[cf. Toxic algae bloom may be largest ever off U.S. West Coast – ‘We’ve never had to close essentially half our coast’, and Scientists fear toxic algae bloom spreading on Pacific coast – Stretching from southern California to Alaska, this year’s blooms thought to be the largest ever recorded] By Lisa Fernandez5 November 2015 (NBC […]
13 October 2015 (University of Adelaide) – A world-first global analysis of marine responses to climbing human CO2 emissions has painted a grim picture of future fisheries and ocean ecosystems. Published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), marine ecologists from the University of Adelaide say the expected ocean acidification […]
By Hal Bernton28 August 2015 (Seattle Times) – A lack of oxygen in southern Hood Canal is killing fish, crab and other marine life, according to Seth Book, a biologist with the Skokomish Tribe who has been monitoring the marine waterway. Through the month of August, Book and other Skokomish staff have observed dead English […]
By Gary Farrow10 July 2015 (NZ Herald) – Sea Shepherd Australia has launched a new campaign to protect a species much smaller than the whales it has generally focused on, but just as important to the Southern Ocean ecosystem. Krill play a crucial role in the Antarctic food chain, as they are consumed by whales, […]
By Tim Radford16 June 2015 LONDON (Climate News Network) – Scientists in California have identified a cold-blooded killer as global warming brings new hazards for ectotherms − creatures that cannot regulate their own body heat. The suggestion may seem counter-intuitive, as vipers, lizards, fish and frogs all depend on ambient warmth to keep their metabolisms […]
By Sandi Doughton15 June 2015 (Seattle Times) – A team of federal biologists set out from Oregon Monday to survey what could be the largest toxic algae bloom ever recorded off the West Coast. The effects stretch from Central California to British Columbia, and possibly as far north as Alaska. Dangerous levels of the natural […]
July 2010 (Chesapeake Bay Foundation) – Oyster harvests tumbled by two-thirds between the 1890s and 1930, but then remained relatively stable at a lower level until the 1950s. Then a pair of diseases hit. MSX and Dermo are both caused by parasites that attack and frequently kill oysters, although they are harmless to people. Compounded […]
By Maria Gallucci23 February 2015 (IBT) – Taylor Shellfish Company was grappling with a crisis in the summer of 2009. Millions of oyster larvae were dying in its Washington hatcheries, and production had dropped by 80 percent. Down the coast, Oregon’s hatcheries faced the same problem. Highly acidic ocean water, it turned out, was dissolving […]
By Craig Welch, Seattle Times environment reporter29 November 2014 (Seattle Times) – The shellfish pathogen that hit California’s Channel Islands in the 1980s began to quickly kill one of the tideland’s most important animals — black abalone. But what unnerved scientists was what they learned next: Whenever ocean waters grew warmer, the deadly infection known […]
17 November 2014 (IUCN) – Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Pufferfish, American Eel, Chinese Cobra, and an Australian butterfly are threatened with extinction. Fishing, logging, mining, agriculture and other activities to satisfy our growing appetite for resources are threatening the survival of the Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Pufferfish, American Eel and Chinese Cobra, while the destruction […]