In what looks like a pile of rocks in Shark Bay, UNSW scientists have discovered a hidden clue to how the ancestors of plants and animals may have first evolved.

From seahorses to sharks, more than 3,000 fish species have been caught in bottom trawls, including many at risk of extinction, according to a new global inventory. 

Each winter, thousands of blacktip sharks crowd South Florida’s clear, shallow shoreline—just as beach nourishment projects churn the water into murky plumes. In one of the most detailed studies to date, FAU researchers used aerial surveys and underwater cameras to track sediment clouds and shark activity. They found sharks cluster close to shore, where turbidity can stretch for miles, clouding visibility, disrupting feeding, and potentially shifting behavior—raising new concerns for marine ecosystems and human safety.

FIU researchers are studying how great hammerhead sharks engage in a “thermal hustle,” maintaining peak hunting performance across a wide range of ocean temperatures.

At a UN wildlife conference in Brazil, governments agreed to extend protections to 40 additional migratory species, including populations of cheetahs, snowy owls, and several shark species, bringing total coverage under the Convention on Migratory Species to 1,200+ species. The meeting highlighted accelerating declines driven by habitat loss, climate change, overexploitation, and pollution, prompting new action plans, regional initiatives, and calls for stronger international cooperation and integration of Indigenous knowledge. Leaders stressed that real conservation outcomes will depend on turning agreements into on-the-ground action before the next summit in Bonn in 2029.

A major UN conference on migratory species opens today in Brazil amid new reports that almost half (49%) of all species with protection under the Convention on Migratory Species have negative population trends, and nearly one in four are threatened with extinction due to a combination of overexploitation, habitat destruction, pollution, climate change, and invasive species.

Writing in Frontiers in Marine Science, researchers recently shared the results of remote stereo camera observations of pelagic thresher sharks in the Central Visayan Sea. It is the first attempt using stereo videography, a non-invasive method, to assess a vulnerable population of these sharks. Models indicated that one third of the mean fishing pressures observed on thresher sharks in nearby habitats would be sustainable for the sharks in the study region. Beyond this number, the removal of more thresher sharks would result in population decline.