According to the chief inspector of marine accidents, the UK coast is at risk of an environmental disaster because of the scrapping of emergency tugs that rescue ships in storms. Steve Clinch said that there was an argument that “we are probably overdue a significant major accident” and the costs of the effect of that,… Read more »

Researchers from Exeter and Bristol Universities have found that fish can be attracted back to damaged coral reefs by playing them recordings of snapping shrimps. Coral reef animals produce sounds to communicate whilst hunting to warn of the approach of predators and to impress each other in courtship. These can be heard from miles around… Read more »

So-called “ocean acidification” is having deleterious effects on marine biology. Now, environmentalists are raising concerns about freshwater acidification, which too, could have a serious impact on aquatic life. However, currently there is a shortage of data to support this. The evidence for it happening is from only four reservoirs in the Ruhr region of Germany…. Read more »

The huge Bluefin tuna was once so common in UK waters that aristocrats, millionaires and film stars flocked to Scarborough in the 1930s and 1940s to catch them. However, the fish disappeared from coastlines in the 1990s, partly because of overfishing of the herring and mackerel they depended on for food. Now they have returned… Read more »

Stocks of roach had fallen to an alarming low in the Avon, which flows from Wiltshire to the south coast. However, two anglers, Trevor Harrop and Adam Price fixed nets to wooden boards to replicate the walls of water moss that roach use to spawn in. Once the eggs are laid they are taken to… Read more »

China’s Yalu Jiang nature reserve, which is near the border with North Korea, extends across 50 kilometres of estuarine mudflats. This is where, every year, 250,000 birds including godwits, oystercatchers and the endangered great knot arrive to consume clams. They then continue on journeys as long as tens of thousands of kilometres. For example, the… Read more »

According to a team of scientists from Plymouth University, simple changes to way fleeces and other synthetic clothing are washed could prevent billions of minute plastic fibres from entering the ocean. Their research has shown that more than 700,000 fibres thinner than a human hair can be flushed into drains from a single washing machine… Read more »

The hot thermal waters of Bath were very attractive to the Romans. Now the 250,000 gallons of water at 45oC that flows up under the Roman Baths will be used before it flows into the Avon, to heat the nearby Bath Abbey. Because the spring water is too corrosive to use in heating pipes, heat… Read more »

In April this year, one determined seal swam 100 miles through Britain’s river network from the North Sea to the Yorkshire Dales to find fish. Walkers were amazed to see a large grey male seal near Thirsk, North Yorkshire, at a spot near Topcliffe Weir. Seals usually prefer a saltwater environment, as this is where… Read more »

The Chinese government is considering setting up what would be the world’s largest cloud seeding operation, in Tibet. A state-owned defence company has built 500 burners on Himalayan ridges in the path of the monsoon. They are testing a system that involves lofting particles of silver oxide from the machines into the atmosphere. When the… Read more »