Beneath their prehistoric-looking shells, turtles conceal an extraordinary ability to hold their breath underwater, going without oxygen for hours, even months, at a time. This cellular-level capacity to survive underwater…
Many years ago I joined my cousin, the mate on a sporting vessel, on a fishing trip off the North Carolina coast. We were trolling baited lines in hopes of…
This past July, U.S. President Barack Obama hosted Mexico’s President Peña Nieto at the White House to discuss bilateral cooperation on a range of issues, including several environmental matters. The…
Daniel Pauly has built his career as a fisheries biologist out of tracking down the numbers that reflect the true health of the marine ecosystem. From early on, he could see…
As temperatures in higher latitudes consistently ranging from three to five degrees Celsius above normal fall averages combine with warmer ocean temperatures, Arctic sea ice has begun displaying irregular, unexpected…
One of the world's major salmon-producing regions has been hit by an environmental crisis. In early May, an unprecedented fish kill struck the archipelago of Chiloé, located in southern Chile.…
On September 15, Hollywood actor and environmental activist Leonardo DiCaprio launched a new campaign for sharks and rays at the third annual Our Ocean conference in Washington, D.C. The Global…
Marine protected areas just got a huge boost. At the ongoing U.S. State Department’s Our Ocean 2016 Conference, in Washington, D.C., the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), the Waitt Foundation, the blue moon…
Government officials from around the world gathered at the United Nations in New York City for ongoing negotiations of an international treaty to protect marine biodiversity on the high seas…
Global warming is changing Earth’s oceans and those impacts will last for decades even if we rein in greenhouse gas emissions from human activities, according to new research. A report…
The global coral reef bleaching crisis is about the get worse. The catastrophic event that began in mid-2014 is likely to continue this year, scientists from the the US National Ocean and Atmospheric…
United Nations treaty aimed at preventing illegal fishing will enter into force this Sunday, June 5, with 29 countries and the European Union as parties to it. Illegal, unreported, and…
f you go more than 200 miles off the coast anywhere on Earth, you end up in the high seas, the largely ungoverned portion of the ocean that covers 43…
inety nine percent of 500 coral reefs surveyed in the Australian Great Barrier Reef’s pristine north are being hit by a global bleaching event that’s already slammed reefs in the…
What issues to be watching during the Paris climate talks [Nature] There is a little more than week left of the climate talks in Paris and tension has been building…
a small number of corporations resemble tiger sharks in the fishing industry. These corporations could potentially have a seismic effect on the entire fishing industry and hold the power to conserve or collapse fisheries worldwide.
An aerial view of part of the spill on Wednesday, May 20, 2015. Photo credit: Refugio Response Information website. On Tuesday, an underground oil pipeline burst near Goleta, California, spilling…
Researchers argue that predictability of ecosystem could be sign of health A largely pristine coral reef in the remote Pacific on an island largely unpopulated by humans. Photo by: Brian…
Plastic and other threats in the oceans: Turning data into action The devastating tsunami that hit Japan in 2011 washed away millions of tons of plastic debris into the…
As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, so too do those in the sea, leading to ocean acidification that outpaces that of any other time in tens of millions of years. Some…
In the last 500 years, the oceans have suffered far fewer extinctions than on land—at least that we know of. According to a recent study in Science, 15 animals are…
If nothing done, extinction levels in the ocean could soon resemble those on land Bluefin tuna. Although most bluefin tuna species have been decimated by overfishing, they are still caught.…
Can alternative income programs save Fiji's reef fish? If a country's residents, historically, didn't fret about their coastal resources or concern themselves with starvation, what happens when those previously abundant…
Catching older fish may impact a school's ability to migrate from spawning grounds to feeding areas, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface.…
Sylvia Earle is one of the ocean's staunchest defenders. A National Geographic Society Explorer in Residence and former chief scientist with NOAA, Earle has spent a lifetime documenting the rapid…
Shark fins are usually sliced off the animal while its still alive. Photo by: WildAid/Hilton. Shark fin demand has dropped precipitously in China in just a few years, according to…
For those living either north or south of the tropics, images of this green ring around the Earth's equator often include verdant rainforests, exotic animals, and unchanging weather; but they…
It could be the plot of a horror movie: humans wake up one day to discover that chemical changes in the atmosphere are dissolving away parts of their bodies. But…
Small fragments of plastic waste are damaging the health of lugworms, putting a key cog in marine ecosystems at risk. Published in Current Biology, a new study by scientists at…
An assessment of ocean acidification, presented at the UN Climate Change Conference in Warsaw in November 2013, starkly concluded that acidity is on track to rise 170 percent by the…
