May 22, 2020 By Elizabeth Claire Alberts Mongabay
In 2018, something extraordinary happened in Phuket, Thailand. For the first time in five years, a leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) crept onto a local beach, dug a nest in the sand, and laid 118 tiny white eggs. Not long after that, two more nests appeared.
May 22, 2020 By Larry Pynn Hakai Magazine
The COVID-19 pandemic is giving whales some respite from boat traffic and whale watching tours, but some say associated shutdowns are impacting research and conservation.
May 21, 2020 By Ashley Strickland CNN
As oceans warm due to climate change, some coral reefs have been devastated in recent years by bleaching events that cause them to die and damage the biodiversity that depends on them. Multiple studies are underway to understand more about these bleaching events and if corals can bounce back. While bleaching is associated with the stark white skeletal remains of corals after they have lost their live tissue, an opposite effect can also take place when such an event occurs.
May 21, 2020 by Kimon de Greef Hakai Magazine
The pandemic has temporarily collapsed the price of illegal abalone. But when the market returns, poaching is likely to get even worse.
May 21, 2020 By Ken Buesseler The Conversation
The ocean plays a major role in the global carbon cycle. The driving force comes from tiny plankton that produce organic carbon through photosynthesis, like plants on land. When plankton die or are consumed, a set of processes known as the biological carbon pump carries sinking particles of carbon from the surface to the deep ocean in a process known as marine snowfall. Naturalist and writer Rachel Carson called it the “most stupendous snowfall on Earth.”