Missed out on March 2024’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

Animals and Plants

• Restoring reefs killed by climate change may simply put corals ‘back out to die’–here’s how we can improve their chances Read more.
  
  

• Efforts by the Mars coral restoration programme have brought back the coral and important ecosystem functions, as outlined by our new study, published in Current Biology. We found that within just four years, restored reefs grow at the same rate as nearby healthy reefs. Read more.
  
  

• Rare access to hammerhead shark embryos reveals secrets of its unique head development Read more.
  
  

• Sea scallops do a lot of clamming up when subjected to the loud underwater banging of pile drivers, machinery that offshore wind developers use to hammer turbine support tubes into the seabed. If the animals expend a lot of their energy doing that, the researchers suggest, they may not have enough left in the tank to respond to real marine threats. Read more.
  
  

• Whales sing loud enough that their songs travel through the ocean, but knowing the mechanics behind that has been a mystery. Scientists now think they have an idea, and it’s something not seen in other animals: a specialized voice box. Read more.
  
  

• Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), along with UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography (Scripps) and other researchers, have discovered a new species of deep-sea worm living near a methane seep some 50 kilometers (30 miles) off the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. Read more.
  
  

• The New York Bight is an important year-round habitat for endangered fin whales, according to new research examining fin whale song patterns. Read more.
  
  

• Clown anemonefish seem to be counting bars and laying down the law. New research suggests that the fish may be counting vertical bars on intruders to determine their threat level, and to inform the social hierarchy governing their sea anemone colonies. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists Discover 100 New Marine Species in New Zealand Read more.
  
  

• New study confirms that larvae on degraded reefs can respond to healthy reef sounds Read more.
  
  

• Synchronised mass coral reef spawning has been observed for the first time in Cambodian waters. Conservationists from Fauna & Flora’s marine team in Cambodia witnessed the spectacular show during the first week of March. Read more.
  
  

• The sea lions that call Australia home are at risk of dying out but proposed WA sanctuary zones may be the key to saving the species. Read more.
  
  

• A new study has found that establishing no-fishing zones far from densely populated cities – including in international waters – can provide open water fish, such as tuna and sardines, with a safe haven to grow older and larger. Read more.
  
  

• Sawfish, and about 30 other species of fish, are turning up sick and dying in the Lower Keys as questions mount over what’s causing it. As word and worries spread, scientists are yet to find a smoking gun. Read more.
  
  

• Thousands of marine species are discovered every year. Discover the top ten new finds in 2023, as chosen by my taxonomists. Read more.
  
  

Climate Crisis

• The Gulf of Mexico is experiencing sea level rise two to three times as fast as the global average due to a combination of warmer waters and wind circulation patterns. Now, a newly released long-term study from marine scientists at The University of Texas at Austin has found rising sea levels can be linked to a loss of valuable seagrass habitats in Texas. Read more.
  
  

• Sea surface temperature data collected by an all-female crew of rowers as they raced around Great Britain last summer has found that UK coastal seas were on average 0.39 degrees Celsius warmer in 2023, compared to 2022. Read more.
  
  

• When climate scientists look to the future to determine what the effects of climate change may be, they use computer models to simulate potential outcomes such as how precipitation will change in a warming world. But University of Michigan scientists are looking at something a little more tangible: coral. Read more.
  
  

• Marine heat waves in the northeast Pacific Ocean create ongoing and complex disruptions of the ocean food web that may benefit some species but threaten the future of many others, a new study has shown. Read more.
  
  

Fisheries and Aquaculture

• Bycatch in fishing gear is one of the biggest threats to sea turtles. But these creatures are particularly sensitive to green light so they’re less likely to get caught up in fishing nets fitted with green LED lights. Read more.
  
  

• Surviving fishing gear entanglement isn’t enough for endangered right whales–females still don’t breed afterward Read more.
  
  

• An environmental non-profit organization that helps recycle tonnes of used fishing gear at more than two dozen collection sites across Atlantic Canada warns it’s at risk of shutting down without continued government funding. Read more.
  
  

• In the face of rising mortality rates caused by warming sea temperatures, Saumon de France-Europe’s most southernly net pen salmon producer-has had to significantly modify its production cycle, and is looking to expand both offshore and onshore. Read more.
  
  

• Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), is taking measures to protect the unique and highly sensitive Lophelia Reef—also known by its Wakashan name q̓áuc̓íwísuxv—by closing all commercial and recreational bottom-contact fisheries, including midwater trawl, within this area. Read more.
  
  

• A new study led by a scientist at UC Santa Cruz’s Institute of Marine Sciences finds that blue whales, tunas, and other top predators in the northeast Pacific Ocean face greater risk of harm from industrial fishing than previously thought. Read more.
  
  

• The FAO have released their report Women in fisheries in the Mediterranean and Black Sea region: roles, challenges and opportunities. Read more.
  
  

• Researchers are working to develop a technology that will enable autonomous robots to adapt their behaviour to the responses of penned fish with the aim of disturbing them as little as possible. Read more.
  
  

• A B.C. caviar operation is under investigation after an animal rights group says it obtained hundreds of hours of footage from a whistleblower at the site, showing what they call “heartbreaking cruelty.” Read more.
  
  

• Industrial vessels suspected of using a harmful fishing method known as bottom trawling spent more than 33,000 hours in British marine protected areas last year, a new analysis of satellite data shows. Read more.
  
  

• In the French outermost region of La Réunion, small-scale fishers often use surface longlines to target tuna and billfish. But with this technique, fishers sometimes accidentally catch sharks. To address this problem, EU-funded research project ‘ASUR’ is searching for new and innovative technologies and techniques to limit the effects of longline fishing on vulnerable shark populations. Read more.
  
  

• Simply Blue Group - a blue economy project developer which aims to address climate action targets in Europe by progressing the industries for carbon sequestration and ocean-based renewable energy production - has joined the North Sea Farm 1 Project consortium to develop the world’s first commercial-scale seaweed farm located within an offshore windfarm. Read more.
  
  

• A new byelaw protecting an area of almost 4000 square km of our seas from damaging fishing activity is now in force. The bylaw prohibits the use of bottom towed gear in specific areas within 13 English offshore MPAs that contain valuable reef and rocky habitats. Read more.
  
  

• One in seven species of deepwater sharks and rays are threatened with extinction due to overfishing. Read more.
  
  

Marine Technology

• The EU-funded Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S), implemented by ECMWF, has provided new tools to make it easier for users to explore how the climate has been changing and how it could change in the future. They include the Copernicus Interactive Climate Atlas, which enables data from a variety of sources and over various timeframes to be visualised, and Climate Pulse, a tool for climate change images intended mainly for the media. Read more.
  
  

• WHOI biologist Johanna Weston develops a novel tool to catch and study life in the ocean’s most extreme depths Read more.
  
  

• Technology to protect South Africa’s oceans: experts find that a data-driven monitoring system is paying off Read more.
  
  

• Oceanography professors transform a research tool into a startup that’s sucking CO2 from seawater Read more.
  
  

• With the ongoing emphasis on decarbonisation and energy transition in the shipping industry, we look at two alternative and supplemental propulsion systems in and above the water. Read more.
  
  

• Neil Salter, chair of IMarEST’s Maritime Autonomous Surface Ships (MASS) Special Interest Group and Ross Macfarlane from MASSPeople reflect on unresolved questions surrounding accountability in incidents involving autonomous vessels. Read more.
  
  

People and the Sea

• Eight ways to overhaul the UK’s inadequate sewer system Read more.
  
  

• ‘A fishing accident blinded me but I was forced to keep working’: abuses faced by workers who catch our fish Read more.
  
  

• A British non-governmental organization has filed a legal petition to the United Kingdom government requesting formal sanctions against seven Chinese companies named by the Outlaw Ocean Project as having employed Uyghur labor at their seafood-processing plants. Read more.
  
  

• The Unleashing the Blue Economy of the Caribbean Project is designed to accelerate the Blue Economy by increasing targeted investments in the fisheries, tourism, and waste management sectors in the Eastern Caribbean, strengthening the enabling environment for a diversified economy, and creating pathways to more ‘blue’ employment opportunities for women. Read more.
  
  

• Blue economies could take Zambia from landlocked to ‘land-linked’ Read more.
  
  

• The Marine Conservation Society 2023 beach clean and litter survey results have been published. An incredible 14,271 volunteers removed litter from their local beaches and submitted over 1,000 litter surveys. Volunteers across the UK and Channel Islands cleared 17,208 kgs of litter. Read more.
  
  

• Nunatsiavut Government and Government of Canada take major step forward toward establishing Inuit Protected Area along the northern coast of Labrador Read more.
  
  

• Environmental authorities approved what was then the largest wind farm in Brazil’s Ceará state in 2002 without assessing its socioenvironmental impact, including on the local fishing community and the ecosystem. Read more.
  
  

• An Indonesian fishing village has been inundated with tonnes of rubbish after recent heavy rains resulted in stronger tides. Teluk, in the Indonesian province of Banten on the western edge of Java island, has one of the country’s dirtiest beaches. But the arrival of tonnes of rubbish on the shore has shocked residents. Read more.
  
  

• 10 shipwrecks dating from 3000 BC to the World War II era found off the coast of Greece Read more.
  
  

• Over 7,000 years ago, people were navigating the Mediterranean Sea using technologically sophisticated boats, according to a groundbreaking study published in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. Read more.
  
  

• The IMO has agreed on an illustration of a possible draft outline of an “IMO net-zero framework” for cutting greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) from international shipping. Read more.
  
  

• Scientists found that farmed salmon production leads to an overall loss of essential dietary nutrients. They say that eating more wild ‘feed’ species directly could benefit our health while reducing aquaculture demand for finite marine resources. Read more.