Blog Archives

Members of the public are being asked by scientists at the University of St Andrews to help them investigate the way whales communicate.

So-called “citizen scientists” from across the world are being urged to listen to and help classify sounds made by the mammals.

The St Andrews Sea Mammal Research Unit is part of the Whale Project – a global effort to categorise whale calls.

It aims to establish whether calls vary between different groups of whales.

The Whale Project website site displays calls from both killer whales and pilot whales.

“Citizen scientists” who log on are presented with a whale call and shown where it was recorded on a map of the world’s oceans and seas.

Distinctive dialect

After listening to the whale call, members of the public are then asked to listen to a number of po...

A team of scientists has set out on a six-week mission, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, to explore the Indian Ocean’s underwater mountains, or seamounts.

The scientists aboard the research vessel, the RRS James Cook, will study life thousands of metres below the surface.

In the second of her BBC Nature diary entries, Aurelie Spadone from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, who is part of the team, explains what makes seamount habitats unique.

I have been on board the RRS James Cook for almost three weeks now, and I’ve settled in to a routine.

Each day is like the previous one in terms of rhythm. We worked at defined hours, there is no weekend and we take our meals at the very same time each day.

But one thing that strikes me is that our perception of...

The Australian government says it plans to establish the world’s largest marine reserve in the Coral Sea.

Environment Minister Tony Burke said the protected zone would cover an area more than one-and-a-half times the size of France.

New fishing limits would be imposed and and exploration for oil and gas banned.

The proposal is subject to a 90-day consultation, but Mr Burke said the Coral Sea’s biodiversity was at the heart of the plan.

“There is no other part of Australia’s territory where so much comes together – pristine oceans, magnificent coral, a military history which has helped define us and now a clear proposal for permanent protection,” he said.

The sea – off the Queensland coast in north-east Australia – is home to sharks and tuna, isolated tropical reefs and deep sea canyons...

As for many mothers-to-be, the late stages of pregnancy can be extremely awkward for dolphins, say scientists.

Gliding along beneath the ocean, it might seem that these streamlined marine mammals are unaffected by the slight swell of carrying a baby.

But a study has revealed that the females’ top swimming speed is almost halved when they are close to giving birth.

The findings are published in the Journal of Experimental Biology.

They reveal just how much the animals invest in carrying their offspring.

Lead researcher Shawn Noren, from the Institute of Marine Science at the University of California Santa Cruz, US, was originally interested in how baby dolphins learned to swim.

But while she was diving with the animals in Hawaii, and filming their behaviour, she became fascinated by how th...

The tsunami two years ago in American Samoa has given scientists a chance to examine an issue that often seems of little significance in the immediate aftermath of these massive disasters; the little-seen, rarely studied but often frightening damage done to offshore coral reefs.

A new study by scientists from Oregon and Michigan, done with a remotely operated undersea vehicle (ROV) surveyed large areas of that area’s coral reefs, and revealed significant damage from sediment, debris, and the enormous forces of both the incoming and outgoing waves.

Corals are delicate living organisms that can only survive in shallow, nearshore areas where they get adequate sunlight...

A Dutch judge has ruled that a rescued killer whale can be sent to a Canary Islands amusement park, despite pleas to release the animal into the wild.

The case of Morgan the orca sharply divided opinion in the Netherlands.

The orca was rescued by a dolphinarium in Harderwijk after being found exhausted and starving in shallow waters in the Waddenzee in June 2010.

Conservationists are devastated by Monday’s ruling, fearing the move to the Canaries will kill Morgan.

The judge in Amsterdam decided however that the orca would have no reasonable chance of survival in the wild.

The plan is to transfer Morgan within days to Loro Parque on Tenerife, where she will join five other orcas in a big tank, on show to the public.

Ahead of the judge’s ruling the campaign website of the Free Morgan Foundat...

Delegates at an international conservation meeting agreed Saturday on a measure mandating that silky sharks accidentally caught in fishing gear be released back into the sea alive, marine advocacy groups said.

The 48-member International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), however

observed 5 octopus, two were large (about 35 lbs.)

Measures to prevent illicit fishing of Mediterranean bluefin tuna have been strengthened at the annual meeting of governments involved in the industry.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) decided to implement an electronic system for recording bluefin catches.

Research shows catches have been far higher than skippers have declared.

The meeting, in Turkey, also gave extra protection to the silky shark, whose numbers are falling because of fishing.

Tuna boats often snare this species by accident; and now, fishermen will have to release them alive.

Government delegates also voted through a minimum legal size for swordfish, and will draw up a comprehensive recovery plan in 2013.

But proposals for protecting the porbeagle shark, classified as vulnerable t...

The number of jellyfish found in the waters off British coast has risen dramatically. Experts are attributing the cause to three main factors: pollution, over fishing and climate change.

A nuclear power plant in Scotland, Torness, had to be closed down recently when moon jellyfish clogged the water intake system. Several tonnes of the sea creatures had to be removed. The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) has even described the Irish Sea and the east coast of Scotland as