Sea Shepherd’s vessel ‘Sam Simon’ together with Lipari’s Coast Guard, Milazzo’s Revenue and Customs Authorities, and with the collaboration of artisanal fishermen, confiscated 52 Fishing Aggregating Devices (FADs) and 100 km of polypropylene line in Italy’s Aeolian Archipelago in 178 hours.
The oil dispersant that was used to clean up the oil after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill had likely toxic effects for oysters, according to Morris Animal Foundation-funded researchers at the University of Connecticut. The team compared the low levels of toxicity of oil, the dispersant and a mixture of the two.
The video, published by the European Union Strategy for the Baltic Sea Region (EUSBSR), focuses on one of the objectives of the Strategy – Save the Sea, aiming to address threats to marine biodiversity and food web structures, such as eutrophication, invasive species and hazardous substances.
Australia’s government of Queensland is set to implement legislation to criminalise close proximity to shark control equipment, to prevent any photography of lethal drumlines and shark nets. The news comes after a photo release of a baby humpback whale caught in a shark net on the Gold Coast on 5 October.
In the last decade, 7,744 small cetaceans of five different species have lost their lives in the Faroe Islands whaling hunts, locally called ‘grindadráp’. In response, Sea Shepherd UK proposed a financial incentive to the Faroe Islands of EUR 1,000,000 in total over the next 10 years, to bring to an end grindadráp.
As part of the Operation Albacore III, Central African authorities seized a Senegalese-flagged long-liner over fishing a large quantity of blue sharks that are classified as ‘near-threatened’ by the IUCN, although the vessel was licensed to fish for ‘tuna and similar species’.
As part of its earlier announced efforts to address the problem of abandoned boats across Canadian coastlines, the Government of Canada announced the most recent applicants to receive funding under the Abandoned Boats Program, implemented under the Ocean Protection Plan.
Following a last year announcement that it would fund a research to assess the impact of shipping in the marine environment, the Government of Canada now awarded a contract to ESSA Technologies to look at tools to assess the cumulative impacts of shipping on coastal marine ecosystems.
Members of the European Parliament proposed new incentives to collect marine litter at sea, new EU-wide standards and definitions for biodegradability and compostability, and a complete EU ban on oxo-degradable plastic by 2020. This non-binding draft resolution was adopted on September 13 with 597 votes to 15 and 25 abstentions.
Australia has developed its first artificial reef in the Exmouth Gulf, the latest purpose built artificial reef habitat in the Western part of the country. The $1 million Exmouth Integrated Artificial Reef is a unique project aiming to enhance marine habitat and recreational fishing opportunities in the region.
