Ocean News

Ivy Baremore and her team of co-authors have tracked night sharks (Carcharhinus signatus) in the western Caribbean, where little was known about their movement patterns. Understanding where, and how, these sharks move, is critical information to help scientists better manage night shark populations. The study, published in the journal Environmental…

Charlie Huveneers and a host of co-authors have just published a new paper in Frontiers in Marine Science. Its purpose? To pool the knowledge of 43 white shark experts, and identify the critical research questions that need answering in white shark science. There have been many advances in white shark…

70 out of 100 is the score assigned to the overall health of our global oceans in 2018, matching previous scores for both 2017 and 2016. While this might seem a reasonable and stable score, experts point out that there is much left to do to ensure that the challenges…

Marine protected areas (MPAs) are a popular, and often useful, conservation tool used to preserve biodiversity. The trick is, once in place, knowing whether these MPAs continue to achieve their goals. There are plenty of challenges in getting MPAs right: where best to place them? What should their optimal size,…

Scientists have developed a fast and cost-effective way of identifying highly threatened sharks that are sold illegally in international trade. Up until now, many shark products (for instance, their fins and meat), which are often visually indistinguishable from one species to the other, have been difficult to screen during detainment…

The Protected Planet Report 2018 was released towards the end of last year. The report is published every two years and reviews international progress towards achieving global biodiversity targets. Essentially, it tells us how we’re faring protecting land and sea. In particular, the report looks at whether we’re on track…

In a world first, scientists have decoded the genome – the complete set of genes – of the white shark Carcharodon carcharias. The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, give us clues as to why these sharks have survived so successfully over millennia. The…

Coral reefs around the world are in serious trouble. Scientists are worried that coastal development, climate change and overfishing are going to drive corals to the brink. In particular, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef has suffered massive declines in its coral reef cover over the past 27 years. The reason for…

What is a blue-green algal bloom? A bloom is used to describe an event where millions of microscopic, single-celled plants called algae, normally present in waterbodies, reach concentrations high enough to discolour the water (read more). In the case of blue-green algae,  the cells that are usually present in aquatic…

The impact of our actions on the oceans has consequences for how well they’re able to provide us with the food, climate systems, oxygen and other life supporting resources we need to survive. The gravity of our impacts, from overfishing, pollution, coastal development and climate change, has scientists scrambling to…

The results of a 14 year study of the mating behaviour of manta rays has just been published in the Journal of Fish Biology. The findings help scientists better understand how these animals woo one another. Lead author Guy Stevens from the Manta Trust, together with his co-authors Julie Hawkins…

Earlier this week, Save Our Seas Foundation’s partner organization, The Manta Trust launched a global conservation strategy and action plan dedicated to manta and devil ray conservation. The document was unveiled and presented by representatives of the organization at the third Meeting of Signatories (MOS3) to the Memorandum of Understanding…

In 2000, Bimini was prioritized as one of five critical areas in the Bahamas to protect by the Bahamian Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries. What followed was a series of community meetings to establish where the borders for this protection should lie, and what kind of management should be in…

Scientists are digging right down to the level of DNA to learn more about how to protect sharks. A new paper published by SOSF funded scientists Mahmood Shivji and Demian Chapman, led by lead author Rodrigo Domingues, shows how a better understanding of sharks’ genes can help us make big…

In 2016, Madeline Green and Lauren Meyer launched Shark Share Global – the first online platform that allowed scientists to share and search for biological samples. It was innovative, useful and connected a community of shark scientists around the world to share resources and reduce unnecessary biological waste. In 2018,…