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Seas, Rivers and Lakes

Citizen Science: Tourists Help Protect the World's Largest Fish

Posted May 12th, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
Brad Norman, director of ECOCEAN, the Australian marine conservation organization that runs the Web-based photo-ID library, says tourists can help monitor the movements of whale sharks and help protect the giant fish.

Scientists have enlisted the public's help in the photo identification of whale sharks, the world's largest fish. Divers are encouraged to submit any photos they take of whale sharks to a Web site (whalesharks.org) that tracks the endangered whale sharks around the world. Despite their giant size, whale sharks are harmless to divers and snorkelers. The patterns of spots on their backs are unique to each individual.

Bycatch Threatens Marine Ecosystems, Scientists Warn

Posted April 23rd, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
Rebecca Lewison of San Diego State University says the severity of the bycatch problem is difficult to comprehend.

Bycatch refers to species caught in a fishery which intended to target another species. According to the Worldwide Fund for Nature, in the Gulf of Thailand, 14 pounds of bycatch are caught for every pound of shrimp harvested. Bycatch is often discarded dead or dying by the time it is returned to the sea.

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Still images featured in the video courtesy of SeaWeb

Crab Invasion Threatens Antarctic Marine Life

Posted March 12th, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
Sven Thatje of the University of Southampton and Rich Aronson of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab say the invasion could threaten Antarctica's native marine life, which resembles the primeval waters of millions years ago because modern predators –- crabs and fish –- have so far been missing.

As the Antarctic waters heat up because of global warming, king crabs are expanding into waters that were previously too chilly for them.

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Underwater video and still images courtesy of the National Oceanography Centre, Southampton (NOCS)

New Expedition Launched to Study and Protect Deep Sea Corals

Posted March 2nd, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
Murray Roberts, a marine biologist at the Scottish Association for Marine Science in Oban, Scotland, explains the need for a new international program to study and protect the world's oldest living marine organisms.

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Sea coral footage courtesy of Alberto Lindner/NOAA

New Discoveries Shed Light on Mysterious Deep-Sea Corals and Their Past

Posted February 29th, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
Most people associate corals with tropical, shallow waters. But two-thirds of the world's corals can actually be found in the cold, deep seas.

New research shows that the second most diverse group of hard corals, called stylasterids, or lace corals, first evolved in the deep sea, and not in shallow waters as previously thought. Deep-sea corals can be spectacularly long-lived, with life spans of over 4,000 years, and they can be critical to understanding climate change in the past and future.

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Sea coral footage courtesy of Alberto Lindner/NOAA

Millions of Sharks Killed as Bycatch: WWF Report

Posted February 11th, 2008 by Stefan Lovgren
The majority of seabirds, sea turtle species, and many shark species killed in southern African waters are listed as threatened with extinction by the IUCN (World Conservation Union), the World Wildlife Fund said.

A skate is one of many bycatch species caught in a shrimp trawler's net in Baja California, Mexico. : Elliott Norse, Marine Conservation Biology Institute/Marine Photobank

Elliott Norse, Marine Conservation Biology Institute/Marine Photobank
A skate is one of many bycatch species caught in a shrimp trawler's net in Baja California, Mexico.

According to the WWF, incidental capture -- known as bycatch -- also kills some 34,000 seabirds and 4,200 sea turtles every year in an area known as the Benguela ecosystem off the west coasts of South Africa, Namibia, and Angola.

The animals get caught on baited hooks put out on long lines by fishing boats targeting tuna and hake.