Ocean News

Tragedy has befallen the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm el Sheikh: between November 30th and December 5th five incidents of snorkelers being bitten by sharks were reported, the most recent of which proved fatal. Shark attacks in the area are incredibly rare, especially so many in such a short…

The annual Wavescape Surf Art Auction is taking place tonight at Depasco Cafe in Kloof Street, Cape Town. The event will be hosted by comedian Mark Sampson and is sure to be a great night out. Eleven surfboards uniquely decorated by artists including a mix of beat poets, illustrators, street…

If by continuing "business as usual" there was a good chance that the source of your livelihood – and a critically endangered species – would disappear, would you change your behaviour? Delegates of the 48-nation International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas decided this past weekend to gamble on…

An ICCAT (International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas) meeting is underway in Paris this week. The major item on the agenda is the future of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been overfished and mismanaged to the point where, unless quotas are drastically reduced (and actually enforced – see…

On the Conservation Photography blog, SOSF Chief Photographer Thomas P. Peschak and SOSF project leader Guy Stevens have written an illuminating post on manta ray tourism in the Maldives. Mantas are big business on the islands, where tourism is the primary driver of the economy. Recent years have seen an…

Every week, starting today, we’ll be posting a summary of a few of the most interesting recent project blog posts . So without further ado, here are the highlights of what our project leaders have been up to: Have you ever wanted to see things from a shark’s point of…

This slipped under our radar, but SOSF-sponsored podcast Naked Oceans have a new show up this month dedicated to the recently-concluded Census of Marine Life. As Helen Scales writes on the Naked Oceans blog: "The Census discovered thousands of new species, ventured further into the unexplored oceans than ever before,…

Andrea Marshall, head of our Manta Rays Global Migrations project, is looking for some help in recovering a satellite tag that prematurely popped off of Humbolt, a manta tagged in Ecuador. Andrea and her team have tracked the wayward tag to the shore in northern Peru near the Ecuadorian border,…

Yesterday evening the Save Our Seas Foundation was proud to receive a Panda award at the Wildscren Film Festival in the category Best environmental Campaign for its short film "Save Our Sharks". Winning a Panda award is widely seen as the highest accolade for wildlife film makers. Watch the Save…

Dear friends, colleagues and supporters of the Save Our Seas Foundation, I would like to convey my upmost gratitude for your support and the tremendous work everyone has contributed to making the Save Our Seas Foundation a world renowned and respected international NGO. I am so proud to have been…

The Cape Eleuthera Institute has recently initiated a new research program investigating the diversity and abundance of deep ocean sharks living in the Bahamas. The program has had a really great start with the team capturing twenty-five animals from six different species in the first three days including some really…

Alison Kock, who heads up our White Sharks project in South Africa, has put up a fascinating look at what happens when you (or in this case, the South African Navy) drags the carcass of a dead Brydes whale into waters with a high population of white sharks. The whale,…

Several theories have been put forward by experts as to why white sharks sometimes bite people. In this article we examine three of the most prominent theories and look at why most of these incidents are non-fatal. Firstly it is important to realise that shark attacks are far more rare…

Located on one of the most western shores of Ireland is a stony beach called "Ceann Doolin". The name has its origin in the gaelic language, which is still spoken in this remote part of Ireland. Ceann Doolin can be translated as "head of the black stones" and refers to the…

On the heels of discovering the world’s largest bull shark – referred to as a Zambezi shark in most parts of Africa – in the Breede River on the southwest coast of South Africa, scientists from the South African Shark Conservancy (SASC) are ecstatic to have received project funding for…