Ocean News

Alissa Barnes is passionate about sharks in her home country of India – and the fact that we know relatively little about many of their threatened populations drives her research. She published the results of her MSc work together with her co-authors Dipani Sutaria, Alastair Harry and Rima Jabado in…

       A State of Emergency was declared in August as Florida’s southern Gulf Coast is overwhelmed by an unusually persistent environmental phenomenon called a “red tide”. In a part of the world where red tides are common, this particular bloom has lingered for over 10 months and intensified…

The Casamance River in Senegal was an important habitat for the now critically endangered smalltooth sawfish. Data collected in the 1970s show that this species was common in the river, at least during the months between June and November. It also appears that smalltooth sawfish spent their first year or…

Thirty leaders and experts in the field of manta and devil ray conservation science have come together to identify major gaps in our current understanding and protection of these species. Their paper, published in September in Frontiers in Marine Science, synthesises what we do know about these rays, and highlights…

Member countries of the Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organization (NAFO) recently adopted new measures to protect Greenland sharks and address thorny skate fisheries. Their policies, however, still fall short of scientific advice. We chat to Sonja Fordham, president of Shark Advocates International, about the advances and where we should be heading…

It’s what’s on the menu that matters when it comes to what turtles are picking to eat, and what’s on offer can be quite different depending where you’re dining in this ocean buffet! A new paper published in Marine Ecology Progress Series (MEPS) in July showed that the dietary choices…

The latest research shows that filter-feeding basking sharks can breach like predatory great white sharks The basking shark, cruising the oceans with its mouth agape, is an ocean image perhaps least synonymous with speed and power. Indeed, our perception of large filter feeders is that they seem to move through…

An otherworldly ocean creature from the ancient Hexanchiformes lineage, the broadnose sevengill shark (Notorynchus cepedianus) is listed as Data Deficient on the IUCN RedList. In the absence of good information about these migratory sharks, found in temperate seas around the world, the species remains vulnerable to overfishing. In Argentina’s coastal…

The unique shark community of the Galapagos Marine Reserve (GMR) in the Pacific Ocean has been captured on camera. David Acuña-Marrero and his co-authors published their findings from a survey using baited remote underwater stereo-video systems (BRUVs) in Marine Ecological Progress Series (MEPS) in June this year. Their survey deployed…

Lots of new findings made it to print these past few months, with SOSF-funded researchers publishing their research in several scientific journals. Here’s a quick round-up of the latest news. Guillaume Rieucau and a team of co-authors that included Johann Mourier and Michael Heithaus had their eyes on the sea,…

Over 260 million people rely on the seafood industry for work. However, the sector is rife with forced and child labour. The authors of a new study published in Science Advances in July say that seafood companies can do more to effectively monitor labour conditions and reduce the risk of…

With many fish populations in serious trouble, transparency along all steps in the journey from the ocean to your plate is critical. Transshipment – the practice of transferring catches from the fishing vessel to a refrigeration vessel that takes the cargo back to port – might be a way to…

Ocean currents play a vital role in the transport of heat across our planet. With our climate changing, scientists are asking questions about how this complicated heat exchange might behave in the future – and what this means for our global air temperatures. A new paper published in Nature in…

We spoke to Rima Jabado about the latest publication from her and her co-authors, “Troubled waters: Threats and extinction risk of the sharks, rays and chimaeras of the Arabian Sea and adjacent waters”. The paper was published in the journal Fish and Fisheries in July this year. Here she talks…

A worrying 51% of shark, ray and chimaera species in the Arabian Sea and its adjacent waters (Red Sea, Arabian/Persian Gulf) are threatened with a high risk of extinction, says a new study published last week by SOSF project leader Rima Jabado and her co-authors. The open-access paper: “Troubled waters:…