Help track down illegal fishing boats in Cocos Island, Costa Rica from your computer
Turtle Island Restoration Network announced on Tuesday a new pilot program to find illegal fishing vessels within the Marine Protected Area surrounding Cocos Island, Costa Rica. Turtle Island teamed up with DigitalGlobe’s crowdsourcing platform, Tomnod.com, to create one of the first crowd sourced, digital patrols of the marine hot-spot.
Five-inch plastic straw removed from nose of endangered sea turtle off Guanacaste coast in hard-to-watch video
A heartbreaking video making its rounds online today shows why plastic trash in the ocean is such a problem for marine wildlife.
Extremely rare octopus found only in Nicaragua stuns scientists
Panamanian biologist Arcadio Rodaniche first submitted a scientific description of a bizarre creature called the larger Pacific striped octopus in the 1980s. The animals, which he raised in a large saltwater pool, didn’t behave like any other known octopus. They appeared to be relatively social, with males and females sometimes living together in the same den and even sharing food, while also exhibiting other traits unheard-of amongst octopuses and other cephalopods, a group of invertebrates that includes squid and cuttlefish.
Worst drought in more than a century forces Panama Canal to reduce cargo limits
The Panama Canal said it will lower the maximum allowable draft of ships passing through the inter-oceanic waterway starting Sept. 8 due to an El Niño-triggered drought.
The measure will affect 18.5 percent of the ships that travel through the canal, according to the Panama Canal Authority, or ACP, which said it will not significantly affect “the efficiency and capacity” of the waterway’s operations.
While pledging carbon neutrality by 2021, Costa Rica still wants its billion-dollar oil refinery: can it have both?
Costa Rica’s plan to build a $1.5 billion oil refinery, a joint venture with China’s state-owned petroleum company China National Petroleum Corporation, continues to cast doubt on the country’s path toward a low-carbon future and the feasibility of its self-imposed goal of being carbon neutral by 2021.
‘El Niño’ currently affecting Central America could worsen, produce worst drought in 18 years, experts warn
The current ‘El Niño’ weather phenomenon could continue to worsen to produce the worst drought since 1997 along the Pacific coasts of Central America while simultaneously producing excessive rains in the Caribbean, according to experts who convened at the Central America Climate Forum held in Honduras recently.
In video address, four former Costa Rica presidents urge Legislature to pass Water Resources Act
In a videotaped address being circulated online, four former Costa Rican presidents – Luis Alberto Monge, Miguel Angel Rodriguez, Abel Pacheco and Laura Chinchilla – are urging the country’s Legislative Assembly to approve a bill known as the Water Resources Act.
Costa Rica sees increase in lightning strikes, experts blame El Niño
Costa Rica has witnessed a significant increase in recorded lightning strikes during June and July, according to sensors belonging to the Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE), and experts there believe the cause is the weather phenomenon known as El Niño.
