Maldives: the next Atlantis?

By Captain Locky MacLean10 December 2011 When one thinks of world-class diving, the tiny Republic of the Maldives immediately comes to mind. Keen divers travel from all corners of the globe to this Indian Ocean island nation. They come to marvel at the biodiversity its atolls and islands shelter under their shores. The Maldivian islands, […]

Video: Helicopter pilot blows whistle on tuna industry

A helicopter pilot speaks out about his experiences onboard a number of purse seine tuna fishing vessels operating in the Pacific. His gruesome footage shows how the use of Fish Aggregation Devices is resulting in the bycatch of all sorts of marine life and contributes to the depletion of tuna stocks. Greenpeace is campaigning for […]

Illegal fishing threatens to drive eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna extinct

Contact Info: Catherine Kilduff, (415) 644-858019 October 2011 WASHINGTON – An analysis of eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna trade data released Tuesday shows that harvests of the imperiled tuna are more than double the legal amount. This calls into question the National Marine Fisheries Service’s June decision, responding to a Center for Biological Diversity petition, that […]

Far more bluefin tuna sold than reported caught – ‘Catch documentation system is plagued with fraud’

October 18, 2011 (AFP) – More than twice as many tonnes of Atlantic bluefin tuna were sold last year compared with official catch records for this threatened species, according to a report released on Tuesday. This “bluefin gap” occurred despite enhanced reporting and enforcement measures introduced in 2008 by the 48-member International Commission for the […]

Oil discovered floating near source of BP Deepwater Horizon spill

By Ben Raines, Press-Register 24 August 2011 MOBILE, Alabama – Oil is once again fouling the Gulf of Mexico around the Deepwater Horizon well, which was capped a little over a year ago. Tuesday afternoon, hundreds of small, circular patches of oily sheen dotted the surface within a mile of the wellhead. With just a […]

IUCN: Tuna species urgently need protection – Southern bluefin tuna ‘critically endangered’

Paris (AFP) July 7, 2011 – The reference organisation for the conservation status of Earth’s animals and plants said for the first time Thursday that most species of tuna are urgently in need of protection. Five of eight tuna species are now threatened or nearly threatened with extinction due to overfishing, according to the Red […]

Environmentalists, tuna poachers battle at sea

By Don Melvin11 June 2011 Tuna fishermen confronted environmentalists on the Mediterranean on Saturday, as activists attempted to disrupt illegal tuna fishing under the no-fly zone north of Libya. The fishermen attacked the Steve Irwin, owned by the U.S.-based Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, by hurling heavy metal chain links aboard. They also attempted to lay […]

Graph of Day: Catch Trends by Valuable Marine Species Groups, 1970-2008

Growth of tuna fisheries halted in 2008 as catches of this species group decreased by 2.6 percent after the 2007 global record of almost 6.5 million tonnes. While maximum tuna catches in the Pacific Ocean (which represents about 70 percent of the global catches) and in the Indian Ocean were reached in 2007 and 2006, […]

Pollution and overfishing spell trouble for dolphins worldwide

By Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss27 May 2011 Dear EarthTalk: How are wild dolphins faring on the high seas? Recent reports of dolphin deaths in the Gulf of Mexico may well be due to last year’s BP oil spill, but I imagine there are many threats to dolphins from pollution, human overfishing and other causes. […]

Plenty more fish in the sea? Not for much longer

Contact: Nicki Chadwick, Media Relations Officer, IUCN Office, t +41 22 999 0229, m +41 79 528 3486, nicki.chadwick@iucn.org;19 April 2011 More than 40 species of marine fish currently found in the Mediterranean could disappear in the next few years. According to a study for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ on the status […]

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