Within a day’s drive from New York City is a wreck junkie heaven, with numerous shipwrecks to explore along the St. Lawrence River on the US-Canadian border, in the area called the Thousand Islands. Larry Cohen and Olga Torrey give a sampling of the wrecks in the region popular with both the American and Canadian diving communities.
The central African country of Gabon is providing an invaluable nesting ground for a vulnerable species of sea turtle. During a survey of nearly 600 km of Gabon's coastline, scientists from the University of Exeter uncovered the Atlantic’s largest breeding colony of olive ridley turtles. Study results estimate that there could be up to 9,800 turtle nests per year, compared with around 3,300 in French Guiana and 3,000 in Brazil.
The smalltooth sawfish is the first documented examples of viable parthenogens living in a normally sexually reproducing wild vertebrate.
The researchers analysed telltale markers called microsatellites in 190 sawfish that reveal how related their parents are. In seven fish, the markers suggested their parents were identical to them. The analysis revealed that the seven fish came from three different mothers.
In many cases, stock assessment is based on fishery-dependent data generated from fish markets or creel surveys. The assumption is: that the lower the catches in a certain unit of time, the smaller the stock of fish should be.
However German researchers have just shown that some fish species show enhanced gear-avoidance behaviour in regions with high angling intensity compared to fish exposed to low levels of exploitation near marine protected areas. The consequence is the impression that there are fewer fish in the sea, which does not necessarily agree with underwater reality.
Although seagrass meadows occupy less than 0.2 percent of the world's oceans, they are responsible for more than 10 percent of all carbon buried annually in the sea, according to a research paper published this week in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The paper, "Seagrass Ecosystems as a Globally Significant Carbon Stock," is the first global analysis of carbon stored in seagrasses.
In 1993, Michael Aw released his first book, Beneath Bunaken. Indonesia’s Global Treasures marks the launch of his 29th book of the sea. Michael Aw’s latest work encapsulates marine protected areas and World Heritage sites in the Indo-Australasian region into one exquisite volume.
Ila is currently our Shark editor. She writes: I'm happy to announce that the second edition of My Sunset Rendezvous, entitled THE SHARK SESSIONS, is now available for pre-release orders.
The four week online course – called ‘Shipwrecks and Submerged Worlds: Maritime Archaeology’ - starts today and is open to everyone.
The course will introduce you to the pioneers of the discipline and explain what maritime archaeology is and why it is relevant today. We’ll also explore the technologies used to investigate these challenging environments and the new horizons that are opening to us daily.
Finally, we’ll help show you ways in which you can become further involved in the exciting world of maritime archaeology.
According to Gibraltar’s department of the environment, an artificial reef protested by Spain is now “exploding with life”. Initiated two years ago, the 70 concrete blocks sunk near Gibraltar airport’s runway are already home to a large range of marine species from octopuses to triggerfish.
The five-member research team is part of a Cetacean Population Study team under a United Nations Development Programme project on Mainstreaming Coastal and Marine Biodiversity. They had been surveying the waters over six months for humpback dolphins when the whales were observed.
“It is estimated that there are only 9,000 such whales in the oceans. They are the largest mammals in the world, even bigger than the Dinosaurs, but still they are least studied mammals,” said N Vasudevan, Maharashtra’s Chief Conservator of the Forest and Head of Mangroves Cell.
HMS Tamar was a 4,600 tons displacement sail and steam-powered Royal Navy troopship launched in Britain in 1863. She served as a supply ship from 1897 to 1941 and gave her name to the shore station HMS Tamar in Hong Kong (1897 to 1997).
In 1897 Tamar was hulked as a base ship and used as the Hong Kong receiving ship and served as the 'name' ship for R.N. headquarters until it was replaced by the shore station, which was named HMS Tamar, after the ship.
