By Niamh Anderson18 September 2011 FOR at least three decades they have made the waters off the west of Scotland their own, delighting visitors and residents alike. But now it seems the country’s only resident pod of killer whales is doomed to extinction and pollution could be to blame. The nine whales have failed to […]
By Ella Davies Reporter, BBC Nature 30 August 2011 Killer whales, the ocean’s fiercest predators, are easily recognisable by their black and white markings. But their future seems less clearly defined. Marine experts are concerned about an invisible threat to the animals that has been building in our seas since World War II. That was […]
By Timothy McDonald13 August 2011 The Queensland and Federal Government’s first report card on water quality in the Great Barrier Reef has found pesticides used in agriculture are causing significant problems for the reef. The report says some farmers need to be more careful with their chemicals, finding that nearly one-quarter of horticulture producers and […]
By John R. Platt13 August 2011 More dugongs (Dugong dugon) have died in Australia this year than in all of 2010. At least 90 of the marine mammals, close relatives of manatees, have starved to death off the coast of Queensland after floods destroyed the area’s sea grass, the dugong’s main source of food. Another […]
By Frances Adcock4 August 2011 People living on the Queensland coast are being warned to expect more marine deaths because of flooding earlier this year. The president of the Wide Bay Conservation Council, Roger Currie, says the scale of the events has affected seagrass beds from Rockhampton to the Gold Coast. He says the habitat […]
By Chris Morris, Times & Transcript Staff2 July 2011 Derek Hatfield has always known about the loneliness of the long-distance sailor, but he’s never felt as alone as he does these days when racing over the vast, empty expanses of our dying oceans. Hatfield recently completed his second successful race around the world, sprinting to […]
The unusual visit last week of two long-beaked dolphins to waters outside Olympia was just the latest in a string of strange animal sightings in and around Pacific Northwest waters. Lots of creatures that at first glance might not seem to belong have found their way here in recent years. By Craig Welch, Seattle Times […]
On July 28, Animal Planet will debut Black Tide: Voices From the Gulf, a two-hour doc from award-winning filmmaker Joe Berlinger (Crude) on the impact of the Gulf oil spill on Louisianians. The Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion on April 20, 2010 was the largest offshore oil spill in American history. The two-hour special explores […]
By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist 24 June 2011 Two dolphins that would be more at home frolicking in the warm bays of southern California or Mexico are cruising the chilly waters of Puget Sound and biologists are baffled by an apparent trend for tropical species to head north. Reports of strange whistles started coming in […]
LONDON, UK, June 21, 2011 (ENS) – The oceans are at high risk of entering a phase of extinction of marine species unprecedented in human history, a panel of international marine experts warns in a report released today [pdf]. A deadly trio of factors – warming, acidification and lack of oxygen – is creating the […]
