Staff

Three years ago tomorrow, Hurricane Katrina steamed through the Gulf Coast and left a trail of human and environmental suffering that is still largely unhealed. As Gustav eyes the Big Easy this week, I can't help but think back on my time as a New Orleans resident. From 2001-2005, I maintained the naive idea that "the big one" would always miss the city. In 2004 I waited out Hurricane Ivan at Igor's on St. Charles Avenue, sipping Bloody Marys and playing pool.

Katrina was big enough to expose the shoddy engineering and poor planning that plagued southeastern Louisiana three years ago. It's easy to get mad when I think about everything that went wrong, but a book I'm reading now is helping put things into better perspective by acknowledging the countless heroes who helped save people's lives and sanity.

By now you've probably seen yesterday’s Supreme Court decision, which reduced what had once been a $5 billion punitive damages award against Exxon Mobil for the 1989 oil spill to about $500 million.

In honor of World Ocean Day, June 8, Air America Radio's Clout with Richard Greene talked to Oceana CEO Andy Sharpless and Oceana board member/actor Ted Danson. Check it out!

Part 1 : Sharpless discusses the importance of World Ocean Day.
Part 2 : Sharpless explains Oceana's five major campaigns.
Part 3 : Freedivers Martin Stepanek and Niki Roderick talk about their personal connection to the ocean.
Part 4 : Ted Danson discusses his longtime commitment to ocean conservation.
Part 5 : Danson elaborates on the importance of sea conservation.

NBC Nightly News interviewed Oceana's Santi Roberts in a segment on overfishing. The piece also includes Oceana footage of a bottom trawler in action, mowing over an innocent octopus. Check it out.

Scientists are calling the rare giant squid found by a beach walker on a remote Australian shore "a whopper," and with a body

Oceana divers documenting the state of ecolog

Chinese exporters are up in arms over a U.S.

I've heard of a ghost fish, but "ghost fishing"? Turns out it doesn't even involve actual fish. ...

After a fishing boat pulls up anchor, the hooks and lines and nets lost or dumped into the ocean stay behind, for years even. Not only is that trash in our oceans, it's a threat to the surrounding marine life.

For instance, the unlucky seabirds that were living around a remote island off the coast of Scotland: They drowned in discarded fishing nets, scientists have pulled hooks and fishing line from their bellies. And it's still happening.

Everyone knows ocean pollution is rotten, but fishing can be pretty dirty too.

It's safe to say these whale watchers definitely got their money's worth, when one ostentatious 40-ton humpback whale opted to put on a little show. Lucky for us, a wildlife photographer happened to be aboard the boat off the coast of New South Wales.

No one knows for sure why whales perform these stunning aerial maneuvers, breeching the surface a rate of 25 feet per second. Some say it's a means of communicating with the rest of the pod, others say it helps with breathing, while others, still, say the big splash helps remove parasites from the skin.

For all their mystery and beauty, it's hard to believe some people still insist on hunting these often endangered or threatened creatures. Oceana continues to act as a watch dog in the open ocean, while on land we've successfully lobbied on behalf of many marine mammals, including whales, dolphins and sharks.