ocean

Marium, an 8-month-old dugong who became an internet sensation in Thailand this spring, died after ingesting plastic, officials announced Saturday. The marine mammal rose to fame when she was found lost and motherless near a beach in Southern Thailand, according to NPR and the Associated Press. Videos of marine biologists feeding her with milk and […]

Forty-thousand liters (approximately 10,600 gallons) of diesel oil have spilled into the waters of Chile’s Patagonia, a biodiversity hotspot at the tip of South America. The Chilean navy confirmed the oil spill Saturday after receiving a call from CAP, a mining company, informing it of a spill from its terminal on Guarello Island, The Associated […]

Microplastics have infiltrated the earth’s largest ecosystem: the deep ocean. Researchers at the Monterey Bay Aquarium and the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) used small drone submarines to take sea-water samples from the ocean surface all the way down to the floor, at 3,200 feet. They found that there were actually more microplastics 1,000 […]

The UK government has added 12,000 square kilometers (approximately 4,633 square miles) to England’s “blue belt” of protected marine areas, meaning the UK now protects a swath of its ocean nearly twice the size of England itself, The Guardian reported Friday. The 41 new Marine Conservation Zones were created by Environment Secretary Michael Gove Friday […]

The advantage of biodegradable shopping bags is supposed to be that they will not linger as long in the natural environment as conventional plastic bags. However, a new study from the University of Plymouth suggests that might not be the case. The study, published in Environmental Science and Technology Sunday, found that bags billed as […]

A federal judge in Alaska ruled on Friday that President Donald Trump “exceeded the president’s authority” when he signed an executive order to allow offshore oil drilling in around 125 million acres of the Arctic Ocean, CNN reported. U.S. District Court Judge Sharon Gleason’s decision restores a ban on drilling in 98 percent of the […]

A record number of dolphins have washed up dead and mutilated on French beaches, and scientists don’t know exactly why. Activists say 1,100 dolphins have washed up on France’s Atlantic coast since January, but the number could be as much as 10 times higher than that, as many likely sink instead of washing ashore. Researchers […]

Hawaiian lawmakers and conservationists are pushing for a landmark law to protect the Aloha State’s sharks and rays. House Bill 808, which outlaws the intentional killing, capture, abuse or entanglement of sharks and rays in state marine waters, passed its first committee meeting on Wednesday. The upper chamber version, Senate Bill 489, secured its first […]