dead killer whale
Latest News

The Killing of Killer Whales

VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada, December 9, 2020 (ENS) – When marine predators themselves face mortal threats, researchers at the University of British Columbia studying orca deaths in Pacific Ocean waters believe that human tampering with the ocean is to blame. […]

FSO Safer
Latest News

Leaking Oil Tanker Abandoned Off Yemen a Red Sea Risk

NEW YORK, New York, November 17, 2020 (ENS) – Technical experts must be granted immediate access to a rusting oil supertanker threatening an environmental calamity in the Red Sea, an independent United Nations expert is demanding. Abandoned five years ago when its engine room flooded with seawater, the leaking 44-year-old tanker FSO Safer still holds 1.1 million barrels of light crude oil. […]

ocean painting
Latest News

Coronavirus Concerns Shape World Oceans Day 2020

NEW YORK, New York, June 8, 2020 (ENS) – The World Oceans Day Theme for 2020 is “Innovation for a Sustainable Ocean,” but the coronavirus pandemic is top-of-mind today as the world focuses on the health of the oceans. “Oceans and fishing have been dramatically impacted by the coronavirus pandemic,” Andy Sharpless blogged today to mark World Oceans Day 2020. […]

whale
Latest News

Trump Kills Obama’s Atlantic Ocean Monument Designation

BANGOR, Maine, June 5, 2020 (ENS) – Today, President Donald Trump traveled to Bangor, Maine to issue a proclamation that opens up the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts Marine National Monument to commercial fishing, threatening the destruction of this sensitive, biologically important marine reserve. It’s the latest in a long list of Trump’s environmental attacks launched under cover of national and international crises. […]

plastic trash
Latest News

Microplastics Problem Extends Beyond the Sea

GLOUCESTER POINT, Virginia, February 24, 2020 (ENS) – “Microplastics are a global phenomenon that can’t be adequately understood or addressed in the context of the marine environment alone,” says Professor Rob Hale of William & Mary’s Virginia Institute of Marine Science, VIMS. “Plastics are produced, used, and discarded on land, and disperse through soils, rivers, and the atmosphere. […]

airport
Air/Climate

Runways Underwater: Rising Seas Threaten 80 Airports

WASHINGTON, DC, February 8, 2020 (ENS) – At least 80 airports around the world could be underwater if climate change causes sea levels to rise just one meter (39 inches), which scientists at the United Nations’ expert climate panel predict is likely to occur by 2100 if greenhouse gas emissions are not reduced. […]

Latest News

World’s Biggest Algae Bloom ‘Here to Stay’

ST. PETERSBURG, Florida, July 9, 2019 (ENS) – The largest bloom of macroalgae in the world, an unprecedented belt of brown algae, now stretches from West Africa to the Gulf of Mexico – and it’s likely here to stay warn scientists at the University of South Florida in St. Petersburg’s College of Marine Science. […]

Cryosat
Air/Climate

West Antarctic Glaciers Unstable, Melting Into the Sea

LEEDS, England, UK, May 16, 2019 (ENS) – The warming of ocean waters over the 25 years between 1992 and 2017 have caused the glacier ice in West Antarctica to thin so rapidly that 24 percent of the region’s ancient ice is now affected, a British research team has determined. […]

whales
Latest News

Whales to Be Freed From Russian Whale Jail This Summer

NAKHODKA, Russia, April 9, 2019 (ENS) – Officials in Russia have agreed to free almost 100 whales held in cramped sea pens in the Russian Far East for nearly a year after being caught for sale to foreign aquariums, especially in China and elsewhere in Asia. […]

whales
Latest News

Japan Restricts Its Whalers to Japanese Waters

TOKYO, Japan, April 7, 2019 (ENS) – Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary, Yoshihide Suga, issued a written statement in the last week of 2018 announcing the government’s decision to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission, IWC, in order “to resume commercial whaling” within its territorial waters … […]

boats
Energy

Oregon Governor Signs Offshore Drilling Ban into Law

SALEM, Oregon, March 27, 2019 (ENS) – Oregon Governor Kate Brown, a Democrat, today signed a bill into law that creates a new line of defense against offshore oil and gas drilling that could undermine the coast’s thriving tourism, recreation and fishing industries. […]

penguins
Latest News

Argentina Protects Wonders of the Patagonian Sea

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina, December 13, 2018 (ENS) – Argentina has created two new massive offshore marine parks in the southwest Atlantic that will help protect habitat and feeding grounds for penguins, sea lions, fur seals, sharks, cold-water corals, and many other marine species found nowhere else on Earth. […]

whales
Latest News

Aquariums, States Blast Atlantic Coast Seismic Permits

NEW YORK, New York, December 7, 2018 (ENS) – The Trump administration has authorized the use of seismic air guns to locate oil and gas pockets deep beneath the Atlantic Ocean floor, reversing Obama administration policy, and drawing the ire of East Coast elected officials, marine scientists and environmentalists. […]

oil platform
Energy

Federal Judge Bans Fracking Off California Coast

LOS ANGELES, California, November 12, 2018 (ENS) – Conservation and Native American groups have won their fracking lawsuit against the Trump administration. A federal court has ordered the Trump administration to stop issuing permits for offshore fracking in federal waters off the California coast. […]

manatee
Latest News

World’s Second Largest Reef Out of Danger

MANAMA, Bahrain, June 27, 2018 (ENS) – Conservationists around the world are celebrating the announcement by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee Tuesday that the Belize Barrier Reef Reserve System – the world’s second largest coral reef system after the Great Barrier Reef – is officially off the List of World Heritage in Danger. […]