Missed out on February 2023’s ocean news? Here’s a glimpse into what went down in Davy Jones’ Locker this month.

Sections

Animals and Plants
Climate Crisis
Fisheries and Aquaculture
Marine Technology
People and the Sea
Other

Animals and Plants

• Improved fisheries management and conservation measures are turning the tide on shark and ray population declines in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean. Read more.
  
  

• A new project aims to protect turtles from the impacts of climate change in the Cayman Islands. Read more.
  
  

• The first gray whale of the year has been sighted in the San Francisco Bay — and it looks like it’s not alone. Read more.
  
  

• A recent video from the U.S. Department of the Interior shows a giant Pacific octopus crawling through the Yaquina Head tide pools in northwestern Oregon. Read more.
  
  

• A team of researchers led by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla has discovered a new species of fish. And while excited about the discovery, it’s the where, not the what, that piqued researchers’ curiosity. Read more.
  
  

• One of the biggest sea stars in the world has been devastated by a malady likened to an underwater “zombie apocalypse” and could soon be granted Endangered Species Act protection. Read more.
  
  

• Divers in Japan video a humpback whale giving birth off Kagoshima isle. Read more.
  
  

• New study suggests seagrass meadows can build and maintain coral reef islands. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists at the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric, and Earth Science found that some reefs in the tropical Pacific Ocean could maintain high coral cover into the second half of this century by shuffling the symbiotic algae they host. The findings offer a ray of hope in an often-dire picture of the future of coral reefs worldwide. Read more.
  
  

• Yale researchers have found that the ability of fish in temperate and polar ecosystems to move between shallow and deep water triggers species diversification. Read more.
  
  

• Marine scientists still baffled by lake filled with millions of jellyfish Read more.
  
  

• A novel virus, potentially fatal to whales and dolphins, has been discovered by researchers at the University of Hawaiʻi Health and Stranding Lab. Prior to its discovery in 10 whale and dolphin host species across the Pacific, the virus was found in only a single marine mammal worldwide, a Longman’s beaked whale stranded on Maui in 2010. Read more.
  
  

• The tropical oceans are home to the most diverse plankton populations on Earth, where they form the base of marine food chains. Modern plankton biodiversity in the tropics is a surprisingly recent development and the result of 8 million years of global cooling, according to a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin. Read more.
  
  

• Clear evidence that marine phytoplankton are much more resilient to future climate change than previously thought is the focus of a study published in Science Advances by an international team of scientists, including University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa oceanography professor David Karl. Read more.
  
  

Climate Crisis

• The Twaites glacier is being eaten away from below. That means the glacier is rapidly getting weaker – and increasingly likely to fracture. Once it lets go, the researchers say it will trigger sea levels to rise by about 65cm within 100 years. But that’s just the start of the problem. Read more.
  
  

• An irreversible loss of the West Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and a corresponding rapid acceleration of sea level rise, may be imminent if global temperature change cannot be stabilized below 1.8°C, relative to the preindustrial levels. Read more.
  
  

• Curtin University researchers believe rising sea temperatures are to blame for the plummeting number of invertebrates such as molluscs and sea urchins at Rottnest Island off Western Australia, with some species having declined by up to 90 per cent between 2007 and 2021. Read more.
  
  

• Planetary Technologies, a Canadian startup, is attempting to use an antacid powder to make the ocean recycle more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Read more.
  
  

Fisheries and Aquaculture

• Torres Strait Islander commercial fishers are andy with border protection and fisheries authorities for “a”lax attitude” to incursions by illegal fishing boats. Read more.
  
  

• New regulations in Western Australia means shark fishers must land sharks with fins naturally attached. Read more.
  
  

• ‘They became illegal overnight’: Colombia’s shark fishing ban turns locals into criminals. Read more.
  
  

• Costa Rica announced an all-out ban on the fishing of hammerhead sharks, specifically the smooth hammerhead, scalloped hammerhead and great hammerhead. Read more.
  
  

• The European Union, Canada, the People’s Republic of China, Denmark (in respect of Greenland and the Faroe Islands), Iceland, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Norway, the Russian Federation and the United States met in Ottawa on 29-30 May to begin preparatory work on outstanding issues to ensure a smooth entry into force of the Agreement to prevent Unregulated High Seas Fisheries in the Central Arctic Ocean. Read more.
  
  

• Dutch Project led by the non-profit group North Sea Farmers to Grow Seaweed in Offshore Wind Farms has been granted U\$1.6M from Amazon. Read more.
  
  

• Construction has begun on what will become the largest land-based aquaculture facility in Iceland. The company, Landseldi ehf. (also known in English as Deep Atlantic Salmon Project) bases its operations in Þorlákshöfn, South Iceland and eventually plans to raise 40,000 tons of salmon annually. Read more.
  
  

• College aquaculture lab turns nursery as octopus eggs hatch. Read more.
  
  

• Aquaculture, or the farming of aquatic plants and animals, contributes to biodiversity and habitat loss in freshwater and marine ecosystems globally, but when used wisely, it can also be part of the solution, new research suggests. Read more.
  
  

• Hawaii spent decades developing community-managed fishing areas. Lawmakers may undo that Read more.
  
  

Marine Technology

• The UK government has launched a £77m competition to develop net-zero technologies for the maritime industry. Read more.
  
  

• While the European Commission has just published the EU Action Plan: Energy transition of EU fisheries and aquaculture, NGOs criticised its lack of ambition, and the absence of concrete actions and strong guidelines – that would enable EU Member States to drive the process of decarbonisation of the fishing sector Read more.
  
  

• A new underwater base has been constructed in the Gulf of Lion. The CNRS Laboratoire Sous-marin Provence Méditerranée, co-directed with Aix-Marseille University and IFREMER, is a pioneering new research platform. At >2 km under the sea surface, it houses instrumentation for studying the seabed; climate change; and the physics of neutrinos, elementary particles from space. Read more.
  
  

• Thousands of miles of fiber-optic cable lining the seafloor are vulnerable to sea-level rise, storms and other climate impacts, research shows. Read more.
  
  

• French digitalisation firm Opsealog has published a white paper calling for greater data sharing across supply chains to help achieve shipping’s decarbonisation and sustainability ambitions. Read more.
  
  

People and the Sea

• Ever wondered what it’s like to untangle a right whale? Biologist Melanie White shares all. Read more.
  
  

• Blue Food Assessment, an international collaboration of scientists whose focus has been on the role of aquatic foods in global food systems say with careful implementation of policies that leverage “blue foods”, nations could get a boost on efforts to reduce nutritional deficits, lower disease risk, decrease greenhouse gas emissions and ensure resilience in the face of climate change. Read more.
  
  

• Artificially raising island heights or building completely new higher islands have been proposed as solutions to sea-level rise in the Maldives and other low-lying nations. Read more.
  
  

• Rising seas pose “unthinkable” risks to billions around the world, with profound implications for security, international law, human rights and the very fabric of societies, senior officials told the UN Security Council, as members held their first-ever debate on the phenomenon’s global implications. Read more.
  
  

• Activists working with sea-rescue charities in Italy should not be criminalized, a UN independent human rights expert said ahead of a trial against crew members from several non-governmental organizations Read more.
  
  

• London-based architectural design studio PAN- PROJECTS has its eye on developing furniture such as tables and fishing gear from discarded objects and ocean plastics for the fishermen under Project ‘mum’. It works closely with the Japanese start-up REMARE and the local fishing community in the Mie Prefecture in Japan in upcycling abandoned fishing tools such as nets, buoys, and ropes and turning them into reusable livelihood objects. Read more.
  
  

• Fisheries experts Daniel Pauly and Rashid Sumaila have won the 2023 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, an award administered by the University of Southern California. Read more.
  
  

Other

• Researchers at the University of Exeter have launched a new project to investigate deep ocean currents. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists have warned that deep-sea mining could threaten the survival of several whale populations. Read more.
  
  

• Smithsonian scientists have discovered evidence of an ancient climate calamity buried beneath the seafloor. Read more.
  
  

• Be sure to check out these amazing images from the Underwater Photographer of the Year 2023 competition. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers from the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) recently published a study in the journal Science of the Total Environment introducing the first national estimate of mangrove carbon stocks in Belize. These findings are the first data released from the Belize Blue Carbon project, an international effort to develop nationwide mangrove datasets to understand implications for climate change mitigation and adaptation. Read more.
  
  

• The Canadian government said it would not allow mining in its domestic ocean seabeds without a “rigorous regulatory structure.” Read more.
  
  

• UN member states open two weeks of negotiations aimed at finally reaching a treaty meant to protect and preserve vast areas of the world’s oceans. After more than 15 years of formal and informal talks, this will be the third time in less than a year that negotiators converge on New York in what, yet again, is supposed to be a final and conclusive round. Read more.
  
  

• Through its Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC/UNESCO), UNESCO has launched the prototype of a web-based tool for developing country professionals to discover capacity development opportunities around the world in ocean science and management. Read more.