Rebecca Kessler

India’s government organization dedicated to developing technologies for exploring and harnessing ocean resources has been exploring parts of the Indian Ocean for the last few years. In October, the National Institute of Ocean Technology (NIOT) conducted a successful exploratory mining trial in the Andaman Sea, between India’s Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Myanmar, for obtaining […]

An epidemic of avian flu in Patagonia appears to be on the decline after decimating southern elephant seal populations for the last year and half, with researchers finding no new cases in recent surveys of the coast. But the recovery process for many colonies, which were nearly wiped out in some areas, could be just […]

In the late 1990s, swordfish had been so overfished in the North Atlantic Ocean that its population faced the possibility of collapse. The dire situation sparked boycotts and conservation campaigns in honor of the highly migratory species, a predator that can move at nearly the speed of a cheetah and slash at prey with the long, flat bill that gives it its name. Managers set a quota and a minimum catch size to protect juveniles, the stock began to recover and it was declared rebuilt in 2013. And now, with a landmark move made Nov. 18, that recovery appears secure. The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), which manages a wide range of fish stocks across the entire Atlantic Ocean and adjacent seas, adopted a “harvest strategy” for swordfish (Xiphias gladius) during its annual meeting, held in Cyprus Nov. 11-18. Government representatives and conservationists hailed the move, which sets up largely automatic science-based fisheries management decisions for the long term. The harvest strategy, which is designed to be resilient to climate change effects, had been in the works for years, but its adoption wasn’t guaranteed until the final gavel fell, with all parties in consensus. “To get this across the finish line was a big success,” Esther Wozniak, an international fisheries manager at the Philadelphia-based think tank Pew Charitable Trusts, told Mongabay. Pew had long advocated for the development of a swordfish harvest strategy. Shana Miller, a project director at the Washington, D.C.-based Ocean Foundation who also…This article was originally published on Mongabay

It’s 4 a.m., and a group of fishers in the city of Chimbote, 422 kilometers (262 miles) north of Lima, have arrived at the rocks of Campamento Atahualpa and Vesique beaches. This is the area they guard to protect the Peruvian grunt (Anisotremus scapularis), a fish highly valued for its meat. They have come to […]

The first thing the researchers noticed from their boat were red spots below the surface of the water during one of their expeditions. This detail led them to carry out a sampling in the Kawésqar National Reserve, a marine protected area in Chile’s extreme south. At 1.2 meters (3.9 feet) depth, they found a large […]

The Mesoamerican Reef, the longest barrier reef in the Western Hemisphere, stretches 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) along the Caribbean coasts of Mexico, Belize, Guatemala and Honduras.

In Cabo Verde, as in many low-income countries in Africa, the historical record of fish catch is incomplete, making it hard to know what's been lost and what's required to fully rebuild.

In Cabo Verde, as in many low-income countries in Africa, the historical record of fish catch is incomplete, making it hard to know what’s been lost and what’s required to fully rebuild. In a new study, researchers used an old-fashioned workaround to understand how fish catches have changed over time: They tapped local knowledge, speaking to Cabo Verdeans up to 77 years old. The study, recently published in the journal Marine Policy, indicates there’s been a “staggering decline” in fish stocks around Maio, one of the archipelagic nation’s 10 islands, since the 1970s, in terms of both volume of catch and maximum size of key species. The study also shows that young fishers and fishmongers don’t fully realize the scale of the loss — a case of what scientists call “shifting baselines.” Younger people on Maio tend not to perceive the decline “because they don’t know what is the normal state of the environment, of the fishing and of the catch,” study lead author Thais Peixoto Macedo, a Ph.D. student at the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology in Barcelona, told Mongabay. Cabo Verde is an archipelagic nation in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean some 570 kilometers (350 miles) west of Senegal. Its exclusive access zone covers an area larger than Texas. Cabo Verde lies in the Eastern Atlantic Ocean, some 570 kilometers (350 miles) west of Senegal on the African mainland. It’s considered part of West Africa, a region rich in marine resources but also threatened by intense fishing pressure.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

On Dec. 6, Iceland’s caretaker government announced it had issued five-year licenses to hunt fin and minke whales in Icelandic waters. It granted the fin whale hunting license to Hvalur hf., the country’s only remaining fin-whaling company, run by billionaire Kristján Loftsson, and the minke-hunting permit to a ship owned by Tjaldtangi ehf., a whaling […]

ALIAĞA, Türkiye — Every day, as dusk settles over the Aegean Sea, small vans ferrying workers homeward bustle in and out of Aliağa, a town nestled against lush, forested hills in the western İzmir province of Türkiye, formerly known as Turkey. Stepping out in oil-streaked overalls after a long day, the workers’ scent blends with […]