Mongabay series: Oceans

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…

Baby krill living around Antarctica are struggling to cope with rising sea temperatures, new research suggests. The study, published online Jan. 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that…

Global climate change is impacting Earth’s oceans in a number of ways, from higher water temperatures and rising sea levels to acidification and oxygen depletion. Now, scientists have reported another…

2017 currently holds the record for hottest ocean temperatures, but, according to a new study, 2018 is likely to take the top spot as hottest year on record for Earth’s…

CHENNAI, India — In a small fishing hamlet, one of thousands dotting India’s 7,500-kilometer (4,660-mile) coastline, a community leader opens his smartphone and searches his contacts for “Map Saravanan” to…

JAKARTA — When Indonesian authorities seized a notorious fishing boat last April carrying 30 kilometers (18 miles) of illegal gillnets, they found they had essentially caught a ghost. The STS-50…

The devastation wrought by hurricanes and cyclones, persistent and growing threats in today’s changing climate, can ripple through communities dependent on harvesting food from the sea, a new study has…

An ambitious plan to mine precious minerals from the ocean floor off the coast of Papua New Guinea looks to have run aground due to the developer's financial problems. In…

1. The race is on to map the seafloor Is it true that we have explored the moon and Mars more thoroughly than the bottom of the ocean? Embarrassingly, yes.…

A recent study found microplastics in the intestines of humans around the globe, and new research has now done the same for sea turtles. Researchers at the UK’s University of…

South of Tasmania, hundreds of undersea mountains mark the deep ocean floor. Now, a monthlong survey of these seamounts in and around Australia's Huon and Tasman Fracture marine parks has…

The number of whales ensnared in fishing nets and other debris in U.S. waters didn’t change much between 2016 and 2017, according to a report by the National Oceanic and…

Competition for fish stocks with fisheries to feed humans could be forcing seabirds to go hungry, according to new research. The study, published Dec. 6 in the journal Current Biology,…

Brazil’s environmental regulatory agency, Ibama, announced last Friday that it was denying French oil company Total license to drill for oil near the Amazon Reef. The reef system, discovered off…

Data from GPS-tagged seabirds, as they were swept along in the strong currents of the Irish Sea, could help researchers move a step closer to harnessing the energy in those…

The Trump Administration announced today that it will issue five Incidental Harassment Authorizations (IHAs) for airgun blasting off the Atlantic coast. The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) stated:…

Women of childbearing age from small-island states and countries have been found to have toxic levels of mercury, a potent neurotoxin that can harm unborn children, a new report shows.…

When a vibrant coral reef teeming with life transforms into a barren skeleton in the tropical shallows — as a result of bleaching linked to climate change, for example —…