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.
The impact on patients and health services is just one part of a growing health burden driven by sea-level rise, including water contamination, infectious disease, food insecurity, displacement and worsening mental health.
These reefs are living, breathing snapshots of a watery world that you can peek into: refreshing oases where the noise of the land falls away; in its place, an intricate and utterly at-ease slice of life that you're lucky enough to witness.
"When a whale washes up on the beach like that, we work with different organizations to decide what the best course of action is," said Atlantic Marine Conservation Society (AMSEAS) Chief Scientist Robert DiGiovanni, who was tasked with processing the whale. "Every stranding has a unique set of circumstances."
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.
These polymetallic nodules, as they're known, take millions of years to form, slowly accumulating metals like nickel, cobalt and manganese. That's made them a target for mining companies, looking to feed the world's growing hunger for materials that go into advanced batteries and other technologies.
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.
Generally, East Coast oysters are brinier than West Coast oysters. Eastern oysters, raised either in the Atlantic Ocean or in its estuaries, live in a much saltier environment. West Coast oysters are mostly raised in protected bays, estuaries, and tidal rivers, where there is much less salt.
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.
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".
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.
Fifteen years ago, he searched for fish. Now he hunts plastic bottles. The fish fled from the plastic chokehold, said Sayed, who has lived on the Giza island since arriving from Assiut, further south on the Nile, as a 14-year-old fishing apprentice. Declining fish populations, caused by plastic pollution in the river, have forced approximately 180 fishers on al-Qarsaya to pivot from traditional fishing to waste collection.
Consumers must be aware that seafood fraud, in which vendors label cheaper fish as products of higher quality and price, is common practice. According to Oceana, fish is mislabeled 25 to 70% of the time, especially when it comes to prized fish like wild salmon and Atlantic cod. Those of us who care about the environment are also concerned with traceability,
It looked like the silvery blade of a knife. Peering through his goggles, diver Ted Judah had laid eyes on a deep-sea creature rarely encountered by humans. He and wife Linda were diving off McAbee Beach in Monterey County in late December when, near the surface, he spotted the undulating thing. It was some kind of ribbon fish, he wrote in a post on the Facebook group Monterey County Dive Reports. Kevin Lewand solved the mystery.
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.
But as he swept his flashlight through the dark waters, something unexpected emerged. Inching through the beam of light, an alien creature crawled across the surface of the sand, resembling an inch-long cluster of ghostly leaves fringed with silvery filigree and capped with a pair of antennae-like stalks. It immediately caught my eye, said Gosliner, Invertebrate Zoology Curator for the California Academy of Sciences. I've been diving there for 30 years and this one immediately struck me as different.
Recently, while sailing with friends on San Francisco Bay, I enjoyed the sight of harbor porpoises, cormorants, pelicans, seals and sea lions and then the spouting plume and glistening back of a gray whale that gave me pause. Too many have been seen inside the bay recently. California's gray whales have been considered an environmental success story since the passage of the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act and 1986's global ban on commercial whaling. They're also a major tourist attraction during their annual 12,000-mile
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