Where does half the world's plastic waste come from? 🧴
Plus extinct fish found alive, plastic bans and a better way to study microplastics
Hi everyone,
Welcome, as always, to this week’s new pod members. It’s lovely to see you here!
It’s been a busy week this week. I’ve been writing about Greenland sharks for Nat Geo and (obviously) immersing myself in the joy that is Eurovision (Iceland was robbed!). But let’s get to the ocean and what’s been happening under the water this week.
First of all, did you see this orca smacking right into a dolphin mid-breach? Yikes!
🦈 Sharks
Protect basking sharks: Campaigners are calling for legal protection for basking sharks in Ireland (RTE)
Magnetic journey: Experiments have confirmed that sharks navigate using the Earth’s magnetic field as a GPS (Sky News)
Drone findings: great white sharks come closer to the Pacific coast than previously thought (Oregon Live)
Andromache: An 11-foot great white has been hanging out around New York and, perhaps more importantly, the journo managed to use the pun ‘teenage shark-throb’ (New York Post)
Know someone who would be interested in the latest ocean conservation news? Share Baleen:
🐬🐙 Marine animals
Wally the Walrus: has now been seen in Cornish waters (MCS UK)
John Coe: new map compiles confirmed sightings of the famous killer whale including the recent first ever record off England (HWDT)
Salp snacks: New research suggests salps compete with protists for food, changing what we know about salp blooms (Phys.org)
Fossil fish: A fish that existed before the dinosaurs, which was believed to be extinct, has been found alive in the West Indian Ocean (Unilad)
🚯 Pollution
Plastic crisis: More than half of the world’s plastic waste is created by 20 firms, says the Plastic Waste Makers Index (Guardian / Minderoo Foundation)
Understanding microplastics: New method allows researchers to better study plastic marine pollution (Phys.org)
Don’t you know that you’re toxic? Plastic is now considered toxic in Canada (Canada’s National Observer)
No more: Turkey is to ban plastic waste imports (Southern Daily Echo)
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💰 Funding & opportunities
Ocean Leadership Microgrants: of up to $4k for young leaders (18—35) with high-impact small scale ocean sustainability projects (SO Alliance)
Fully-funded PhD opportunities: linking oceanography and animal tracking to predict fisheries bycatch of seabirds & turtles (USC)
Know someone who would love these opportunities? Share this post with them:
🐚🐠 Ecosystems
Protected planet: A UNEP / IUCN report reveals the world has made progress towards conservation targets but falls short when it comes to quality (UNEP)
Re:wild: Leonardo DiCaprio has pledged $43m for the protection of the Galápagos Islands (Guardian)
Galápagos collapse: the iconic Darwin’s Arch has collapsed into the sea (AlJazeera)
Net zero for nature: the UK government has promised a new environmental drive to address wildlife loss (BBC)
Protect Irish habitats: Campaigners are calling for Ireland to launch an ocean rewilding programme (The Times)
Multinational MPAs: a petition is calling for Ecuador, Costa Rica, Colombia, and Panama to establish a multinational MPA network (Only One)
Allen Coral Atlas: a new monitoring tool can determine whether corals under thermal stress have begun to bleach (Treehugger)
🎣 Fisheries
Fishing harbour: outrage about a Chinese deal to buy 250 acres of beach and rainforest in Sierra Leone to build a fishing port (CNBC)
Bycatch: new paper identifies fisheries whose fishing overlaps with dolphin bycatch (Frontiers)
❄️ Ice, ice, baby
Tip of the iceberg: we may be approaching a major tipping point for Greenland’s ice sheet (Guardian)
Bigger than Majorca: a new iceberg has broken off the Antarctic shelf. Now the world’s largest (New Scientist), it may drift through the ocean for years (Phys.org)
That’s all for this week, folks. Thanks for reading!
PSA: My comms consultancy and copywriting services are now getting booked up into June but, if you’re interested in working together, do get in touch to discuss projects from late June / July and beyond! 🤓
Melissa
Baleen is provided completely free each week to help you keep on top of the latest marine conservation news - if you find it useful or enjoyable, shout me a coffee (thanks!)