By KELLY SLIVKA2 August 2012 In yet another display of the inexorable interdependence of Earth’s ecosystems, a bad summer for Midwestern farmland has turned out to be a good one for life in the Gulf of Mexico. Researchers from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium have found that this summer’s hypoxic zone in the Gulf of […]
By ROGER BRADBURY13 July 2012 It’s past time to tell the truth about the state of the world’s coral reefs, the nurseries of tropical coastal fish stocks. They have become zombie ecosystems, neither dead nor truly alive in any functional sense, and on a trajectory to collapse within a human generation. There will be remnants […]
By Peter Brannen30 April 2012 Provincetown, Mass. – Normally for a few days in spring, beachgoers on this hook of land stretching into Cape Cod Bay witness one of the rarest scenes in the animal kingdom: dozens of surface-skimming North Atlantic right whales, lumbering just a few hundred yards from shore. But that rite of […]
By Steve Chawkins, Los Angeles Times26 April 2012 Strange, jellyfish-like creatures swarming a coastal nuclear power plant: It might sound like the premise of a cult horror flick, but the invasion has prompted officials at the Diablo Canyon facility in San Luis Obispo to curtail operations for at least a few days. The plant’s operator, […]
By JJ Robinson2 April 2012 Large numbers of dead fish have been washing ashore on resorts and inhabited islands in the upper north of the Maldives in Noonu and Haa Atolls, reports the Ministry of Fisheries and Agriculture. The dead fish are overwhelmingly red-tooth trigger fish (odonus niger, locally known as vaalan rondu), but include […]
21 March 2012 (SEI) – A global, integrated approach is urgently needed to protect the oceans from converging threats. A new study coordinated by SEI shows climate change alone could reduce the economic value of key ocean services by up to 2 trillion USD a year by 2100, and urges world leaders to make the […]
By Tara Patel13 March 2012 Water pollution from agriculture is costing billions of dollars a year in developed countries and is expected to increase in China and India as farmers race to increase food production, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said. “Pollution from farm pesticides and fertilizers is often diffuse, making it hard […]
By INGFEI CHEN27 February 2012 MONTEREY, California – On a fog-shrouded morning in Monterey Bay, wildlife researchers are out to capture a southern sea otter named Blanca — part of a three-year project to learn why her species, hunted to near extinction a century ago, is still in trouble here despite decades of efforts to […]
NEW ORLEANS, 1 February 2012 (AP) – A new study finds that Louisiana’s second Gulf of Mexico dead zone stretches at least from the Chandeleur Sound off Louisiana to Alabama’s Dauphin Island — and could be bigger. John Lopez, executive director of the Lake Pontchartrain Basin Foundation, said Wednesday that the foundation was able to […]
25 January 2012 (Agence France-Presse) – The worldwide fishing industry could benefit from a $50 billion boost annually if stocks were allowed time to recover, the UN said Wednesday. Already 32 percent of the world’s fish stocks have been depleted by years of overfishing and poor coastal management, according to a UN Environment Programme report […]