Admiralty law or maritime law is a body of law that governs nautical issues and private maritime disputes. Admiralty law consists of both domestic law on maritime activities, and private international law governing the relationships between private parties operating or using ocean-going ships. While each legal jurisdiction usually has its own legislation governing maritime matters, the international nature of the topic and the need for uniformity has, since 1900, led to considerable international maritime law developments, including numerous multilateral treaties.
The Lombok Strait, is a strait of the Bali Sea connecting to the Indian Ocean, and is located between the islands of Bali and Lombok in Indonesia. The Gili Islands are on the Lombok side.
The North Atlantic right whale is a baleen whale, one of three right whale species belonging to the genus Eubalaena, all of which were formerly classified as a single species. Because of their docile nature, their slow surface-skimming feeding behaviors, their tendencies to stay close to the coast, and their high blubber content, right whales were once a preferred target for whalers. At present, they are among the most endangered whales in the world, and they are protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and Marine Mammal Protection Act and Canada's Species at Risk Act. There are an estimated 356 individuals in existence in the western North Atlantic Ocean—they migrate between feeding grounds in the Labrador Sea and their winter calving areas off Georgia and Florida, an ocean area with heavy shipping traffic. In the eastern North Atlantic, on the other hand—with a total population reaching into the low teens at most—scientists believe that they may already be functionally extinct. Vessel strikes and entanglement in fixed fishing gear, which together account for nearly half of all North Atlantic right whale mortality since 1970, are their two greatest threats to recovery.
The Channel Islands National Marine Sanctuary is a sanctuary off the coast of Santa Barbara and Ventura counties in Southern California 350 miles (563 km) south of San Francisco and 95 miles (153 km) north of Los Angeles. It was designated on October 2, 1980, by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and was expanded in 2007.
The false killer whale is a species of oceanic dolphin that is the only extant representative of the genus Pseudorca. It is found in oceans worldwide but mainly in tropical regions. It was first described in 1846 as a species of porpoise based on a skull, which was revised when the first carcasses were observed in 1861. The name "false killer whale" comes from having a skull similar to the orca, or killer whale.
The International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea 1972, also known as Collision Regulations (COLREGs), are published by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) and set out, among other things, the "rules of the road" or navigation rules to be followed by ships and other vessels at sea to prevent collisions between two or more vessels. COLREGs can also refer to the specific political line that divides inland waterways, which are subject to their own navigation rules, and coastal waterways which are subject to international navigation rules. They are derived from a multilateral treaty called the Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea, also known as Collision Regulations of 1960.
Cetacean surfacing behaviour is a grouping of movement types that cetaceans make at the water's surface in addition to breathing. Cetaceans have developed and use surface behaviours for many functions such as display, feeding and communication. All regularly observed members of the order Cetacea, including whales, dolphins and porpoises, show a range of surfacing behaviours.
Cetacean bycatch is the accidental capture of non-target cetaceans such as dolphins, porpoises, and whales by commercial fisheries. Bycatch can be caused by entanglement in fishing nets and lines, or direct capture by hooks or in trawl nets.
Ship stability is an area of naval architecture and ship design that deals with how a ship behaves at sea, both in still water and in waves, whether intact or damaged. Stability calculations focus on centers of gravity, centers of buoyancy, the metacenters of vessels, and on how these interact.
Ship grounding or ship stranding is the impact of a ship on seabed or waterway side. It may be intentional, as in beaching to land crew or cargo, and careening, for maintenance or repair, or unintentional, as in a marine accident. In accidental cases, it is commonly referred to as "running aground".
The environmental impact of shipping include air pollution, water pollution, acoustic, and oil pollution. Ships are responsible for more than 18% of nitrogen oxides pollution, and 3% of greenhouse gas emissions.
The Shōnan Maru 2 is a Japanese security vessel, operated by the Japanese Fisheries Agency.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society engages in various demonstrations, campaigns, and tactical operations at sea and elsewhere, including conventional protests and direct actions to protect marine wildlife. Sea Shepherd operations have included interdiction against commercial fishing, shark poaching and finning, seal hunting and whaling. Many of their activities have been called piracy or terrorism by their targets and by the ICRW. Sea Shepherd says that they have taken more than 4,000 volunteers on operations over a period of 30 years.
The Alfaguara project is a marine life conservation project operated from Puñihuil in the northwest of Chiloé Island, the main island in the Chiloé Archipelago in southern Chile.
As of December 6, 2013, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) have established a final rule in which eliminates sunset provision or the expiration date for regulations regarding vessels traveling in the Atlantic. To reduce fatal ship collisions, these required restrictions include speed limits of no more than 10-knots for vessels of 65 feet or greater in certain locations and at certain times of the year along the east coast of the U.S. Atlantic seaboard.
The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) established a rule in 2008 to implement vessel speed restrictions of 10 knots or less on ships 65 ft (20 m) or longer in various locations along the East Coast of the United States. The purpose of the regulations was to reduce the probability of deaths and injuries to endangered North Atlantic right whales due to collisions with ships. The rule was enacted December 9, 2008.
Rice's whale, also known as the Gulf of Mexico whale, is a species of baleen whale endemic to the northern Gulf of Mexico. Initially identified as a subpopulation of the Bryde's whale, genetic and skeletal studies found it to be a distinct species by 2021. In outward appearance, it is virtually identical to the Bryde's whale. Its body is streamlined and sleek, with a uniformly dark charcoal gray dorsal and pale to pinkish underside. A diagnostic feature often used by field scientists to distinguish Rice's whales from whales other than the Bryde's whale is the three prominent ridges that line the top of its head. The species can be distinguished from the Bryde's whale by the shape of the nasal bones, which have wider gaps due to a unique wrapping by the frontal bones, its unique vocal repertoire, and genetic differences.
Natacha Aguilar de Soto is a Spanish marine biologist at the University of La Laguna (ULL), Tenerife, Canary Islands. She is a Ramón y Cajal research and teaching fellow at ULL and has been a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research Fellow at ULL and at the Center for Research in Ecological Modeling (CREEM) of the University of St. Andrews (SMRU). She is the director of cetacean research within ULL's BIOECOMAC.
Southeast Asia is home to a diverse marine environment. The region is host to extensive coral reefs, mangroves and seagrass beds, and has even been described as the Amazon rainforest of the ocean. The region is estimated to contain approximately 35% of the world’s mangrove species and over 45% of the world’s seagrass species. The shipping industry has multiple damaging impacts on marine habitats and wildlife, such as pollution from port actives, oil spills ballast and bilge discharge, waste dumping from ships and direct physical impact from grounding and anchor damage.
Mediterranean cetaceans constitute a unique assemblage of species found in the virtually closed basin of the Mediterranean Sea. This assemblage differs from those found in the North Atlantic or the Red Sea. In the Mediterranean, cetaceans are represented by around twenty species, but only eight of these are considered common: the Short-beaked dolphin, Common dolphin, Bottlenose dolphin, Risso's dolphin, Long-finned pilot whale, Cuvier's beaked whale, Sperm whale and Fin whale. Their distribution varies greatly from region to region, and their abundance and diversity seem to be greatest in the Corso-Liguro-Provençal basin, where cetaceans have been protected by the Pelagos Sanctuary since 2002.
