#aquatic-challenges

#aquatic-challenges

"While whales and dolphins may temporarily move out of areas where there is significant naval sonar activity, the intensity of modern maritime conflict poses lethal risks."

The drama has captivated the country, making politicians cry and drawing shamans from distant parts. Experts brought in first to help save the whale, and then to ease the animal's demise, have faced death threats.

Fungi are some of the most important things in the world. They feed 90% of terrestrial plants. Without them, there is no life on the Earth.

The South Florida Reef Tract, once decimated by dredging in the 1950s, has bounced back, a resilient sign of hope in these ecologically depressing times.

Bebe, the white-winged parakeet, measures around six inches and has become an internet sensation after a video showed him exploring underwater in a custom-built submarine.

When light shines through water, colors with longer wavelengths are absorbed by the water, with the longest wavelengths absorbed first. Blue and violet have the shortest wavelengths of visible light, so they are able to penetrate the deepest.

"Not only are acts like that illegal, but it's really harming a very important, like, a biodiversity hotspot that we have right out here," Brent Fish, an aquarist with Birch Aquarium, stated.

During major floods, thousands of tiny fish convene at Luvilombo Falls in the upper Congo River Basin to undertake a peculiar vertical migration, described for the first time today in Scientific Reports.

"There are not very many conservation issues that I'm aware of where industry and conservationists and consumers and the fishermen and the resource users all want the same thing. Every stakeholder wants less bycatch."

When you dredge sand at that scale without a proper assessment of its environmental impacts, it destroys or wipes out certain species, which harms fisheries and, ultimately, everyone who depends on them.

Few transformations in the history of life have been as extreme as the embrace of the ocean by seagrass. Like whales and dolphins, modern seagrasses descend from land-dwelling ancestors.

Signs of ageing accelerated when fish were exposed to the chemicals, according to the study, which could have implications for other organisms. Chemical safety regulations tend to focus on short-term exposure to high doses of pesticides and other chemicals, but the study focused on long-term exposure. Low doses of pesticides are widespread in the environment, so their effects should be studied and understood, the authors said.

If you enter the amounts of different types of plastic that you clean up into the Wildlife Impact Calculator, it will tell you how many animal lives would have been at risk, had those items made their way into the ocean and been ingested.

In February 2023, an article in the Mexican press announced the capture of a vessel some 195 nautical miles from the port of Lazaro Cardenas in the state of Michoacan. It had been carrying nearly 700 pounds of cocaine packaged in plastic-wrapped bricks, in addition to 1,650 liters of hydrocarbons in 33 plastic containers. Two Ecuadorian fishermen were among the five detainees, and their immigration records showed unusual activity.

Off the deep waters of Kumejima, Japan, Steven Kovacs captured an image that would be awarded Best in Show for the 2025 Ocean Art Photography Contest. Traveling to the Okinawa prefecture in the hopes of encountering a scarcely documented species of larval goosefish, Kovacs spent nearly two weeks blackwater diving before photographing the rare moment. "Unfortunately, this beautiful little fish turned out to be incredibly uncooperative and difficult to photograph," Kovacs says.

The government said the plans would increase the number of England's official bathing sites to 464. An official bathing spot on the Thames in London would mark a "vast transformation" in water quality in the river which was declared biologically dead in the 1950s due to pollution, officials said. Water minister Emma Hardy said rivers and beaches were "at the heart of so many communities, where people come together, families make memories and swimmers of all ages feel the benefits of being outdoors safely".

The three-part docudrama Dirty Business, which started on Channel 4 on Monday and concluded midweek, has made the notion of going into the sea in the UK terrifying and unlike Jaws, this story is real. It is an example of what good drama can do that even the best reporting can't quite achieve.

A solitary figure stands on the shore of Thailand's Tang Khen Bay. The tide is slowly rising over the expanse of sandy beach, but the man does not seem to notice. His eyes are not fixed on the sea, but on the small screen clutched between his hands. About 600 metres offshore, past the shadowy fringe of coral reef, his drone hovers over the murky sea, focused on a whirling grey shape: Miracle, the local dugong, is back.