Category Archives: Marine
US Designates 200,000 Square Miles of Conservation Zones in the Pacific Ocean
George Bush was expected to announce yesterday that he will designate nearly 200,000 square miles of the Pacific Ocean as conservation areas. This announcement will make the US President the leader who has protected a greater area of the oceans … Continue reading
Forthcoming Workshop on ‘Space and the Marine Environment’
GLOBE UK will hold a workshop in London on Thursday 22 January on ‘space and the marine environment’. Together with partners, including the Advisory Committee on the Protection of the Sea (ACOPS) and the British National Space Centre (BNSC), GLOBE … Continue reading
Marine Bill Receives Royal Assent
At 11.20am today, the House of Lords witnessed the State Opening of Parliament marking the beginning of the parliamentary session. Here, the Queen’s Speech was delivered, outlining the Government’s plans for the coming Parliamentary year. Given the current global economic … Continue reading
Questions Over Future of Fast Food Fish
As popular white fish species such as cod, face fisheries collapse, pollock has increasingly been an essential alternative. For instance the kid’s favourite, Fish Fingers, now increasingly consist of pollock rather than cod, as do McDonald’s ‘Filet-o-Fish.’ Perhaps the pollock’s … Continue reading
Larger Fish Produce Hardier Offspring
Research published in the Royal Society’s Biology Letters journal suggests that fisheries management must consider population demography. Modeling the life history demographics of 25 different marine fish species, Canadian scientists have found that larger, older female fish produce tougher offspring … Continue reading
Bluefin Tuna Under Threat from Short-Sighted EU Policy
It seems as though the Government-Industrial complex has overcome sensibilities in a move by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), calling to maintain fishing levels of bluefin tuna Thunnus thynnus 50% above scientists’ recommendations. ICCAT members … Continue reading
North Atlantic Rays and Sharks Face Extinction
The IUCN have today announced the findings of an investigation into the state of the North Atlantic’s rays and sharks; 26 per cent of these face extinction with 20% ‘near threatened.’ The estimated percentage is conservative however, insofar as many … Continue reading
UK Seals Suffering Massive Decline
Marine Biologists have disturbingly discovered that some of the UK’s harbour seal Phoca vitulina vitulina populations have and are undergoing ‘massive’ declines. The results are particularly concerning given that scientists are as yet, unable to account for exactly why these … Continue reading
Avoiding Imminent North Sea Cod Extinction
Cod is historically one of the most popular commercial fish species in the UK, not to mention popular across the European continent. Because of this, major commercial fisheries have been forced to close, and existing fisheries may also soon face … Continue reading
Seabirds Sensitive to Local Impacts of Climate Change
A paper published recently in the journal Global Change Biology, has shown how local impacts of climate change affect seabird populations of the common guillemot Uria aalge and the thick-billed guillemot Uria lomvia around the Northern Hemisphere. Climate change may … Continue reading