Oceans

These Whales Are Suffering a Slow-Motion Extinction

These Whales Are Suffering a Slow-Motion Extinction

By Joshua Learn Whether southern resident killer whales, North Atlantic right whales or Maui’s dolphins, a handful of cetacean species are facing the prospect of a slow-motion extinction they can’t breed their way out of. It’s easy to point the finger at humans, either directly or indirectly, for causing the crisis. But each of these […]

Join our newsletter

The best of EcoWatch, right in your inbox. Sign up for our email newsletter!

    Super Typhoon Yutu Slams U.S. Pacific Territories With Category 5 Strength

    Super Typhoon Yutu Slams U.S. Pacific Territories With Category 5 Strength

    Super Typhoon Yutu hammered the U.S. territories in the Northern Mariana Islands early Thursday morning, making it the strongest storm to hit U.S. territory this year, the Associated Press reported. The storm hit with the power of a Category 5 hurricane when it struck the largest Northern Mariana Islands of Saipan and Tinian, home to […]

    Loved to Death: How Pirate Fishing Decimates Chile’s Favorite Fish

    Loved to Death: How Pirate Fishing Decimates Chile’s Favorite Fish

    By Allison Guy When Hugo Arancibia Farías was a child, his mother, like most mothers in central Chile, visited the weekly market to buy common hake, a white-fleshed relative of cod. She usually served it fried, Arancibia recalled with relish. “It was very cheap,” he said, “and very popular.” Nowadays, hake is more expensive than […]

    The Complex and Frustrating Reality of Recycling Plastic

    The Complex and Frustrating Reality of Recycling Plastic

    By Mary Mazzoni Global consumers now use a million plastic bottles every minute, 91 percent of which are not recycled. Our growing consumption of single-use plastic is evident in the form of ever-expanding landfills, as well as pollution on our sidewalks, along roadways and in natural ecosystems. Plastic that is littered or blown out of […]

    ‘Oh My God, It’s Gone!’ Hawaiian Island Important for Seals and Turtles Washed Away by Hurricane

    ‘Oh My God, It’s Gone!’ Hawaiian Island Important for Seals and Turtles Washed Away by Hurricane

    A small Hawaiian island that was an important habitat for endangered species has entirely disappeared, The Huffington Post confirmed Tuesday. East Island in the French Frigate Shoals, an atoll around 550 miles northwest of Honolulu that formed part of the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument, was entirely washed over by storm surge from Hurricane Walaka this […]

    2018 Atlantic, Pacific Hurricane Season Most Active on Record

    2018 Atlantic, Pacific Hurricane Season Most Active on Record

    This hurricane season is the busiest we’ve ever seen—and we still have more than a month to go before it’s over. If you combine all the hurricanes and tropical storms that formed in both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific oceans this year, the 2018 hurricane season is the most active in recorded history, USA TODAY […]

    Microplastics Detected in Human Stool Samples for First Time

    Microplastics Detected in Human Stool Samples for First Time

    Humanity has created more than 9 billion tons of plastic since the 1950s, when large-scale production of the material first took off. Of that total, a staggering 76 percent has gone to waste. These days, plastics are found in most table salt, marine life and the deepest parts of the ocean. So is it any […]

    Scientists Study Ice Shelf by Listening to Its Changing Sounds

    Scientists Study Ice Shelf by Listening to Its Changing Sounds

    By Marlene Cimons Researchers monitoring vibrations from Antarctica‘s Ross Ice Shelf were flabbergasted not long ago to hear something unexpected—the ice was “singing” to them. “We were stunned by a rich variety of time-varying tones that make up this newly described sort of signal,” said Rick Aster, professor of geosciences at Colorado State University, one […]