Ocean Sentry
Fish experience pain on a level comparable to mammals, according to a scientist who has debunked the common misconception that the animals aren’t capable of such sensation.
September, 2019
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25 September
Microplastics may affect how Arctic sea ice forms and melts
If people assume the Arctic environment is unaffected by what humans discard into the oceans, they are wrong. The pristine waters of the Arctic Ocean are under silent threat by those particles as they drift along with the ocean currents over long distances.
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24 September
Jellyfish thrive in the man-made disruption of the oceans
Jellyfish have been on Earth longer than we have—they are believed to have roamed the oceans for nearly 600 million years. But human activity, from over-fishing to plastic waste and climate change, has created an environment in which they are even more at home.
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24 September
Trawling ban could help stop endangered sea lion deaths at Auckland Islands
With fewer than 12,000 individuals, New Zealand sea lions – rāpoka – are one of the rarest in the world. The inhospitable Auckland Islands, 500km south of Bluff, is their main breeding location. But pup production there has declined by approximately 55 percent in the last two decades.
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23 September
Ocean heatwave known as ‘The Blob’ is warming up the West Coast – and endangering animals
Roughly five years ago, a huge patch of unusually warm ocean water appeared off the coast of North America, stretching from Mexico’s Baja California Peninsula all the way up to Alaska.
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23 September
The last gasp of the Māui dolphin
“Every minute that a species like Māui spends at that population size is a risk in and of itself,” says Slooten. “Anything could happen. And it could happen quickly, and we could lose them—literally any minute. “Māui dolphins are literally teetering on the brink of extinction.”
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23 September
Future bleak for North Atlantic right whales
An international conservation group has joined in calls for more government effort to protect the imperiled North Atlantic right whale.
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19 September
Right whale found dead identified as potentially ‘one of the great fathers of the population’
Given his age and his propensity to be in known mating areas for right whales, the scientists said, “One would expect him to be one of the great fathers of the population.”
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18 September
Trump administration opens huge reserve in Alaska to drilling
The Trump administration on Thursday said it would seek to open up the entire coastal plain of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas exploration, picking the most aggressive development option for an area long closed to drilling.
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18 September
NASA visualization shows devastating decline in Arctic ice over past 35 years
“The take home message is that climate change is real,” he said. “It is not something that is out there 30 years from now, 50 years from now that our children or grandchildren are going to have to deal with — it is here and it is now.”
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18 September
Endangered sea turtle found impaled with 3-foot long spear in Florida
This summer has been a particularly rough one for Florida turtles. In August, a woman found several baby sea turtles who had been badly burned on a beach in Brevard county. In June, a woman in Miami Beach was arrested for poking a nest with a wooden stake and stomping on turtle eggs.
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18 September
New report finds that almost 600,000 metric tonnes of sharks and rays caught annually by top catchers
A study published yesterday by The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network (TRAFFIC) details how the world’s top 20 shark and ray catchers and traders account for approximately 80% of the global reported catch, averaged by year from 2007 to 2017.