Ocean Crisis News

JAKARTA — Two videos of manta rays and other fish swimming through swaths of garbage off the resort island of Bali earlier this year have highlighted once again the plastic…

Vast swaths of the world’s oceans are turning into “dead zones” as global warming and pollution strips them of oxygen, threatening marine life on a massive scale, a new study…

KEP ARCHIPELAGO, Cambodia – It’s not long before midnight and an outlaw trawler has been spotted. The captain — a weather-gnarled old fisherman wearing just boxer shorts — winces as…

For the first time, a team of scientists has captured and then released a vaquita (Phocoena sinus), a rare porpoise in the Gulf of California, as part of a project…

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…

New evidence lays out the intricate trade in animal body parts that conservation groups say are driving two marine species in Mexico’s Gulf of California closer to extinction. The battle…

A joint patrol by the environmental organization Greenpeace and fisheries managers in the West African country of Guinea-Bissau has turned up a bevy of fishing boats that Greenpeace says were violating…

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched a global campaign last month aimed at eliminating two of the chief sources of ocean trash by 2022: microplastics frequently used in cosmetics…

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.…

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…

By now, you’ve probably heard of the massive, floating garbage patches swirling around in each of Earth’s five major ocean basins: the North and South Atlantic, the North and South…

Plastic’s popularity in the consumer world is no doubt a result of it being a low-cost material that’s both durable and extremely versatile. These advantages are undeniable, however scientists are…

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…

rom space, there is only one stretch of ocean that lights up at night, in spring. Breaking the dark in a curved line near South America’s southern tip, the lights…

Scientists in the Labrador Sea recently made the first retrieval of data from one of 53 lines moored to the sea floor and studded with instruments that have been monitoring…

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…

Under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, 168 signatory countries committed to the creation of marine protected areas encompassing 10 percent of the world’s oceans by 2020. Given that just…

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…

Indonesian President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo’s plan to establish Indonesia as a "global maritime axis" took a step forward last month, as U.S. ambassador Robert Blake announced a partnership program to…

An assessment of ecosystem health in the Mesoamerican Reef found that marine protected areas (MPAs) are aiding greatly in its recovery as coral cover slowly expanding. Coral cover in the…

Douglas McCauley began his career as a fisherman but later transitioned to marine science. He now serves as an Assistant Professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a Sloan…

ndustrial fisheries have depleted our oceans in just a few decades, according to a stark new report by WWF and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL). Released last week, the…

Year-round, supermarket refrigerators, freezers, and shelves are stocked with bountiful supplies of affordable fish, but at what price to the environment and human wellbeing? Last month, the advocacy group Greenpeace released…

The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of northeastern Australia – considered the largest living organism on earth – is currently under threat from a floating layer of microplastic particles,…

Oceans not only provide important ecosystem services, including climate regulation and nutrient cycling, but they also serve as a major contributor to food and jobs. Yet human actions in 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…

Sorting fish on an Malaysian fishing boat. Photo by Rhett A. Butler / mongabay.com Climate change is already having a severe impact on the atmosphere and oceans around the world.…

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.…

Marrying religion and conservation could be key to making Fiji's fisheries sustainable Fijians appear to enter life with vocal cords prepped for singing. It's an ideal trait, because most are…