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Here's one for the dustbin of history: This week, Australian authorities confirmed that one of the world's most infamous pirate fishing vessels was scrapped in a shipyard in India in December.

The Viarsa 1 was first spied illegally catching Patagonian toothfish (better known in restaurants as Chilean sea bass) in Australian waters in 2003. The resulting pursuit (scroll down for daily updates) by patrol vessels lasted 21 days and crossed 3900 nautical miles, inspiring Wall Street Journal reporter G. Bruce Knecht's acclaimed book, "Hooked: Pirates, Poaching and the Perfect Fish."

Many ships that participate in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing in the Southern Ocean are owned by Spanish companies, including Viarsa 1, and fly under flags of convenience. The owner of Viarsa 1, Vidal Armadores S.A., still owns several pirate ships. Just last summer, the company's ship Magnus was apprehended while using illegal fishing gear in South Africa. The ship was sailing under the name Ina Maka with a North Korean flag.

It may go without saying that Vidal Armadores S.A. has received support in the form of subsidies from the Spanish government.

There is a way to clamp down on IUU fishing: stop allowing ships to fly flags of convenience. In addition, ships that have been caught pirating should not be allowed to obtain special fishing permits. Currently, the European Union is considering such a measure.

...scientists found that up to 6,000 metric tons of sunscreen washes off swimmers annually, and that the sunscreen contains chemicals that lead to bleaching corals. They estimated that up to 10 percent of corals were threatened by sunscreen-related bleaching...

..the Central Valley, California chinook salmon run, which had historically been one of the West Coast's strongest, fell to record lows this year, prompting concerns about collapse...

...researchers in North Carolina studied how to raise fish for consumption in tanks....

...a seafood consumer center in Oregon prepped for a program that would attach bar codes to salmon, allowing consumers to learn who caught the fish, where it was caught, and how it traveled to market...

...a wetlands restoration project near San Diego passed a milestone when its newly dredged basin was opened to the Pacific. It is hoped the area will become habitat for halibut, grunion, and bass, among other species...

...a study commissioned by the New York Times found mercury levels in city sushi far about recommended limits. A report released by Oceana found similar results in tuna sampled around the country...

...Ecuadorian authorities investigated the clubbing deaths of more than 50 sea lions on the Galapagos Islands...

...several cosmetics companies, including Unilever and L'Oreal, agreed to end the use of an emollient, squalene, that is obtained from the livers of deep sea sharks...

...and fifteen years after a Japanese six-year-old girl released a letter inside a balloon, a fisherman discovered it among his flatfish catch.

Sea horses aren't the only species in which the male carries the offspring. The sea dragon and the pipefish also have males carry the developing eggs. They're all members of the family Syngnathidae.

Is your head still reeling over whether it's safe to consume tuna sushi and other fish without interfering with your child's neurological development?

Don't let some lobbyist or even some environmentalist make the decision for you -- weigh the results of the most recent mercury investigation for yourself!

And while you're doing your homework, consider this: Sen. John Kerry says he's given up sushi all together after learning his mercury levels tested sky-high a few months back. So maybe it's about time fanatic proponents of fish give up their tuna as propaganda rhetoric. After all public health is at stake (and Kerry is merely a case in point).

And furthermore, the consolidated opinion of 20-plus doctors and scientists is not listed as a definition for propaganda. I checked.

Fishermen in Bangladesh spotted a Ganges River dolphin, a cetacean rarely sighted because it only surfaces on occasion to breathe, and what did they do? They beat the mammal to death hoping they could sell it as a "rare fish."

The news comes only a couple days after BBC News reported that the river dolphins of Bangladesh are "at risk."

The article I read today didn't specify who the fishermen were attempting to sell the dead dolphin to. It was reportedly taken to a museum visitor's center where it will be prepared for an exhibit.

I'm not too sure why the fishermen's first instinct was to kill the rare find. The animals are endangered. The fishermen gained nothing from it. I'm interested to find out if anyone bothers to punish them. CNN didn't say.

Most shark "attacks" on humans are a mistake, which is why there are so many more bites than fatalities. There are around 350 species of sharks but white, tiger and bull sharks (not nurse sharks like the one in this pic) are the species responsible for the majority of all attacks.

Unilever, an international manufacturer of leading brands in food, personal care and household products, has announced that it will remove shark squalene from its cosmetic brands, including Pond's and Dove.

According to Unilever, based in London, the new production that uses a plant-based version of squalene will begin early this year and new formulations are expected to appear on consumer shelves as early as April 2008.

Squalene and squalane, a product derived from squalene, are widely used in cosmetics as natural, "oil-free" moisturizers and can be found in products ranging from anti-aging cream to lip gloss.

Squalene is an organic compound found in the livers of sharks, and is in especially high concentrations in the livers of deep-sea sharks (those living in ocean depths of 300 to 1500 meters).

Deep-sea sharks are at such a great risk of overfishing that scientists have concluded they should not be caught at all.

But alternatives do exist - squalene is available in a number of botanical sources, including rice bran, wheat germ, amaranth seeds and olives.

Some scientists believe killer whales have calls with unique dialects that vary by pod.

It takes coral centuries to grow into the beautiful reef gardens that sprawl beneath the sea - but only a moment to destroy them. Destructive fishing methods like bottom trawling as well as pollution and coastal development have put many reefs at risk.

To increase awareness and understanding of coral reefs, and to further conserve these precious ecosystems, the International Coral Reef Initiative has designated 2008 as the International Year of the Reef!

For the last two summers, our catamaran, Ranger has been patrolling the Mediterranean, documenting marine species and habitat. These brilliant underwater photographs are used as part of our research to convince governments to enact and enforce policies to protect our oceans. Please do your part to protect our corals and celebrate this special year.

* Be an informed consumer: Make sure any marine organisms you purchase have been collected in an ecologically sound manner.

* Don't dump waste: Whether it's in the form of sewage or run-off from your front lawn, it drains directly to the ocean.

* Support our efforts to stop destructive trawling by making a donation today.

Destructive trawls and dredges use large, heavy nets kept open by doors, weighing as much as several tons each, that drag across large areas of seafloor to catch fish that live on or near the ocean floor.

Oceana is campaigning to protect deep sea corals and sponges and other vulnerable seafloor habitat, and to prevent bottom trawling from expanding into new areas. Learn More >>

They may not move a whole lot, but corals are actually tiny animals, invertebrates that come in all sorts of shapes, sizes and colors. They can be found in waters the world over: warm, cold, deep or shallow. They provide food and shelter for myriad marine creatures and endless opportunities for discovery among scuba divers and snorkelers.

Most sea snakes are members of the family Hydrophiidae and are characterized by vertically flattened tails and nostrils with valvelike flaps. Unlike eels, sea snakes have scales but lack gills or fins. While they spend much of their time underwater, they must surface periodically to breathe.

Sea snakes are found often in protected coastal waters and near river mouths.  However, they also thrive in other habitats, ranging from muddy or turbid water to clear waters and coral reefs.

The yellow-bellied sea snake or pelagic sea snake, Pelamis platurus, has a remarkably wide geographic range, which reaches the western coasts of North and South America from the Baja peninsula to Ecuador.

Sea snakes are not found in the Atlantic Ocean, the Caribbean, or along the North American coast north of Baja. Hawaii is the only U.S. state where sea snakes are found. Only one, however, has ever been reported in Hawaiian waters, the aforementioned Pelamis platurus, which is the only open-ocean marine snake. While its range extends to these waters, it's very rarely ever encountered, with only 20 specimens documented.

While they may be feared by the populace at large, generally, sea snakes are not aggressive, and they are not thought to strike humans unless provoked, nor do they typically actively pursue swimming prey.

Five major groups of sea snakes exist. The hydrophiids, or "true" sea snakes, numbering around 54 species, are the largest group of sea snakes, having evolved from Australian terrestrial elapids, closely related to cobras, which returned to the marine environment around 30 million years ago.

The laticaudids, or sea kraits, comprise five species, of which four are marine species.  They are banded and sometimes seen in large numbers on beaches in Southeast Asia and some Pacific Islands. Sea kraits have also evolved from terrestrial elapids and have highly toxic venom. However they are very placid and unlikely to bite unless provoked.  They are the only group of sea snakes that are oviparous (egg laying) and must return to land to breed.  

The acrochordids, or file snakes, comprise three species. One species is fully marine while the others live in estuaries and freshwater habitats (file snakes are not venomous).  

The homalopsids, or mangrove snakes, are colubrids that are confined almost entirely to estuarine environments. Nine species of aquatic homalopsids are found primarily in tropical Asian waters and northern Australian waters. Only three species are fully aquatic.  

Finally the natricids, or salt marsh snakes, are confined almost entirely to salt marsh environments. The three species of marine natricids are confined to temperate and subtropical North America and are not venomous. It's thought that these natricids might be in the early stages of evolving marine adaptations.  

All sea snakes except the sea kraits (latidcaudids) give birth to live young after gestation periods that range from four to 11 months, depending on the species. The timing of the reproductive cycle varies enormously between species and also differs between geographical locations for the same species.

These oft-maligned marine animals are incredibly successful predators occupying a unique niche in coastal tropical seas of the Pacific.  As there bodies gracefully undulate, propelling them through the seas like a gymnast's ribbon, many species face a number of threats in the form of degraded and destroyed habitats, warming seas, changing ecosystem structure, and industrial fishing.