Background Articles

Basic ocean food critical for the whole ecosystem is in dramatic decline and scientists don't know exactly why.

The catch is shifting northward as water temperatures rise, forcing crews to retool their boats and rework their businesses. Pollock is retreating from Alaska while black sea bass throng around Rhode Island.

Climate change is ravaging the natural laboratory that inspired Darwin. The creatures here are on the brink of crisis.

Industrial fisheries are starving seabirds like penguins and terns by competing for the same prey sources, new research from the French National Center for Scientific Research in Montpellier and the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia has found.

Only one, located in British Columbia's Thompson River, is considered stable.

The California overwintering population has been reduced to less than 0.5% of its historical size, and has declined by 86% compared to 2017.

A new study shows loss of habitat in Canada’s Peace-Athabasca Delta is likely responsible for the decline of semi-aquatic muskrat, and could have larger implications.

Extreme climatic events are harming plant communities in the Arctic. The resulting colour change is bad news for the region's carbon storage.

An unprecedented drought in Afghanistan has led to families selling their children just to be able to feed their households.

On Friday, the North Atlantic Right Whale Consortium released its 2018 report card for the endangered species. There are just 411 left.

Southern resident orcas are on the brink of extinction, while killer whales to the north are growing in numbers. The contrast exposes what’s killing Puget Sound’s orcas.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada confirms the findings of independent research that says sea lice on salmon farms are becoming resistant to SLICE, a pesticide used to kill sea lice.

Several hundred thousand Arctic foxes are estimated to remain worldwide, but the population in Norway, Sweden and Finland has plummeted to just 250.

Reports that the sea star population was rebounding appear to have been overly optimistic, says the Coastal Ocean Research Institute.

The Icelandic lobster stock is at an historic low and last fishing season was the worst catch ever known in Iceland.

Sockeye salmon runs across Alaska were dismal this year. But no one is certain why.

Researchers examined 179 radio-marked young moose over the course of a four-month period. Of those calves they screened, 125—or nearly 70 percent—of the moose calves died. The researchers suspect this is primarily because of the winter tick.

If spotted seal numbers continue to decrease at the same rate, they will decrease by 84% over the next 45 years, a time period of three generations for the animals.

The news isn’t getting any better for New Hampshire’s moose, as the population explosion of winter ticks driven by warmer winters continues to take a toll.

Bad weather is bad news, also for the red-listed kittiwake. New research reveals that wind conditions combined with the availability of different prey species are determinants of chick production in this seabird.