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“It’s all psychological. You yell ‘barracuda!’, people are like ‘Huh?? What?? You yell, ‘shark’ and we got a panic on our hands on the Fourth of July.”

Those familiar with the film that introduced the world to the concept of a ‘summer blockbuster’ will know that these words are spoken by Larry Vaughn, Mayor of Amity Island, the fictional summer town setting for ‘Jaws’. More than 40 years after it terrified cinemagoers, Jaws remains a legendary piece of film storytelling. Based on Peter Benchley’s actually far more explicit book, its tale centres on a Police Chief’s two-handed battle: on land, against a town mayor with misguided principles, and off shore against a ‘killer shark.’

So why was ‘Jaws’ so successful in creating stampedes of filmgoers to their loca...

For nearly three decades, Javier Barker has fished in the Caribbean Sea surrounding the Colombian island of San Andres – but until recently he knew little about the importance of coral reefs that fish depend on to survive. “I used to think corals were just hard stones. I didn’t know that corals are living creatures,” said 40-year-old Barker, who began line fishing as a teenager with his family.

“I now know corals are cradles for fish, and healthier corals equals more fish so corals are important for everyone,” he said.

Worldwide, coral reefs from the Caribbean to the Pacific Ocean have come under growing stress as a result of rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change and other human-induced pressures including overfishing, pollution and tourism...

An enormous shark ”nursery” swarming with the predatory fish and strewn with their eggs has been found in the waters 200 miles off the western Irish coast. The rare discovery was made by a remotely operated vehicle exploring the region’s cold-water coral reefs at depths of around 750m. Scientists observed a large school of blackmouth catsharks, a relatively small species found throughout the northeast Atlantic, alongside the more unusual and solitary sailfin roughshark.

The site’s egg cases, or mermaids purses, are seldom seen in such vast numbers, and are thought to belong to the catsharks.

While there were no shark pups swimming around the site, the researchers behind the SeaRover survey that captured the footage want to keep an eye on events there and potentially watch them h...

Whales may be largest animals on Earth, but that still doesn’t mean they’re easy to find in the vast oceans they inhabit. In the past, researchers have used acoustic monitoring, aerial surveys and binoculars to keep track of the marine mammals. Each of those techniques, however, can only survey a tiny slice of the oceans. Jonathan Amos at the BBC reports that a new study shows whales can be counted from space, giving conservationists a massive new tool to survey and monitor to creatures.

Researchers have tried to count whales using satellite imagery in the past with limited success since the resolution just wasn’t fine enough. For the new study in the journal Marine Mammal Science, researchers from the British Antarctic Survey and the University of Cambridge gave it another shot, usi...

Prominent environmentalist Ian Kiernan, the founder of an iconic Australian anti-litter campaign that expanded into a global success, has died aged 78. The round-the-world yachtsman began the Clean Up Australia and Clean Up the World campaigns after being appalled by levels of ocean rubbish in the 1980s.

In 1994, he famously helped come to the rescue of Prince Charles when a protester rushed at him, firing a starting pistol, on a stage in Sydney.

Mr Kiernan had been enduring cancer.

“While we will deeply miss Ian’s guidance and humour, it was his greatest wish that the work he inspired continues,” Clean Up Australia said in a statement on Wednesday.

His first clean-up event took place around Sydney Harbour in 1989, with more than 40,000 volunteers clearing rubbish from the shoreline.

It h...

It may be a magnet for ocean-going excess, but the Monaco Yacht Show is becoming an increasingly precious jewel in the fight to save our seas. The luxury shop window for mega yachts and boating bling opens with a glitzy gala dinner and charity auction, which raised more than $27 million for marine conservation projects carried out by the Prince Albert II of Monaco Foundation.

The A-list guests, including Katy Perry, Orlando Bloom, Adrien Brody and a host of Victoria’s Secret models dressed in dazzling gowns and diamonds, bid on lots ranging from the world’s first luxury electric powerboat to horseback riding with Madonna. On online auction will remain open until December.

But why are the super rich so keen to save the seas?

‘The ocean is their playground’

Environmentalist and explorer Emil...

A new United Nations’ scientific panel on climate change paints a dire picture, writes Coral Davenport in the New York Times. The report, issued on Monday by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), minces few words, describing “a world of worsening food shortages and wildfires” resulting from continued climate change. The report also indicates that, given current trends, a mass “die-off” of coral reefs by 2040 is highly likely.

The challenge facing the world is daunting. As Chris Mooney and Brady Dennis write in the Washington Post, to avoid these kinds of outcomes “would mean that, in a world projected to have more than two billion additional people by 2050, large swaths of land currently used to produce food would instead have to be converted to growing trees tha...

As the world’s oceans continue to warm, coral reefs are struggling to survive. In recent years large swaths of some of the world’s biggest and best known reefs have died, and a recent UN report maintains that the reefs could “cease to exist as functioning coral reef ecosystems by the end of this century” unless steps are taking to protect them.

But scientists are stepping in to help. From floating chemical “sunscreens” to reef-patrolling robots, they’re developing all sorts of strategies and devices to help coral. In one of the most promising approaches, researchers are looking for ways to accelerate the pace at which corals adapt to warmer seas — so they can survive rather than succumb.

It’s too soon to know whether this approach will work...

Scientists are investigating why around 70 deep water whales have washed up on Scottish and Irish beaches since the beginning of August.Cuvier’s beaked whales are normally found in the deep waters of the Atlantic.

They are among the deepest diving whales on the planet and have the ability to dive to depths of up to two miles for upwards of an hour at a time.

They are particularly sensitive to sound, prompting some to question if sonar or another military exercise has caused the issue.

Source

It is likely to be the most critical and controversial report on climate change in recent years. Leading scientists are meeting in South Korea this week to see if global temperatures can be kept from rising by more than 1.5C this century. The world has already passed one degree of warming as carbon emissions have ballooned since the 1850s.

Many low-lying countries say they may disappear under the sea if the 1.5C limit is breached.

After a week of deliberations in the city of Incheon, the researchers’ new report is likely to say that keeping below this limit will require urgent and dramatic action from governments and individuals alike.

One scientist told BBC News that our lives would never be the same if the world changed course to stay under 1.5C.

The new study is being produced by the ...