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Gold Coast, Australia (Reuters) — A white humpback whale was spotted swimming off Australia’s Gold Coast on Tuesday (July 11). Authorities believe it may be a white whale called “Migaloo,” making its annual migration towards the Great Barrier Reef. Migaloo’s name is an indigenous word meaning white person, Australian media reported. Up to 5,000 humpbacks migrate north up Australia’s east coast between April and August each year from waters in the Antarctic to feed and breed […]
by Martin Parry Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s under-pressure Great Barrier Reef is an asset worth Aus$56 billion (US$42 billion) and as an ecosystem and economic driver is “too big to fail”, a study said Monday. The World Heritage-listed reef is the largest living structure on Earth and its economic and social value was calculated for the first time in the Deloitte Access Economics report commissioned by the Great Barrier Reef […]
PARIS, France (AFP) — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef may never recover from last year’s warming-driven coral bleaching, said a study Wednesday that called for urgent action in the face of ineffective conservation efforts. Record-high temperatures in 2015 and 2016 drove an unprecedented bleaching episode, which occurs when stressed corals expel the algae that live in their tissue and provide them with food. Bleached coral is more susceptible to disease, and without sufficient time to recover […]
by Glenda KWEK Agence France Presse SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is experiencing an unprecedented second straight year of mass coral bleaching, scientists said Friday, warning many species would struggle to fully recover. The 2,300-kilometre (1,400-mile) reef suffered its most severe bleaching on record last year due to warming sea temperatures during March and April. Bleaching is once again occurring, the government’s Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority said after an aerial […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — A massive underwater landslide that could have triggered a towering tsunami some 300,000 years ago has been discovered in the depths of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, scientists said Wednesday. The ancient landslide, likely caused by a strong earthquake that could have generated a tsunami wave 27 meters (90 feet) high, was discovered unexpectedly by researchers conducting three-dimensional mapping of the seafloor around the world’s biggest reef. Scientists had already located eight […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Two French tourists died Wednesday while snorkelling at a popular tourist spot on the Great Barrier Reef in Australia, authorities said. The man and woman, reportedly in their 60s, were spotted floating in the water at Michaelmas Cay, a reef-ringed sand island near Cairns, by staff working for dive company Passions of Paradise, chief executive Scotty Garden said. “The Passions of Paradise lookout on the beach noticed a man floating in […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — More corals are dying and others are succumbing to disease and predators after the worst-ever bleaching on Australia’s iconic Great Barrier Reef, scientists said Wednesday. A swathe of corals bleached in the northern third of the 2,300-kilometre (1,429-mile) long biodiverse site off the Queensland state coast died after an unprecedented bleaching earlier this year as sea temperatures rose. And researchers who returned to the region to survey the area this month said […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Australia Thursday admitted more needs to be done to protect the Great Barrier Reef from pollution after a government-backed report painted a bleak picture of the natural wonder. The giant ecosystem is under pressure from farming run-off, development, the coral-eating crown-of-thorns starfish and the impacts of climate change, which saw mass a bleaching event this year that killed swathes of coral. Canberra insists it is doing more than ever before to […]
SYDNEY, Australia (AFP) — Coral fish become stressed and lose weight if they are separated from each other, hampering their chances of survival, an Australian study revealed Thursday. Scientists from James Cook University in Queensland state monitored blue-green damselfish from the Great Barrier Reef, isolating some, while allowing others to remain in their shoals to better understand why they prefer to socialise. Lauren Nadler, lead author of the study published in the Journal of Experimental […]
LIZARD ISLAND, Australia (Reuters) — Australia’s Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Monday (June 13) pledged $1 billion in assistance for the ailing Great Barrier Reef if his government is re-elected next month. Speaking in Townsville in North Queensland, Turnbull said if his government is returned to power after the July 2 election he would instruct Australia’s Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) to redirect $1 billion of it $10 billion fund towards a loans scheme aimed […]
JUNE 30 (Reuters) — UNESCO is expected to announce on Wednesday (July 1) whether it is going to place the Great Barrier Reef, which is larger than the United Kingdom, Holland and Switzerland combined, on a list of endangered World Heritage sites, a move the Australian government wants to avoid at all costs. Australian government ministers have been lobbying hard overseas since a warning by the UN body was released saying the reef risked a […]
Australia green lights the dumping of dredged mud near the Great Barrier Reef to open up the world’s largest coal port.
