PHUKET: Fisheries experts are trying to find ways to culture hardier types of giant clams in order to make the huge mollusks better able to cope with rising sea temperatures, the state-run Thai News Agency has reported. Kongkiat Kittiwattawong, a researcher with the Phuket Marine Biological Center (PMBC), said giant clams in local waters face a variety of natural and [...]

Bangkok – The Thai military plans to drop 25 Chinese-made tanks into the Gulf of Thailand to serve as artificial reefs, media reports said Friday. The T69-2 tanks, purchased from China in 1987 at a 50-per-cent discount, will be shipped to southern Thailand next week to be dumped into the sea off Narathiwat province, 750 kilometres south of Bangkok. Monsters [...]

Harmful fishing practices in Thailand are pushing the rare Irrawaddy dolphin, an aquatic mammal known scientifically as Orcaella brevirostris, toward extinction here in southern Thailand, according to the Southern Marine and Coastal Resources Research Center and a team of Irrawaddy dolphin researchers and watchers. The aquatic animals live in Southeast Asia’s freshwater areas and estuaries, and are critically endangered according [...]

Kuala Lumpur – A group of suspected pirates shot and killed a Thai fisherman in waters off Malaysia’s northern state of Penang, official news reports said Monday. The victim, Aung Sirichai, 24, was fishing with four other people late Sunday when a small boat with seven men approached them. “One of the men fired four shots, hitting the victim on [...]

Construction of 17 new houses – built to replace those destroyed in last year’s fire at the sea gyspy village fire in Mai Khao – has now been completed. Governor Wichai, along with the presidents of Phuket Red Cross, the OrBorJor and leaders of the local administration organisations went along to see the houses and to award certificates to those [...]

Tarutao National Marine Park consists of 51 islands located in the Andaman Sea, off the coast of Satun Province of Southern Thailand. The Tarutao National Marine Park consists of two island groups: Tarutao and Adang-Rawi , which are scattered from 20 to 70 kilometers distance from the southwestern most point of mainland Thailand. The park covers an area of 1,490 [...]

The sea fan is carefully brought out of water to make sure that they are not damaged before marine biologists from Phuket marine Biological centre or PMBC take them to re-submerge in appropriate location for its development. The fertility of sea water off Chalong bay on the south side of Phuket island leads to several high value aqua cultivation farming [...]

Nakhon Si Thammarat – A speed boat carrying eight Norwegian tourists to Koh Samui in Surat Thani capsized Monday afternoon and the tourists were safely rescued, police said. The accident happened at about 2:50 pm when the boat was between Nakhon Si Thammarat’s Khanom district and Surat Thani’s Samui district. The speed boat left the Don Sak pier heading to [...]

The Indian Ocean tsunami killed about 5,400 people in Thailand, half of whom were foreign tourists. Five years on, the BBC’s South East Asia correspondent Rachel Harvey went back to the worst-hit areas to see how people were coping. Martin Carpenter looks out from a second floor balcony towards the sea. Below him a group of holidaymakers are throwing a [...]

There was nothing gentle about the racing or the conditions on the 23rd Phuket King’s Cup courses today as the international fleet fought for podium finishes across the 11 divisions. Hiked out hard on the rail the racing divisions completed two windward/leeward races while the cruiser/racers completed one triangle course. The stars of the day were the skippers and crews [...]