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The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), in cooperation with diving equipment manufacturer Halcyon of High Springs, Florida, has issued a voluntary recall of certain dive products. The recalled items are the Halcyon Explorer, Eclipse, CCR35, Evolve and Pioneer Buoyancy Compensator Devices (BCDs); Halcyon Surface Marker Buoys (SMBs), Lift Bags, Diver Alert Markers (DAMs) Surf Shuttle and Diver Lift Raft inflatable devices. The brand name Halcyon is printed on the diving equipment.

Vicki Lee, a loggerhead sea turtle first tagged 21 years ago by scientists as she nested on Casey Key, returned to the Gulf of Mexico on a recent morning after more than 160 days in rehabilitation at Mote Marine Laboratory. She was wearing a satellite transmitter that researchers hope will track her ocean travels for the next six months to a year. In April, Vicki Lee was found stranded in Naples, where a rescue team from Florida’s Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission initially identified her through a microchip placed by Mote staff in 2003. Learn more…

The South Atlantic Fishery Management Council approved a plan to protect more than 23,000 square miles of known deep sea coral from North Carolina to Florida from destructive fishing gear. Five years in the making, the recent vote will restrict the footprint of bottom trawls — one of the most nonselective fishing methods currently in use, capable of destroying thousand-year-old coral reefs and moving 18-ton rocks — and help to restore the long-term productivity of commercially valuable fish that take refuge there.