Conventional wisdom holds that marine protected areas don’t offer much in the way of protections to highly migratory species of marine life, given that those species are unaware of the…
During a routine shark survey in the northern Gulf of Mexico in 2010, ecologist Marcus Drymon caught a small tiger shark. At first glance, there was nothing unusual about it.…
It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…
Aquaculture, the commercial farming of finfish like salmon, shellfish and seaweed, has exploded over the past 30 years, becoming a nearly $250-billion industry globally. More than half of all seafood…
The ocean is increasingly becoming too hot to handle. And coral reefs are suffering as a result. Above-normal sea surface temperatures due to human-induced climate change are creating conditions that…
New research finds that marine animals have disappeared from their habitat due to global warming at twice the rate of wildlife on land. According to the study, published late last…
Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…
When fisherfolk in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat find a whale shark tangled in their fishing nets, it’s an unwelcome sight. They can’t legally harvest the protected species, yet the…
The South Pacific archipelago of the Cook Islands might seem a diminutive site from which to launch and manage the largest multi-use marine protected area (MPA) on Earth. The country’s…
Illegal fishing, overfishing and pollution are common problems in the waters of South America. But the overarching problem, the one that enables the rest, is weak governance, according to experts.…
Antarctica’s second-largest colony of emperor penguins has likely not produced any chicks over the last three years, a new study has found. Until recently, the emperor penguin colony at Halley…
In the ocean, both the great white shark (Carcharodon carcharias) and the killer whale or orca (Orcinus orca) are fearsome top predators. But of the two massive animals, the killer…
DENPASAR/JAKARTA — In November 2017, when locals spotted 10 sperm whales stranded on a beach on the island of Sumatra, they had no idea what to do. Stuck in shallow…
For more than three months, penguins living off the coast of Namibia have been battling an outbreak of bird flu. The worst of the disease seems to have passed, but…
AMBON, Indonesia — Last February, a crocodile in eastern Indonesia crawled right into a trap. The animal, a 2-meter-long (6.6-foot) saltwater crocodile (Crocodylus porosus), was suspected to have preyed on…
Scientists have fretted over the expanding masses of plastic in the ocean for decades. Most have seen the rise with their own eyes, and yet the available datasets typically don’t…
The waters off the Galápagos Islands have nearly 10 times more alien marine invertebrates than previously recorded, a recent study has found. Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) off Ecuador, the…
Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…
Russian authorities have announced that they will release all 97 whales currently being held captive in the country’s Far East. The whales made news in November last year when an…
Earth’s oceans are drowning in plastic. Humans created 311 million metric tons of the stuff in 2014, and it is expected that we’ll be making four times as much by…
