Ocean News

The international wildlife trade is one of the largest threats to biodiversity and tackling it has rapidly become a global conservation priority. Due to this rapid biodiversity loss, several multilateral environmental agreements have been created as part of…

In July this year, an update to the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species saw 9 out of the 10 recognised species of wedgefish classified as Critically Endangered. All six species of giant guitarfish were classified the same. This category, the highest threat ranking…

With over 200 species of chondrichthyans (sharks, rays, skates and chimaeras) in their waters, the Philippines are no doubt an important archipelago for sharks. What has project leader AA Yaptinchay worried, however, is that there is currently little in the way of awareness and management for the majority of these…

This week, nations from around the world are gathered in Geneva, Switzerland to vote on trade restrictions and regulations for endangered species. In the midst of heated negotiations, days of meetings behind closed doors and strong lobbies before Parties make their decisions, the eyes of marine scientists and ocean conservation…

A tiny piece of a devil ray’s tail contains a whole world of information. From just a few centimetres, we can unlock the species’ evolutionary history, the structure and approximate size of its different populations, and something about…

It is said more is known about the surface of the moon than the deep sea. It may be difficult to directly compare the moon and deep sea, but this analogy underscores the challenges of conducting research at…

Giant trevallies (Caranx ignobilis) are no strangers to making headlines. These fish burst out of the waters in Seychelles, and into public fascination, on a sequence in BBC Earth’s Blue Planet II, sniping fledgeling terns from the sea’s surface. But their TV debut with David Attenborough came before that, swimming…

Cape Hangklip at the southwestern tip of the Cape Peninsula of South Africa has tricked many a travel-weary sailor of yesteryear. Often enough, in fact, that they named the bay into which they mistakenly retreated False Bay. For early mariners on their return leg from the east, it was all…

Once a year, the Cairns Indigenous Art Fair kicks off in Cairns. Indigenous artists from all over Far North Queensland and Cape York come to Cairns to display their arts. The event grows bigger every year and features…

South African scientists record progressive delays in the annual ‘sardine run’ from 1946 – 2012   The humble sardine hardly seems a headline-grabbing fish. But every year on South Africa’s eastern coastline, a thrill courses through the community in anticipation of the arrival of shoals of these small, silver fish.…

Professor David Sims is a Marine Biological Association Senior Research Fellow and professor at the University of Southampton. He heads up the Global Shark Movement Project, a collaborative scientific drive that brings together data from a global marine research community. The goal? To use shark tracking and environmental data to…

The Maldives archipelago, encompassing roughly 3 500 square kilometres (1 350 square miles) of reef, is among the largest modern tropical carbonate areas in the world and a major hotspot for marine biodiversity. Formed roughly 65 million years…