Background Articles

When sea otters in Alaska were diagnosed with phocine distemper virus (PDV) in 2004, scientists were confused. The pathogen in the Morbillivirus genus that contains viruses like measles had then only been found in Europe and on the eastern coast of North America.

Regulations have lowered mercury emissions globally, but the risks to ocean ecosystems and human health may be getting worse.

The grey seal population has grown by an average of five percent annually since the turn of the millennium.

The animal die-offs offer the world a stark example of the perils of rising ocean temperatures, which already are upending parts of the Bering Sea ecosystem.

Chukotka officials propose to classify polar bear sightings in populated areas as emergencies to mobilize resources for managing these situations.

Conservation groups are calling for the immediate closure of the herring fishery in the Strait of Georgia following the release of new federal government data showing a four-year population biomass decline of almost 60 per cent. “We’ve been systematically overfishing these stocks and the Gulf of Georgia fishery is the last one left,” Pacific Wild...

Cook Inlet Keeper and the Center for Biological Diversity have sued the Federal Government over issuing permits to Hilcorp .

Waters off the coast of Maine are warming faster than 99 percent of the world's oceans. That's forcing whales northward in pursuit of prey, threatening some of their already dwindling populations.

The federal agency tasked to manage ice seals this week declared an Unusual Mortality Event, UME for short, for bearded, ringed and spotted seals in the Bering and Chukchi seas.

U.S. government biologists are investigating the deaths of nearly 300 Arctic ice seals found on Alaska beaches since last summer.

Since June 1 2018, NOAA has received reports of 282 dead ice seals in the Bering and Chukchi seas. NOAA said they typically receive reports of about 29 ice seal strandings a year.

Nuiqsut's Napageak crew, captained by Thomas Napageak, landed the very first bowhead of the season on Aug. 29. It was a 29.5 foot whale.

The top of the world saw record-beating average temperatures flashing through all three summer months.

Two separate pods of pilot whales have gotten beached on Icelandic shores this summer, RÚV reports, leading experts to apprise locals of how best they can respond to such situations. Marine biologist Edda Elísabet Magnúsdóttir says that such beachings are becoming a yearly occurrence – an indirect result of warming ocean temperatures – and likely […]

We isolated Japanese encephalitis virus (JEV) from brain samples of 2 seals with lethal encephalitis at Weihai Aquarium, Weihai, China, in 2017. We confirmed our findings by immunohistochemical staining and electron microscopy. Phylogenetic analysis showed this virus was genotype I. Our findings suggest that JEV might disseminate though infected zoo animals.

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.

During a workshop in Nome this week, scientists and residents discussed algal toxins’ role in the changing Bering Sea ecosystem.

As Arctic sea ice melts, polar bears are spending more time near the Alaska North Slope village of Kaktovik. Now, federal prosecutors have charging a whaling captain there with killing one in violation of the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

No whaling will take place in Icelandic waters this summer, it has been confirmed. The news is not the result of government intervention, but rather of commercial concerns. This will be the first time in 17 years that there will be no whaling.