Category News

For millions of years, countless sea turtles navigated the world’s oceans, migrating vast distances between foraging sites and natal nesting beaches. But today, those long journeys repeatedly expose them to harmful anthropogenic impacts and disruptive environmental changes. And despite worldwide conservation efforts, all seven sea turtle species are endangered or critically endangered at global or regional levels.

The mass movement of these, and other animals, by land, sea or air, represents one of Earth’s ancient rhythms and one of its great wonders. Those migrations also weave together vital living threads that strengthen ecosystem structure.

Now, for myriad reasons — including human-made physical hazards, climate change, pollution, habitat loss, and much more — the frayed fab...

Coral reefs provide an irreplaceable ecosystem for marine life, protect coastlines and sustain livelihoods of communities around the globe — so you can understand why scientists are concerned about the worldwide phenomenon of coral reef erosion. A new study indicates the pace of reef destruction is faster than previously thought.

Half of the Earth’s coral reefs have died out in the last 70 years, according to a study published in the One Earth journal. Researchers note that fishes caught per capita (or rather, per “unit of effort”) have declined 60% since 1950 and that coral reefs are half as able to provide ecological services as they were in the 1950s. The result is less biodiversity in the world’s reefs.

“Coral reefs worldwide are facing impacts from climate change, overfishing,...

Increasing reforestation efforts in coastal regions could substantially reduce the amount of sediment run-off reaching coral reefs and improve their resilience, a University of Queensland-led study has found. The study analysed more than 5,500 coastal areas from around the world and found that nearly 85 per cent of them leached sediment to coral reefs, the second most serious threat facing the world’s reefs behind climate change. Dr Andrés Suárez-Castro from UQ’s Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science said it was important to address the issue of sediment runoff if efforts to reduce the human impact on reefs were to be successful.

“Increased sedimentation can cause aquatic ecosystems to be more sensitive to heat stress, which decreases the resilience of corals to pressures ...

Coral reefs are sometimes referred to as “the rainforests of the seas” — they are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet. Although they cover just one percent of the ocean floor, these mesmerizing, scaly habitats support an estimated 25 percent of all marine life. They are also highly endangered: the climate crisis, coastal development, ocean acidification, and destructive overfishing are a few of the many factors contributing to their alarming decline. By some estimates, nearly all remaining reefs will be at risk by 2050.

Scientists have now completed the first comprehensive, continually-updated map of the world’s shallow coral reefs, a critical tool for their preservation. Using 2...

More than 100,000 dolphins and small whales are hunted and killed every year. Most hunts are unregulated, illegal and unsustainable with unknown impacts on populations. A huge pod of white-sided dolphins were brutally slaughtered in the Faroe Islands yesterday evening with nearly 1,500 specimens slaughtered during the gruesome hunt. The slaughter has invoked outrage from animal rights activists.

The hunt, known as the ‘grindadráp’, was held over the weekend with local whalers targeting a massive pod of white-sided dolphins. The Danish autonomous Faroe Islands remain the last territory in Europe allowed to hunt marine mammals, as the grindadráp is considered to be an example of traditional “aboriginal whaling.”

During the grindadráp, dolphins are herded by motorboats toward...

Climate change presents some detrimental obstacles to fragile coral reefs such as heat-related bleaching, but new research shows that some coral communities are evolving to become more heat tolerant as ocean temperatures rise. A new study investigated the impact of heat stress on the Phoenix Islands Protected Area (PIPA), and discovered that despite 75 percent of the coral reef being damaged by a heatwave in 2003, a later heatwave in 2010 was far less damaging. 

A 2015-2016 heatwave that was twice as strong as the 2003 example was almost half as damaging, with just 40 percent of coral cover loss. 

“We’re seeing areas that were devoid of corals after 2002-2003 that are now flourishing with most of the original species,” said study lead author Michael Fox, a coral reef ecologist at...

Tuna are starting to recover after being fished to the edge of extinction, scientists have revealed. Numbers are bouncing back following a decade of conservation efforts, according to the official tally of threatened species. But some tuna stocks remain in severe decline, said the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which compiles the extinction Red List.

It said pressures on marine life are continuing to grow.

And almost four in ten sharks and rays are now threatened with extinction. 

Meanwhile, on land, the Komodo dragon is moving closer to oblivion. The heaviest lizard on Earth faces threats from climate change, with fears its habitat could be affected by rising sea levels.

The revised list of the world’s endangered plants and animals was released at ...

A new U.N. report on the Asia-Pacific region said Tuesday that migratory species, including endangered freshwater dolphins that drown in fishing nets and elephants forced to scavenge through rubbish, are among the most vulnerable to plastic pollution. Plastic particles have infiltrated even the most remote and seemingly pristine regions of the planet, with tiny fragments discovered inside fish in the deepest recesses of the ocean and peppering Arctic sea ice.

The paper by the U.N.’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) focused on the impacts of plastic on freshwater species in rivers and on land animals and birds, which researchers said were often overlooked victims of humanity’s expanding trash crisis.

It said that because these creatures encoun...

Blue whales, the world’s largest mammals, are returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after an absence of more than 40 years. The first one was spotted off the coast of Galicia in north-west Spain in 2017 by Bruno Díaz, a marine biologist who is head of the Bottlenose Dolphin Research Institute in O Grove, Galicia. Another was spotted in 2018, another the following year, and then in 2020 they both returned. Just over a week ago a different specimen was sited off the Islas Cíes, near O Grove.

Díaz said it was not yet clear whether the climate crisis was leading the creatures to change their habits and return to an area where they were hunted almost to extinction.

“I believe the moratorium on whaling has been a key factor,” he said...

You’ve heard of chonky cats, but how about chonky coral? Researchers have measured a piece of coral that’s the “chonkiest” yet discovered in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

The Porites (a genus of coral) specimen is located in the Palm Islands in Queensland, Australia. The Indigenous Manbarra people, traditional custodians of the area, named it Muga dhambi (big coral). “It is the widest and sixth tallest coral measured in the Great Barrier Reef,” according to a statement Thursday by Springer Nature, publisher of a study on the coral in the journal Scientific Reports. 

The study, led by marine scientist Adam Smith of James Cook University, describes the coral as “exceptionally large” and estimates the age at 421 to 438 years old. The coral measures 17.4 feet (5...