Alert Diver Category: Water Planet

Overfishing can cause irreversible damage to local ecosystems. Learn more about overfishing and how to combat it.

Many divers top off a trip to the Southern Red Sea by watching a rotund dugong snuffle through seagrass meadows in about 25 feet (7.6 meters) of water.

Menhaden, also known as bunker, are forage fish that play a critical role in the ocean food web. They are a vital source of food for wildlife up and down North America’s Atlantic seaboard. But their population management ignores the importance of the food web. Learn more and what you can do.

The stakes were high at the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) meeting this spring. On the table were the fates of manta rays and five species of shark.

For more than five years, divers and scientists along the U.S. West Coast have watched a disaster play out before their eyes. Sunflower sea stars fell victim to a wasting disease, which wiped out roughly 90 percent of the global population in 2013. Seven years later, scientists see no signs of recovery. Without the sea stars, the population of purple urchins that sea stars eat has exploded and mowed down entire forests of bull kelp. The West Coast experienced intense ocean warming from 2014 to 2017, and by 2015 divers began seeing urchin barrens — vast swaths covered in piles of spiny creatures and little else.

Coral reefs are facing many environmental challenges, and cruise ships are a major contributor. One of these ships’ greatest impacts is starting to muddy the water.

Legislation was proposed that could lead to the degradation of marine environments through overfishing and limiting transparency. Read more about how divers can help save the oceans.

Ocean activists, divers and other passionate individuals, often come to Washington, D.C. to show support for a variety of marine initiatives. The 2018 March for the Ocean made a splash.

Fishing gear debris is unfortunately common in the waters surrounding Hawaii, and it threatens green sea turtles and the endangered Hawaiian monk seal. Volunteer divers, however, have come together to restore these waters.

Global fisheries may need to change their practices to accommodate for some newly found data on reproductive fish females. Implemented changes could greatly impact the world’s food supply.