Ocean Sentry
For the first time, researchers have shown that marine birds can hear underwater. This offers new possibilities for the protection of marine birds in trafficked waters. Seals, whales and other marine animals can hear underwater. The cormorant also has this ability, which new research from University of Southern Denmark (SDU) …
May, 2017
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31 May
More frequent extreme ocean warming could further endanger albatross
As Earth warms due to human-caused climate change, extreme climatic events like heat waves, droughts, and spikes in ocean temperatures have increased and are projected to become even more common by the end of this century…
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16 May
New Zealand’s mainland yellow-eyed penguins face extinction unless urgent action taken
Iconic Yellow-eyed penguins could disappear from New Zealand’s Otago Peninsula by 2060, latest research warns. Researchers call for coordinated conservation action. In a newly published study in the international journal PeerJ, scientists have modelled factors driving mainland Yellow-eyed penguin population decline and are calling for action to reduce regional threats…
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15 May
Climate change effects: Hurricane winds threaten bird migration as global warming makes more storms
Climate change models predict more frequent hurricanes, and that could be a problem for the migrating birds that fly right into them. Researchers focused on one particular Atlantic seabird, the sooty tern, and mapped the path they take while migrating every year using data from tagged birds over the last several …
March, 2017
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29 March
Seabird bones, fossils reveal broad food-web shift in North Pacific
For thousands of years, the Hawaiian petrel has soared over the Pacific Ocean, feeding on fish and squid. Now, using evidence preserved in the birds’ bones, scientists at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History and Michigan State University have discovered that the now endangered seabird has experienced a significant …
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7 March
Puffins face terminal decline as a result of overfishing in North Sea
Puffin numbers could go into terminal decline unless drastic action is taken, according to a conservationist expert. The much-loved sea bird could be wiped out unless the Scottish Government tackles overfishing in the North Sea…
February, 2017
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20 February
Seabirds staving to death around Iceland
According to a RUV report an unusual number of dead black seabird is washing up on the northern shores of Iceland this winter. The birds are washing up emaciated so biologists conclude the most likely cause of death to be malnutrition. It’s not unusual that seabirds wash ashore over the …
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13 February
Warming oceans are wrecking seabird populations
A year after tens of thousands of common murres, an abundant North Pacific seabird, starved and washed ashore on beaches from California to Alaska, researchers have pinned the cause to unusually warm ocean temperatures that affected the tiny fish they eat…
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10 February
Climate change and fishing create ‘trap’ for penguins
As the climate changes and fisheries transform the oceans, the world’s African penguins are in trouble, according to researchers reporting in Current Biology on February 9. Young penguins aren’t able to take all the changes into account and are finding themselves “trapped” in parts of the sea that can no …
December, 2016
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22 December
Eroding bird Islet threatens seabirds at Tubbataha
The changing sea currents, aggravated by rising sea levels brought by climate change, are slowly eating up Bird Islet in Tubbataha Reef, the last intact seabird habitat in the Philippines…
November, 2016
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25 November
Ending with discards can speed up the mortality of endangered marine birds in the Mediterranean
The accidental catch of marine birds by long liners can skyrocket, at least in the short run, with the prohibition of discarding catches, set by the European Union, according to an article published in the journal Scientific Reports by a team led by Professor Jacob González-Solís, from the Department of …
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18 November
How bird poop could help keep the Arctic cool
The fight against climate change has led to some strange discoveries: researchers recently found that feeding cows seaweed could reduce the methane content of their burps, others have suggested that dumping iron into the ocean may superpower carbon dioxide-munching phytoplankton, and still others are experimenting with injecting carbon into the …