Blog Archives

Greenpeace campaigners who scaled a drilling vessel off Greenland in a bid to stop work have been removed, it has been revealed.

The 53,000-tonne Leiv Eiriksson rig is run by Edinburgh-based Cairn Energy.

Activists were hanging from the underside of the rig in a survival pod for four days.

Greenpeace said the Danish navy had removed the two campaigners. A Cairn spokesperson said there had been no impact on its schedule.

Greenpeace said in a statement that the end of the occupation would not stop it “opposing the madness of drilling for oil in a region where a spill would be almost impossible to clean up”.

Cairn Energy confirmed in a statement: “Members of Greenpeace have been removed.

“The authorities took the action to ensure the safety of those involved in and around the drilling operat...

Clownfish, the spectacular tropical species feted in the movie Finding Nemo, appear to lose their hearing in water slightly more acidic than normal.

At levels of acidity that may be common by the end of the century, the fish did not respond to the sounds of predators.

The oceans are becoming more acidic because they absorb much of the CO2 that humanity puts into the atmosphere.

Scientists write in the journal Biology Letters that failing to move away from danger would hurt the fish’s survival.

“Avoiding coral reefs during the day is very typical behaviour of fish in open water,” said research leader Steve Simpson from the School of Biological Sciences at the UK’s Bristol University.

“They do this by monitoring the sounds of animals on the reef, most of which are predators to something jus...

A 35ft (10.6m) long whale has died three hours after becoming stranded on a beach on Teesside.

Police alerted the RNLI after spotting the stricken mammal on Redcar Beach just after 0620 BST on Tuesday.

Officers from the RSPCA joined the rescue bid and tried to keep the whale wet in the hope it would be taken out by the high tide at about 1500 BST.

But despite the efforts, the whale, whose species has not been identified, died three hours later.

Officers from the Coastguard and Cleveland Fire Brigade also tried to help while RSPCA vets assessed the mammal’s condition.

An RNLI spokesman said: “We have just received notification that unfortunately it has just died in the last few minutes.

“We don’t know the reasons but usually when they get to this situation the conclusion is that they don’t...

Prince William and Kate spent honeymoon hours in the water, scuba diving with sting rays and turtles and sharks.

Their Seychelles hideaway is surrounded by a nature preserve, so the Royal pair had many chances to be up close and in touch with the water wildlife, reports US Weekly.

“They got to see some wonderful things,” says Amanda Hunt, press attach

Findings from a “natural laboratory” in seas off Papua New Guinea suggest that acidifying oceans will severely hit coral reefs by the end of the century.

Carbon dioxide bubbles into the water from the slopes of a dormant volcano here, making it slightly more acidic.

Coral is badly affected, not growing at all in the most CO2-rich zone.

Writing in journal Nature Climate Change, the scientists say this “lab” mimics conditions that will be widespread if CO2 emissions continue.

The oceans absorb some of the carbon dioxide that human activities are putting into the atmosphere.

This is turning seawater around the world slightly more acidic – or slightly less alkaline.

This reduces the capacity of corals and other marine animals to form hard structures such as shells.

Projections of rising green...

An anchor from what is said to be the wreck of notorious English pirate Blackbeard’s flagship has been retrieved off North Carolina’s coast, US archaeologists say.

The massive anchor – weighing more than 1,000 kg (2,200lb) – is one of the largest artefacts on what is believed to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge ship.

The anchor will now be put in a museum.

The flagship is thought to have sunk in 1718, five months after Blackbeard was killed by British sailors.

The US archaeologists said they had first planned to lift a bigger anchor but realised it was too well-attached to other items in the ballast pile.

They said that divers would continue to work next week and then decide how to proceed to retrieve other artefacts from the ship.

Project manager Mark Wilde-Ramsing said the team hoped to recov...

Whale sharks, long thought to be solitary animals feeding in the open sea, have been recorded in huge groups feeding in coastal waters, U.S. researchers say.

While aggregations, or schools, of whale sharks ranging from several individual sharks to a few dozen have been seen in the past, new research by scientists at the Smithsonian Institution — using both surface and aerial surveys — has revealed an enormous aggregation of whale sharks, the largest ever reported, with as many as 420 individuals off the coast of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.

Food is bringing them together in such large groups, a Smithsonian release said Wednesday.

“Whale sharks are the largest species of fish in the world, yet they mostly feed on the smallest organisms in the ocean, such as zooplankton,” Smithsonian bio...

The Philippine government expressed outrage on Wednesday at the plunder of corals and turtles that may have destroyed thousands of hectares (acres) of precious reefs.

President Benigno Aquino’s spokesman also vowed to step up marine patrols following this month’s seizure at Manila’s port of 158 stuffed sea turtles and about 124,000 pieces of coral, which were valued at about $80,000.

“(We are) appalled because the plundering of our marine resources shows much remains to be done to safeguard our marine biodiversity,” spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a statement.

“The monetary value of the black coral and sea turtles confiscated in the Port of Manila is tiny compared to the ecological devastation they represent — hundreds, possibly thousands, of hectares of coral reefs and all the ecological...

Seagrasses around the world are disappearing, with some species now threatened with extinction.

The first global survey of individual seagrass species has found that 14% are at risk of going extinct.

More common species are also in decline, meaning both seagrass habitat and diversity is being lost.

Seagrasses provide food and habitat for a variety of ocean species including manatees, sea turtles and fish such as sea horses.

Seagrasses are flowering plants that grow on the ocean floor.

They form vast meadows that flower and seed underwater, having evolved from land-based plants that entered the water millions of years ago.

Seagrasses alone form important marine habitats.

They act as nurseries for young fish and shellfish, and are the primary food for large marine mammals such as manatees a...

Two small islands in South Asia’s first marine biosphere reserve have sunk into the sea primarily as a result of coral reef mining, experts say.

The islets were in a group in the Gulf of Mannar, between India and Sri Lanka.

The Indo-Pacific region is considered to contain some of the world’s richest marine biological resources.

The group’s 21 islands and islets are protected as part of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park, covering an area of nearly 560 sq km (216 sq miles).

Fishermen had indiscriminately and illegally mined invaluable coral reefs around the islets of Poomarichan and Villanguchalli for many decades, said S Balaji, chief conservator of forests and wildlife for that region of Tamil Nadu state.

“The absence of any regulations prior to 2002 led to illegal mining of the cor...