Blog Archives

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...

The leatherback turtle is one of our planet’s most distinctive creatures. It can live for decades and grow to weigh up to two tonnes. It is the largest living reptile on Earth and its evolutionary roots reach back more than 100 million years.

“Leatherbacks are living fossils,” says oceanographer Professor Callum Roberts, of York University. “But they are not flourishing. In fact, they are being wiped out at an extraordinary rate, particularly in the Pacific Ocean, where their numbers have declined by 97% over the past three decades. They are now critically endangered there.”

Leatherbacks are suffering for several reasons. They have been hunted for their meat for centuries and the spread of tourist resorts disrupts turtles when they come ashore to lay their eggs on sandy beaches...

A Czech tourist was killed in a shark attack in the Red Sea off the coast of Egypt, the country’s Ministry of Environment said on Sunday. The 41-year-old man was found dead on a beach in the resort city of Marsa Alam on Friday after being attacked by a shark, City Board Chariman Atef Wagdy said.

“A delegation from the environment ministry and another delegation from the natural reserve of the red sea are currently investigating the incident and trying to locate the shark in the Red Sea,” he said.

The shark is believed to have attacked the man in parts of the sea beyond the coral reef, where Wagdy said people are vulnerable to attack.

The marina, which extends into the coral reefs, has been closed off to beachgoers, Wagdy said.

He added the beach wasn’t evacuated, but beach guards were clo...