marine life

By Elizabeth Claire Alberts On April 10, 2019, a fishing vessel known as Da Wang left Taiwan to sail out into distant waters in search of tuna. Two months into the voyage, a disturbance occurred: the first mate reportedly beat one of the crew members so badly that he died from his injuries. The following […]

Humans have long been thought to be distinct from other animals in our ability to form complex, multilevel alliances in order to reach shared goals.  However, new research published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences Monday shows that male bottlenose dolphins do the same thing, and they do it for a very […]

Lake Merritt is usually an unexpected oasis of life in the midst of downtown Oakland, California. The first protected wildlife refuge in the U.S., it is a tidal slough 3.4 miles around and the largest lake of its kind in an urban setting, according to the City of Oakland. 

The fifth round of United Nations talks that began in New York on August 15 and were aimed at securing a UN Ocean Treaty to protect marine life in the international waters of the High Seas has ended in another stalemate, reported The Guardian. The treaty would have established regulations for the protection of biodiversity […]

The human imagination once transformed dugongs into mermaids. But now, human activity is pushing the gentle marine mammals into the realm of the imagination in a more sinister way.  A new study published in Royal Society Open Science Wednesday found that the dugong (dugong dugon) is “functionally extinct” in Chinese waters.  “The likely disappearance of […]

Endangered sea turtles have hatched on a chain of barrier islands off Louisiana for the first time in 75 years.  The Louisiana government announced August 17 that the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA) and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF) found evidence that endangered Kemp’s ridley turtles had hatched in the […]

The epaulette shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum) is a small species of reef shark with a set of unique abilities. It can use its fins to walk both in and out of the water, and it can go without oxygen for up to two hours.  These traits have helped the species succeed in rapidly-changing coral reef environments, […]

Early on the morning of Sunday, August 14, the Norwegian Directorate of Fisheries euthanized Freya — the 1,300 pound walrus that became a summer superstar when she took up residence off the capital of Norway in mid-July. The directorate argued in a statement that euthanizing Freya was the only way to protect the crowds of humans […]