MUMBAI — Last month, the Indian government created its first ministry for fisheries. Although it clubs fishing together rather oddly with animal husbandry and dairy, the move fulfills a long-standing…
Chances are the locally caught fish you bought down by the wharf was spawned thousands of miles away, migrating on ocean currents, a new study has found. An estimated 90…
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — The Sierra Leone government closed the country’s waters to fishing during the entire month of April to give flagging fish stocks a chance to rebuild. During…
There’s more grim news for the North Atlantic right whale, one of the most endangered whale species in the world. In June this year, six individuals were spotted dead in…
DONSOL, Philippines — Omar Nepomuceno is looking for the whale sharks, as he has for over 20 years. Ask him what the odds are of finding one, and he’ll answer…
The bleaching of coral reefs could permanently change the composition of the fish communities that inhabit them, a new study has found. The research, published online June 18 in the…
Some of the countries most responsible for the plastic waste that ends up in the oceans have pledged to tackle the problem together, but activists say they’re focusing on the…
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — A crackdown on unregulated explosives in the aftermath of deadly terrorist attacks in Sri Lanka may help in the fight against illegal blast fishing in the…
According to a report this week by Quartz, two Chinese nationals were arrested last month in the state of California with $3.7-million-worth of totoaba swim bladders that they had smuggled…
The smalleye stingray may be the largest of marine stingrays, but the species remains a mystery. It’s believed to be widely distributed across the Indo-West Pacific and has been recorded…
Canada has made it illegal to catch and hold whales, dolphins and porpoises in captivity. On June 10, Canada’s House of Commons passed Bill S-203, or the Ending the Captivity…
The largetooth sawfish, a large ray with a chainsaw-like nose extension, is among the largest fish in the world, growing more than 6.5 meters (20 feet) in length. This majestic…
A blessed country of spectacular landscapes and the most diverse array of cultures on Earth, Papua New Guinea is also a global hotspot for biodiversity. Just in terms of species,…
How many ships and boats ply the world’s oceans for seafood today? Researchers have a new estimate: where there were about 1.7 million boats harvesting fish in 1950, the number…
JAKARTA — The widespread use of wooden fences to trap fish by coastal fishermen in tropical countries is causing extensive economic, social, and environmental damage, according to a new study.…
The president of Brazil’s environmental regulatory agency has decided to ignore the recommendations of his own environmental team and authorize the auction of seven oil blocks located in highly sensitive…
In mid-May Chile finalized an agreement to publicly share proprietary data from its satellite system for monitoring fishing boats, known as a Vessel Monitoring System. The country will share the…
Not all fish lay eggs. Female guppies, a common aquarium fish, can “drop” between two and 200 babies over several hours, and male seahorses typically hold eggs inside a brood…
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…
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…
