Swarms of giant jellyfish are floating along the coastline of the Sea of Japan, and the damage they may cause to fisheries is feared to be the worst in more than a decade.

It is apparent that this area of coastline has experienced a sharp decline in its prawn populations. This may be due to increased fishing pressure from commercial prawn fishermen.

A self-cloning and invincible enemy invades coastal areas. The carpet sea squirt (Didemnum vexillum) or “marine vomit” have been observed nearby Stavanger and Bergen. Large yellow flakes has spread on the seabed and kills everything beneath. It may grow on boats and can spread along the coast.

When Kathleen Reed descended for her usual weekly dive off the coast of Nanaimo, B.C., last Saturday she was shocked by how many dead sea cucumbers she saw. Experts and harvesters fear that sea cucumbers are being hit by an illness similar to sea star wasting disease.

"This year I walked along the same route after a rainstorm and see only one or two — sometimes none"

Extreme drought in the west means that households with private waterworks are out of water. Elvar's dried up. "The situation is very serious," he says.

About 10% of our catch during dip net fishing at mouth of Kenai River was harboring these worms.

"While on a field trip for work, we stopped at the beach and you can notice hundreds of dead clams and star fish littering the beach."

Several people have fallen ill with food poisoning after eating shellfish in B.C. in the last 10 days, and health officials are warning that warm ocean waters might be to blame.

"The first wave of dead mussels washed ashore on July 14th, possibly earlier but this was the first report we received. I took the pictures included in my LEO observation on July 16th, and the temperatures were only just then beginning to climb into the upper 70s and lower 80s."

A European Skipper butterfly is observed in Northwest BC, an introduced species and one of several stressors underlying insect declines.

In Malahat Drive in BC, an extraordinary heat wave, combined with low tides during the middle of the day resulted in the die off of possibly billions of intertidal invertebrates along the coast of British Columbia and Washington State.

A record-shattering heat wave June 26-28 coincided with some of the year's lowest tides on Puget Sound. The combination was lethal for millions of mussels, clams, oysters, sand dollars, barnacles, sea stars, moon snails, and other tideland creatures exposed to three afternoons of intense heat.

The Southeast Alaska Tribal Ocean Research program found that all shellfish species in Settler's Cove and Seaport Beach in Ketchikan and Starrigavan North beach in Sitka are affected by high levels of Paralytic Shellfish Toxin, posing the risk of Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning for consumers.

Increasing blanket of mucus-like substance in water threatens coral and fishing industry

Thousands of euphausiid shrimp, the species identified here in Resurrection Bay as Thysanoessa spinifera. were washed into the intertidal zone and on the beach near Whittier

Last week, Alaska became one of at least 32 states to report finding zebra mussels in a product called moss balls which were sold at local pet stores.

"I've seen some way bigger than that, like a baby lobster."

Moss balls imported from Ukraine to pet shops in the United States have been found to house the invasive Zebra mussel. Once in bodies of water, this mussel reproduces rapidly and wreaks havoc on ecosystems.

For years, researchers thought an infectious pathogen was behind sea star wasting disease. A new study found that multiple species of bacteria deplete oxygen from the water effectively suffocating sea stars. These microbes thrive when there are high levels of organic matter in warm water and create the low oxygen conditions.