Marine Life

Marine scientists have discovered hundreds of new animal species on reefs in Australian waters, including brilliant soft corals and tiny crustaceans, according to findings released Thursday. The creatures were found during expeditions run by the Australian chapter of CReefs, a global census of coral reefs that is one of several projects of the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to catalog all life in the oceans. Among the creatures researchers found were about 130 soft corals -- also known as octocorals, for the eight tentacles that fringe each polyp -- that have never been described in scientific literature, and scores of similarly undocumented crustaceans, including tiny shrimplike animals with claws longer than their bodies.

PROVIDENCIALES, Turks and Caicos Islands - Sixty feet below the surface of the aquamarine western Atlantic, my 12-year-old daughter, Maddie, glided gently along the reef, her arms crossed in Buddha-like meditation. To the left, where the sea dropped off hundreds of feet, a black-tipped shark cruised ominously in the distance. A curious parrot fish, a school of yellow-striped grunts and a bug-eyed squirrel fish swam an arm's length away, perhaps hoping for a handout from our group of six divers and our guide.

As the wind propelled the Robert C. Seamans toward Santa Catalina Island, Rudy Vigil controlled the helm of the 135-foot, $8.1-million ship. Rudy is 17, with a ring in his eyebrow and a stud in his nose. The last thing the high school senior from Wilmington steered was a Honda Civic. Rudy was seasick for most of the 10 days he and 20 other students cruised the California coast with the Sea Education Assn.

A sub-Mediterranean climate in Canada ? Yes, indeed. And that makes Pender Island , a tranquil spot in British Columbia's Gulf Islands, a multi-season getaway. The destination is full of bed-and-breakfasts and boutiques and offers a bounty of outdoor recreational opportunities. Pender Island is just four miles north of Stuart Island, one of Washington state's San Juan Islands, and is popular with Canadians but little known by Americans. Canada's maple leaf flag flutters in the ocean breezes on what, despite the name, are two islands linked by a narrow, one-lane bridge.

As a chief boatswain's mate yelled one of the most unusual orders ever heard aboard ship--"Release the whale!"--the California gray whale named J.J. was lowered gently into calm seas Tuesday two miles off the San Diego coast. The 19,200-pound, 31-foot-long mammal--the largest ever kept in captivity--initially began swimming back to San Diego.

"DIVING FOR PEARLS," New Marines. American. As this EP's title track shows, the Pasadena sextet can write some pretty impressive pop-rock songs. Centered around the aggressive guitar of Pierre Smith and the hard, steady beat of drummer John Chamberlin, "Diving for Pearls" is the type of track that can propel a band from the underground to the foreground.

The big heat gripping Southern California leaves me daydreaming about big ocean adventures, like this one in Honolulu. It's described as an underwater scooter and snorkeling experience in Maunalua Bay, where you can see fish and sea turtles up close. For a limited time, the excursion is on sale for $99 per person, courtesy of Travelzoo . The deal: The Travelzoo discount cuts the cost of this two-hour excursion in half. As always, you purchase a voucher that can be redeemed with the dive company Island Water Sports based in Honolulu.

We are two students from Shorecliffs Middle School in San Clemente. We have been studying the future of marine life in the face of the growing water pollution problem. We would like to express our concern regarding this topic. Although it is illegal to dump any trash into the ocean, the growing number of plastics in the ocean have threatened marine life. Sea gulls, seals, fish, and other marine animals often become entangled in the synthetic nets of fishermen and plastic six-pack rings.

I don't see the need for the Malibu Marine Refuge ("A Line in the Sand," Aug. 6), or for a fishing ban in these waters. I have been diving in Malibu for five years and have found no evidence that there is an overfishing problem. The real environmental problems of the Malibu coast are sewage and encroaching development. Breakwaters contribute to the erosion that robs beaches of their sand. Houses are built on stilts all the way to the waterline. Malibu could be a place where people from Los Angeles enjoy the wonderful Pacific Coast ecosystem, if it were not for the eagerness of the local residents to block access to the beaches.

Masses of plankton, dying as global warming heats the waters off the Seychelles, are threatening marine life in the Indian Ocean tourist haven, a government official said. The decaying plankton depletes the oxygen in sea water and suffocates other marine life. The resulting sludge also turns the Seychelles' turquoise waters green as algae feast on the plankton.

This is the strange story of the California sheephead - a strikingly colored fish that swims in the kelp forests and can grow to nearly 3 feet long - as told to me by a marine scientist when I was training to volunteer at the local tide pools. To keep the sheephead stocks healthy, the state set a minimum size for those that could be caught. But over time, experts noticed that the average size of the adults was shrinking. It was an undesirable and unintended consequence of the rules: Smaller sheephead were thrown back into the water.

Surviving budget cuts, mobs of angry fishermen and death threats, California officials today completed the largest network of undersea parks in the continental United States - 848 square miles of protected waters that reach from the Oregon state line to the Mexican border. The final segment of marine reserves, along the state's north coast, becomes official today. Its 137 square miles of protected waters reflect an unusual agreement reached among Native American tribes, conservation groups and fishermen to preserve tribal traditions while protecting marine life from exploitation.

CAMP PENDLETON - Marine Cpl. Roberto Cazarez applied for U.S. citizenship shortly before he deployed for combat duty in Afghanistan. The expedited process allows enlistees who are permanent legal residents, like Cazarez was, to go to the head of the line for citizenship. Cazarez's application was pending at U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services when he was killed by a roadside bomb blast in March, just weeks before his battalion was due to return to Camp Pendleton. On Thursday, in a short but emotional ceremony, Cazarez's widow was presented with a certificate indicating that her husband had been posthumously awarded his U.S. citizenship, retroactive to the day that he was killed.

In the wake of the Fukushima nuclear disaster, it's imperative for California to have more definitive knowledge about the seismic hazards near the Diablo Canyon Power Plant. An additional fault in the area was only recently discovered, and more seismological information is needed about existing faults. Technology has improved tremendously since the nuclear plant began operating in 1985, and license renewal for its two reactors - a process that takes years - shouldn't go forward without this information.

"Buoyancy," a thoughtful selection of work by the late James Fee (1949-2006), explores the photographer's longstanding attraction to water and the sea. In Fee's moody, mostly black and white images of boats, ships, docks, bridges, islands, marine life and bubbling surf -- drawn from various series dating from 1992 to 2003 -- the show traces a poignant emotional undercurrent, one governed, in large part, by a fraught relationship with a troubled father....

The big heat gripping Southern California leaves me daydreaming about big ocean adventures, like this one in Honolulu. It's described as an underwater scooter and snorkeling experience in Maunalua Bay, where you can see fish and sea turtles up close. For a limited time, the excursion is on sale for $99 per person, courtesy of Travelzoo . The deal: The Travelzoo discount cuts the cost of this two-hour excursion in half. As always, you purchase a voucher that can be redeemed with the dive company Island Water Sports based in Honolulu.

After more than a year of study, a citizens advisory panel deadlocked Wednesday over two competing visions for managing waters rich in marine life that surround the Channel Islands. The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary is the first of a dozen ocean sanctuaries nationwide to undergo boundary revisions attempting to balance the protection of marine life with economic concerns.

The Aquarium of the Pacific may finally get a direct line to the ocean. For years the Long Beach attraction has filled its complex of fish tanks and marine habitats with saltwater delivered by tanker truck or barge at a cost of up to $500,000 a year. Now, the aquarium and the city of Long Beach want to draw water directly from the sea, sucking in 50,000 gallons a day with a pump mounted under a fishing pier at the mouth of the Los Angeles River. The California Coastal Commission is recommending approval of the aquarium's new seawater intake system, with the panel scheduled to vote on the plan at its meeting Wednesday in Santa Cruz.

"I've always been kind of a shill," says Ted Danson. "The guy out in front of the tent saying, 'Thank you so much for watching "Cheers," come on in and let me introduce you to the marine biologists who have something really important to tell you.'" The former Sam Malone might seem an unlikely environmental activist, but Ted Danson has quietly been advocating on behalf of our oceans for 25 years. Now he has taken his commitment to a new place: bookshelves. His recently released first book, "Oceana: Our Endangered Oceans and What We Can Do To Save Them" (co-written with Michael D'Orso, Rodale, $32.50)