Integrated marine legislation is needed to prevent underwater habitats being irreparably damaged and destroyed, the WWF has warned.

The wildlife campaign group says numerous species and habitats are being harmed by fishing practices, water leisure activities and unregulated activities.


Read full article: 'Marine life under threat'

BY CURTIS MORGAN
cmorgan@MiamiHerald.com

The sturdy steel trawler spent the summer on Fort Lauderdale's New River, but the sheltered waters haven't kept the company that owns it from an international storm of controversy over whether its owners' real aim is to help save the planet or just turn a profit.

Planktos, a small California company, intends to spread as much as 100 tons of pulverized iron over the Pacific Ocean off the Galapagos Islands, hoping it will fertilize a rich crop of carbon dioxide-gobbling plankton.


Read full article: 'Pumping iron into ocean gets chilly reception'

Salzburg, Germany (Oct 8, 2007 17:18 EST) ins of tuna sold by companies involved in pirate fishing have been withdrawn from sale by Austrian food discounter Norma, following revelations by Greenpeace of illegal fishing practices. The move came a week after Greenpeace Central & Eastern Europe discovered suspicious tuna cans from canned tuna producer Albacora in Norma shops in Salzburg Austria.

With this delisting, Norma is the first supermarket in Europe to react to Greenpeace’s warning not to buy tuna from four Spanish and Ecuadorian companies that have been involved in pirate fishing in the West and Central Pacific Ocean. The companies named are Nirsa, Albacora, Conservas Garavilla SA and Calvopesca.


Read full article: 'European Retail Chain Removes Pacific 'Stolen Fish' From Supermarkets'

From the wheelhouse of the First State, Captain Michael J. Garvilla pushes a throttle and begins the process of lowering a single net into Delaware Bay.

It is a picture-perfect morning -- "right slick cam," as a waterman might say. The water tower of Lewes glows silver in the distance, and the black shape of icebreakers, installed decades ago to prevent ice from flowing down the bay, lie just ahead.


Read full article: 'How many fish in the sea?'

A pioneering effort to take stock of the world's oceans will reach a milestone today when an international team of scientists celebrates the launch of its 3,000th floating laboratory.

The Argo project, conceived and managed partly by the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego, has fundamentally changed marine science by providing nearly real-time information about temperature, salinity and currents. Researchers also are preparing to take measurements of chemicals and plant life, enhancing what already is the most far-reaching ocean monitoring project in the world.


Read full article: 'Science marks milestone in Scripps-inspired sea research'

Kota Kinabalu, Malaysia (Oct 2, 2007 17:57 EST) The recent case of a Pulau Gaya fisherman getting the bends (bubbles in his veins) for descending to 52 metres (170ft) a fortnight ago is another sad statement on the state of Sabah's marine resources, according to Datuk Wilfred Lingham, former Permanent Secretary to the Ministry of Tourism and Environmental Development.

Lingham, who is Sabah Anglers Association President, said the incident suggests illegal fishing methods are not just continuing unabated in Sabah waters but that the perpetrators are forced to go to deeper depths because the coral reefs nearer to the surface have already been bombed out.


Read full article: 'Illegal Divers Forced To Bomb, Dive Deep Reefs As Shallows Wiped Out'

SEATTLE -- Thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables are strung across the world's oceans, connecting continents like so many tin cans in this age of global communication.

So the fact that about 800 more miles of fiber-optic cable soon will snake across the sea floor off the coast of the Pacific Northwest might not seem particularly revolutionary. Until you meet John R. Delaney, part oceanographer, part oracle.


Read full article: 'Oceanographers may bring undersea world to masses'

Submerged stone structures lying just below the waters off Yonaguni Jima are actually the ruins of a Japanese Atlantis—an ancient city sunk by an earthquake about 2,000 years ago.

That's the belief of Masaaki Kimura, a marine geologist at the University of the Ryukyus in Japan who has been diving at the site to measure and map its formations for more than 15 years.


Read full article: 'Japan's Ancient Underwater "Pyramid" Mystifies Scholars'

By GWEN MICKELSON
Sentinel staff writer

SANTA CRUZ — Tom Jones held up a little toy shovel, its plastic colors bleached by sun and salt water, and said it was an icon symbolizing both the problem and the solution.



Read full article: 'Distance paddler wages quiet war on ocean pollution'

By Simeon Bennett

Sept. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Transplanting reproductive cells between fish may help preserve endangered species or resurrect extinct ones, scientists in Japan say.

Researchers at Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology injected immature sperm-creating cells from rainbow trout into salmon embryos with abnormal chromosomes to produce normal trout with healthy offspring. They also froze and thawed reproductive cells, known as spermatogonia, as a way to store genetic material of endangered fish.


Read full article: 'Sperm Transplant Between Fish May Preserve Endangered Species'

If you’re planning a trip to Bonaire during the next few months you’re in luck because there are exciting events taking place now through the end of the year. If you don’t have your trip planned yet, it’s not too late! Contact your favorite travel professional today and they will be happy to tell you about all of the affordable Caribbean getaways you can take advantage of now!


Read full article: 'Bonaire Event Schedule Released - Many Exciting Aquatic Opportunities'

Eric Solomon sees the tragedies all the time: birds with their wings and legs tied together with plastic six-pack rings; a sea turtle slowly starving to death with plastic bags filling its stomach; a sea lion with fishing line cutting into its neck flesh.

"It's kind of gruesome," said Solomon, the Vancouver Aquarium's vice-president of conservation, research and education. "These animals don't have the ability to defend themselves from various kinds of trash that we're constantly throwing at them."

But he and his colleagues have learned to channel their anger and frustration into ways of helping, such as the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup Sept. 15-23.


Read full article: 'Discarded plastic bags and other debris threaten marine life'

Southampton, U.K. (Sep 11, 2007 15:09 EST) There may be nowhere for life to hide from the effects of climate change or asteroids hitting the Earth, according to research presented by a Southampton marine biologist at the BA Festival of Science.

Presenting the Charles Lyell Award Lecture at the BA Festival, Dr Jon Copley of the University of Southampton is sharing a first-hand account of recent discoveries on the ocean floor, where "islands" of exotic deep-sea life thrive around volcanic vents and other seabed features that were unknown 30 years ago.


Read full article: 'Ocean Depths 'No Haven' From Global Catastrophes'

Six Italian scuba divers are set to live underwater for two weeks at a depth of fifteen metres (49 feet), in an effort to demonstrate it is possible for human beings to colonise the sea-bed.

Read full article: 'Six Italian scuba divers to live underwater for two weeks'

Wearing suction cups that pick up brain waves, Boris the dolphin obeys orders to put his head in a small ring underwater.

A waterproof speaker dips into the water, sending out intermittent high-frequency signals.

How Boris' brain waves respond to the sound is the focus of research under way at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology.


Read full article: 'UH tests sonar on sea mammals'