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A fish normally found in tropical waters has twice been spotted off the west coast of Scotland last week. It is the fourth time this year that the sunfish has been recorded by the Hebridean Whale and Dolphin Trust. The ocean sunfish is the heaviest bony fish in the world, with an average weight of 2,200lbs (998kg). The species was recorded on Friday by the crew of a fishing boat off the north coast of Skye. A sunfish was also seen off Ardnamurchan on Wednesday.

Sunfish, which drift with ocean currents, were once rarely seen in Scotland, but boat operators have reported more sightings in recent years, with August being the peak month.

They live on a diet of mostly jellyfish and swim at depths of up to nearly 2,000ft (610m).

Donning just a pair of briefs with a simple cap and goggles, activist swimmer and UN Patron of the Oceans Lewis Pugh became the first person to swim the length of the English Channel. Completing an incredible 530k swim, which started on July 12th, 48-year-old Pugh swam an average of 10k for 50 days straight in the hopes of putting Marine Protected Areas around the UK and Overseas Territories in the public spotlight.

“This swim was not about being the first person to swim the length of the English Channel. I would describe it as a protest swim,” he said. “It was a swim done to highlight what’s happening in our oceans and to really try to get world leaders to understand how serious it is and how quickly our oceans are changing,” Pugh said after he came ashore.

“Completing The Long ...

This World Water Week, we spoke with 19-year-old Ben May, Founder and President at ThinkOcean and a student at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also the recipient of the prestigious Global Environmental Education Partnership EE 30 under 30 award.

My fondest childhood memories are by the sea. There is nothing like diving and discovering the beautiful, mysterious underwater world, feeling the breeze from the ocean air or hearing the crashing of the waves. We take the ocean for granted and often forget that 71% of the Earth’s surface is covered by water.

Ocean and land are tightly interconnected. Everything that we do on land has a direct, global, and cascading impact on the ocean. What happens in the oceans affects the entire planet.

Marine ecosystems are at their most vulnerable...

A fleet of Japanese whaling ships caught 177 minke and sei whales during a three-month tour of the northwestern Pacific, the government said Wednesday. The three-ship mission returned home as Tokyo prepares to make its case to resume commercial whaling at a meeting of the International Whaling Commission (IWC) in Brazil next month.

During the latest 98-day mission, the ships caught 43 minke whales and 134 sei whales, the Fisheries Agency said in a statement.

Foreign pressure on Japan to stop whaling has only made conservatives and politicians more resolute about continuing their push to resume commercial whaling.

It is a rare thorny issue in Tokyo’s otherwise amiable diplomacy.

“Data that were gathered during this mission will be analysed, along with results from coastal research programm...

Just off the shore of the city of Cartagena, home of one of Colombia’s biggest ports, lies a coral reef that campaigners are furiously battling to protect. The Varadero reef, located in Cartagena Bay, has survived against the odds to thrive in a highly polluted environment. The Caribbean Sea bay, a major waterway for shipping vessels and cruise ships, is contaminated by industrial and sewage waste.

Shipping businesses are planning to expand the canal’s Bocachica Channel and build another passageway straight through the reef, meaning a quarter of it will be destroyed and the remainder threatened.

According to marine biologists, the reef should not be alive, and yet it has flourished, providing a home to a large number of coral, fish and urchin species.

‘Improbable and imperilled’

A report,...

The litter is not only a blight on landscapes, waterways, trees and power lines, but balloons and balloon strings can entangle, choke or kill marine life and other animals. That’s not to mention the wasteful use of helium, a non-renewable resource.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that much like recent efforts to ban plastic straws and plastic bags, balloons could similarly be on the way out as the general public becomes more environmentally conscious.

“The issue of straws has really broadened the marine debris issue,” Emma Tonge of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told the AP.

Recently, South Carolina’s Clemson University decision last month to end its 30-year football gameday tradition of releasing 10,000 balloons into the air...

Whale enthusiasts are celebrating the return of the humpback to B.C.’s coastal waters, even though it means people need to learn how to coexist with the gentle giants. The Northeast Pacific population of humpback whales, which spend much of their time in B.C. waters during the summer months, has experienced a remarkable recovery in the past few decades.

The migratory whales, known for their underwater ballads, are easily recognizable by their long pectoral fins and knobby heads.

Ocean temperatures off the Southern California coast have been profoundly warm in August, with a number of all-time high temperatures recorded in San Diego’s almost bath-like waters. These extreme marine temperatures — created by weather patterns and boosted by climate change — have a sphere of influence beyond the oceans, as this heat has contributed to unusual heat and mugginess on the heavily-populated coast.

This is not the norm for seaside San Diego, which is famous for its sunny, though moderate, climate.

“We’re in a record-setting streak right now,” Mark Moede, a National Weather Service meteorologist in San Diego, said in an interview. “It’s unprecedented — typically it’s pretty temperate.”

Since July 1, San Diego hasn’t had a single day where the high temperature fell bel...

A killer whale has stopped carrying her dead newborn calf after at least 17 days, during which she covered 1,000 miles (1,600km), scientists say. The whale “vigorously chased a school of salmon with her pod-mates in Haro Strait” off Canada’s Vancouver Island, the Center for Whale Research said.

“Her tour of grief is now over and her behaviour is remarkably frisky.”

Killer whales have been known to carry dead calves for a week, but scientists believe this mother “sets a record”.

The mother whale – known as J35 – has captivated the world’s attention in the past few days.

“Telephoto digital images taken from shore show that this mother whale appears to be in good physical condition,” CWR said in a statement on Saturday.

“The carcass has probably sunk to the bottom of these inland marine wate...

Corals may have teamed up with the microscopic algae which live inside them as much as 160 million years ago, according to new research. The two organisms have a symbiotic relationship, meaning they need each other to survive. But this partnership was previously thought to have developed about 60 million years ago.

The new findings suggest that reef algae may have weathered significant environmental changes over time. This includes the mass extinction that wiped out most of the dinosaurs.

Algae’s resilience to temperature changes has been of concern to scientists recently, as warming events on the Great Barrier Reef have seen the coral “bleached” of its algae.

The study, conducted by an international team of scientists, aimed to explore the diversity of algae species co-habiting with co...