Category Archives: Marine life

African killifish may hold key to stopping ageing in humans

Posted on by

Turquoise killifish is able to suspend its development for longer than its average lifespan

The curious ability of the African turquoise killifish to press pause on its development could have intriguing implications for human ageing, say researchers.

Certain creatures, including the killifish, can put themselves into suspended animation as an embryo – a trait known as diapause. The phenomenon is thought to have evolved in response to pressures such as seasonal changes in the environment – for example ponds drying up – or sudden challenges that pose a risk to the creatures. In other words, diapause allows the animal to put its development or birth on ice until conditions improve.

Continue reading...

Ocean temperatures hit record high as rate of heating accelerates

Posted on by

Oceans are clearest measure of climate crisis as they absorb 90% of heat trapped by greenhouse gases

The heat in the world’s oceans reached a new record level in 2019, showing “irrefutable and accelerating” heating of the planet.

The world’s oceans are the clearest measure of the climate emergency because they absorb more than 90% of the heat trapped by the greenhouse gases emitted by fossil fuel burning, forest destruction and other human activities.

Continue reading...

EU trade chief foresees ‘financial services for fishing’ Brexit bargain

Posted on by

Commissioner says Europe will seek fishery access and UK will want concessions for City

The EU’s trade commissioner has suggested there could be a last-minute trade-off with Brussels offering the City of London access to European markets in return for European fleets retaining their fishing rights in British waters.

The UK’s financial services sector will lose its automatic right to serve Europe-based clients at the end of the transition period and the EU will need to negotiate access to UK waters for its fishing boats.

Continue reading...

Scientists give cuttlefish 3D glasses and shrimp films for vision study

Posted on by

Researchers use 3D glasses, films and food to test whether cuttlefish use stereopsis to find prey

There are some questions in science that can only be answered by strapping a pair of 3D glasses to an unsuspecting cuttlefish and setting it loose in an underwater movie theatre.

That, at least, was the thinking of a team of researchers who set themselves the task of working out how the marine molluscs know how far away prey is before launching their explosive, tentacled attacks.

Continue reading...

Brittany oyster farms hit by gastroenteritis epidemic

Posted on by

Farmers blame ‘ecological emergency’ on inadequate treatment of sewage

A gastroenteritis epidemic sweeping France has hit oyster farmers in Brittany after the virus was found in shellfish.

Health authorities have banned the fishing and selling of oysters in the bay around Mont-Saint-Michel and other shellfish farming areas on France’s north-western coast until further notice.

Continue reading...

Plastic pollution kills half a million hermit crabs on remote islands

Posted on by

Experts fear species decline after huge number of deaths on Henderson and Cocos

More than half a million hermit crabs have been killed after becoming trapped in plastic debris on two remote island groups, prompting concern that the deaths could be part of a global species decline.

The pioneering study found that 508,000 crabs died on the Cocos (Keeling) Islands archipelago in the Indian Ocean, along with 61,000 on Henderson Island in the South Pacific. Previous studies have found high levels of plastic pollution at both sites.

Continue reading...

Blooming scary: runner rescued after getting stuck in cornflake seaweed on Gold Coast beach

Posted on by

Algae piles up thigh-deep in places – and could keep water murky for weeks

A woman running on a Gold Coast beach has been rescued after becoming stuck in masses of cornflake seaweed that has piled up thigh-deep in places.

A seaweed expert, Pia Winberg, said the bloom of Colpomenia – also known as sea potatoes, oyster thief or cornflake seaweed – was not unusual for this time of year.

Continue reading...

Eight-foot whale found washed up on Thames shore

Posted on by

The minke whale was discovered on Friday by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge

An eight-foot whale washed up on the shore of the Thames yesterday, where it was found by a patrol boat under Battersea Bridge.

The minke whale was found on Friday evening at about 10pm by a Port of London Authority boat, but it is not yet known how it got there or why it died.

Continue reading...

Healthy coral sounds lure fish back to abandoned reefs, study finds

Posted on by

With global heating damaging corals worldwide, experts find potential tool in ‘acoustic enrichment’ to recolonise reefs

Playing sounds of a healthy coral reef can attract fish back to reefs that have become degraded and abandoned, researchers have found.

Global heating together with factors such as pollution are causing widespread damage to coral and harming delicate reef ecosystems.

Continue reading...

Fishing nations to lower catch limits for Atlantic bigeye tuna

Posted on by

Plan aims to allow tuna population to recover from overfishing, but conservationists say endangered mako shark has been overlooked

Conservationists welcomed “long overdue” catch limits set this week for bigeye tuna and other Atlantic species, but criticised weak measures to rebuild endangered mako shark populations.

The International Commission for the Conservations of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – responsible for the management of tuna and tuna-like species and bycatch including sharks and rays – set new catch limits for bigeye tuna at a meeting in Palma, Mallorca, this week. It also agreed to reduce juvenile fish mortality by limiting certain fishing practices.

Continue reading...

‘I was peeing and a polar bear popped up!’ Secrets of Seven Worlds, One Planet

Posted on by

Shooting poachers, circling polar bears, flailing four-tonne seals, singing rhinos and the world’s worst sea … the team behind Attenborough’s latest extravaganza relive their thrills and spills

Chadden Hunter, producer, North America and South America

Continue reading...

Pacific seals at risk as Arctic ice melt lets deadly disease spread from Atlantic

Posted on by

Study finds seal and sea otter populations in Alaska hit by killer infection that migrated from North Atlantic

A potentially deadly disease affecting marine mammals, including seals and sea otters, has been passed from the North Atlantic Ocean to the northern Pacific thanks to the melting of the Arctic sea ice.

Experts have long been concerned that sea ice melting in the northern oceans, caused by global climate heating, could allow previously geographically limited diseases to be transmitted between the two oceans.

Continue reading...

The vanishing: Ghana’s defenders face new perils in fight against overfishing

Posted on by

Illegal fishing by Chinese-owned trawlers is costing the country millions – and one of the officials trying to stop it has now been missing for months

In his cramped living room in an Accra backstreet, Bernard Essien pulls out a sheet of paper – a statement signed by his elder brother Emmanuel and addressed to the Ghanaian police. Two weeks before 28-year-old Emmanuel vanished at sea, his handwritten account and accompanying video footage alleged illegal fishing by a trawler he had been working on. If the allegation was proved true, the ship’s captain faced a minimum fine of $1m.

Emmanuel Essien was a fishing observer, one of Ghana’s frontline defenders against an overfishing crisis that is among the worst in west Africa. Illegal and destructive practices by foreign-owned trawlers are draining the Ghanaian economy of an estimated £50m a year. Along its 350-mile coastline, overfishing has driven small pelagic species known as “people’s fish”, the staple diet, to the verge of collapse.

Continue reading...

Poorly planned Amazon dam project ‘poses serious threat to life’

Posted on by

Operator faces choice of weakening 14km barrier or potentially devastating a biodiversity hotspot

The biggest hydroelectric project in the Amazon rainforest has a design flaw that poses a “very serious” threat to human life and globally important ecosystems, according to documents and expert testimony received by the Guardian.

The studies suggest engineers failed to anticipate the impact of water shortages on the Pimental dam at Belo Monte, which has been closed and turned into a barrier. This is forcing the operators to choose between a structural weakening of the 14km-wide compacted-earth barrier and a reallocation of water in the reservoir or on the Xingu river, which is home to indigenous communities, fishing villages and some of the world’s most endangered species.

Continue reading...

Cook Islands: manager of world’s biggest marine park says she lost job for backing sea mining moratorium

Posted on by

Environmentalist Jacqueline Evans says she was dismissed from the Marae Moana for urging caution on deep-sea mining

The public champion of the world’s largest marine reserve – the Cook Islands’ Marae Moana – has said she lost her job managing it because she supported a moratorium on seabed mining in the Pacific.

Six months ago, Jacqueline Evans won the Goldman Environmental prize – the world’s foremost environmental award – for her work establishing Marae Moana (meaning “sacred ocean”), which covers the Cook Islands’ entire exclusive economic zone of more than 1.9m sq km.

Continue reading...

Second whale found dead in Thames in less than two weeks

Posted on by

Discovery of whale’s body near Gravesend follows death of young humpback this month

A second whale has been found dead in the Thames less than two weeks after a humpback nicknamed Hessy died near the same stretch of water.

The Port of London Authority confirmed the suspected fin whale was discovered in the river at Denton, near Gravesend, on Friday morning.

Continue reading...

Humpback whale found dead in Thames was hit by a ship

Posted on by

Investigators say it is unclear whether wound happened before or after its death

A humpback whale that died after swimming into the Thames was hit by a ship, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) has said.

However, it is not clear whether the wound on the juvenile female was inflicted before or after its death.

Continue reading...

Ocean cleanup device successfully collects plastic for first time

Posted on by

Floating boom finally retains debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, creator says

A huge floating device designed by Dutch scientists to clean up an island of rubbish in the Pacific Ocean that is three times the size of France has successfully picked up plastic from the high seas for the first time.

Boyan Slat, the creator of the Ocean Cleanup project, tweeted that the 600 metre-long (2,000ft) free-floating boom had captured and retained debris from what is known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

Continue reading...

Dolphins in Channel carry ‘toxic cocktail’ of chemicals

Posted on by

High levels of mercury and banned industrial fluids, found in blubber and skin, can impact reproduction

Bottlenose dolphins in the Channel have been found to carry a “toxic cocktail” of chemicals in their bodies, some of which have been banned for decades and which may be harming the marine mammals’ health, scientists have said.

Belgian and French scientists said they detected high accumulations of industrial fluids and mercury in the blubber and skin of dolphins in the waters off the north-west coast of France.

Continue reading...

After bronze and iron, welcome to the plastic age, say scientists

Posted on by

Plastic pollution has entered the fossil record, research shows

Plastic pollution is being deposited into the fossil record, research has found, with contamination increasing exponentially since 1945.

Scientists suggest the plastic layers could be used to mark the start of the Anthropocene, the proposed geological epoch in which human activities have come to dominate the planet. They say after the bronze and iron ages, the current period may become known as the plastic age.

Continue reading...