News and views from the world of marine heritage and conservation
Call to ban supertrawlers
Hammerhead vision
Treasure wreck revisited
ENVIRONMENT
Protect Our Seas
News and views from the world of marine heritage and conservation
X-rays of a bonnethead shark
Call to ban supertrawlers
Environmental activist group Greenpeace has been using tracking data to reveal how much time industrial supertrawlers spent in UK waters between 2020 and early 2025. The group says it found evidence of 26 supertrawlers( industrial fishing vessels 100m or more in length) in the UK’ s protected waters. Greenpeace’ s data suggests they collectively spent 36,918 hours fishing in 44 UK Marine Protected Areas( MPAs).“ Most shockingly, all those supertrawlers were operating legally, because the government hasn’ t banned destructive fishing in areas that have been identified as vulnerable or in need of protection,” a Greenpeace spokesman said. Greenpeace is calling for a complete ban on industrial-level fishing in all 44 UK MPAs.
Hammerhead vision
Scientists at Florida Atlantic University compared the visual fields of three species of hammerhead shark for a new study on binocular vision. Michelle McComb of Florida Atlantic University compared the visual fields of the winghead, the bonnethead and the scalloped hammerhead with those of two other shark species. After implanting electrodes into the sharks’ eyes, the researchers moved a beam of light across them until the eyes no longer demonstrated electrical activity. This allowed them to measure each eye’ s field of vision, from which they calculated each species’‘ binocular overlap’. They concluded that sharks with wider heads have better binocular vision – all the better to track fast-moving prey with far more accuracy than sharks with close-set eyes.
PHOTO: GREENPEACE
Treasure wreck revisited
Archaeologists have recounted the story of a famous treasure wreck, discovered by miners in a desert on the coast of Namibia. It is believed to be the wreck of the Bom Jesus, a Portuguese ship that got caught in a storm while travelling from Lisbon to India in 1533.
It seemed to have disappeared until the remains were finally discovered by diamond miners in 2008, along with a cache of gold coins then worth £ 10 million.
Dr Dieter Noli, chief archaeologist of
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