4 May 2016 (ABC News) – Piles of dead whales, salmon, sardines, and clams blamed on the El Niño freak weather phenomenon have been clogging Chile’s pacific beaches in recent months. Last year, scientists were shocked when more than 300 whales turned up dead on remote bays of the southern coast — it was the […]
[cf. Graph of the Day: Simulated catastrophic decline of plankton in warming oceans] By Chris Mooney28 April 2016 (Washington Post) – In the long list of troubling climate change scenarios, there’s one that gets relatively little attention, but definitely has enormous potential consequences. It goes like this: The oceans are getting warmer — they are, […]
By Brady Dennis 26 April 2016 (Washington Post) – Six years on, scientists are continuing to tally the ecological harms caused by the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest glimpse at the ongoing environmental effects of the disaster came in a new report [pdf] by the conservation and […]
By Mike Gaworecki 13 April 2016 (mongabay.com) – China’s demand for swim bladders from a giant Mexican fish called the totoaba is putting the species at risk. It’s also pushing a small porpoise known as the vaquita, one of the most endangered mammals in the world, to the brink of extinction. Vaquita or vaquita marina […]
CHAMPAIGN, Illinois. – Scientists have finalized a five-year study of newborn and fetal dolphins found stranded on beaches in the northern Gulf of Mexico between 2010 and 2013. Their study, reported in the journal Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, identified substantial differences between fetal and newborn dolphins found stranded inside and outside the areas affected by […]
By Tim Stelloh 4 April 2016 (Associated Press) – A federal judge in New Orleans granted final approval Monday to an estimated $20 billion settlement, resolving years of litigation over the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement, first announced in July, includes $5.5 billion in civil Clean Water Act penalties […]
By Helena Horton29 March 2016 (The Telegraph) – The heartbreaking effect of human waste was discovered when a post-mortem was conducted on 13 beached sperm whales. The plastic we discard into the ocean often makes its way into the mouths and stomachs of sea creatures. A post-mortem of the creatures, found ashore near the town […]
By Matthew Green24 February 2016 (The Guardian) – On 2 August 2015, a flotilla of white-hulled fishing boats assembled in Sant’Agata di Militello, a port in northern Sicily, in the late afternoon sun. As a brass band played, a holiday crowd gathered along the quay. A float bearing a statue of the Virgin Mary, crowned […]
By Don Dahler4 March 2016 (CBS News) – The Arctic Ocean is six million square miles, most of it covered in ice. But last month the top of the world was up to 14 degrees above normal, and broke the record for the lowest amount of ice in February — more than 400,000 square miles […]
By Sally Kettle27 February 2016 Isla Espanola (BBC News) – The Pacific Ocean laps just before me and a warm breeze reminds me I’m in the tropics. But this is no beach holiday and there’s not a tourist in sight – just the raucous barking of a sea lion pup intent on making himself heard […]
