Marine Parks

The marine park that includes the subantarctic Heard and McDonald Islands is set for a massive expansion, with the federal government planning to protect an extra 300,000 square kilometres of ocean.

A national research effort aimed at saving Australia's iconic sea lions will look at cat faeces, heavy metals, microplastics, and climate change as possible culprits for the species' continued decline.  

The West Australian government says its planned new marine park will be world-class. But among locals, opinion is split on whether it will deliver a promised tourism windfall.  

The 'Whale Rider' court case was closely followed by media in Australia and overseas.

When 28-year-old fisherman Andrew 'Lobba' Curven jumped in the water to swim with a Southern Right Whale in 1994, what followed was a once-in-a-lifetime close encounter, a media circus and an unprecedented court case.

The decision to jump into the water with a southern right whale 30 years ago made international headlines, but the "awesome" experience came at a cost.

The West Australian government says its planned new marine park will be world-class. But among locals, opinion is split on whether it will deliver a promised tourism windfall.

Marine rescue authorities are searching waters near Port Macquarie for the whale, which is the fourth to have been entangled off the northern NSW coast this holiday weekend.

Australia's Reef Authority had $80 million to repair and refurbish its showpiece aquarium in Townsville, but scrapped the project for a grander design it knew it could not pay for.

Marine archaeologists have mapped out a virtual tour of the whaling ship Cheviot after uncovering its wreckage at Wilsons Promontory in south-eastern Victoria.

The Esperance shire president has taken aim at anonymous online trolls who he says are spreading racism throughout the local community.

After failing to secure government funding, a wildlife tourist park and dolphin welfare groups have mutually walked away from a plan to build a sea pen. 

Having waited years for a new calf at Ningaloo Reef, researchers say the sight of a new baby killer whale is especially good news after several calves were lost on WA's northern coast.

Many Australians prefer to be as far from a shark as possible, but scientists are concerned that some people are getting too close to critically endangered species.

Debate around the proposed South Coast Marine Park has sparked a swell of negative attitudes towards Indigenous people, with local leaders urged to do more to call it out. 

Locals are alarmed that a group of Chinese men dropped on a remote beach were able to enter an Australian air base undetected, given the ramping up of surveillance along the crocodile-infested coastline.

A drone with beefed up surveillance that can fly higher, further and faster than previous models is deployed to help protect the reef from outlaw anglers.

West Australian Fisheries Minister Don Punch acknowledges the South Coast Marine Park "does bring out some pretty passionate views", after climbing onto a brick wall to address hundreds of Esperance locals demanding answers.

Environmental groups are calling for the architects of a new West Australian marine park to expand protections for the country's most endangered seal species. 

Witness details the moment sperm whales successfully thwart off a pod of killer whales by defecating and creating a 'cloud of diarrhoea.'

Observers look on in amazement as sperm whales off WA's southern coast successfully defend themselves from a pod of attacking killer whales by defecating at will, creating a "cloud of diarrhoea".

They're not as famous as the iconic Great Barrier Reef, but vibrant and bustling coral reefs between Bundaberg and Moreton Bay, off Brisbane, are equally under threat with signs they're "starving to death".

Project Ningaloo has taken out billboard ads in Germany's Kassel, the home town of the world's largest salt miner K+S. But while locals have experienced the "pickling" of their own rivers with brine, they've confused the message with tourism ads.

Coral bleaching happens when marine heatwaves disrupt the relationship between corals and the tiny organisms that live inside them and help power their metabolism. Bleaching of the Great Barrier Reef is escalating and this week heat stress has reached record levels. 

James Cook University survey extensive bleaching on the southern Great Barrier Reef