Blog Archives

They’ve taken on Japanese whalers in Antarctica, and now the next big mission of Sea Shepherd could be in Far North Queensland.

The controversial activist group recently declared a win in its campaign against Japan

White sharks off the central California coast are far fewer in number than researchers expected, according to the first-ever scientific census. But what that says about the health of the population is not clear.

Perched atop the tip of the food chain, big, fierce predators are rare. Now it seems that white sharks may be the rarest of the rare among ocean predators, according to the first-ever scientific census of their numbers along the central California coast, by a group that included Stanford researchers.

The researchers estimate that there are only about 219 adult and sub-adult white sharks

A study led by scientists at the University of Miami (UM) Rosenstiel School of Marine & Atmospheric Science details the first scientific research to successfully track a great hammerhead shark using satellite tag technology.

Rosenstiel Schhol Research Assistant Professor Neil Hammerschlag and colleagues tracked one of the nomadic sharks for 62 days to uncover its northeast journey from the coast of South Florida to the middle of the Atlantic off the coast of New Jersey.

The straight line point-to-point distance of 1,200 kilometers (745 miles) represents a range extension for this species. The data also revealed the shark entering the Gulf Stream current and open-ocean waters of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean.

The tsunami that struck Japan on Friday brought back memories of the tsunami of 2004 that devastated many parts of Sri Lanka.

At the time, the steady destruction of coral reefs around the country was believed to have aggravated the impact of the disaster.

The theory was confirmed by Sri Lankan scientist, Harindra Fernando, who was in Sri Lanka recently.

About 75 percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by human activities and ecological disruptions, according to a new study released last week by a network of more than 24 environmental organizations. The report was issued simultaneously in a number of locations around the world.

The new study called Reefs at Risk Revisited is an update of a report first issued in 1998. It makes use of newly-available data and higher-resolution satellite mapping technology. And for the first time, it considers the impact of climate change along with other factors, on these fragile marine organisms.

Its somber assessment: if the international community does not do anything now to save the coral reefs and their rich ecosystems, more than 90 percent of the world’s reefs will be threatene...

A massive earthquake has hit the northeast of Japan triggering a tsunami that has caused extensive damage.

Japanese television showed cars, ships and even buildings being swept away by a vast wall of water after the 8.9 magnitude earthquake.

Officials said there could be a 10m (33ft) wave, with numerous casualties feared.

The quake struck about 250 miles (400km) from Tokyo at a depth of 20 miles, shaking the capital.

The tremor at 1446 local time (0546 GMT) was followed by a series of powerful aftershocks.

Seismologists say it is one of the largest earthquakes to hit Japan for many years.

The tsunami warning was extended to the Philippines, Indonesia and the Pacific coast of Russia.

Tsunami waves hit Japan’s Miyagi and Fukushima prefectures, officials said.

Japan’s NHK television showed a...

Ice loss from Antarctica and Greenland has accelerated over the last 20 years, research shows, and will soon become the biggest driver of sea level rise.

From satellite data and climate models, scientists calculate that the two polar ice sheets are losing enough ice to raise sea levels by 1.3mm each year.

Overall, sea levels are rising by about 3mm (0.12 inches) per year.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, the team says ice loss here is speeding up faster than models predict.

They add their voices to several other studies that have concluded sea levels will rise faster than projected by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in its landmark 2007 assessment.

By 2006, the Greenland and Antarctic sheets were losing a combined mass of 475Gt (gigatonnes – billion tonnes) of ...

A newly designated marine reserve around Costa Rica

Overfishing of reefs leads to explosions in populations of sea urchins, which destroy coral algae that build tropical reef systems, U.S. researchers say.

An 18-year study of Kenya’s coral reefs by the Wildlife Conservation Society and the University of California at Santa Cruz has found in contrast, reef systems closed to fishing have fewer sea urchins because predatory fish keep them under control, with resulting higher coral growth rates and more structure, a WCS release said Friday.

Large numbers of grazing sea urchins reduced the abundance of crustose coralline algae, a species of algae that produce calcium carbonate, the basic building material of ocean reefs, researchers found.

“These under-appreciated coralline algae are known to bind and stabilize reef skeletons and sand as well as...

Shark humor has its time and place, but not when I’m snorkeling somewhere called Shark Bay.

At the Heron Island Research Station, a laboratory on the teardrop-shaped atoll 45 miles (72 km) off Australia’s east coast, the suntanned, chirpy station manager gives a parting wave to the three students who are taking me out for my first look at the legendary corals of the Great Barrier Reef. “Just don’t get eaten, will you?” she says. Ha-ha.

Happily, there are no sharks in Shark Bay that morning; in fact, there’s not a whole lot of anything. As I follow the students’ snorkels, we pass over circular beds of brown, monochromatic coral and empty expanses of rippled sand.

A handful of small, glimmering fish hover in the water column, but they’re the only life we see during an hour-long swim...