Leopard Shark (Triakis semifasciata). Photo by Rhett Butler. California moved a step closer to banning the sale and trade of shark fin with the passage Tuesday of Senate Bill 376.…
The Honduran island of Roatan. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Endangered sharks are finding more sanctuaries. Honduras has announced that commercial shark fishing will be banned from its 92,665 square…
Tourism in Palau makes sharks worth more alive than dead finds a new study. Here a diver in Palau swims with five reef sharks. Photo by: Todd Essick. For the…
Last year Hawaii banned the sale of shark fins; California may be next. Bill 376, introduced by two Democrats, would outlaw the sale of shark fins, including the popular Asian…
The U.S. Senate has passed the Shark Conservation Act, legislation that bans shark finning in U.S. waters. The move was welcomed by marine conservationists. "The Senate has acted decisively today…
Last week the US Senate passed the Shark Conservation Act, which bolsters the prohibition of shark-finning in US waters and puts the US at the forefront of shark conservation. Finning…
A shark sanctuary has been declared around the Raja Ampat islands in Indonesia. Larger than Denmark, the new sanctuary covers 17,760 square miles (46,000 square kilometers) of one of the…
Sharks dwell in the ocean, wolves on land; sharks are a type of fish, wolves are a mammal; sharks go back some 400 million years, wolves only some 2 million…
Dolphins, whales, and dugongs will be safe from hunting in the waters surrounding the Pacific nation of Palau. At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya, Japan, Palau's Minister…
Shark attack survivors urged the United Nations to take measures to protect sharks, which are increasingly threatened by unsustainable fishing practices. Brought together by the Pew Environment Group, nine shark…
If you take a teaspoon and dip it into the ocean what will you have? Some drops of lifeless water? Only a few decades ago this is what scientists would…
Kristian Teleki, Vice President for Science Initiatives for SeaWeb and former Director of the International Coral Reef Action Network (ICRAN), spoke with Laurel Neme on her "The WildLife" radio show…
Citibank Hong Kong has canceled its promotion of shark fin soup after activists cried foul, according to the New York Times. The branch had offered Citibank card holders 15 percent…
Governor of Hawaii, Linda Lingle, has signed into law a ban on shark-fin soup beginning July 1st, 2011, according to Reuters. The soup is currently served in a number of…
The biodiversity crisis, the climate crisis, the deforestation crisis: we are living in an age when environmental issues have moved from regional problems to global ones. A generation or two…
As a child I read about the near-extinction of the American bison. Once the dominant species on America's Great Plains, I remember books illustrating how train-travelers would set their guns…
Only the porbeagle shark received protection today from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Seven other shark species failed to win international protection despite plummeting populations due…
An effort to bolster conservation measures for plummeting shark populations was defeated yesterday at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), according to the AP. The nonbinding measure…
Sharks that dwell in the Maldives can breathe a sigh of relief: the island nation has declared 90,000 square kilometers of the Indian Ocean a safe-haven for sharks, banning shark…
The Gulf of California's once rich marine ecosystem is in trouble. Surveys from 1999 and 2009 revealed that during the ten-year-period 60 percent of the areas showed signs of degradation,…
One hundred and thirteen countries have signed on to an agreement to protect seven migratory sharks currently threatened with extinction byway of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species…
Environmentalists say that the International Commissions for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) did not do enough in their yearly meeting to protect the ocean's sharks. Member countries of ICCAT…
Great white sharks tracked swimming underneath Golden Gate bridge. Researchers have long thought that white sharks migrated across oceans, but a new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society…
The discovery of Eastern Pacific black ghostshark Hydrolagus melanophasma is notable for a number of reasons. It is the first new species of cartilaginous fish—i.e fish whose skeletons are made…
A 20-foot-long, 5,000 pound basking shark washed up on a Long Island beach yesterday, reports CNN. The shark died shortly after authorities arrived on the scene. The cause of death…
The first global study of open ocean (pelagic) sharks and rays found that 32 percent of the species are threatened with extinction largely due to overfishing and bycatch, making pelagic…
Researchers with the Massachusetts Mariner Fisheries have uncovered the secret life of the world’s second largest fish, known for its cavernous mouth. The basking shark, which measures over 10 meters…
The world's largest living fish, the whale shark, is threatened by interbreeding, according to a new study in PLoS ONE. Comparing the DNA of 68 individual whale sharks from eleven…
Photos: Hundreds of strange and unknown marine species discovered Hundreds of rare and bizarre marine species discovered Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com November 9, 2008 More discoveries from the Census of Marine…
Sharks in trouble after nations fail to create sustainable management programs Sharks in trouble after nations fail to create sustainable management programs Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com November 6, 2008