Category: Ocean Awareness

A Hawaiian monk seal entangled in a derelict fishing net. Credit: NOAA Fisheries (Permit #10137)

A Substantial Reduction in Seal Entanglement

10/4/2024 - By noaa.gov. New analysis confirms Hawaiian monk seals greatly benefit from marine debris cleanup efforts in the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument. Since the early 1980s, field biologists working in the remote Northwestern Hawaiian Islands have found Hawaiian monk seals entangled in derelict fishing gear and other plastics. These entanglements can… SEE MORE

In Graphic Detail: By-caught Birds

9/19/2024 - By Rebecca Heisman. New research estimates that some 200,000 birds are accidentally caught in fishing gear in Europe each year. When commercial fishers haul up their nets, they often find dolphins, sharks, sea turtles, and other creatures entangled amid their catches. These accidentally caught, nontarget species are known as by-catch,… SEE MORE

For the First Time, Part of the Ocean Has Been Granted Legal Personhood

9/17/2024 - By Isabella Kaminiski. By affording rights to its iconic waves, a Brazilian city is paving a new path to marine protection. The Brazilian city of Linhares has legally recognized its waves as living beings, marking the first known time part of the ocean has been granted legal personhood. In early… SEE MORE

The Big Baltic Bomb Cleanup

9/16/2024 - By Paul Hockenos. The ocean became a dumping ground for weapons after Allied forces defeated the Nazis. Now a team of robots and divers are making the Baltic Sea safer. Aboard the Alkor, a 55-meter oceanographic vessel anchored in the Baltic Sea several kilometers from the German port city of Kiel,… SEE MORE

Seagrass and Plastic Are Not Friends

8/28/2024 - By Sean Mowbray. The year 2021’s hopeful optimism is 2024’s unfortunate reality. In 2021, what sounded like a good news story hit the media: in the Mediterranean, seagrasses were trapping plastic waste, capturing fragments in their leaves and locking microplastics in seafloor sediments. The news cycle was spurred by a study… SEE MORE

Dead zone measures as big as Yellowstone

8/27/2024 - By nationalfisherman.com. NOAA-supported scientists announced that this year’s Gulf of Mexico “dead zone”— an area of low to no oxygen that can kill fish and marine life — is approximately 3,058 square miles. That’s almost two million acres of habitat potentially unavailable to fish and bottom species — nearly as… SEE MORE

North Atlantic right whale feeding. (Image credit: Christin Khan/NOAA Fisheries)

Biden-Harris Administration Announces Over $9 Million for Partnerships to Recover North Atlantic Right Whales

8/24/2024 - By noaa.gov. Inflation Reduction Act enables new grants to conserve and recover endangered whales. Today, NOAA Fisheries announced over $9 million from Inflation Reduction Act funds to support strategic partnerships aimed at improving fishing gear and population monitoring that will help the recovery of North Atlantic right whales. These partnerships include collaborations… SEE MORE

California sea lion stricken by the neurotoxin domoic acid from a harmful algal bloom in Santa Barbara County, California. Photo: Channel Islands Marine & Wildlife Institute

Toxic Algal Bloom Affecting California Sea Lions and Dolphins

8/17/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. Upwelling of nutrient-laden ocean water is fueling the algal bloom which produces domoic acid, which can poison marine mammals. Strong upwelling of nutrient-laden water from the deep ocean is driving a bloom of harmful algae along the Southern California coast. It produces a toxin that can poison sea… SEE MORE

Black abalone are an endangered marine snail that face climate change threats such as increased water temperatures, sedimentation, and ocean acidification. Credit: NOAA Fisheries.

Climate Change Threatens the Survival and Recovery of Black Abalone

8/14/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. Black abalone are sensitive to climate change impacts, such as increasing water temperatures and increasing sedimentation events from intense fire and storm activity. These challenges make them more vulnerable to lethal disease and burial. Black abalone, which are plant-eating marine snails, once thrived along the California and Baja… SEE MORE

Birthing the Blob

8/13/2024 - By Michael Allen. With ecosystems increasingly squeezed by anthropogenic warming, even cleaning up pollution can cause problems. In 2013, a huge marine heatwave known as the Blob hit the northeast Pacific Ocean. Temperatures soared to dangerous new highs, killing millions of marine animals and disrupting the broader ocean ecosystem in… SEE MORE