Blog Archives

Traveling sea turtles were greatly impacted by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, researchers from the University of Miami (UM) report in a new study. When investigating the 87 day-long spill in the northern Gulf of Mexico, researchers found young turtles arriving at nesting beaches in the area from across the Atlantic Ocean likely trudged through contaminated waters.

“There is a perception that the spill’s impacts were largely contained to the northern Gulf of Mexico, because that is where the oil remained,” Nathan Putman, lead author of the recent study and researcher from UM’s Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said in a news release. “However, this overlooks the movement of migratory and dispersive marine animals into the area from distant locations.”

Using ...

Ruth Gates, Director of the Hawai’i Institute of Biology, is working on breeding “super corals” that can withstand the climate change that oceans are already experiencing. Another group, in Australia, is creating “mutt” corals from different robust species to achieve the same result. What’s unique about these approaches to coral preservation is that it’s like the land-based genetic tinkering that’s been done for millennia with livestock and crops.

“We’ve never taken a proactive and interventional approach” to saving corals, Gates told Discovery News at the University of Hawai’i’s Coconut Island research facility on O’ahu.

Land-based agricultural breeding methods “have never been used in the oceans,” she said.

But the method Gates uses is a bit different...

The world is experiencing its third mass coral bleaching event. Due to elevated temperatures at tropical locations over the whole planet, large populations of corals are starting to turn white. This is bad, as bleaching can lead to large-scale decreases in coral health and ultimately their death. Coral reefs provide shorelines with protection from storms, are foundational to tropical tourism and provide critical habitat to thousands of species. Large-scale coral death following mass bleaching leads to reef erosion, loss of shoreline protection, loss of tourism income and the livelihoods that depend on them, and loss of critical habitat.

Following the last mass bleaching event in 1997-98, 16% of the world’s corals died...

Las Galeras and Las Terrenas, on the Samana Peninsular, offers superb diving which is why we chose to base our scuba and adventure centers here.  We offer a wide variety of dive courses from Try and Tandem Dives through to Instructor Courses and all points in between.  

We also offer unique dive experiences for qualified divers and here are details of our dive sites. We recognise all professional Dive Association qualifications.  Whilst English is our native language, our multi-lingual team can offer Scuba Diving training in English, Spanish, Danish, French. 

Our ethos has always been to make Scuba Diving safe, accessible and affordable for all and for all to enjoy the fastest growing water sport in the world...

Gangga Diver’s PADI Five Star Dive Center is run by International dive instructors. Qualified guides and dive masters pride themselves in offering very personalized diving service to suit and divers of all levels of experience. The dive center provides racks for each room to store equipment and has toilet and shower facilities with hot water- perfect for after those night dives.

With its more than 30 world-class diving locations, the island offers a wonderful variety of marine life with rare species and pristine reefs. Gangga is the ideal starting point for diving the Bangka Archipelago, Bunaken National Marine Park (near Manado) and Lembeh Strait...

During October and November the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation removed more than seven thousand (7,396) coral-eating Crown of Thorns starfish (COTS) from vulnerable reefs in the Maldives. Foundation scientists worked with divers from local resorts as part of the Foundation’s ongoing Starfish Control and Removal (SCAR) Program to protect reefs from the damaging effects of the coral-eating starfish.

According to Dr. Andrew Bruckner, Chief Scientist for the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, “This was an uncommon opportunity for recreational divers, dive operators and local divers to take an active role in conserving the reefs they value.”

The timing of the projects was designed to protect any bleaching-resistant corals from predation in advance of a possible warming and...

SeaWorld plans to phase out its famous Shamu show at its San Diego park next year after mounting criticism over its treatment of killer whales. The entertainment parks have faced a huge backlash from animal rights groups who have protested against the conditions orcas are kept in. Visitor numbers have also plummeted since release of the 2013 documentary Blackfish which claimed SeaWorld’s treatment of its captive orcas provoked violent behaviour in the whales, leading to the deaths of three people.

The company, which operates 11 theme parks across the U.S., also reported a profit of $5.8million for April to the end of June – 7 cents per share – which was down from $37.4million for the same period last year...

Global temperatures are set to rise more than one degree above pre-industrial levels according to the UK’s Met Office. Figures from January to September this year are already 1.02C above the average between 1850 and 1900. If temperatures remain as predicted, 2015 will be the first year to breach this key threshold. The world would then be half way towards 2C, the gateway to dangerous warming.
The new data is certain to add urgency to political negotiations in Paris later this month aimed at securing a new global climate treaty.

Difficult to measure
For researchers, confusion about the true level of temperatures in the 1750s, when the industrial revolution began and fossil fuels became widely used, means that an accurate assessment of the amount the world has warmed since then is very di...

When marine biologist Michael Berumen first went diving off Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea coast in 2008, he noticed something peculiar about the coral reefs. Then a postdoctoral fellow at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts, he had travelled to the Kingdom with a group of colleagues to assess biodiversity of the Red Sea corals, one of several seed projects that had emerged from a new collaboration between Woods Hole and the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).

“The reefs looked like they were in great shape, but there was something missing,” says Berumen. “Every single one we visited had small groupers, snappers, and trevallies, but not bigger ones, and we didn’t see any sharks. It didn’t take us long to realize that the top predators were gone...

Marine scientists have discovered four deep-water coral reefs to the west of Ireland using an underwater robot. The discovery was made by following a mathematical model which shows where reefs are likely to grow. Similar technology has been used to map large areas of the seabed in Irish and Norwegian waters.

The scientists from Plymouth University and the National University of Ireland in Galway hope this breakthrough will help protect these fragile ecosystems.