Pacific Ocean News

KOKOPO, Papua New Guinea — Change. That’s what Monica Yongol has seen in her 54 years. In that time, the loggers and then the oil palm companies have moved into…

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…

On satellite images, the Panguna mine yawns amid the otherwise green mountain forests of central Bougainville Island in the South Pacific, a silty river valley tracing a jagged path from…

Remote islands are often held up as vestiges of pristine wilderness. In stark contrast, the Cocos (Keeling) Islands and Henderson Island are drowning in piles of plastic. A recent study…

Purse seine fishing nets may be set for tuna, but they trap whatever fish swim into them, including manta and devil rays. As the net tightens, rays will panic and…

On Jan. 31, Taiwan-based Fong Chun Formosa Fishery Company (FCF), one of the top three global tuna traders, bought U.S. canned-tuna brand Bumble Bee Foods for $928 million. Bumble Bee,…

Goldman Environmental Prize winner Jacqueline Evans has launched the Moana Foundation to advance environmental and social activism in her home country of the Cook Islands. Evans won the Goldman Environmental…

Over the course of seven months in 2012 and 2013, more than 70 scientists collaborated to study and map the coral reefs around the islands of French Polynesia in the…

This week, the oceanic whitetip shark was reclassified as “critically endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), citing “steep population declines” in all oceans. That represents two…

For seabirds, an Arctic Ocean with less sea ice could provide some tantalizing alternatives to the long-haul flights that some undertake each year. In a recent study, ecologist Manon Clairbaux…

Most animals die after they’re done reproducing. But a handful of species, including humans and some whales, go through menopause, continuing to live long past their reproductive period. Female orcas,…

As humans continue to emit record levels of carbon dioxide, we are putting marine habitats at risk. One consequence of these emissions, ocean acidification, is a serious threat to many…

New regulations for essential fish habitat off the West Coast of the United States that go into effect in 2020 will extend protections for deep-sea habitats and corals while reopening…

A group of seven women in their 60s and 70s, who call themselves “the fantastic grandmothers,” have helped uncover a surprisingly large population of venomous sea snakes in the waters…

A new subspecies of fin whale, the second-largest species on Earth after the blue whale, has been discovered by scientists in the Pacific Ocean. There are currently three recognized subspecies…

On October 2nd, the Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup announced that it has successfully developed a device that can capture and collect ocean plastic, moving the organization closer to its…

This story is part of a series on Marae Moana, the massive, recently enacted multiple-use marine protected area covering the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone. Other stories in the…

This story is part of a series on Marae Moana, the massive, recently enacted multiple-use marine protected area covering the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone. Other stories in the…

“The Blob” is back in the Pacific Ocean. The original Blob was a vast expanse of unusually warm water in the northeast Pacific that persisted from 2014 to mid-2016. (The…

This story is part of a series on Marae Moana, the massive, recently enacted multiple-use marine protected area covering the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone. Other stories in the…

This story is part of a series on Marae Moana, the massive, recently enacted multiple-use marine protected area covering the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone. Other stories in the…

Today we speak with Jim Darling, a marine biologist who is here to play us some recordings of remarkably similar humpback whale songs from around the world. Listen here:  …

A New Zealand-based research team assessing the utility of small, multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to survey and study humpback whales determined that video data collected from a UAV improved…

The coral reefs of the lesser Sunda-Banda seascape in southeastern Indonesia host some of the planet’s most biodiverse marine ecosystems, which remain relatively untouched even as overfishing ravages sea life…

New research finds that thousands of sharks and rays could be entangled in the plastic polluting Earth’s oceans. Scientists at the UK’s University of Exeter examined existing scientific literature and…

Today we speak with Jessica Crance, a research biologist with the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) who recently discovered right whales singing for the first time ever. Listen…

Marine biologists survey fish assemblages and their associated habitat to understand the ecosystem of a place, compare fish communities over time or in response to changes in management, and examine…

Whales like humpbacks are famous for their mellifluous calls, typically referred to as whale songs. But right whales — three species of large baleen whales in the genus Eubalaena —…

Like many remote islands blessed with natural beauty and temperate weather, the economy of the South Pacific nation Vanuatu is underpinned by tourism as well as agriculture. Both of these…

When the British explorer James Cook circumnavigated the islands that he would later call New Zealand in 1769, he described the birdsong on the densely forested archipelago as “deafening.” One…