By Les Blumenthal | McClatchy NewspapersPosted on Sunday, July 4, 2010 WASHINGTON — A sobering new report warns that the oceans face a “fundamental and irreversible ecological transformation” not seen in millions of years as greenhouse gases and climate change already have affected temperature, acidity, sea and oxygen levels, the food chain and possibly major […]
After more than a decade of monitoring the Bering Sea off the coast of Alaska, scientists have released the first count of one of the world’s most endangered group of whales. Approximately thirty right whales inhabit the eastern Pacific Ocean, they reported on Tuesday — slightly more than previously thought. Whether enough remain to prevent […]
About 5 minutes into the video above, a film crew dives in the South Pacific waters and films for what is probably the first time ever (that’s what they claim, anyway) the inside of a gigantic purse seine tuna net. You really have to see it to believe the scale of this kind of commercial […]
ScienceDaily (June 22, 2010) — Until recently, the disastrous scale of the threat posed by salmon farms to the fauna and National Park of the Aysén region of southern Chile was entirely unknown. The unexpected discovery was made by researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization and the University of Göttingen, who […]
By Samantha Hayes Sun, 20 Jun 2010 6:00p.m. A marine biologist says he’s discovered a new threat to whales that has nothing to do with Japanese boats. Steve O’Shea studies beached whales in New Zealand and believes the fishing industry is starving them of their food supply. Twenty-one pilot whales have beached themselves at Aotea […]
By Michael McCarthy, Environment EditorTuesday, 22 June 2010 The future of the international whaling moratorium, one of the world’s great conservation achievements, is being decided behind closed doors today and tomorrow, after whaling’s governing body went into a secret session to discuss proposals that would end it. The future of the international whaling moratorium, one […]
By Charles Clover June 13, 2010 Off the coast of Cornwall and Devon the mackerel are in. The big shoals of summer have arrived. Over the next few months these tiger-striped, blue-black-and-green relatives of the tuna will forage northwards, eating anything that will maintain their astonishing energy levels. The generous mackerel will oblige inexperienced anglers, […]
By Matt WalkerEditor, Earth News Fish are being threatened by rising levels of man-made noise pollution. So say scientists who have reviewed the impact on fish species around the world of noises made by oil and gas rigs, ships, boats and sonar. Rather than live in a silent world, most fish hear well and sound […]
By Frank Pope, Ocean Correspondent Conservationists fear a falling shark population is prompting Asian chefs to look for manta and devil rays to help meet the voracious demand for shark fin soup. Found in coastal waters throughout the world, rays present an easy target as they swim slowly near the surface with their huge wings. […]
By Sebastian Smith (AFP) NEW YORK — The world faces the nightmare possibility of fishless oceans by 2050 unless fishing fleets are slashed and stocks allowed to recover, UN experts warned Monday. “If the various estimates we have received… come true, then we are in the situation where 40 years down the line we, effectively, […]