelli / Sea Shepherd

Amazon rainforest experienced worst drought on record in 2023 – “We’ve never seen anything like this”

By Stephanie Hegarty 25 December 2023 (BBC World Service) – The Amazon rainforest experienced its worst drought on record in 2023. Many villages became unreachable by river, wildfires raged, and wildlife died. Some scientists worry events like these are a sign that the world’s biggest forest is fast approaching a point of no return. As […]

Tukpahlearik Creek in northwestern Alaska’s Brooks Range runs bright orange where permafrost is thawing. Photo: Taylor Roades / Scientific American

Why are Alaska’s rivers turning orange? “It was a famous, pristine river ecosystem, and it feels like it’s completely collapsing now”

By Alec Luhn 24 December 2023 (Scientific American) – It was a cloudy July afternoon in Alaska’s Kobuk Valley National Park, part of the biggest stretch of protected wilderness in the U.S. We were 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the nearest village and 400 kilometers from the road system. Nature doesn’t get any more unspoiled. […]

Aerial view of boats stranded in the mud of the parched Rio Negro amid a drought in the Amazonas state of Brazil on 29 September 2023. Photo: Michael Dantas / AFP

Drought drains Brazilian Amazon residents reliant on waterways – “It’s every man for himself”

By Orlando Junior 3 October 2023 (AFP) – Not far from the emblematic site where the black waters of the Rio Negro join the brown currents of the Solimoes, two chief tributaries of the Amazon, what once was a lake has given way to a vast stretch of cracked mud. Now, the only water remaining […]

An aerial view shows the normally submerged colonial-era Dominican church in Quechula, Mexico, in June, 2023. The 16th-century construction emerged from reservoir waters amid a drought. Photo: Raul Vera / AFP / Getty Images

Drowned 16th-century church emerges from bottom of Mexico reservoir after drought – “What do I support my family with? Right now, I have nothing.”

By Aristos Georgiou 19 June 23 (Newsweek) – A 16th-century church has emerged from the waters of a reservoir in Mexico amid a drought. The colonial-era Dominican church is located in Quechula in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas. The building had been almost entirely submerged since 1966 when a dam was built on a […]

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