While astronomers scour the skies for signs of life in outer space, biologists are exploring an enormous living world buried below the surface of the Earth.
Scientists estimate that nearly half the living material on our planet is hidden in or beneath the ocean or in rocks, soil, tree roots, mines, oil wells, lakes and aquifers on the continents.
They call it the "subsurface biosphere," a dark world where the sun and stars don't shine. Some call it Earth's basement. [more...]
In what could be the ultimate marine smack-down, great white sharks off the California coast may be migrating 1,600 miles west to do battle with creatures that rival their star power: giant squids.
A series of studies tracking this mysterious migration has scientists rethinking not just what the big shark does with its time but also what sort of creature it is. [more...]
How it started that Roland Anderson became one of the world's top experts on the giant Pacific octopus - the largest octopus in the world, and home here in Puget Sound - was when he worked as the nightshift biologist at the Seattle Aquarium. That was 33 years ago.
Now, more than 200 research papers later, Anderson still never tires of telling stories about these creatures. The giant Pacific octopus, he says, leads a life that, well, you could write a book about. So Anderson has, and his book about his life's obsession comes out in May. [more...]
Dubai: Shoppers once again thronged the façade of the aquarium at Dubai Mall this weekend, with only a lower water level visible as a tell-tale sign of the leak that occurred on Thursday.
The 10 million litre aquarium inside the mall sprung a leak on Thursday. Water was seen gushing out near the 270-degree acrylic walkthrough tunnel but was sealed quickly. [more...]
A giant squid is heading back to New Zealand, after being "stuffed" with silicone and preserved for posterity.
In 2004, a pair of Architeuthis dux were sent from New Zealand to a plastination facility in Dalian, China, to be preserved by anatomist Gunther von Hagens.
Plastination is a body-preservation technique invented by von Hagens in 1975 that replaces the natural water in a body with silicone.
Previously, von Hagens has plastinated giraffes, elephants and humans, but a giant squid – with fragile skin, no skeleton for structural support and more body water to replace than any other attempt – posed some challenges for the controversial anatomist. [more...]
Dawn is coming soon. The lights are off, the sound system silent and the beasts of the Monterey Bay Aquarium have the place mostly to themselves: the otters, the anemones, the octopuses, the great white shark in the big tank, the lame young albatross in its rooftop cage — and Kacey Kurimura, who's at the kitchen sink in her apron and waterproof boots, reaching for a knife.
Maybe the sea never sleeps, but this is how the day begins at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Before this one is over, 2,881 visitors will troop through, that young shark will fill up on a mere 3 1/2 pounds of fish, the albatross will dance with a new friend. And the jellyfish expert will get stung, which happens about three times a week. [more...]
Aquaculture might seem like a simple solution to the global decline in wild fish stocks. But the problem is the most popular farmed fish species need to eat fish or at least fish oil to get the healthy ingredients which make them such an important part of the human diet.
Right now there's a global search for new sustainable alternatives and some of the most promising research is being done in Australia.[more...]
New Zealand is in danger of losing its status as a world leader in managing fisheries, says the researcher behind a new documentary on overfishing.
Charles Clover, a former environment editor at Britain's Daily Telegraph newspaper, says New Zealand's reputation is under threat from its orange roughy catch and an almost complete lack of knowledge about the health of many of its fisheries. [more...]
Today, the Pew Environment Group praised the United Kingdom (U.K.) for taking one further step towards designating the world's largest marine reserve.
The proposed marine reserve would protect a group of 55 islands located in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Known as the Chagos Archipelago, the islands and their surrounding waters cover 210,000 square miles (544,000 square kilometers), an area larger than France. With some of the cleanest seas in the world, the islands are home to one of the most ecologically healthy coral reef systems on the planet. [more...]
Conservationists and wildlife experts are understandably worried about the massive decline in the mass nesting colonies of Olive Ridley turtles in India.
In 2008–09, there were as many as 155 turtle nests on beaches across the Mumbai state's coastline, from which 7,884 hatchlings were released back into the sea. [more...]
One of the world’s most prestigious awards for scientific research into the challenges facing the world’s oceans – a Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation – has been won by a senior ecosystem modeller with CSIRO’s Wealth from Oceans Flagship, Dr Beth Fulton.
Marine ecosystem modeller, Dr Beth Fulton, has received a 2010 Pew Fellowship in Marine Conservation. (CSIRO)Dr Fulton will use the $US150,000 Fellowship to develop models for assessing how marine biodiversity is affected by pressures such as overfishing and climate change.
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New Zealand's commercial fisheries are under scrutiny as The End of the Line, the world's first major feature documentary revealing the devastating global impacts of overfishing, makes its New Zealand premiere this week.
Lauded at the Sundance film festival as the 'Inconvenient truth for the oceans', The End of the Line reveals how commercial fisheries are systematically over-exploiting our oceans for short term profit - and that left unchecked, scientists predict this will cause the global collapse of fish stocks.[more...]
“Building a future for wildlife” is the slogan of the World Zoo and Aquarium Conservation Strategy. Modern zoos and aquariums are indeed playing an increasingly active and important role in conserving species in their natural habitat. This richly illustrated book provides an overview of the partners, approaches and achievements of the world zoo and aquarium community in wildlife conservation. The book’s main focus is on 25 conservation success stories from around the globe, portraying the many ways in which zoos and aquariums are committed to biodiversity conservation.[more...]
Hmmm, perhaps not quite as catchy as “Save the Whales”… but there are other marine species out there that we should care about too, no matter how uncuddly they may be.
At a global level, New Zealand is regarded to have some of the most well managed fisheries. Here, most exploited species are managed under the Quota Management System (QMS), which regulates the total catch for each species. But you may be surprised to know that not all marine species are managed in this way – there are some which, as a consequence of their exclusion from the QMS, are effectively “open access fisheries”. Commercial fishers still need to have permits to take these species, but there is no apparent limit as to how many permits can be handed out. [more...]
Huge vents covering the sea-floor – among the strangest and most spectacular sights in nature – pour carbon dioxide and other gases into the deep waters of the oceans.
Last week, as researchers reported that they had now discovered more than 50,000 underwater volcanic springs, they also revealed a new use for them – as laboratories for measuring the impact of ocean acidification on marine life.
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A department of Conservation team returned from the sub-Antarctic this week after monitoring New Zealand sea lions, a species struggling to survive.
The sea lions' population has dropped by about 40 per cent during the past 10 years and there are now less than 10,000 of the endemic New Zealand mammals. [more...]
Whales include the world's largest animals, but newly identified fossils reveal they were preceded by SUV-sized filter-feeding fishes that emerged during the Jurassic Period, 170 million years ago, and lived until the extinction event that wiped out dinosaurs and numerous other species.
Although the now-extinct fishes, called pachycormiforms, were not closely related to whales, their demise left an ecological niche void that whales, sharks and rays filled starting around 56 million years ago, helping to explain the top portion of today's marine food chain.
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Deep-sea trawling is devastating corals and pristine marine habitats that have gone untouched since the last ice age, a leading marine biologist has warned.
A survey of the world's reefs and seamounts – giant submerged mountains that rise more than a kilometre above the seabed – has revealed widespread damage to the ecosystems, many of which are home to species unknown to science, said Jason Hall-Spencer at Plymouth University in the UK.
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One resident of Anglesey Sea Zoo will be bidding farewell forever this month.
Their largest conger eel will be released into the Menai Strait and begin its epic journey back across the Atlantic to give birth to its young.
It's thought the giant eel will return to somewhere near the Sargasso Sea in the Caribbean, which is where all eels are born before heading for Northern Europe, including Anglesey.
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Lying beneath the ocean is spectacular terrain ranging from endless chains of mountains and isolated peaks to fiery volcanoes and black smokers exploding with magma and other minerals from below Earth's surface. This mountainous landscape, some of which surpasses Mt. Everest heights and the marine life it supports, is the spotlight of a special edition of the research journal Oceanography.
These massive underwater mountains, or seamounts, are scattered across every ocean and collectively comprise an area the size of Europe. These deep and dark environments often host a world teeming with bizarre life forms found nowhere else on Earth. More than 99 percent of all seamounts remain unexplored by scientists, yet their inhabitants, such as the long-lived deepwater fish orange roughy, show signs of habitat destruction and over exploitation from intense international fishing efforts.
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Fish for the future is the theme of this year’s Seaweek, which will feature a series of free lectures and beach clean-ups in the Waikato.
The “fish for the future” theme – or "tiakina nga tupuranga whakaheke" in te reo - has been chosen to raise awareness of the role of fish in healthy oceans.
"The theme is designed to stimulate discussion about what sustainable fishing means for us as New Zealanders,” said Environment Waikato’s Sam Stephens, the Waikato coordinator of Seaweek which will officially run from 7-14 March. [more...]
Conservation managers need to take a long-term view when assessing the value of marine protected areas, according to a paper in today’s Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.
The paper, ‘Decadal trends in marine reserves reveal differential rates of change in direct and indirect effects’, was written by an international team of authors led by Russ Babcock of the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship. It is the first paper to summarise the results from the most significant published long-term studies of temperate and tropical marine reserves.
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The Gulf of California's once rich marine ecosystem is in trouble. Surveys from 1999 and 2009 revealed that during the ten-year-period 60 percent of the areas showed signs of degradation, including the loss of top predators necessary to keep an ecosystem healthy, for example sharks, groupers, and snappers.
"In these studies, whether reefs or mangroves, we are trying to show that the destruction on the coast and overexploitation in other areas are diminishing the biomass (the amount of organisms in an ecosystem) in several areas[more...]
Neither local residents Warrick Lovell, Rich Park, Basil Park, or anyone else it seems, knows what the big creature found dead on a beach here this week might be.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans in Corner Brook intends to check out the Lower Cove site today hoping to find some answers for the question of many curious onlookers who went there to see for themselves what Lovell found during a Wednesday afternoon walk on the beach.
“It would be nice to see if anyone knows what it is,” says Lovell. “First I thought it was a seal washed up (on the high tide earlier in the day), but when I went down to check on my boat that evening, I walked over to see and then I knew it wasn’t a seal.
According to a recent research, bottlenose dolphins during overnight fasting go into a diabetic state that is harmless. This maintains high levels of glucose in the blood.
It was stated recently that dolphins could prove to be apt models for studying diabetes as they might offer vital clues for treating diabetes in human beings.
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Steve O'Shea already holds a world record for rearing squid in a controlled environment. But everybody's got a dream, and O'Shea's is to do the same thing one day with the famously elusive giant squid.
In 2000, O'Shea set a world record for deep-sea squid curation when he took a squid that normally lives almost a thousand feet below sea level and kept it alive in captivity for five months.
A few days ago, O'Shea set out to capture a broad squid in the waters around New Zealand in the hopes of breaking that record. Broad squid, which O'Shea has raised in captivity before, are tricky due to their initially tiny size and a diet that evolves quickly over the first few weeks of life, but O'Shea believes it'll get him "one step closer to the end game" of raising a giant squid.[more...]
David de Rothschild is talking trash, lots and lots of trash.
"There were 25 billion Styrofoam cups used last year. How do you even get your head around what 25 billion Styrofoam cups looks like?" he said. "Eighty-odd percent of what's purchased by Americans is thrown out within six months."
On this day, though, the British banking heir is focused on some very particular refuse as he skims along the San Francisco Bay in a catamaran called Plastiki: The 12,000 or so recycled soda bottles lashed together to build his clunky vessel, and the growing heap of plastic fragments called the Eastern Garbage Patch floating in the Pacific.
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They are known as one of the deadliest creatures on Earth.
But according to a shocking new study, great white sharks are also one of the most endangered.
Wildlife experts say there are now fewer than 3,500 great whites left in the oceans, making them rarer than tigers.
Yesterday, marine biologists called for an end to mankind's long battle with sharks and demanded urgent action to prevent them going extinct. [more...]
A new paper by researchers at George Mason University and the University of Otago in New Zealand shows a strong link between the diversity of organisms at the bottom of the food chain and the diversity of mammals at the top.
Mark D. Uhen, a geologist at Mason, says that throughout the last 30 million years, changes in the diversity of whale species living at any given time period correlates with the evolution and diversification of diatoms, tiny, abundant algae that live in the ocean.[more...]
New Zealand tourism operator Whale Watch Kaikoura has been named as a finalist for a major international award at the 2010 Tourism in Tomorrow Awards, to be held in Beijing on 26 May.
Whale Watch Kaikoura has been nominated for the Community Benefit Award - recognising best practice in sustainable tourism - and was one of 160 entries from more than 45 countries.
Plans to kick-start New Zealand fish farming are too flexible and risk harming sensitive marine areas, environmental groups say.
The Fisheries Ministry has received 223 submissions on recommendations designed to boost the aquaculture industry.
The proposals have drawn support from the industry, commercial aquaculture groups and iwi, with opposition mainly coming from environmental groups and recreational fishermen. However, many say they are lacking in crucial details.
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A landmark agreement to protect shark species threatened with extinction was reached Friday as 113 countries signed up to a United Nations-backed wildlife treaty to conserve migratory sharks.
Government representatives signed the shark protection agreement in Manila at a meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals, CMS, a treaty administered by the UN Environment Programme.
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Highly threatened Hector's dolphin populations around New Zealand are still declining despite new protection measures implemented in 2008, according to new University of Otago research.
In an article appearing in the journal Aquatic Conservation, Associate Professors Liz Slooten and Steve Dawson studied the impact of the new measures.
THEY are enigmatic sea monsters - rare, magnificent beasts patrolling the ocean depths. Yet old chronicles tell of populations of whales hundreds of times greater than today. Such tales have long been dismissed as exaggerations, but could they be true? Have humans killed such a staggering number of whales?
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According to a new University of California, Davis, study it is harder than experts thought to predict when sudden shifts in Earth's natural systems will occur -- a worrisome finding for scientists trying to identify the tipping points that could push climate change into an irreparable global disaster.
"Many scientists are looking for the warning signs that herald sudden changes in natural systems, in hopes of forestalling those changes, or improving our preparations for them," said UC Davis theoretical ecologist Alan Hastings. "Our new study found, unfortunately, that regime shifts with potentially large consequences can happen without warning -- systems can 'tip' precipitously.
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Snapper may be off the fish n'chips menu at local takeaway shops if Crest Energy's plan to build a tidal power station in the Kaipara Harbour goes ahead, according to Maori MP Hone Harawira.
Mr Harawira told media that 90 percent of New Zealand's snapper nursery comes from the Kaipara harbour, "there's no way you can put up a stop sign up to stop them swimming through".
"The Kaipara harbour is the food basket for the people of the Kaipara and this project will destroy this asset."
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Fishing, noise, gillnets, traps, weirs, longlines, trawls, plastic debris, chemicals, seismic surveys, oil exploration, and military sonars are just some of the biggest killers of the world’s whales, dolphins and porpoises. All are man-made. The result is that 86 per cent of all toothed whale species are at risk.
The news about this unnoticed but steady killing of species jumped after less than one month since the launch of the UN International Year Of Biodiversity 2010. [more...]
The sheltered waters that teem with sea life, the scenic beach location and the amenities of nearby townships make Goat Island Marine Reserve a great destination.
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The increasing acidity of the world's oceans – and that acidity's growing threat to marine species – are definitive proof that the atmospheric carbon dioxide that is causing climate change is also negatively affecting the marine environment, says world-renowned Antarctic marine biologist Jim McClintock, Ph.D., professor in the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) Department of Biology. [more...]
You never know what you can do until you try. What seems like an impossible challenge one day is just another milestone to even a bigger accomplishment the next.
One family took on the challenge of eliminating all waste from their lives. They wondered, how little waste can we generate?
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The humble hoki is one of New Zealand’s most-eaten fish—and a huge export earner. But our best catch was almost lost when the certified-sustainable fishery collapsed in 2007.
How did it all go wrong—and how is the industry getting back on track? [more...]
The Environment and Conservation Organisations (ECO) today welcomed New Zealand signing the South Pacific regional fisheries management agreement.
ECO Co-chairperson, Cath Wallace, said the agreement was essential for the management of pelagic and bottom fisheries in the South Pacific, including orange roughy and jack mackerel. [more...]
A survey of the Bay of Island's marine life and supporting ecosystems is making good progress, Land Information New Zealand (LINZ) said today.
Since August 2009 teams from the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) have been gathering field information from the Bay as part of a two-year Ocean Survey 20/20 project coordinated by LINZ
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Two New Zealand research organisations will work closely with one of the world's leading ocean research and engineering organisations to accelerate research and exploration in a wide range of oceanographic topics in the southwest Pacific region.
GNS Science and the National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) have signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) of the United States that will see the three organisations combine their resources on scientific research of marine tectonics, submarine volcanism, and marine life in deep-sea environments [more...]
A marine invader found in the Far North could already be spreading throughout the country with mussel spat, according to Biosecurity New Zealand.
The sea squirt, called pyura, is firmly entrenched at Ninety Mile Beach, where mussel farmers from around New Zealand get spat to stock their farms.
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New England Aquarium workers help ailing reptiles heal. A turtle with kidney problems was sedated and secured to an operating table to undergo a surgical procedure at the New England Aquarium. [more...]
These wonderful birds have a wingspan of around 3 metres and breed on the sub-Antarctic Islands way south of New Zealand. They are common around Kaikoura at this time of year, no doubt drawn by the abundant marine life. On the water, they are at times a lot more aggressive than on land:[more...]
Residents of a tiny Banks Peninsula settlement saved a pod of whales beached in a mass stranding.
The survivors in a pod of about 50 pilot whales stranded in a bay near Christchurch yesterday appear to have made it safely back to sea, with those monitoring the situation reporting no sign of them this morning. (more...]
Have you heard the one about gold fish having only a three second memory - by the time they swim around the bowl, they’ve forgotten where they are and swim around again?
“It’s absolute rubbish,” says Dr Kevin Warburton, an adjunct researcher with Charles Sturt University’s Institute for Land, Water and Society who has been studying fish behavior for many years.
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It is pitch black, icy cold and the pressure is phenomenal. The deepest parts of the ocean are some of the least hospitable places on Earth - yet footage from recent expeditions reveals that life in the oceanic trenches is thriving. [more...]
The poisonous slugs that closed Auckland beaches last year could be living in the waters around New Zealand but money to study them is proving harder to find than the slugs themselves.[more...]
Genetic analyses refute the hypothesis that an overly abundant population of minke whales is creating too much competition over food for populations of other whale species to rebound, according to a new study supported by the Lenfest Ocean Program and published this week in the journal Molecular Ecology. The study's findings indicate that the Southern Ocean minke whale population around Antarctica has not grown unnaturally large in the wake of industrial whaling, which decimated populations of other larger whales in the region. [more...]
Fifteen year old Christchurch Avonside High School student Aescleah Hawkins has an unusual resolution for 2010 - this year, she has pledged to help stop the extinction of New Zealand's endangered Hector's dolphins.[more...]
THE problem of Tasman Bay's disappearing scallops may be a step closer to being solved, with Cawthron Institute scientists launching a miniature robotic submarine to investigate the bay's waters.
PARIS — Fossilised footprints, found in a Polish quarry, of an enigmatic, long-extinct creature have prompted palaeontologists to reopen the file of how life in the sea moved to the land. A key theory in evolutionary biology is that tetrapods -- four-limbed land-loving vertebrates -- emerged from fishes with pairs of lobed fins.
OPINION: There will be many people in Taranaki hoping that when the men caught poaching paua this weekend make their court appearances, the judge throws the book at them. This blatant theft of the region's fish stocks is outrageous, and the consequences potentially tragic.
HOUSTON -- Two sea otters are responsible for causing an 80-minute delay for a Continental Airlines flight that was heading from Houston to Columbus, Ohio, on Tuesday. The plane was scheduled to leave at 7:55 p.m., but it got stuck on the tarmac at Bush Intercontinental Airport after two sea otters stored in the cargo area got loose. Crews eventually got things under control, and the plane took off at 9:15 p.m.
Only in recent years did scientists find that the secretive aquatic mammal migrates from shallow to deep water. Now researchers can reveal that the manatees make this perilous journey to avoid being exposed to attack by predators during the low-water season. [more...]
In contrast to the exhaustive research into venom produced by snakes and spiders, venomous fish have been neglected and remain something of a mystery. Now, a study of 158 catfish species, published in the open access journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, has cataloged the presence of venom glands and investigated their biological effects. [more...]
Massive corals are being used by marine scientists to unravel the effects of climate and environmental change on coral reefs in Australia’s remote north-west. Often referred to as the Methuselah’s of coral reefs because they can be older than 500 years, these massive corals grow in a series of annual bands that store a wealth of information about the environment in which they grow. [more...]
It took two years of planning before 15 cameramen could even begin filming Oceans for Pathi, which will be out on general release on 27 January 2010. The crew filmed in 50 locations across the world and captured 80 species of fish, dolphins, whales, squid, lizards, crabs and turtles. [more...]
Coral reef fish can undergo a personality change in warmer water, according to an intriguing new study suggesting that climate change may make some species more aggressive. Experiments with two species of young damselfish on Australia's Great Barrier Reef have shown for the first time that some reef fish are either consistently timid, or consistently bold, and that these individual differences are even more marked as water temperatures rise. [more...]
Mr Kahukoti was preparing to enter the water with a group of students on Wednesday when he saw two fins approaching, one very big one – more than a metre high – and one very small one.
Deep under the Antarctic ice, a rare, colourful burst of starfish and 3m-long monster worms has been filmed by a BBC camera crew. Filmed in time-lapse, the extraordinary swarm of deep-sea creatures gathers to feed in a frenzy on the body of a seal, which had sunk to the ocean floor.
Taiwan is expected to set up an aquarium fish R&D and export center in 2011, with the goal of replacing Singapore as the leading aquarium fish exporter in Asia, a Council of Agriculture (COA) official said Wednesday.
The facility, with an estimated price tag of NT$1.19 billion (US$36.96 million) , will be located in the Pingtung Agricultural Biotechnology Park (PABP) under the COA.
‘Oil shark’ tankers anchored off World Heritage coastline are an environmental ‘accident waiting to happen’, conservationists warned today. The 10 ships, moored by Dorset and Devon as they wait for oil prices to rise, are at greater risk of spilling their one million-tonne cargo as the UK is lashed by storms.
A team from an aquarium in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, has succeeded in capturing the world's first photographs of juvenile coelacanths, a fish regarded as a living fossil, off Indonesia's Sulawesi Island.
Press Release – South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management (14/11/09)
Negotiations Conclude; Countries Called on to Protect the South Pacific Fisheries and Marine Environment
Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, ECO, Greenpeace (Auckland, 14 November 2009)
Non-governmental organisations attending the South Pacific Regional Fisheries Management Organisation (SPRFMO) ; negotiations in Auckland welcomed the signing of the agreement today, but called on all countries to accelerate efforts to take real steps to protect fisheries and the marine environment.
“The structures for managing non-tuna fisheries over a huge area of the South Pacific have been agreed in Auckland today, but the immediate future of the Chilean jack mackerel fishery is grim as countries from the north position to intensely fish the already stressed fishery over the next 1-3 years,” said Sam Leiva of Greenpeace Chile.
“The tragedy is that the northern fishing countries and the European Commission seem unable to understand that this short term race for fish will leave everyone the poorer and will have ongoing and unknowable consequences for the marine environment,” said Cath Wallace of the Environment and Conservation Organisations of NZ (ECO).
“The major achievement of this meeting has been agreement on the text of the South Pacific Fisheries Management Organisation which will provide, once it is ratified by countries and takes effect in a few years, a sound basis for management of the fisheries, principally orange roughy bottom fisheries in the western Pacific and around New Zealand and Australia, and the Chilean jack mackerel fisheries in the eastern Pacific. The agreement by more than 25 countries is a huge step forward. It is a major achievement and we can thank distinguished New Zealand international lawyer, Bill Mansfield and his secretariat, for this, and in particular his efforts to ensure that the text of the agreement includes modern environmental principles and requirements”said Cath Wallace.
The stakes for the countries competing to fish for jack mackerel, including Russia, Peru, the European Commission, the Faroe Islands, China, and Chile are high. They have not just been competing for entitlements to fish now, but they know that future allocations depend on their catch history so there is a major “race to fish” on. Forbearance and concern for the marine environment and the future largely vanished as the haggling went on. There has been hard haggling to the end over the rights to fish and to avoid stringent or indeed any meaningful limits despite the best efforts of New Zealand, Australia and Chile.
"New Zealand, Australia the USA and others have played a constructive role in these negotiations, and in particular with their efforts to achieve Interim Measures (controls) including a ban on destructive gillnet fishing from the South Pacific. The conclusion of the Agreement on the Convention and the prospect of banning deep sea gillnet fishing are positive developments which are important for the South Pacific,”said Duncan Currie for the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition.
“We acknowledge the positive role that Chair Bill Mansfield and Australia, the United States and New Zealand have played to get this far, and we are glad that the EC has undertaken to stop its flag States from engaging in this destructive practice. But it is not enough. Negotiations start next week in New York to ensure that vulnerable marine ecosystems and deep sea stocks are protected, and we are calling on Australia, New Zealand, the European Commission and all other countries participating in that meeting to learn from this week and take positive steps to ensure that all countries play by the rules. Fishing outside the rules is IUU (illegal, unreported and unregulated) fishing and must stop.”
Gloucestershire based Severn (7) Shipbuilders has designed and developed an innovative rigid inflatable boat that is able to submerge and operate underwater.
Central and eastern Pacific Ocean temperatures are exceeding El Nino levels and will remain at levels typical of an El Nino weather event until early 2010, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said on Wednesday.
After 15 years of research in the waters of the South Atlantic and Indian Oceans, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society, the American Museum of Natural History, and an international coalition of organizations have unveiled the largest genetic study of humpback whale populations ever conducted in the Southern Hemisphere.
When krill come together, they form some of the largest gatherings of life on the planet. Now scientists have discovered just how these small marine crustaceans do it. Huge 'super swarms' containing trillions of krill are formed by juveniles not adults, and these swarms are even denser than experts supposed.
A dust storm that blew across the Australian coast last month and swept towards New Zealand dumped three million tonnes of soil into the sea between the two countries, researchers say. At one point, an average of 75,000 tonnes of dust was being dumped each hour into the Tasman Sea, Sky News Australia reported.
The Island Bay Marine Education Centre, as a result of packed family open days that have been a regular monthly event, will now open every Sunday from 10.00am-3.00pm. It will close briefly on the 7th December for the Christmas period and re-open for Sunday 10th January, 2010.
"It has become obvious the public thoroughly enjoys the hands-on experience we offer within the centre, with 600 plus visitors per day and growing" says trust Chairman Dr Victor Anderlini.
"However, the number of people who say our open hours have been restrictive and when they arrive our small facility is overcrowded is also a clear message. Many have also stated they would bring more friends if we were open more often. This is an excellent opportunity to immerse more people in the ocean environment, its care and the amazing animals within."
Dr Anderlini continues: "Opening every Sunday will hopefully bring some balance to crowded times in the Bait House Aquarium as we continue to explore our future vision of a bigger purpose built facility".
The next Open Day is this Sunday, 11th October from 10.00am-3.00pm. Entry $2 donation per person.
When fish school together, they move in tandem as if they were a single organism. While they have free-will, they also have the innate ability to stay a safe distance away from one another and avoid collisions. Japanese car-maker Nissan synthesized this behavior in a fleet of robots called "Eporo."
Many today are familiar with the plight of bluefin tuna and marine turtle but few know about the diminishing population of the Mediterranean Red Coral species (Corallium rubrum). A recent international workshop on red coral held in Naples heard the concern of coral biologists, managers and traders over the long-term viability of red coral in the Mediterranean, especially those in shallow waters. [more...]
Some 85 million years ago in a shallow ocean, a handful of miniature great white sharks were pigging out on the carcass of a giant marine reptile called a plesiosaur, a new study suggests. During this apparent feeding frenzy, some shark teeth got stuck in the plesiosaur's bones, which were subsequently buried and remained undiscovered until a high-school student in Japan found them in 1968. [more...]
In the latest in a series of nature's ugliest animals, a sea turtle conservation group in Brazil has fished up the dead carcass of what was thought to be a previously unknown species. While the gelatinous, 6-foot-long fish isn't some new species, it is an incredibly rare deep sea bottom-feeding fish known as the jelly nose fish (or the tadpole fish), a squishy-nosed, scaleless bottom-feeder typically found 1300 to 2300 feet below the ocean's surface, eating whatever it can suck up off the ocean floor. [more...]
Knowledge gleaned about Wellington's marine environment over more than century, has been brought together in an interactive CD, to help guide decision makers. Department of Conservation marine ecologist Helen Kettles said a lack of accessible information on the marine environment prompted the department to create a repository of marine research.
The Pacific island nation of Palau has created the world's first shark sanctuary. In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Palau President Johnson Toribiong declared his country's entire Exclusive Economic Zone, an area of 629,000 square km, roughly the size of France as a shark sanctuary, Radio New Zealand International reported on Sunday. [more...]
