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Although Sir Richard Branson was delighted with his laser eye surgery

The Cornwall Wildlife Trust is concerned about dolphins being harassed after reports of large numbers of the creatures around west Cornwall.

Up to 1,000 of the animals have been sighted around the coast in the past five days.

The trust said a number of skippers had been annoying the animals, and were unaware of how to react around them.

Dolphins, harbour porpoises and basking sharks are protected species. Harassing the creatures is a criminal offence.

The trust said the Marine Creatures Code of Conduct existed to protect marine wildlife. The code states that boats should stay at least 100m (330ft) away from dolphins.

It also says if the creatures approach a boat, the engines should be switched to neutral.

The penalties for ignoring the code can be fines of up to

Almost two decades after the federal government announced a moratorium on cod fishing in Canada, a new study shows the once-dwindling Atlantic cod stock is on the road to recovery.

Researchers from Queen’s University and the Bedford Institute of Oceanography in Nova Scotia said that cod, as well as other groundfish populations, are growing in numbers off the coast of Nova Scotia.

“This early-stage recovery represents a long ecological transition for an ecosystem that was pushed out of balance and that is gradually moving back into balance,” said William Leggett, Queen’s biology professor and expert in the dynamics of large marine ecosystems, in a university press release.

The Atlantic cod fishery collapsed in the ’90s and an all-out moratorium was announced in 2003...

The Presidency of Meteorology and Environment (PME) has conducted a study on the impact of diving on the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

A South American dolphin is the first “true mammal” to sense prey by their electric fields, scientists suggest.

The researchers first showed that structures on the animal’s head were probably sensory organs, then found it could detect electric fields in water.

Electroreception is well known in fish and amphibians, but until now the only mammal example was the platypus.

Writing in the Royal Society’s journal Proceedings B, the scientists say other cetaceans may show the same ability.

The Guiana dolphin (Sotalia guianensis) lives around the east coast of South America, and resembles the much more common bottlenose variety.

Like all of the toothed cetaceans, it hunts and locates using sound.

But the researchers have now shown that at close range, it can also sense electrical signals.

They ar...

Blainville’s beaked whales, which are among the world’s most enigmatic cetacea, go silent in shallow waters.

Researchers have discovered that the whales refuse to communicate with each other near the surface.

By becoming silent, the whales enter a stealth mode that prevents them being detected by predatory killer whales.

The study, one of the first to record how beaked whales communicate, also recorded sounds made at the deepest recorded depth by any mammal.

Beaked whales are deep-diving, toothed whales.

Little is known about them, in part because they spend so much of their time in the ocean depths.

Some species have been barely sighted, and scientists suspect there may be more species of beaked whale awaiting discovery.

Also, very little is known about how beaked whales communicate or a...

A Chinese submersible conducted the country’s deepest manned dive ever Thursday in the latest milestone for China’s deep-sea ambitions as it seeks to exploit the vast resources of the ocean floor.

The Jiaolong undersea craft — named after a mythical sea dragon — reached 4,027 metres (13,211 feet) below sea level in a test dive in the northeastern Pacific, the State Oceanic Administration said in a statement.

“The success of this test dive has laid a solid foundation for completing the mission of diving to 5,000 metres,” it said.

The craft carried three people in Thursday’s test and will attempt to reach 5,000 metres in another dive on Friday.

Chinese technical capabilities have gathered pace in recent decades, exemplified by a fast-growing space programme that in 2005 made China just t...

A deep-sea, white coral reef has been discovered in the Alboran sea (Western Mediterranean) during the Oceana Ranger

Britain’s seas could be turned into a “jellyfish soup” this summer, scientists have warned swimmers. The number of jellyfish living in the UK’s coastal waters is on the rise, says the Marine Conservation Society (MCS).

“There is strong evidence that jellyfish numbers are increasing around the world, including UK seas, and these increases have been linked to factors such as pollution, over-fishing and possibly climate change,” said the MCS’ Peter Richardson.

The society is now asking beachgoers to take part in its survey of jellyfish numbers to help learn more about them.

Species usually seen in British waters are the barrel, moon, compass, blue and lion’s mane jellyfish.

Those brave enough to get close to the creatures are being urged to “look but not touch” as not all have a mild sting.

S...

A great white shark has been rescued by crane after it leapt out of the ocean and became stranded on a boat.

The 500kg (1,100lb), 3m (9.84ft) long animal was attracted to bait thrown by a research team conducting a shark count South Africa’s Mossell Bay.

It became lodged on the boat and the researchers eventually towed it to land where it was winched off.

Oceans Research said the shark was last seen swimming strongly out to sea and appeared to be unharmed.

Team leader Dorien Schroder said she and her colleagues were “chumming” – throwing fish matter – into the water around the boat on Monday in an attempt to draw sharks closer so they could be identified and counted, a technique which worked rather too well.

“I heard a splash and looked back to see a shark pretty much mid-air hovering abo...