Blog Archives

The Egyptian authorities have lifted all diving restrictions in the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh following the shark attacks earlier this month.

But the tourism ministry said a ban on swimming and snorkelling was still in place along a 3km (2-mile) stretch of beach in the main resort area.

Meanwhile, an environmental group has accused officials of “indiscriminately” killing at least 10 sharks.

The South Sinai deputy governor has denied any large-scale shark cull.

“We don’t kill sharks,” the Deputy Governor for South Sinai, Ahmed Saleh, told the BBC.

“Only one, or maybe two or three sharks have been caught, but not killed. Maybe they died after they were caught,” he added.

Earlier, the director of the Hurghada Environmental Protection Agency (Hepca), Amr Ali, told the BBC that he had r...

Florida is taking a page out of Bermuda

This idea, presented by Wageningen biologist Ronald Osinga, came as a surprise to delegates at the international coral symposium held in Wageningen last week.

The symposium was an initiative by the International Society for Reef Studies (ISRS) and focused on the effects of climate change on coral reefs.

Acidification of the oceans is one of the problems, and corals are highly sensitive to it.

They become bleached and the calcium they contain dissolves.

But this does not have to happen, says marine biologist Osinga. On the closing day of the symposium he proposed a solution: sea lettuce (ulva lactuca).

As it grows, this marine plant lowers the acidity of water. What is more, it is edible.

Osinga and his colleagues have calculated that a ‘marine garden’ of 180,000 square kilometres coul...

Red Sea sharks are threatened by Yemenese poachers who sell their fins to Asia for a fit price.

But it turns out that Arabian Gulf shark species are also vulnerable.

So much so that conservationists have advised regional environmental groups and governments to set aside sanctuaries that will protect them.

As predators, sharks play an essential role in any marine ecosystem.

Without them, prey are able to proliferate, in turn eradicating food lower on the chain.

Failure to institute substantial measures to protect Gulf sharks would lead to a serious imbalance, and harm the economics of people who rely on it.

International experts gathered in Abu Dhabi last week at the Marine Conservation Forum 2010 to discuss the 25 shark and other species in the Gulf that require urgent attention, but w...

The Japanese fisheries agency has warned officials not to accept whale meat as gifts from whalers, amid embezzlement allegations involving tax-funded whaling programmes, reports said Wednesday.

The five officials were reprimanded for accepting three to seven kilograms (6.6 to 15.4 pounds) of meat from a private fisheries firm that was contracted to conduct whaling, local media reported, citing agency sources.

The packages of whale meat were estimated to be worth 180 to 840 dollars, Jiji Press said, adding that one of the officials later returned the meat.

Officials could not be reached immediately for comment.

The reports came as activist group Greenpeace presses Tokyo to probe claims that whalers, politicians and officials have illegally taken meat from Japan’s tax-funded whaling projects...

Billfish and tuna, important commercial and recreational fish species, are vulnerable to fishing pressure as a result of shrinking habitat, U.S. scientists say.

Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say a growing zone of low oxygen, known as a hypoxic zone, in the Atlantic Ocean is affecting these species’ preferred oxygen-abundant habitats, forcing them into shallower waters where they are more likely to be caught, a NOAA release said Wednesday.

While hypoxic zones occur naturally in the world’s tropical and equatorial oceans, scientists worry these zones are expanding and occurring closer to the sea surface, and are expected to continue to grow as sea temperatures rise.

“The hypoxic zone off West Africa, which covers virtually all the equatorial waters in th...

A bill backed by ocean conservation groups, as well as celebrities like

The great sweep of water around Planet Earth has been captured from space in greater detail than ever before. New observations from Europe’s Goce gravity mapping satellite have allowed scientists to plot ocean currents with unprecedented precision.

Understanding gravity is fundamental to being able to track the direction and speed of water across the globe.

The data should improve the climate models which need to represent better how oceans move heat around the planet.

Very strongly represented in the new map is the famous Gulf Stream, the most intense of all the currents where water zips along at velocities greater than one metre per second in places.

“The Gulf Stream takes warm water from the tropics and transports it to higher latitudes, and that warmth is released to the atmosphere and...

A scuba diving Santa Claus was working the inhabitants of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

During his submarine excursion, Santa came face to face with a goliath grouper that seemed quite fascinated with the jolly man and his red suit.

In addition to Santa scuba diving activities, this underwater Santa also offers up photo opportunities for families and children as a way to help local children’s charities.

The area where this scuba Santa makes his aquatic home is the oldest underwater preserve in the United States just off the tip of Florida.

Pennekamp Park is now fifty years old and is part of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary.

Due to the decline of staghorn corals, damselfish are killing more Carribean corals than 30 years ago.

Threespot damselfish use algae crops for building nests and feeding; these activities are killing corals in the Caribbean.

Scientists used to believe that overfishing of threespot damselfish predators allowed the damselfish to gain numbers and kill more coral, but overpopulation isn