New research has generated a comprehensive system for tracking and monitoring fishing vessels from the moment they disembark from the shipyard to their eventual dismantlement at a ship graveyard which can help determine possible instances of unlawful fishing. Published in Science Advances, the new study fuses a decade’s worth of satellite vessel tracking data […]
In spring and summer, visitors flock to Northern Ireland’s Rathlin Island to catch a glimpse of the bright-billed Atlantic puffins that stop there to breed. But in recent years, the island’s puffin population has plummeted, largely due to invasive ferrets and rats preying upon them. To protect the Atlantic puffins (Fratercula arctica), whose global population […]
Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented, likely because of the rats that had hitched a ride on board military ships and invaded the atoll during World War II. On walks through […]
On a Russian-led expedition in the northern Pacific Ocean in the 1740s, German botanist Georg Wilhelm Steller laid eyes on a species that captured his imagination. It looked like a manatee but was bigger than a killer whale, and it grazed similarly to a cow or horse. After Steller described the animal, it became known […]
The disappearance of billions snow crabs from the Bering Sea has captivated the world’s attention since Alaska shut down the fishery for the first time in October 2022. But where exactly did these snow crabs go? And what caused them to vanish so quickly? Scientists are still grappling with these questions, but climate change is […]