Ocean News

An article about ocean acidification in the British newspaper the Guardian / Observer of Sunday May 29th, 2011, presents a disturbing message. Ocean acidification is now one of the most worrying threats to the planet, say marine biologists. "Just as Vulcano is pumping carbon dioxide into the waters around it,…

The Antinea Changing Oceans Expedition – a ten-year adventure through the world’s most important marine eco-regions aimed at publicizing information on the state of our oceans – is currently in the Egyptian Red Sea, and they have some troubling news on the state of the local reefs: "Our aim was…

The 34th International Wildlife Film Festival wrapped up last week, showcasing some of the past year’s best productions focused on illuminating the natural world. The Save Our Seas Foundation was proud to sponsor this year’s Marine Conservation Award, which went to One Ocean: The Changing Sea, directed by Erna Buffie.…

Scientists in Australia have been researching the movements of juvenile white sharks to identify what habitats are important to them, how these movements connect areas where they are observed and used these data to examine population trends. Juvenile white sharks (less than 3.0 m in length) occur in a variety…

From a bucket of seawater, scientists have unlocked information that may lead to deeper understanding of organisms as different as coral reefs and human disease. By analyzing genomes of a tiny, single-celled marine animal, they have demonstrated a possible way to address diverse questions such as how diseased cells differ…

Sharks, tuna, billfish, and other top marine predators have generally been considered the most vulnerable to population collapse, having experienced massive declines in the past decades due to overfishing. But a recent study done at Stanford university suggests that smaller fish are just as vulnerable: "Analyzing over 200 scientific assessments…

This month marks a year since BP’s Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico blew out, spewing nearly five million barrels of oil in the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Much more recent – and still ongoing – is the nuclear aftermath following the 9.0 magnitude Tohoku earthquake…

Accurate estimates of body size are essential for determining the health of shark populations. In the past, this usually involved capturing and restraining animals in order to measure them, with the attendant risk of injury to both researchers and the sharks. Fortunately, new technology has overcome this problem and we…

Recently the Save Our Seas Foundation (SOSF) was presented with information that alleged that over a ton of sevengill sharks were caught off Cape Point and transported to Gansbaai to primarily supply the White Shark Cage Diving (WSCD) industry with shark livers to be used as chum. Consequently, we sent…

Last month saw the release of "Reefs at Risk Revisited", the most detailed and comprehensive analysis yet of the state of the world’s coral reefs. There are some bright spots, but overall, the findings are grim: "75 percent of the world’s coral reefs are currently threatened by local and global…

Our friends at Wetpixel have posted news that there will be an exclusive screening of "Man to Manta", a new ITV documentary, held in London’s May Fair Hotel on Thursday 24 March 2011 at 7.30pm. There will be an introduction by Martin Clunes (Doc Martin, Reggie Perrin, Men Behaving Badly),…

Last December, Mauvis Gore and her team studying the large sharks in Grand Cayman’s North Sound managed to tag a 3.5m female tiger shark, nicknamed "Tina", with a SPOT satellite tag, allowing them to track her position whenever she surfaces. Since then, they’ve been following her movements around the North…

While it may seem like we’ve gone off the deep end, this isn’t quite the case. It’s just that two of our sponsored projects have been particularly productive: podcasters extraordinaire Naked Oceans have launched a new episode just in time for Valentine’s Day titled, aptly enough, "Sex on the Sea…

Compared to other commercial fisheries, the shark-fin industry is opaque, secretive, and often operates in a legal grey area, exploiting loopholes in anti-finning laws and keeping few records. In addition to this, reporting can be unreliable and misleading, as member countries of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) report…

This month’s Naked Oceans podcast delves deep into one of the five major threats the oceans face, and one that has been getting considerable attention lately – overfishing. With the success of the Fish Fight campaign in the UK, which is drawing the public’s attention to fishing discards at sea…