Mongabay series: Oceans

Chances are the locally caught fish you bought down by the wharf was spawned thousands of miles away, migrating on ocean currents, a new study has found. An estimated 90…

Some of the countries most responsible for the plastic waste that ends up in the oceans have pledged to tackle the problem together, but activists say they’re focusing on the…

JAKARTA — The widespread use of wooden fences to trap fish by coastal fishermen in tropical countries is causing extensive economic, social, and environmental damage, according to a new study.…

It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…

JAKARTA — Many of the fishing vessels operating in Indonesia’s waters at night do so undetected, masking what could be illegal fishing on a massive scale, according to a new…

An analysis of 33 years’ worth of data finds that ocean winds and wave heights are becoming more extreme worldwide, with the Southern Ocean seeing the largest increases. In order…

DENPASAR/JAKARTA — In November 2017, when locals spotted 10 sperm whales stranded on a beach on the island of Sumatra, they had no idea what to do. Stuck in shallow…

For more than three months, penguins living off the coast of Namibia have been battling an outbreak of bird flu. The worst of the disease seems to have passed, but…

The global range of the world’s most recently discovered large whale species is starting to come into focus — as are the man-made threats to the species. Salvatore Cerchio of…

Island-dwelling animals around the globe often face a common threat: alien species that compete with them for food, kill them and their young, and otherwise hamper their ability to survive.…

Whales and sea turtles off the coast of California will have less time to contend with possible entanglements in crab fishing gear in 2019, after a one-and-a-half-year lawsuit settlement shortened…

As rising sea surface temperatures drive more frequent and more intense coral bleaching episodes around the world, global models have often predicted that few healthy coral reefs will remain in…

Whales can behave quite differently in response to sonar depending on where they live and what they’re doing, new research has found. The pair of studies, on different species and…

Research over the past few years has shown that ocean acidification impacts Atlantic cod at the earliest stages of their lives, while they are still eggs and larvae. Scientists hoped…

Overfishing is rapidly pushing many of the world’s sharks and tunas toward extinction. The world’s fastest known shark, the shortfin mako, for example, was recently uplisted to endangered on the…

WATAMU, Kenya — One Saturday mid-morning in late January, close to 100 people descended on the narrow streets of Watamu village along Kenya’s north coast to clean up the streets.…

A new marine protected area (MPA) has been founded in the Philippines within what are considered some of the most biologically diverse waters on Earth. The new MPA, which has…

Hyperbolic headlines can be like catnip for newspaper editors. So when a local fisher hauls in what looks like a record-breaking catch, it often makes news. But a recent study…

Blue whales in the northern Pacific Ocean use their memories to guide them to the best feeding spots, instead of seeking out the locations of shorter-term surges in prey, a…

With efforts underway around the globe to develop commercial octopus farming operations, scientists from Australia, Spain, and the U.S. have penned an article, published in the journal Issues in Science…