Blog Archives

A man from the UK believes his dog has found a rare piece of whale vomit while walking on the beach.

Ken Wilman said when Madge the dog “started poking at a rather large stone” he realised it was unusual.

He left the ambergris on the beach but “something triggered in my mind” and, after doing some research, he went back to get it.

The substance, which is found in the digestive system of sperm whales, is valuable and used in perfume.

Mr Wilman said: “When I picked it up and smelled it I put it back down again and I thought ‘urgh’.

“It has a musky smell, but the more you smell it the nicer the smell becomes.”

He is now waiting to get the 3kg (7lb) piece tested and said he had been offered 50,000 euros (

Nearly every coral reef could be dying by 2100 if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, according to a new review of major climate models from around the world.

The only way to maintain the current chemical environment in which reefs now live, the study suggests, would be to deeply cut emissions as soon as possible.

It may even become necessary to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, say with massive tree-planting efforts or machines.

The world’s open-ocean reefs are already under attack by the combined stresses of acidifying and warming water, overfishing, and coastal pollution.

Carbon emissions have already lowered the pH of the ocean a full 0.1 unit, which has harmed reefs and hindered bivalves’ ability to grow...

Nearly every coral reef could be dying by 2100 if current carbon dioxide emission trends continue, according to a new review of major climate models from around the world.

The only way to maintain the current chemical environment in which reefs now live, the study suggests, would be to deeply cut emissions as soon as possible.

It may even become necessary to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, say with massive tree-planting efforts or machines.

The world’s open-ocean reefs are already under attack by the combined stresses of acidifying and warming water, overfishing, and coastal pollution.

Carbon emissions have already lowered the pH of the ocean a full 0.1 unit, which has harmed reefs and hindered bivalves’ ability to grow...

Since November dead individuals have been found on the beaches at Old Hunstanton, Overstrand and in Lincolnshire at Skegness and Sandilands.

The giant marine creatures, the heaviest known bony fish in the world, usually lived in deep tropical waters and fed on jellyfish, according to Andy Horton, spokesman for the British Marine Life Study Society.

But they followed the jellyfish as they floated towards British waters and were often washed up on the Cornish coast, according to Mr Horton.

Thirty years of dynamic growth in China has lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, but the environmental damage has been brutal.

The latest evidence: More than 80% of its coral reefs are gone, thanks to development, overfishing, and pollution, reports AFP.

A new report calls the damage “a grim picture of decline, degradation, and destruction.” Adds the study’s author: “The window of opportunity to recover the reefs of the South China Sea is closing rapidly, given the state of degradation revealed.”

Around the South China Seas, home to 12,000 square miles of coral reefs, environmental damage has been made worse by competing claims of sovereignty to portions of the waters.

“On offshore atolls and archipelagos claimed by six countries in the South China Sea, coral cover has declined f...

A new analysis of temperature records indicates that the Western Antarctic Ice Sheet is warming nearly twice as fast as previously thought.

US researchers say they found the first evidence of warming during the southern hemisphere’s summer months.

They are worried that the increased melting of ice as a result of warmer temperatures could contribute to sea-level rise.

The study has been published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

The scientists compiled data from records kept at Byrd station, established by the US in the mid-1950s and located towards the centre of the West Antarctic ice sheet (WAIS).

Previously scientists were unable to draw any conclusions from the Byrd data as the records were incomplete.

The new work used a computer model of the atmosphere and a numerical analysis metho...

The Cook Islands has approved a shark sanctuary in its waters, making for the largest such sanctuary in the world.

The South Pacific island chain declared a 1.9 million-sq-km sanctuary, contiguous with one established last week by neighbouring French Polynesia.

That sees a ban on shark fishing and possession or sale of shark products in an area now totalling 6.7 million sq km – nearly the size of Australia.

As top predators, overfishing of sharks disrupts complex oceanic food webs.

And about a third of ocean-going sharks appear on the internationally-recognised Red List of Threatened Species.

“We are proud as Cook Islanders to provide our entire exclusive economic zone… as a shark sanctuary,” said Teina Bishop, Cook Islands minister of marine resources.

“We join our Pacific neighbours to ...

Female fish are attracted to males that “flirt” with other males, a study has found. Scientists in Germany studied the behaviour of tropical fish Poecilia mexicana, known as Atlantic mollies.

The female fish are known to “mate copy” – preferring to mate with males they have seen interacting sexually with other fish.

Researchers found that females still took an interest in males when their flirtations were with the same sex.

Dr David Bierbach from the University of Frankfurt, Germany, led the research that is published in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters.

In the paper, researchers refer to homosexual behaviour in the animal kingdom as a “conundrum”.

“Male homosexual behaviour can be found in most extant classes across the animal kingdom, but represents a Darwinian puzzle as same-se...

The government has been accused of a “lack of ambition” to preserve the seas, ahead of an expected announcement on Thursday about plans for a series of protected marine areas.

A total of 127 potential marine conservation zones have been selected in a multimillion-pound programme involving wildlife groups, local coastal communities and marine industry representatives.

The areas would be protected from damaging activities such as fishing along the seabed or dredging, with restrictions varying from zone to zone, as part of moves to create a coherent network of protected areas throughout England’s seas.

But the Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has raised concerns that the government will only designate 31 of the sites as protected by the end of next year, despite many more being severely thre...

The marine conservation group Sea Shepherd has scored a propaganda victory over Japan after it emerged it had bought its newest anti-whaling vessel from the Japanese government, apparently without its knowledge.

The $2m dollar vessel, which previously belonged to the country’s meteorological agency, was bought from unsuspecting Japanese authorities by a US company, re-registered in the Pacific island of Tuvalu as the New Atlantis, and delivered to Australia by a Japanese crew.

The ship, which was unveiled on Tuesday in Hobart, was reflagged to Australia and named after Sam Simon, the founding producer of The Simpsons TV series and a prominent animal rights campaigner.

It is the newest addition to a fleet of four Sea Shepherd vessels that is expected to pursue Japan’s whalers soon after the...