Background Articles

NOAA Fisheries' summer trawl survey shows Norton Sound red king crab are moving, Arctic cod numbers have dropped significantly, and Pacific cod are continuing to increase as the Northern Bering Sea ecosystem undergoes drastic change.

The fast-warming Sea of Okhotsk, wedged between Russia and Japan, is a cautionary tale of the far-reaching consequences when climate dominoes begin to fall.

Alaska’s warming winters and the broader habitat for ticks in the Lower 48 and Canada may provide a channel for rarer types to get to Alaska and survive there.

Halifax-based scuba diver Lloyd Bond says in the last three years he's seen increasing numbers of butterfly fish, seahorses, cornet fish, trigger fish, puffer fish, and many other species not native to Canadian waters.

For example, when looking at water in some areas around St. Lawrence Island, from 2010 to 2017, the bottom temperature went up by eight degrees Celsius (about 14° Fahrenheit).

Somewhere between the size of a sewer rat and a beaver, with a tail resembling that of an opossum and protruding, nacho cheese-colored teeth, the nutria is both impressively unattractive and highly destructive.

These changes seem to be heralding population spikes and downturns for a number of species like walleye pollock and Pacific cod, and even more pronounced in small, fatty forage species.

Earth’s natural cycles can’t account for the recent warming seen over the past 100 years, new research suggests.

From California to Alaska, animals born during the infamous Blob are coming of age.

Grizzly bears sightings are on the rise on Vancouver Island, and experts have a few theories as to why this is happening.

The odds of an attack are low, experts say, yet their advice today is not to go into the ocean above your waist. Are our carefree swimming days over?

A researcher says her team couldn't believe the distance travelled.

Mexico has spent US$17 million to remove over a half-million tons of sargassum seaweed from its Caribbean beaches, and the problem doesn't seem likely to end any time soon.

A satellite-tracked Arctic fox stunned researchers by making a 3,500-kilometer trek across Arctic sea ice and glacier to travel from the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard to Canada’s Ellesmere Island in about two and a half months. “We first did not believe it was true,” rone of the researchers, Eva Fuglei, said about the amazing run

The glowing algae is suffocating sea life.

Two summers ago, federal scientists discovered something shocking: The Northern Bering Sea was teeming with cod and pollock. Those two commercially valuable species had never been found in such large huge numbers that far north.

'There's nothing good about them.' They carry disease and cause billions in damage

Scientists have identified a spike in ‘vagrant’ species of fish including damselfish, wrasse and triggerfish

The survey started in 1971 as a review of commercially important fish like cod and halibut, but has grown into an annual scientific assessment of all sea life hauled up from the deep.

A new study has documented unexpected consequences following the decline of great white sharks from an area off South Africa. The study found that the disappearance of great whites has led to the emergence of sevengill sharks, a top predator from a different habitat. A living fossil, sevengill sharks closely resemble relatives from the Jurassic period, unique for having seven gills instead of the typical five in most other sharks.