Category Archives: Marine life

The beluga whale who became famous: Aleksander Nordahl’s best photograph

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‘He was called Hvaldimir and he would play in front of crowds at Hammerfest harbour in Norway. One woman dropped her phone and he fetched it for her’

In April 2019, a beluga whale appeared alongside fishing boats off the coast of Norway. He was wearing a harness. A fisherman called Joar Hesten freed him, and saw the harness had stamped on it “equipment of St Petersburg”. The media went crazy, with talk of a “spy whale”, and the creature was named Hvaldimir, a combination of hval, the Norwegian word for whale, and Vladimir, a nod to Russia’s President Putin.

The whale became famous. There were Instagram videos of him playing in Hammerfest harbour in front of crowds. One woman dropped her phone in the water and the whale fetched it for her. He would bring up bones from the depths to show people, almost like little gifts. It became this huge moment on social media: everyone in the country fell in love with the whale. Even the hardcore fishing villages melted for Hvaldimir.

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‘I woke up, he was gone’: Senegal suffers as young men risk all to reach Europe

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As tourism plummets and fishing nets go empty, more are attempting the treacherous 1,000 mile journey to the Canaries

In the old Senegalese port city of Saint Louis, 12 women step off the sun-baked street and through a doorway draped with pink silk into a dim room beyond.

After greetings are over, one by one they recount their stories. Recent memories of husbands, sons and brothers they have lost at sea, revealing precious pictures on smartphones of moments when they last cradled children or kissed their families.

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Sperm whales in 19th century shared ship attack information

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Whalers’ logbooks show rapid drop in strike rate in north Pacific due to changes in cetacean behaviour

A remarkable new study on how whales behaved when attacked by humans in the 19th century has implications for the way they react to changes wreaked by humans in the 21st century.

The paper, published by the Royal Society on Wednesday, is authored by Hal Whitehead and Luke Rendell, pre-eminent scientists working with cetaceans, and Tim D Smith, a data scientist, and their research addresses an age-old question: if whales are so smart, why did they hang around to be killed? The answer? They didn’t.

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Revealed: seafood fraud happening on a vast global scale

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Guardian analysis of 44 studies finds nearly 40% of 9,000 products from restaurants, markets and fishmongers were mislabelled

A Guardian Seascape analysis of 44 recent studies of more than 9,000 seafood samples from restaurants, fishmongers and supermarkets in more than 30 countries found that 36% were mislabelled, exposing seafood fraud on a vast global scale.

Many of the studies used relatively new DNA analysis techniques. In one comparison of sales of fish labelled “snapper” by fishmongers, supermarkets and restaurants in Canada, the US, the UK, Singapore, Australia and New Zealand, researchers found mislabelling in about 40% of fish tested. The UK and Canada had the highest rates of mislabelling in that study, at 55%, followed by the US at 38%.

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Retailers join calls for ‘urgent’ action to restrict harmful tuna fishing methods

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‘Fish aggregating devices’ have been linked to depletion of yellowfin populations and increased bycatch in the Indian Ocean

Global condemnation is growing at the increasingly widespread use of harmful “fish aggregating devices” (FADs) in the fishing industry, as retailers including Sainsbury’s, Marks & Spencer and the German chain Edeka joined calls for restrictions.

A letter signed by more than 100 NGOs, retailers and artisanal fisheries urges this week’s meeting of the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC) to consider proposals by Kenya and Sri Lanka to monitor, manage and restrict FADs. The signatories warn of an “urgent need” to improve management of FADs in order to reduce overfishing and rebuild populations of yellowfin tuna.

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Keep your head: the self-decapitating sea slugs that regrow their bodies – hearts and all

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The disembodied head of the sacoglossan sea slug feasts on algae while its old body decomposes, and a new one grows

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, then it’s unlikely that you are a sacoglossan sea slug (apologies to Rudyard Kipling).

Scientists in Japan have discovered that this species of sea slug can decapitate itself and then regrow an entirely new body, complete with a beating heart and other vital organs.

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‘I ate 40kg of chocolate’: Yorkshire teacher, 21, on rowing solo across the Atlantic

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Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to make the 3,000-mile journey alone, relished the freedom of doing it all by herself

It was always during the night when things went wrong for Jasmine Harrison, the youngest woman to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean. Like the time her boat hurtled into a huge wave at 19.2 knots and capsized, leaving her with a badly injured elbow.

“I was basically thrown at a wall at 20-odd miles an hour. That’s going to hurt, especially in the middle of your sleep,” she said. “Everything happened when I was asleep.”

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Oil spill from passing ship blackens Israel’s Mediterranean shoreline

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Volunteers gather to remove clumps of tar in cleanup effort that could take months or years, officials say

Israeli authorities are trying to find the ship responsible for an oil spill that drenched much of its Mediterranean shoreline with tar, an environmental blow that will take months or years to clean up, officials said.

Thousands of volunteers gathered on Sunday to remove clumps of sticky black refuse from the pale beaches. Israel’s military said it was deploying thousands of soldiers to help with the effort. Authorities warned members of the public to keep their distance until further notice.

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Dolphins have similar personality traits to humans, study finds

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Curiosity and sociability among traits found, despite dolphins having evolved separately for millions of years

Dolphins have developed a number of similar personality traits to humans, despite having evolved in vastly different environments, researchers have found.

A study, published in the Journal of Comparative Psychology, looked at 134 male and female bottlenose dolphins from eight facilities across the world, with each dolphin’s personality being assessed by staff at the facilities. The results of the study found a convergence of certain personality traits, especially curiosity and sociability.

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Researchers rethink life in a cold climate after Antarctic find

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Scientists surprised by marine organisms on boulder on sea floor beneath 900 metres of ice shelf

The accidental discovery of marine organisms on a boulder on the sea floor beneath 900 metres (3,000ft) of Antarctic ice shelf has led scientists to rethink the limits of life on Earth.

Researchers stumbled on the life-bearing rock after sinking a borehole through nearly a kilometre of the Filchner-Ronne ice shelf on the south-eastern Weddell Sea to obtain a sediment core from the seabed.

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Salmon farming harming marine life and costing billions in damage

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Report says pollution, parasites and fish mortality rates cost an estimated $50bn globally from 2013 to 2019

Salmon farming is wreaking ruin on marine ecosystems, through pollution, parasites and high fish mortality rates which are causing billions of pounds a year in damage, a new assessment of the global salmon farming industry has found.

Taken together, these costs amounted to about $50bn globally from 2013 to 2019, according to a report published on Thursday.

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Blue whales threatened by ship collisions in busy Patagonia waters

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Endangered giants face potentially fatal encounters with the 1,000 daily fishing vessels moving through main feeding area off Chile, scientists warn

The largest mammal ever to live on the Earth, the blue whale, is under threat from boat collisions as one of its main feeding grounds in Chilean Patagonia is overrun with vessels, a new study has revealed.

The endangered whales must contend with up to 1,000 boats moving daily through an important feeding area in the eastern South Pacific, according to research published in the scientific journal Nature.

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Western Australia shark attack: surfer reportedly bitten on foot off Gracetown

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Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development says woman emerged from water with bleeding foot

A surfer has reportedly been attacked by a shark in ocean off the south-west of Western Australia.

A spokesman for the Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development said the woman, 46, emerged from the water with a bleeding foot at Cowaramup Bay Beach, Gracetown.

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Humpback whales may be struggling to breed as climate crisis depletes food

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Scientists say decline in calves born in past 15 years due to diminishing herring stocks in warming north Atlantic

Humpback whales could be struggling to breed due to rapid environmental change in the ocean caused by the climate crisis, a study suggests.

Scientists have confirmed a significant decline in the number of calves born to female humpbacks over the past 15 years in the Gulf of St Lawrence, Canada, an important summer feeding ground for migrating whales. They said the climate crisis has led to rapid sea temperature and sea level rise in this area of the north Atlantic, with knock-on effects for the ecosystem that include decreasing numbers of herring, a vital food source for humpback whales.

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Chinese vessels detained by Vanuatu, accused of fishing illegally

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Crew on two vessels face further investigation in Pacific nation, a month after similar incident in Palau

Two Chinese fishing vessels have been detained by Vanuatu authorities amid allegations they were fishing illegally in the Pacific nation’s territorial waters.

This is the first time that Chinese vessels have been accused of illegal fishing activities in Vanuatu’s territory, but their confinement comes just a month after Palau detained a Chinese-flagged vessel reportedly illegally harvesting sea cucumber, or beche-de-mer, in the western Pacific state’s territorial waters.

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Giant worm’s undersea lair discovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan

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Scientists believe 2-metre-long burrow once housed predator that ambushed passing sea creatures

The undersea lair of a giant worm that ambushed passing marine creatures 20m years ago has been uncovered by fossil hunters in Taiwan.

Researchers believe the 2-metre-long burrow found in ancient marine sediment once housed a prehistoric predator that burst out of the seabed and dragged unsuspecting animals down into its lair.

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Left stranded: US military sonar linked to whale beachings in Pacific, say scientists

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Islands surrounded by US military study area, including Guam and Saipan, call for activity that harms the whales to stop

In the midst of the western Pacific, flanked by the world’s deepest ocean trench, the waters off the Mariana Islands are home and habitat to whales, dolphins, and countless other marine mammals as they breed and feed.

It’s also where they encounter the might of the US military.

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Baby sharks emerge from egg cases earlier and weaker in oceans warmed by climate crisis

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Weaker sharks are less effective hunters, which can upset the balance of the ecosystem, say authors of study into impacts of hotter oceans

Baby sharks will emerge from their egg cases earlier and weaker as water temperatures rise, according to a new study that examined the impact of warming oceans on embryos.

About 40% of all shark species lay eggs, and the researchers found that one species unique to the Great Barrier Reef spent up to 25 days less in their egg cases under temperatures expected by the end of the century.

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Baby shark! Newborn megalodons larger than humans, scientists say

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Creatures that patrolled the oceans 3m years ago were about two metres long at birth, researchers find

Enormous megatooth sharks, or megalodons, which patrolled the world’s oceans more than three million years ago, gave birth to babies larger than most adult humans, scientists say.

Researchers made the unsettling discovery when they X-rayed the vertebra of a fossilised megalodon and found that it must have been about two metres (6.5 ft) long when it was born.

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