Category: Ocean Awareness

The Galapagos Islands and Many of Their Unique Creatures are at Risk from Warming Waters

10/15/2024 - By Alie Skowronski. GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — Warm morning light reflects from the remains of a natural rock arch near Darwin Island, one of the most remote islands in the Galapagos. In clear, deep blue water, thousands of creatures — fish, hammerhead sharks, marine iguanas — move in search of… SEE MORE

Pacific bluefin tuna swim underwater. Credit: Adobe Stock

More U.S.-Caught Pacific Bluefin Tuna to Hit U.S. Markets Next Year

10/9/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. Increased catch limits culminate a decade-long international effort to rebuild the once-imperiled species. Commercial Pacific bluefin tuna vessels in the United States can harvest almost 80 percent more fish in 2025–2026. The Inter-American Tropical Tuna Commission increased catch limits during a meeting in Panama in early September. This decision comes 3… SEE MORE

Authorized responders from the Seacoast Science Center take measurements of a dead humpback whale that stranded in Marblehead, Massachusetts. Credit: Seacoast Science Center.

$4 Million Awarded for Marine Mammal Rescue Efforts through Prescott Grant Program

10/7/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. NOAA Fisheries recommended awarding 37 grants, totaling more than $4 million, through the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue and Assistance Grant Program to our partners in 16 states. NOAA Fisheries recommended awarding 37 grants, totaling more than $4 million, through the John H. Prescott Marine Mammal Rescue and… SEE MORE

A Bryde’s whale photographed in the Mariana Archipelago. Credit: NOAA Fisheries/Adam Ü (NOAA Fisheries MMPA-ESA Permit #14097)

Hey, Google: Find this New Whale Sound

10/6/2024 - By fisheries.noaa.gov. NOAA Fisheries identified that Bryde’s whales are the source of a new whale call in the western North Pacific. Working with Google AI, we used machine learning to sort through thousands of hours of acoustic recordings and identify when and where these calls occur. n 2014, an Oregon State… SEE MORE

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