Ocean acidification happens as the oceans absorb excess CO2 in the atmosphere, causing the pH of seawater to fall. This has wide-ranging consequences for the marine ecosystem, among which are coral bleaching and preventing the shellfish shells from forming properly.

Jason Hall-Spencer’s groundbreaking SOSF-funded research on ocean acidification involves studying sites with naturally high levels of CO2, such as those near underwater volcanic vents off Italy. He recently discussed some of his findings and the implications of rising CO2 levels for the Mediterranean in C&EN magazine:

A fall in Mediterranean pH has major impacts on organisms that use calcium carbonate in their shells or corals. That’s because acidification—due to dissolved CO2 forming carbonic acid—throws normal ocean chemistry out of balance, resulting in corrosion of calcium carbonate from shelled organisms. In practice, this means that an organism’s shell will dissolve unless the organism can ramp up shell construction to counteract the loss. “If the organism is willing to put a huge amount of energy into shell production because it has tons and tons of food, then perhaps the organism can continue to exist.”

Hall-Spencer focuses on underwater volcanic vents around Italy and Greece because these are areas where…

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NASA has a beautiful video visualizing ocean currents around the world. Far from being static bodies of water, the oceans are in a state of constant flux:

Watch surface currents circulate in this high-resolution, 3D model of the Earth’s oceans. Driven by wind and other forces, currents on the ocean surface cover our planet. Some span hundreds to thousands of miles across vast ocean basins in well-defined flows. Others are confined to particular regions and form slow-moving, circular pools. Seen from space, the circulating waters offer a study in both chaos and order.

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Two Save Our Seas Supported Documentaries won an award at the International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula.

The Shark Riddle, a co-production of Sisbro Studios and Save Our Seas, that won the award for best Best Children’s Program of the Year at the Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival, has now been awarded at the IWFF with Best Of Category: Children’s Program. An incredible honor for Rob and Laura Sams and a well-deserved reward for their hard work!

You can watch the trailer of Shark Riddle here. The film will be screened on May 8th, 2012, 09.30 AM.

Surfing and Sharks of Soletrader (directors: Julian Watson and Chris Mason) of which Save Our Seas is the main sponsor, won a Merit Award for Cinematography. A great result! The film will be screened on May 9th, 12.30 PM.

Many congratulations to the happy winners!

More info about the International Wildlife Film Festival, screening schedule and tickets can be found at http://wildlifefilms.wordpress.com

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Getting a sense of the scales involved when thinking about ocean depths can be tricky – we simply aren’t well-equipped to imagine scales which we don’t encounter in everyday life.

Luckily, everyone’s favorite web comic xkcd has decided to put things in perspective. How does the maximum SCUBA diving depth record compare to a nuclear submarine’s depth rating? How deep can sperm whales dive in comparison? And how does the world’s deepest lake, lake Baikal, fare when placed side-by-side with oceanic depths?

Here’s a bit of trivia xkcd didn’t cover that can help put things in perspective – the deepest point in the sea, Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench, is 10,902 meters (35,768 feet) below sea level. This also happens to be the cruising altitude of modern passenger aircraft. So next time you look out your airplane window in mid-flight and see the ground, imagine that same distance under the sea…

Click here to see the full-size image!

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This whole year has been an extraordinary adventure for both of us.

We have the privilege of being the CEOs of a very special organization. When we started working for the Save Our Seas Foundation in January, we hardly knew what to expect. Of course we had read about the Foundation’s conservation projects, but we only discovered its true power, the Save Our Seas dedicated project leaders, during the past year. Working all over the world, on high seas and dark jungle shores, in rain, snow and under the intense tropical sun, they never give up. They dedicate their lives to saving the creatures in the oceans of our world. Some of them tag sharks, others manta rays, and one of them even tags baby turtles! Others do laboratory research, examining samples to determine the genetic origin of species.

Many project leaders educate the general public and teach others about their love for the sea. At Save Our Seas, we realize that people only protect and care about what they know, understand and love.

This review will inform you about the Foundation and its many great projects in 2011. But we also have the privilege of presenting you with…

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Every year, Save Our Seas supports the Palau Shark Week. And this year, it was an anniversary: the 10th edition!

Save Our Seas was represented by scientist Charlie Huveneers. Read his report below!

Shark Week was a combination of some of the world’s best diving during the day and stimulating talks in the evening. As mentioned in my previous blog, the first night was the opening night during which Shark Week organiser, Tova Bornovski, summarised the purpose and motives of Shark Week prior to Palau’s Vice-President officially opening the week ahead. On the second night, I had the opportunity do a presentation and talked about the issues of the negative perception and representation of sharks. I also provided some information about the roles and challenges of wildlife tourism in general and how it applied to shark diving. Quite topical considering the diving that we were doing in Palau everyday and that most divers here decided to come to Palau for the sharks.

Dr. Conrad Speed and Tova gave a joint lecture on the third night during which Dr. Speed presented some of the most recent results of the collaborative acoustic telemetry project undertaken on the…

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Member countries agree to protect oceanic whitetip sharks, fail to safeguard whale sharks

Guam. March 30, 2012.  Fishing nations of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC) have agreed to protect the oceanic whitetip shark based on a proposal from the United States, while an Australian proposal to ban the intentional setting of purse seine nets on whale sharks (to catch associated aggregations of tuna) has been stalled by Japan.

“We are very pleased that WCPFC member countries have heeded advice from scientists and taken decisive action to conserve seriously overfished oceanic whitetip sharks,” said Sonja Fordham, President of Shark Advocates International, a Save Our Seas Supported project leader.  “This decision—the first species-specific shark protection adopted by this body – should be complemented by additional conservation measures for the region’s other vulnerable and overfished shark species in the near future.” 

Once common, the oceanic whitetip shark is increasingly rare in the region’s tropical fisheries. Analyses conducted under the WCPFC Shark Research Plan documented steep population declines and estimated that a ‘no retention’ policy could reduce oceanic whitetip mortality in fishing operations by up to 76%.

The WCPFC Members agreed to prohibit the retention, transshipment, storage, and landing of…

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