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Florida wildlife officials are warning beachgoers to watch out for sea turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs.

Loggerhead, leatherback and green turtles regularly nest on Florida beaches from March through October. All three are federally protected species.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission officials warn beachgoers to leave the turtles and their nests alone.

Sea turtle eggs typically incubate for 45 to 60 days, and the vulnerable hatchlings will emerge through November.

Officials urge people to turn off or shield outdoor lights that face the ocean, because the artificial lights can disorient hatchlings heading toward the water.

Officials say 2011 was an exceptional year for sea turtles in Florida, with a record number of green turtle nests and a high number of leatherba...

An internal planning meeting of IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) on global coasts is taking place this week in Zanzibar.

Marine conservation specialists from a wide range of countries including Costa Rica, Brazil, Fiji and Mozambique are meeting to develop a more strategic approach to conserving the fragile shores of our planet.

One interesting suggestion that has emerged in the discussions is to partner with large scale coastal development projects to conserve marine biodiversity.

Such projects are usually seen as a major threat to biodiversity. However, if they are well designed and managed, they may actually be able to play a positive role in protecting our coasts.

In the oil & gas sector, for example, Yemen LNG has recently built a facility on the Gulf of Ade...

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Japan has ended its whaling season with less than a third of its annual target, said the country’s Fisheries Agency.

The whaling ships headed home from the Antarctic Ocean this week with 266 minke whales and one fin whale, falling short of its quota of about 900.

The agency blamed “sabotage” by anti-whaling activists for the shortfall.

Japan conducts “legal research” on whales each year, but activists say it is a cover for commercial whaling banned under an international treaty.

“The catch was smaller than planned due to factors including weather conditions and sabotage acts by activists,” an agency official was quoted by the AFP news agency as saying.

“There were definitely sabotage campaigns behind the figure.”

The US-based anti-whaling group Sea Shepherd follows the Japanese fleet sout...

Fearing that climate change could wipe out their entire Pacific archipelago, the leaders of Kiribati are considering an unusual backup plan: moving the populace to Fiji.

Kiribati President Anote Tong told The Associated Press on Friday that his Cabinet this week endorsed a plan to buy nearly 6,000 acres on Fiji

Scientific studies show that global warming is causing irreversible damage to the Mesoamerican Barrier Reef System, the world’s second largest coral reef, yet efforts to protect this biologically and economically vital ecosystem remain insufficient.

Rising sea temperatures provoke an increase in “bleaching” or loss of pigmentation in coral reefs.

“This basically means the death of the coral due to the disappearance of the zooxanthellae algae that live in symbiosis with these ecosystems,” expert Juan Carlos Villagr

The spectacular snouts of sawfish are revealed as complete hunting weapons, sensing prey and killing them.

The saws, which can grow more than a metre long in some species, have previously been identified as able to sense prey by their electric fields.

Now, researchers have filmed the fish impaling prey on the teeth of the saws.

They suggest in Current Biology that sawfish are more active hunters than previously thought, which could help in their much-needed conservation.

All seven species are listed as Critically Endangered on the internationally-recognised Red List.

The researchers, mainly based in Australia, suggest sawfish may be unique among their peers in possessing a snout, or rostrum, that works both as a sensory organ and a hunting weapon.

“I like to call it an antenna and a weapo...

Anti-whaling activists claimed Tuesday that they have effectively ended this year’s Japanese hunt following a late-night altercation near Antarctica, but the whalers said their season will continue.

The activists said they finally found the main factory ship after playing cat-and-mouse with the whalers for the past two weeks.

The Sea Shepherd ship Bob Barker confronted the whaling ship Nisshin Maru at midnight Monday about 60 miles (97 kilometers) from the Antarctic coastline.

The activists said they used laser beams and flares to disrupt the ship. The whalers said they used small vessels and ropes to prevent the Bob Barker from getting close.

Sea Shepherd President Paul Watson says the Nisshin Maru will be prevented from further whaling with the Bob Barker disrupting it.

“They won’t get ...

The Great Barrier Reef faces a “death by a thousand cuts” from increased shipping and port development, a World Heritage delegation has been told.

An official briefing document prepared for a World Heritage fact-finding mission that starts today says Queensland’s projected strong population growth increases the pressure.

The document was prepared by the World Heritage Committee’s local representative, the united national committee of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Despite the warning, IUCN chairman and former Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority chairman Richard Kenchington said he was hopeful a strategic assessment announced by the federal and Queensland governments would be able to find a balance between conservation and development...

It was more than 40 years ago, but Ken Nedimyer still remembers the first time he went diving in the Florida Keys.

“It was just the most magical place I’d ever been to,” said Nedimyer, 56. “The coral reefs were so pretty. So many fish and so many neat things to see.”

Nedimyer became a commercial fisherman and tropical fish collector, working in the ocean nearly every day of the year. But by the mid-1980s, he noticed a troubling trend.

Two of the region’s most important corals, staghorn and elkhorn, were in drastic decline. The corals — tiny, stationary marine animals that make up the reefs — were dying because of many reasons, including climate change, pollution and overfishing, experts said.

Today, they’re on the endangered species list.

“The coral reefs of the Florida Keys are the most t...