Coastal & Marine Conservation

Since 2004, an international testing program has certified 53 shipboard treatment systems as meeting ballast water discharge standards, including limits on certain microbes to prevent the spread of human pathogens. We determined how frequently certification tests failed a minimum requirement for a meaningful evaluation, that the concentration of microbes in the untreated (control) discharge must exceed the regulatory limit for treated discharges.

Anchorage Coastal Cleanup Day is an annual event and this year Lyn Ary Park and Point Woronzof were the focus of the clean up efforts for young and old.Volunteers wore gloves and Xtratufs as they combed Anchorage’s coastline for broken glass, nails and other trash Sunday morning. “It’s appalling, I don’t know why people do it,” said Laura Hartz, who was out with her young son. The glass and nails were the obvious items being collected. There was also old clothing, cans and linoleum.

Scientists did not always know how dolphins came to be stranded, but a new study shows that clues about survival rates after release may be found in the marine mammal's blood. Published in Marine Mammal Science, the study looked at the blood work of common dolphins and compared it to their survival rates after release - a relatively easy and simple method of determining which dolphins are tough enough to survive on their own.

They're the blue blobs ­unnerving swimmers on [Australia's] Gold Coast beaches. The catostylus mosaics jellyfish, which have been spotted washed up on local beaches and floating in ­waterways over the past two weeks, aren’t new to the Coast and there’s little risk of harm. ... American biodiversity scientist Dr Healy Hamilton had to battle through the jellies to do research in the Broadwater for the past week. “It was like we had to swim through clouds of ­jellyfish to find seahorses and pipefish,” she said.

Ayana Johnson's paper "Time preferences and the management of coral reef fisheries" is on ConservationBytes.com's list of influential conservation papers of 2014. Read more

The nonprofit Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education has received a $2 million grant that will be used to expand the institute’s facility on Great Wass Island.

Chuck Striplen has been appointed to the Science Advisory Team for California's Ocean Protection Council. He is one of the first tribal representatives at this level ever in California.

To conservationist Ayana Elizabeth Johnson, getting coastal communities involved in plans to protect their waters is critical for protecting the planet's oceans. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, she talks about her work in one Caribbean island and how it shows how such a strategy can get results.