Articles by Andrew Sharpless

Walruses, whales and … wave farms?

Illegal acts pervaded the seas, waves were promoted as renewable energy, and Brooklyn got a new resident in a busy week for the oceans. This week in ocean news ...

... The Northwest Atlantic Fisheries Organisation voted to immediately reduce cod bycatch by 40 percent off Canada's eastern coast at its annual meeting ...

... nine Pacific nations concluded Operation Big Eye, a 10-day, $15 million sting on illegal fishing boats. Patrols boarded 38 vessels ...

... another multinational effort in the north Pacific captured photographic evidence of 10 vessels rigged with driftnets, which are banned by the United Nations ...

European fisheries ‘poor,’ island nation Palau rich in corals

Stakes in the seas are high, but in at least one case, an interest in ocean health can lead to cooperation between unlikely teammates ...

... the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution held an international conference on the possibility of mitigating global warming by seeding the ocean with iron, a controversial procedure which would theoretically boost phytoplankton populations ...

... meanwhile, the scientist behind the theory that the earth is a living organism suggested installing a series of giant pipes in the oceans to circulate water, creating algae blooms, under the theory that the algae would consume carbon dioxide and promote cloud production ...

New study shows turtle populations on the decline

Loggerhead sea turtle nesting subpopulations in the North Atlantic are on the decline, according to a new study released by the National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

The study, a five-year status review for loggerhead sea turtles required by the Endangered Species Act, confirms what Oceana has been telling the federal government all along.

If there is to be any real chance for restoring sea turtle populations, the federal government is going to have to take major steps to protect sea turtles from commercial fishing gear, including increased time and area closures and increased monitoring on commercial fishing fleets.

Icy creature populations to deplete as temperatures rise

Reports are all over the headlines recently of creatures, particularly Arctic and Antarctic marine creatures, being threatened by extinction because the Earth is warming too fast for them or their icy environments to be able to sustain themselves.

A colony of Antarctic penguins, for one, could be extinct in as little as eight years, according to one researcher who's been documenting their population since the mid-1970s. Upward of two-thirds of the Arctic polar bears could be wiped out by 2050 because their habitat is melting, according to one study.

Sounds a little like the Science report released last fall that said commercial fisheries will effectively collapse by mid-century at the rate we fish our oceans. There's definitely a pattern here -- is anyone else noticing this dismal trend?