Ocean News

Coral reefs are stunningly beautiful, harbour untold biodiversity and are a vital component of the balanced functionality of marine ecosystems. They’re also worth rather a lot of money. Recent economic research shows that each year the services to humans provided by coral reefs are worth on average $130,000 per hectare,…

So its been a really really long time since I last posted – what can I say things have been busy!  There has been so much going on that keeping the blog up has fallen by the wayside a little bit.  I will endeavor to keep things a little more…

Thanks to all of you who made our Semester at Sea trip to the shark center so fascinating. We really appreciated how you went out of your way to make us fell welcome and to share your expertise with us. Many of the students were inspired by the work that…

The Save Our Seas Foundation was invited by the Merlin Entertainments Group to give a talk at the Sea Life London Aquarium as part of an evening they were hosting for the PA Club – a prestigious and influential network of personal assistants to London’s executives. This provided the perfect…

Today we had Andy Starbuck doing a special European Shark Week edition of the Cool Seas Roadshow at the London Aquarium entitled Give Sharks A Break. Andy has brought along a great white shark, a baby basking shark and a hammerhead shark to illustrate the message of shark conservation to children…

Australian football team the Montpellier Fire Sharks came face to face with their aquatic colleagues at the French launch of European Shark Week in Grau de Roi.  This goes to show that in spite of their reputation, sharks inspire support from many sections of French civil society. It wasn’t just…

Welcome news indeed is that UK ministers are to announce during European Shark Week a complete ban on shark finning in UK waters. Under the planned legislation all sharks must be landed with their fins still attached. Although a similar ban was imposed back in 2003 by the EU, loopholes…

With the start of European Shark Week, three major supermarkets chains within Europe – Alcampo, Sabeco and Simply Market – have made the decision to stop selling products from endangered shark species and to only trade in those not listed as threatened. Between them, these three chains possess in the region of…

European Shark Week starts tomorrow with people all over Europe coming together to support shark conservation. Here are 10 facts you might or might not know about sharks and their conservation. 1. Sharks have evolved over 400 million years, appearing roughly 200 million years before dinosaurs. 2. Most sharks are…

We met Liesel today, a shark spotter on Boyes Drive, Cape Town and so did 18 American University students accompanied by 3 lecturers from the Semester at Sea floating University – the MV Explorer. The SAS mission statement read: Semester at Sea’s mission is to educate individuals for leadership, service,…

The Save Our Seas Foundation’s (SOSF) Rethink Campaign has won the coveted 360 US Wildlife Film Award at the 2009 Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (JHWFF) for its efforts to turn around the Ocean’s sharply declining shark populations. The Award recognizes the all encompassing campaign designed to reach the full…

SOSF and the Marine Conservation Society have teamed up for European Shark Week 09 to present a unique installment of the Cool Seas Roadshow entitled "Give Sharks A Break." The event runs over 2 days at the Sea Life London Aquarium from Wednesday 14 October to Thursday 15 October. School…

The headline of the paper read, “Organized chaos as Muizenburg attempts to get most surfers riding the same wave.” For me on my board behind the backline, chaos was the operative word. Michael Carnegie, one of the SOS Shark Centre educators, and I were amongst about 400 surfers trying to…

Back in March this year, the Maldivian government announced their plans to implement a complete ban on shark fishing across the entire archipelago within a 12 nautical mile radius. Now, at the South West Indian Ocean Fisheries Commission, it was made clear that this initiative will be in full effect…

It was the western Cape’s third term School holidays and as part of our commitment to reaching children with our conservation message we ran yet another  fun-filled, school holiday programme at the SOS Shark Centre from the 28th September to the 2 October. We reached a total of 55 children…