» Marine Wildlife



Seas-At-Risk organisation evaluates new fishing proposals, including electric pulse fishing

Seas-At-Risk press release, 21st November 2017: The European Parliament Fisheries Committee [has taken a decision which] seriously weakens marine environmental legislation. The European Parliament Fisheries Committee today [21st November] voted on a proposal that will revise legislation on the protection of fisheries resources and marine ecosystems. The proposal merges more than 30 existing regulations and […]

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Wildlife Trusts call for new UK Marine Strategy following Brexit

The Wildlife Trusts, October 2017: A unique chance for the UK to become a world leader in marine management. Seize the moment! In 2019 the UK plans to leave the European Union. While it is important that we retain existing EU law through the Withdrawal Bill and anticipated Fisheries and Agriculture Bills, this departure is […]

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Devon Wildlife Trust launches Wrasse petition, and says new measures are not enough

The Devon Wildlife Trust reports, 14th July 2017: Following our wrasse campaign, new measures have been announced by authorities this week. But DWT believes they do not go far enough to ensure prevention of damage to our Marine Protected Areas. In June, DWT raised the alarm when we heard that a wrasse fishery had begun […]

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The survival of the Wadden Sea, Netherlands, is in question

The Guardian reports, 16th June 2017: The world’s largest unbroken intertidal system of sand and mud flats could sink beneath the waves by the end of the century due to sea level rise and subsidence caused by gas drills. The Unesco world heritage site at the Wadden Sea on the Dutch coast stretches over 10,000 […]

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World’s largest colony of Humboldt penguins threatened

Oceana reports, 12th January 2017: Six hundred kilometres (360 miles) north of Santiago, Chile, the National Humboldt Penguin Reserve reverberates with the braying of 26,000 Humboldt penguins — around 80 percent of the species’ entire population. Sea otters and migrating blue whales glide through the waves close to colonies of nesting seabirds. This global biodiversitybiodiversity […]

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Convention on Ballast Water Management secures legal force

The UK Wildlife and Countryside Link reports, October 2016: This month Finland ratified the International Maritime Organisation’s (IMO) Ballast Water Management Convention. Being the 52nd contracting party, Finland tipped the target of 35% world shipping tonnage and triggered entry into force by September 2017. We’ve been waiting a long time for this, as the convention […]

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Sea otter is a “keystone species” says new ecological study

The Observer reports, 10th July 2016: Charles Darwin once mused on the impacts that predators could have on the landscapes around them. In particular, he wondered – in On the Origin of Species — how neighbourhood cats might affect the abundance of flowers in the fields near his house at Downe in Kent. He concluded […]

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Denmark is an obstacle to the protection of 69 threatened Baltic species, says Oceana

Oceana reports, 14th March 2016: Three years of work by 88 leading experts were effectively scrapped during the 37th Annual Meeting of the Helsinki Commission (HELCOM), held March 2016, when countries approved a heavily weakened version of a plan to protect and rebuild the most threatened Baltic Sea and Kattegat species. Oceana denounces Denmark as […]

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NEF launches coastal economic regeneration project, titled “New Blue Deal”

The New Economics Foundation reports: On 24th November 2015, the New Economics Foundation (NEF) hosted a cross-party parliamentary briefing at the House of Commons about the Blue New Deal initiative. Thanks to Peter Aldous MP for Waveney, Suffolk, for making this possible. The Blue New Deal aims to deliver more and better jobs for coastal […]

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Deep Sea Mining : the nature of the resource, and the threat to ocean integrity

Prof. Richard Steiner writes in The Huffington Post, 20th October 2015: Adding to concerns about the disastrous decline in ocean ecosystems, now there is another emerging threat — deep sea mining. While shallow water mining for sand, gold, tin, and diamonds has been conducted for decades, commercial deep sea mining has yet to occur anywhere. […]

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North Sea cod leaves the “endangered” Red List

The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) reports 24th September 2015: The iconic European cod fishery which collapsed in the 1980s and has been ailing ever since, has finally increased above dangerously low levels and hauled itself off the MCS Fish to Avoid list. As part of our autumn update to FishOnline (www.fishonline.org), North Sea cod is now rated 4 […]

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Marine populations have fallen by half since 1970, says study

WWF and the Zoological Society London report, 16th September 2015: Marine species around the world, including populations of fish critical to human food security, are in potentially catastrophic decline according to new research. WWF’s Living Blue Planet report, an updated study of marine mammals, birds, reptiles and fish, shows a decline of 49 per cent […]

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Mussels and their harvesting threatened by ocean acidification

The Guardian, 24th December 2014, reports: The world’s mussel population could be under threat as climate change causes the oceans to become more acidic, scientists have warned. Mussel shells become more brittle when they are formed in more acidic water, Glasgow University has reported in the Royal Society journal Interface. Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere […]

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Walrus reflect changes in the Arctic’s climate

Associated Press and ctvnews.ca report, 28th August 2015: ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Pacific walrus have come ashore on the north-west coast of Alaska in what has become an annual sign of the effects of climate change. “There appears to be several thousand animals up there,” said Andrea Medeiros, spokeswoman for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service […]

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The Importance of Plankton

Marine scientist, Dr. Richard Kirby, blogs on Blue Planet Society, March 2015: “In the sea, the planktonplankton Plankton is a generic term for a wide variety of the smallest yet most important organisms form that drift in our oceans. They can exist in larger forms of more than 20cm as the larval forms of jellyfish, […]

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The oceans are the heart of our planet, but we know more about Venus

The Guardian, in an Editorial on 7th August 2015, states: The tentative identification of a scrap of wing washed up on the Indian Ocean island of Réunion as part of the missing Malaysia Airlines flight M370 is a reminder of a paradox of scientific investment and capacity. Humans have identified and pinpointed the fabric of […]

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UN considers a Treaty to protect biodiversity on the high seas

The New York Times reports, 31st July 2015: Suppose a group of scientists wanted to dump 100 tons of iron dust into the sea based on a controversial climate-change theory that the ore might spur the growth of planktonplankton Plankton is a generic term for a wide variety of the smallest yet most important organisms […]

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Serious fall in the population of Puffins in Shetland

BBC News reports, 16th July 2015: Researchers believe young puffins have not been returning to Fair Isle to breed. A long-term study of a large puffin colony on Shetland suggests that numbers breeding there have halved from about 20,000 to 10,000 individuals. The study, published by the scientific journal PLOS ONE, covers a period of […]

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Scientists debate whether Antarctic krill need greater protection

Elizabeth Grossman and Ensia.com report, 7th July 2015: Barely longer than your thumb, weighing under an ounce and nearly translucent, delicate crustaceans known as krill are vital to ocean ecosystems around the world. In the waters that encircle Antarctica, krill are an essential food source for penguins, baleen and blue whales (which can eat as […]

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BP pay record fine for Gulf of Mexico oil spill

The Guardian reports, 2nd July 2015: “BP has agreed to pay a record environmental fine of $18.7bn to settle legal actions brought by the US and several states over the fatal 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill. The US justice department, along with the states of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas and Florida, all sued BP […]

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