By Gloria MaenderOctober 2003 The rapid removal of at least half a million great whales from the North Pacific Ocean by intensive industrial whaling more than 50 years ago may have unleashed a complex ecological chain reaction that has since rippled resoundingly from ocean to coastal ecosystems, according to a team of eight scientists, including […]
By Richard Black Mexico’s twin crises – swine flu and the economy – may derail a plan to save the world’s most endangered cetacean. Only about 150 vaquita are left, and about 30 are dying each year through becoming entangled in fishing nets. The government has cut funding aimed at taking fishing boats out of […]
Jane Kay, Chronicle Environment Writer Fluctuating ocean conditions may be depleting the food supply of young sea lions that are turning up skinny and ill on California beaches, mirroring the fate of Brandt’s cormorants earlier this spring. The animal strandings are so numerous that the newly expanded Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito can’t keep up. […]
ANCHORAGE, Alaska— Today, responding to a court-ordered deadline, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service released long-overdue reports documenting the status of polar bears and Pacific walrus in Alaska. The reports confirm that polar bears in Alaska are declining and that Pacific walrus are under threat. Both species are imperiled due to the loss of […]
Pollution in the Mekong river has pushed freshwater dolphins in Cambodia and Laos to the brink of extinction, the conservation group WWF has said. Only 64 to 76 Irrawaddy dolphins remain in the Mekong, it says, and calls for a cross-border plan to help the dolphins. Toxic levels of pesticides, mercury and other pollutants have […]
By Karen Kidd For the first time, the popular antibacterial agent triclosan is found in the blood of a marine mammal. A bacteria-killing chemical widely used in an array of consumer products has made its way down kitchen and bathroom sinks and into dolphins living in US coastal waters. Researchers report for the first time […]
Edmonton—University of Alberta researchers conducting a water study in the Mackenzie River Delta have found a dramatically higher delivery of mercury from the Mackenzie River to the Arctic Ocean than determined in previous studies. Researcher Jennifer Graydon analyzed water in the Mackenzie River as it flowed north into the Beaufort Sea. She collected samples for […]
By Doug Fraser, dfraser@capecodonline.com WOODS HOLE — Cape Cod is one of the top areas in the world for marine mammal strandings. The animals are sometimes loaded with parasites or are sick. But, despite a long history of pollution in our coastal waters, the toll pollution takes on sea creatures has been harder to establish. […]
The most extensive study of pollutants in marine mammals’ brains reveals that these animals are exposed to a hazardous cocktail of pesticides such as DDTs and PCBs, as well as emerging contaminants such as brominated flame retardants. Eric Montie, the lead author on the study currently in press and published online April 17 in Environmental […]
There are now 46000 pieces of plastic per square kilometre of the world’s oceans killing a million seabirds and 100000 marine mammals each year. Worse still there seems to be nothing we can do to clean it up. So how do we turn the tide? By Richard Grant Way out in the Pacific Ocean, in […]
