Special Report: Altered Oceans
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This five-part series on the crisis in the world’s oceans was published in July and August of 2006. The series -- by reporters Kenneth R. Weiss and Usha Lee McFarling and photographer Rick Loomis -- won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting.
- 1
Runoff from modern life is feeding an explosion of primitive organisms. This ‘rise of slime,’ as one scientist calls it, is killing larger species and sickening people.
- 2
Toxic algae that poison the brain have caused strandings and mass die-offs of marine mammals — barometers of the sea’s health.
- 3
With sickening regularity, toxic algae blooms are invading coastal waters. They kill sea life and send poisons ashore on the breeze, forcing residents to flee.
- 4
On Midway Atoll, 40% of albatross chicks die, their bellies full of trash. Swirling masses of drifting debris pollute remote beaches and snare wildlife.
- 5
Growing seawater acidity threatens to wipe out coral, fish and other crucial species worldwide.
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Kenneth R.
