Mass starvation of Australia sea birds as 25,000 wash up dead on Sunshine Coast – Up to five million birds may have died, unable to find baitfish to eat

By Bill Hoffman28 November 2013 (Sunshine Coast Daily) – Lindsay Dines has been watching dead mutton birds wash in at Teewah for more than a month. He knows death is part of their migratory fate. Their long, figure eight of the Pacific that starts in Tasmania, touches the northern hemisphere Aleutian Islands, and then California […]

Scientists observe lowest-ever spring plankton bloom in Northeast Shelf Large Marine Ecosystem

By Doug Fraser25 November 2013 WOODS HOLE (Cape Cod Times) – A marine ecosystem expert is warning that the effect of changes in water temperature and plankton blooms may have ripple effects up the food chain. “We believe that the changes in the timing of warming events have affected plant and animal reproduction,” wrote oceanographer […]

Only half of prescription drugs removed by sewage treatment – Drugs found in Lake Michigan, miles from sewage outfalls

By Brian Bienkowski and Environmental Health News22 Novenber 2013 Only about half of the prescription drugs and other newly emerging contaminants in sewage are removed by treatment plants. That’s the finding of a new report by the International Joint Commission, a consortium of officials from the United States and Canada who study the Great Lakes. […]

98 percent of marine fish headed for the aquarium trade die within a year

By Natalie Millar 22 October 2013 (mongabay.com) – Almost all wild caught marine fish for the aquarium trade will die within a year of capture, according to WWF. Following months of interviews with Filipino marine exporters and hobbyists, WWF-Philippines have found that roughly 80% of all marine fish die before they are sold, and those […]

Video: More than 10,000 dolphins slaughtered each year for shark bait off the coast of Peru

By Benita Matilda24 October 2013 (Science World Report) – An undercover investigation by a conservation organization has brought to light the indiscriminate killing of thousands of dolphins off the coast of Peru where they are used as shark bait, despite the fact that the practice is outlawed in Peru since 1996. The video of a […]

The ocean is broken – ‘We hardly saw any living things. We saw one whale, sort of rolling helplessly on the surface with what looked like a big tumour on its head.’

By Greg Ray 18 October 2013 (Newcastle Herald) – It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it. Not the absence of sound, exactly. The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull. And there were plenty of other […]

Lionfish infestation in Atlantic Ocean a growing epidemic – ‘The lionfish invasion is probably the worst environmental disaster the Atlantic will ever face’

By Katie Linendoll, Special to CNN19 October 2013  (CNN) – The clear waters around Bermuda are as picturesque as you can imagine, and the brilliantly colored fish swimming around are like something from a crayon box. But a serious problem lurks behind the beautiful facade: the lionfish. Lionfish are not native to the Atlantic Ocean. […]

Study links warmer water temperatures to greater levels of mercury in fish

By Darryl Fears13 October 2013 (Washington Post) – Under the watchful eyes of scientists, a little forage fish that lives off the southern coast of Maine developed a strangely large appetite. Killifish are not usually big eaters. But in warmer waters, at temperatures projected for the future by climate scientists, their metabolism — and their […]

Health of oceans declining fast, ‘at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history’

By Roger Harrabin, Environment analyst3 October 2013 (BBC News) – The health of the world’s oceans is deteriorating even faster than had previously been thought, a report says. A review from the International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO), warns that the oceans are facing multiple threats. They are being heated by climate […]

Massive port projects threaten integrity of Great Barrier Reef – ‘The government is putting the interests of foreign mining companies ahead of the protection of our reef’

By Ian Lloyd Neubauer 23 September 2013 (TIME) – A dead cat in the in-tray. That’s what Greenpeace called the newly elected Australian government’s inheritance of a proposal to build the largest coal port in the world at Abbot Point in the northeastern state of Queensland. A decision is required, and the stakes couldn’t be […]

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