overfishing

According to a new study by the Global FinPrint project, overfishing is causing coral reef sharks to be driven toward extinction much more than previously thought.

After almost two decades of negotiations, the 193 United Nations Member States have adopted a landmark legally binding marine biodiversity treaty for the high seas beyond national boundaries, covering two thirds of Earth’s oceans, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced yesterday during the Intergovernmental Conference on Marine Biodiversity in New York. The purpose of the High […]

The Australian and Queensland governments have introduced a more than $160 million package to phase out the commercial gill net fishing that damages the Great Barrier Reef. The Great Barrier Reef is the largest coral reef system in the world, as well as a United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) World Heritage Area. […]

Not only does the ghost fishing gear account for about 46 percent of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), a new study has found that the amount of commercial fishing line left in Earth’s oceans each year is enough to stretch to the moon and back, reported The Guardian.

From coral bleaching to ocean acidification, there is lots of discussion about how the climate crisis harms marine life. But is it possible that the loss of undersea animals could actually worsen the impacts of climate change?  A study published in Science Advances last year found that the amount of carbon sequestered as fish dung […]

Ambiguous pet food labels like “fish,” “ocean fish,” or “white bait” may be hiding a secret ingredient: endangered shark meat.  A new study published in Frontiers in Marine Science Friday found that 31 percent of samples of pet food tested by the researchers contained shark DNA.  “The majority of pet owners are likely lovers of […]

More than a third of shark and ray species are directly threatened by extinction, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) warned on Saturday. The revelation came in the IUCN’s updated Red List assessment on endangered wildlife, which was released at the body’s World Conservation Congress in Marseilles, France. The most comprehensive survey […]

Are Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) effective? Yes, but not as well as we thought, a new study finds. Globally, illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing is known as one of the biggest threats to the health and future of the oceans. MPAs attempt to protect enough critical marine habitat to ensure survival of ocean life […]