The ocean is becoming increasingly loud. Oil and gas exploration, shipping, and military activities bombard marine creatures with noise. Whales, turtles, fish, and invertebrates including oysters and crabs, use sound to survive. As their homes become clouded with this acoustic smog, these animals may struggle to hear or make the noises they need to find … Read more
Last week, on World Sea Turtle Day, we delivered over 12,500 letters from kids across the country to the White House. The letters urge President Obama and Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker to save threatened and endangered sea turtles in U.S. waters by requiring the use of Turtle Excluder Devices in all shrimp trawls. The … Read more
The global demand for shark fins will become one step smaller this week, as Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo signed legislation to ban the trade of shark fins within the state’s borders. The bill, which unanimously passed in both the Rhode Island House of Representatives and Senate last month, makes Rhode Island the eleventh state … Read more
On June 5th, the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA) went into effect after surpassing the requirement that a minimum of 25 countries ratify the treaty. This important agreement is part of a larger international effort to close the world’s ports to vessels that engage in illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing, thereby preventing black market … Read more
Seafood fraud is a serious problem with very real environmental, economic, social and even public health consequences. Seafood fraud includes instances in which lower-value species are sold as higher-value varieties, farmed products are mislabeled as wild-caught, or black market fish are sold as legally-caught seafood. Mislabeling can contribute to the continued depletion of struggling fisheries, … Read more
Shrimp is the most popular seafood in the United States, but the vast majority of it is imported. Imported shrimp is more likely to have been treated by chemicals and antibiotics, or even to have been peeled by slaves. Recent reports about these issues leave many consumers looking for a more responsible alternative, like U.S. … Read more
Conservation success for the rarest and smallest species of sea turtle, the Kemp’s ridley, has recently halted. Thirty years ago, Kemp’s ridleys were on the brink of extinction. Scientists estimate that in the 1940s, about 48,000 female Kemp’s ridleys visited their main nesting site in Tamaulipas, Mexico, to lay eggs. By the mid-1980s and due … Read more
Six Years Later Six years ago, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded and sank into the Gulf of Mexico, killing 11 workers and spewing more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf. More than half a decade later, the event continues to make headlines, few of them good. Just this month, a … Read more
Authored by: Geoff Shester and Ben Enticknap In the Pacific Ocean off the U.S. West Coast sardines play a vital role in sustaining a healthy ocean food web and at times they have supported an economically booming fishery. These small fish normally spawn in the spring off southern and central California and then migrate in … Read more
When it comes to the ocean’s small, silvery, schooling fish we are most familiar with coastal species like sardines, anchovy and herring. However, other lesser known fish—many with fairly funny sounding names—make up the most abundant groups of fish in the ocean. Possibly the most abundant and widespread of all are “myctophids”. Also called … Read more
We have already protected nearly 4 million square miles of ocean and innumerable sea life - but there is still more to be done.
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