The Marshall Islands government has created the world’s largest shark sanctuary, covering nearly two million sq km (750,000 sq miles) of ocean. The Pacific republic will ban trade in shark products and commercial shark fishing throughout its waters. Tourism, including diving, is a staple of the Marshall Islands archipelago, which is home to just 68,000 people. Sharks and their near relatives such as rays are seriously threatened by issues such as habitat loss and fishing. About a third of ocean-going sharks are on the internationally-recognized Red List of Threatened Species. “In passing...

An 18-foot great white shark named Curly “slam dances” on top of a shark cage. Will she crush the cage? Will the door break open, leaving the men inside vulnerable? “Jaws Comes Home,” part of the Shark Week 2011 lineup, holds the answer. Great white sharks, in large numbers, are now suddenly being found swimming among surfers and vacationers just off beaches from South Africa to Australia, and up and down the coast of California. Just why they’re there and just what they’re doing is a mystery that Chris Fallows and an international team of sharks scientists are...

Like cars lined up at a car wash, sharks and rays gather at ocean cleaning stations that new research finds are mostly located at seamounts. There, hungry and detail-driven cleaner wrasse fish rid sharks of dead skin, external parasites and other undesirables. The study, published in the latest PLoS One, could help to explain why many oceanic sharks regularly venture into shallow coastal water. At such places, they are more vulnerable to humans – their #1 predator – but cleaning off must be more important to them. Simon Oliver, a researcher at the University of Wales, Bangor, School...