Ocean News

Sharks, rays and chimaeras are overfished and heading for extinction. More than 300 scientists have published 20 years of data in a landmark global report that details the biology, fisheries, trade, conservation efforts and policy reforms for these marine animals across 158 countries and jurisdictions. It’s a global wake-up call:…

By developing and adapting a microscopy-based method from avian science, Seychelles-born PhD student Alessia Lavigne is furthering our understanding of reproductive failure in the nation’s turtle and tortoise populations.   Extinction threatens more than half of the world’s turtles and tortoises. Understanding why some eggs fail to hatch is a…

Ghana’s understudied artisanal fisheries now pose a significant threat to sharks and rays, which they catch in great numbers using drift and bottom-set gillnets. This wasn’t always the case, however, as the rich cultural heritage of the Ghanaian coast, includes beliefs and taboos that once prohibited the unsustainable use of…

On the Pacific coast of Colombia, mangroves occur in high density, creating a biodiversity hotspot for marine life. The Uramba Bahía Málaga National Natural Park is home to many coastal species, including the scalloped bonnethead shark, a small hammerhead that is endangered and faces threats from overfishing and bycatch. SOSF…

The nature of the Eastern Tropical Pacific, with its upwelling and complex oceanography, means that it is a region likely to experience significant changes as our climate continues to change. Sharks and rays, a quarter of which are threatened with extinction largely as a result of overfishing, may be particularly…

ʻI have been very fortunate to work on several islands on many different seabird species,’ begins researcher Danielle Keys, the lead author of a hopeful new paper that shows a 10-fold increase in wedge-tailed shearwater birds on D’Arros Island from 2009 to 2021. Danielle, who hails from Nelson Mandela University in South…

A recently published paper concludes that MPAs are a useful fisheries management tool. These protected areas help to bolster the numbers and body sizes of various important catch species and improve not only the catches, but also catch-per-unit-effort, which is an indirect measure of fish abundance. MPAs also provide ‘spillover’…

Scientists scramble to document the life washing ashore as a cold upwelling spell sends ocean temperatures on a downward spiral of more than 7˚C in less than 48 hours. Their list grows to include blacktip sharks and bigeye trevally fish, lobsters, octopus and grouper fish. The death toll is shocking.…

After serenely feeding at the surface for hours, a seven-metre (23-foot) basking shark suddenly swerves and tumbles dramatically through the water. Seconds later, a boat’s keel is seen, having struck the shark's back as it sped across Ireland’s newly established National Marine Park (NMP). For what’s thought to be the…

Although the priorities of many established MPAs do not specifically include the protection of elasmobranchs, protected areas are still helping to replenish certain reef shark populations. As studies such as this reveal more about the impacts of MPAs, we are gaining a more holistic understanding of the role that MPAs…

Project leader Michael Grant has been awarded the Huntingford Medal by the International Society for Fish Biology for a paper he published, in which he assessed a unique technique – the use of isotopic traces of certain elements laid down in shark vertebrae – to understand which habitats the sharks…

In 2023, the Save Our Seas Foundation marked its 20th anniversary with a series of special events. It was a year filled with celebration, reflection and hope for the future; ; and thanks to the hundreds of passionate and dedicated people the foundation has worked with over the years, without…

'Genie' was fitted with a fin-mount satellite tag off Wolf Island, in the north of the Galápagos Marine Reserve, in July 2021. What scientists then logged was an epic voyage: she clocked more than 27,666 kilometres (17,190 miles) of ocean travel in less than two years.

Juvenile bull shark numbers have increased five-fold over a period of 20 years in Mobile Bay, an estuary on the coast of Alabama, USA. And the scientists who have been tracking the population have posited that the warming seas from our changing climate and a rapidly urbanising shoreline have increased…

The recent announcement of a major global coral bleaching episode is a distressing signal of how our rapidly changing climate and consequently warming seas are impacting life in the oceans. This episode marks the fourth global bleaching event in history, and the second in the past 10 years. The southern…