Conservationists hope that in 15 years species will no longer be at risk of extinction in Mexico – but challenges remain
In 2010, Gerardo Ceballos and a group of other researchers set out to answer a burning question: how many jaguars were there in Mexico? They knew there weren’t many. Hunting, loss of habitat, conflict with cattle ranchers and other issues had pushed the population to the brink of extinction.
Ceballos and his team from the National Alliance for Jaguar Conservation (ANCJ) thought there were maybe 1,000 jaguars across the country. They decided to carry out the country’s first census of the animal to find out exactly how many there were. They found 4,100.
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Breaking Waves: Ocean News
09/01/2025 - 06:49
09/01/2025 - 04:00
Most of these little-known but already endangered fish have never been seen alive in their natural habitat, but are under threat from bottom trawling and deep-sea mining
Three years ago I was running a research project from a bottom trawler off Namibia about deep-sea sharks – all of which live under enormous water pressure, close to the seafloor and are rarely seen by humans.
These sharks were being brought up in the trawler’s nets. By the time they were brought to the surface, they had experienced such a dramatic change in pressure that they had undergone barotrauma, so they were internally damaged and unlikely to survive.
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09/01/2025 - 02:00
Frontrunner Zack Polanski has dismissed claims of a ‘hostile takeover’ but contest has been unusually fractious
The Green party will name its next leader on Tuesday after a fiercely fought leadership contest that has exposed tensions over tone, strategy and the party’s ambitions on the national stage.
The frontrunner, Zack Polanski, has pitched himself as a bold communicator able to turn rising support into a mass movement. He is facing the joint candidates Ellie Chowns and Adrian Ramsay, two impactful Green MPs elected last year who are seen as offering a steadier, more targeted route to growth.
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09/01/2025 - 01:00
Weather services of UK, Ireland and Netherlands chose list of 21 names from 50,000 suggestions by the public
Meteorologists in the UK, Ireland and the Netherlands have announced this year’s north Atlantic winter storm names, chosen after 50,000 suggestions were submitted by the public.
Amy, Bram and Chandra will be the first named storms of winter 2025-2026, the Met Office said on Monday.
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08/31/2025 - 11:00
Pollution, warm oceans and hungry urchins devastated Pacific kelp. Now, thanks to divers with hammers, one of the world’s most successful rehabilitation projects has helped it rebound
On an overcast Tuesday in July, divers Mitch Johnson and Sean Taylor shimmy into their wetsuits on the back of the R/V Xenarcha, a 28ft boat floating off the coast of Rancho Palos Verdes, south of Los Angeles. Behind them, the clear waters of the Pacific are dotted with a forest of army-green strands, waving like mermaid hair underwater.
We are here to survey the giant Pacific kelp, a species that once thrived in these ice cold waters. But over the past two decades, a combination of warm ocean temperatures, pollution, overfishing and the proliferation of hungry sea urchins that devour the kelp has led to an 80% decline in the forest along the southern California coast.
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08/31/2025 - 09:50
Beaches from Florida to Maine under advisories, leading to closures at some of the most popular beach destinations
Beaches across the US are facing swimming caution advisories during the Labor Day holiday weekend due to water quality concerns caused by elevated levels of bacteria associated with fecal waste.
Beaches from Crystal River, Florida, to Ogunquit, Maine, have been under advisories this week, discouraging beachgoers from entering the water because the bacteria can cause gastrointestinal illness, rashes and nausea.
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08/31/2025 - 08:00
When I killed my first mule deer, I felt deep reverence for the animal. It showed me hunting can be more honest and sustainable than eating factory-farmed meat
“Murderer! You’re a murderer!”
That is what my French mother shouts down the phone line – right after I tell her I had grouse for dinner.
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08/31/2025 - 07:33
Pakistan’s eastern Punjab province was dealing with the biggest flood in its history, a senior official said on Sunday, as river water levels rose to all-time highs. More than 1,400 villages were flooded after three large rivers – the Sutlej, Chenab and Ravi – overflowed their banks because of heavy rain and the release of water from overfilled dams in neighbouring India. Pakistan is one of the most vulnerable countries in the world to the climate crisis, despite producing less than 0.1% of global greenhouse gas emissions
‘The water left nothing’: Pakistan’s Punjab province reels from deadly floods
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08/31/2025 - 07:00
Heat deaths could surge in the state as energy poverty linked to Trump’s energy and trade policies burns
It was the hottest day of the year so far when the central air conditioning started blowing hot air in the mobile home where Richard Chamblee lived in Bullhead City, Arizona, with his wife, children, and half a dozen cats and dogs.
It was only mid-June but the heat was insufferable, particularly for Chamblee, who was clinically obese and bed-bound in the living room as the temperature hit 115F (46C) in the desert city – situated 100 miles (160km) south of Las Vegas on the banks of the Colorado River.
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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 | [email protected] +12077011069
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