A reward for information about the recent deaths of two slain dolphins along Florida’s Gulf Coast has increased from $20,000 to $54,000

Ships are hitting and killing whales off the California coast at some of the highest rates in more than a decade, according to data obtained and tabulated by the NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit. The spike in ‘ship strikes’ comes despite a 5-year government initiative to slow down vessels as they make their way into San Francisco Bay.

The planet experienced the hottest January in recorded history last month, marking the latest milestone in a string of climate records that have been broken in recent years, NBC News reports.

Two U.S. agencies say the decade that just ended was by far the hottest ever measured on Earth, capped off by the second-warmest year on record. And scientists say there is no doubt at all this is man-made climate change.

Environmentalists scored a major victory in Sacramento Thursday after California lawmakers overwhelmingly voted to phase out the use of a controversial type of fishing gear, known as drift gillnets: mile-long nets blamed for unintentionally killing thousands of sea creatures, including endangered animals.

Tracking of the tropics is considerably more accurate now than in 1970, the National Hurricane Center said.

Federal forecasters say the Atlantic hurricane season will be even quieter than predicted, thanks to atmospheric and oceanic conditions suppressing storm formation. Officials dropped the number of named storms to between seven and 12 in an updated hurricane season forecast issued Thursday. A normal year has 12 named storms, six hurricanes and three major storms.

Scientists say a virus that has killed Atlantic bottlenose dolphins along the East Coast has reached the Florida Keys.

Federal officials are praising a shark repellent developed at the Florida Keys Community College.