Marine News

MANILA — Whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, are a fascinating and mysterious lot. Growing as big as 10 meters (33 feet) in length and diving as deep…

European spiny lobsters create quite the rumble. By rubbing an antenna across its face, a spiny lobster can create a sound that might, under the right underwater conditions, be detectable…

Marine protected areas have expanded rapidly in the past decade. Even so, less than 8% of the world’s oceans are safeguarded by MPAs and only around one-third of that area…

JAKARTA — Indonesia is considering a ban to prevent its citizens going abroad to work on foreign fishing vessels, after the latest report that one of them had died and…

JAKARTA — Conservationists are calling for an investigation into alleged illegal fishing by a Chinese tuna company that kept Indonesian seamen as virtual slaves, leading to the deaths of four…

When World War II broke out in 1939, it triggered an unintended fisheries experiment in the North Sea. Fishing vessels stayed away from fear of being blown up by naval…

PALAWAN, Philippines — A landmark vote on dividing the biodiverse Philippine province of Palawan into three smaller provinces has been put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. That’s given…

Indonesia’s parliament is reviewing a new bill on job creation that will amend and repeal provisions from 77 existing laws and combine them into a single piece of legislation. This…

JAKARTA — Indonesia will start exporting baby lobsters after a previous ban aimed at conserving the wild population of the crustacean was lifted by the fisheries ministry. Minister Edhy Prabowo…

In 2013, Demian Chapman ambled down the streets in the Sheung Wan district in Hong Kong, where thousands of yellowed shark fins were drying on the sidewalk, or packed in…

JAKARTA — Conservationists see an opportunity to strengthen oversight of the shark trade in Indonesia as fishing activity grinds to a halt amid the COVID-19 outbreak. West Nusa Tenggara province,…

JAKARTA — Fishers are taking advantage of a perceived drop in enforcement amid the COVID-19 crisis to operate illegally in Indonesian waters, officials say. Indonesia has since November 2014 banned…

Climate change is doing something unusual to the fish in our oceans: As water temperatures rise, this causes fish to morph in size. Some shrink, but others grow. In a…

Most of the tropical reef sites around the world are no longer able to simultaneously sustain coral reef ecosystems and the livelihoods of the people who depend on them, as…

It was one of the worst environmental disasters the world has witnessed. Ten years ago, on April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and…

The COVID-19 pandemic is giving “cancel culture” a new meaning. Weddings, graduations, academic conferences, sports events and birthday parties are all postponed until further notice. Among the laundry list of…

The future for the world’s oceans often looks grim. Fisheries are set to collapse by 2048, according to one study, and 8 million tons of plastic pollute the ocean every…

When Terry Hughes peered through the window of a small plane gliding over the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, what he saw troubled him greatly. Instead of healthy reef systems,…

As people around the globe stock their pantries for long stretches at home during the COVID-19 pandemic, sales of tinned tuna are going through the roof. In the U.S., consumption…

LAMONGAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — At a fishing port in eastern Java, fisherman Muhammad Fauzi was unloading his catch after spending days out at sea. He still goes fishing even though sales…