Ocean News

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…

Decades of data collection have culminated in a collaborative scientific process to identify essential habitats for sharks and rays in the Western Indian Ocean. The Important Shark and Ray Areas will guide management and policy decisions. Seychelles is a key marine conservation player in the critical waters of the vast…

Research on how the small spotted cat sharks' ability to breed and rear young might change, can help us to also understand the consequences for potentially rarer species. Without these future projections, we cannot adapt now our monitoring and management of sharks to anticipate the impact of climate change.

The submarine landscape of Panama’s offshore Cordillera de Coiba Marine Protected Area is nothing short of extraordinary. Here, 24 sea mounts soar from the depths across nine marine mountain ranges, their pelagic peaks a stunning contrast to an abyssal trench that plunges to a depth of more than 4,700 metres…

In the depths of Iceland’s frigid waters, scientists have been gathering information about habitats that are critical for a small shark with a surprising super-power. They want to know where a small deep-sea dogfish that lights up like a lantern feeds, breeds and grows. The velvet belly lanternshark belongs to…

Endangered, far-flung, and young; that’s the Save Our Seas Foundation’s 2024 cohort of projects, their focus species, their ecosystems – and their leaders. The leaders span those working to conserve endangered and overlooked species, early career scientists blazing trails for a new generation of hope, and conservationists balancing the challenges…