Latest Mediterranean Sea Stories

Italian environmental officials said the Mediterranean Sea is being invaded by two alien species each month. IRPA, Italy's marine environment protection agency, said the fish are coming from fish farms, the Atlantic Ocean and up the Suez Canal, ANSA reported Thursday. "The sea has been weakened by environmental stress and overfishing," research director Franco Andaloro told ANSA. Andaloro said the Mediterranean is the world's "most invaded" body of water, with barracudas, parrot fish and...

By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL By Elisabeth Rosenthal The New York Times BARCELONA, Spain Blue patrol boats crisscross the swimming areas of beaches here with their huge nets skimming the water's surface. The yellow flags that urge caution and the red flags that prohibit swimming because of risky currents are sometimes topped now with blue ones warning of a new danger: swarms of jellyfish. In a period of hours during a day a couple of weeks ago, 300 people on Barcelona's bustling beaches were...

A team of UK scientists has documented the affects of carbon dioxide on marine life.By studying naturally occurring carbon dioxide vents in the sea floor, researchers believe they were able to gauge how CO2 will impact marine life.Writing in the journal Nature, the scientists noted a declining number of species as well as snails with their shells disintegrating. They imply that these impacts could occur worldwide with the increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere.The team investigated these...

Giant bluefin tuna are in trouble, primarily because the powerful muscles that propel their extensive ocean migrations come with an Achilles' heel: They're tasty.Prized by sushi lovers for their savory succulence and by fishermen for the incomparable price they command - one 607-pound fish fetched over $90 per pound at a January auction in Tokyo - all three species of bluefins have seen their population plummet in the past 50 years thanks to worldwide demand.However, there is hope for...

ROME -- Climate change is affecting Europe faster than the rest of the world and rising temperatures could transform the Mediterranean into a salty and stagnant sea, Italian experts said Wednesday.Warmer waters and increased salinity could doom many of the sea's plant and animal species and ravage the fishing industry, warned participants at a two-day climate change conference that brought together some 2,000 scientists and officials in Rome."Europe and the Mediterranean are warming up...

BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Union's top fisheries official on Tuesday pressed for stronger protections for the overfished bluefin tuna, an increasingly rare delicacy in high-end restaurants around the world.EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg said he wants to extend the fishing offseason, reduce tuna sold on the black market, and impose new worldwide cuts in catch quotas as quickly as possible.The EU's 27 member states were expected to approve the measure within weeks, officials said.The...

By Hinrichsen, Don The Baltic Sea has a history of vital commercial importance to northern Europe and a rich tradition as a principal recreation region for the nine countries that border it. Now, with pollution having destroyed most of its plant and animal life, its survival is in serious doubt unless Scandinavian-led rescue efforts succeed. (ProQuest Information and Learning: ... denotes text missing in the original.) THE BALTIC SEA, WHICH LINKS NORTHERN EUROPE WITH Scandinavia, is a sea...

By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO (Reuters) - South American "Red Devil" squid found off Alaska and jellyfish plaguing the Mediterranean may point to vast disruptions in the seas linked to global warming, pollution or over-fishing, experts say. Fish such as salmon and mackerel have also been spotted in the Arctic, far north of their normal ranges, in a possible vanguard of wrenching billion-dollar shifts in world fish stocks this century caused by warming oceans. "There...

By Robin PomeroyFREGENE, Italy (Reuters) - Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water ...In the 1975 blockbuster film "Jaws" it was a great white shark which kept holidaymakers off the beach. It is a less lethal but perhaps equally worrying menace that has closed stretches of the Mediterranean to swimmers this summer: jellyfish and seaweed.Thousands of holidaymakers in parts of Italy and Spain have been told not to enter the water due to the threat of stings and...

By Robin PomeroyFREGENE, Italy -- Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water ...In the 1975 blockbuster film "Jaws" it was a great white shark which kept holidaymakers off the beach. It is a less lethal but perhaps equally worrying menace that has closed stretches of the Mediterranean to swimmers this summer: jellyfish and seaweed.Thousands of holidaymakers in parts of Italy and Spain have been told not to enter the water due to the threat of stings and poisoning...