Over 600,000 seabirds killed in single marine heatwave
Natural History Museum
Published: 23 April 2026
A marine heatwave off Australia in 2023-2024 killed an estimated 629,000 seabirds, with short-tailed shearwaters comprising 96% of casualties, highlighting growing climate threats to seabird populations.
Keywords: marine heatwave, seabird mortality, short-tailed shearwater, climate change, Australia, ocean warming, biodiversity loss
Marine megafauna research awarded international prize
University of Western Australia
Published: 22 April 2026
UWA researchers won the Frontiers Planet Prize for tracking over 15,000 marine megafauna across 121 species, revealing critical ocean habitats poorly covered by marine protected areas.
Keywords: marine megafauna, ocean conservation, animal tracking, marine protected areas, whale shark, biodiversity, Frontiers Planet Prize
Bottom trawling catches thousands of fish species, including those most at-risk
University of British Columbia Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries
Published: 8 April 2026
A global inventory reveals over 3,000 fish species have been caught in bottom trawls, with one in seven assessed species threatened or near threatened with extinction including sharks and seahorses.
Keywords: bottom trawling, fisheries, biodiversity, conservation, endangered species, deep-sea, bycatch
