Common dolphins in the North Atlantic are living significantly shorter lives, with female longevity dropping seven years since the 1990s. Researchers found this decline by analyzing stranded dolphins, revealing a 2.4% drop in population growth linked to bycatch deaths and environmental pressures. The findings expose flaws in traditional counting methods and call for adaptive conservation measures, such as smarter fishing restrictions.
Breaking Waves: Ocean News
10/22/2025 - 00:37
Get out of the Honda Gwyneth!
Sign up here to get an email whenever First Dog cartoons are published
Get all your needs met at the First Dog shop if what you need is First Dog merchandise and prints
Continue reading...
10/22/2025 - 00:00
Campaigners say figures reveal a lack of enforcement with just 24 fines issued by councils for rule violations
Not one prosecution for illegal wood burning has been made in the past year, despite 15,195 complaints across England, data shows.
Additionally, just 24 fines were issued by local authorities between September 2024 and August 2025, responses to freedom of information requests by the campaign group Mums for Lungs revealed.
This article was amended on 22 October 2025. The original version stated that there had been just one prosecution in the last year; in fact there have been none.
Continue reading...
10/21/2025 - 23:01
Bleak report finds greenhouse gas emissions are still rising despite ‘exponential’ growth of renewables
Coal use hit a record high around the world last year despite efforts to switch to clean energy, imperilling the world’s attempts to rein in global heating.
The share of coal in electricity generation dropped as renewable energy surged ahead. But the general increase in power demand meant that more coal was used overall, according to the annual State of Climate Action report, published on Wednesday.
Continue reading...
10/21/2025 - 23:00
Human-wildlife conflict has now overtaken poaching as a cause of fatalities – and is deadly for people too. Some villages are finding new ways to live alongside them
Photographs by Edwin Ndeke
At nearly 3.5-metres tall and weighing as much as a bus, you could be forgiven for assuming that Goshi – one of an estimated 30 “super-tusker” elephants left in Africa – would be easy to find. The radio tracker picking up his signal beeps encouragingly, indicating the giant bull is within 200 metres. But the dry season has turned the mass of arid acacia scrubland grey, and everything seems to resemble an elephant.
Even when they are invisible, the huge herbivores shape the landscape here. There are 17,000 elephants across the Tsavo region, Kenya’s largest protected area, which is divided in two. Each year, elephants wander huge distances between feeding grounds, following the seasonal rains as they have done for thousands of years.
Continue reading...
10/21/2025 - 20:26
Sydney’s Observatory Hill peaks at 37C on Wednesday – below the 39C forecast – as the mercury in other parts of the city neared 40C
Follow our Australia news live blog for latest updates
Get our breaking news email, free app or daily news podcast
Two men have died after being pulled from the water at a Victorian beach amid wild weather in the state.
On Wednesday evening, Victoria police confirmed two men were found unresponsive in the water at Frankston beach, on the Mornington Peninsula, just after 5pm. The men, who are yet to be identified, could not be revived.
Continue reading...
10/21/2025 - 20:00
Dan Zafra captured a timelapse of something he could only dream of - red sprites, also known as red lightning, flashing above the Milky Way - while photographing from the Clay Cliffs in New Zealand's South Island on 11 October. Red sprites are brief, large-scale electrical discharges that occur high above thunderstorms, reaching altitudes of up to 90km. They are almost impossible to see with the naked eye and last just a few milliseconds
‘A perfect coincidence’: rare red lightning captured in New Zealand skies
Continue reading...
10/16/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 17 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00163-0
The global ocean faces unprecedented challenges from overfishing, pollution, and climate change. The Central Arctic Ocean Fisheries Agreement is a rare, if not unprecedented, example of precautionary action in marine management. Further action is needed to address other forms of industrial activity in the region. Done well, this example can provide a model for sustainable ocean management around the world, based on sound evidence, inclusive governance, and long-term thinking.
10/15/2025 - 23:00
npj Ocean Sustainability, Published online: 16 October 2025; doi:10.1038/s44183-025-00146-1
The right tools for the job: Considerations for the implementation of an ecosystem-based management approach for marine ecosystems
World Ocean Explorer Wins Gold Medal Serious Simulation Award from Serious Play Annual International Competition
10/26/2023 - 14:35
For Immediate Release October 19, 2023
Sedgwick, Maine USA World Ocean Explorer, a 3D virtual aquarium and educational simulation, was recently cited for excellence, winning a Gold Medal Award in the 2023 International Serious Play Awards Program.
World Ocean Explorer is an innovative 3D virtual aquarium designed for educational exploration of the world’s oceans. With interactive exhibits and a lobby space, visitors can immerse themselves in realistic marine environments, including a DEEP SEA exhibit funded by Schmidt Ocean Institute, showcasing unprecedented deep-sea discoveries off Australia. Targeted at 3rd graders and beyond, this immersive experience offers a range of perspectives on the ocean environment and can be explored through guided tours or user-controlled interfaces. Visit DEEP SEA at worldoceanexplorer.org/deep-sea-aquarium.html.
Serious Play Conference brings together professionals who are exploring the use of game-based learning, sharing their experience, and working together to shape the future of training and education. For more information on Serious Play Award Program visit seriousplayconf.com/international-serious-play-award-programs.
World Ocean Explorer is a transformative virtual aquarium designed to deepen understanding of the world ocean and amplify connection for young people worldwide. Organized around the principles of Ocean Literacy and the Next Gen Science Standards, World Ocean Explorer brings the wonder and knowledge of ocean species and systems to students in formal and informal classrooms, absolutely free to anyone with a good Internet connection. As an advocate for the ocean through communications, World Ocean Observatory believes there is no better investment in the future of the sustainable ocean than through a new approach to educational engagement that excites, informs, and motivates students to explore the wonders of our marine world and to understand the pervasive connection and implication for our future, inherent in the protection and conservation of all aspects of our ocean world.
World Ocean Explorer presents an astonishing 3-dimensional simulated aquarium visit, organized to reveal the wonders of undersea life, with layers of detailed data and information to augment the emotional connection made to the astonishing beauty and complexity of the dynamic ocean. Within each of the virtual exhibits, students visit exemplary theme-based sites with myriad opportunities to understand the larger perspectives of scientific knowledge as organized and visualized to dramatize the impact and change on ocean life as a result of natural and human-generated events. Through immersion among displays, mixed media and 3D models, the experience of an aquarium visit will be brought into classrooms or home school environments as a free, accessible, always available opportunity for teaching and learning. All of this will be available to a world audience without physical limitation or cost. World Ocean Explorer, a project of the World Ocean Observatory, receives support from the Seth Sprague Educational and Charitable Foundation, Visual Solutions Lab, the Climate Change Institute, the Khaled bin Sultan Living Oceans Foundation, and The Fram Museum Oslo. To learn more about the current and future exhibits of World Ocean Explorer, visit worldoceanexplorer.org.
media contact
Trisha Badger, Managing Director, World Ocean Observatory | director@thew2o.net +12077011069
Read more »
