By Guy Dinmore Like bovine torpedoes, a trapped shoal of bluefin tuna, some two metres long, swirl in ever decreasing circles within the “chamber of death” as an intricate maze of nets closes around them. The signal is given and the mattanza – slaughter – begins. Two dozen Italian fishermen on longboats haul the final […]
by Richard Harris Scientists say the world’s coral reefs could go extinct during our children’s lifetimes. Human activities are putting this beautiful ecosystem at risk. Some risks are obvious — such as global warming, which results in overheated seas. Others are more subtle. Consider the case of the damselfish: Looking off the coast from the […]
The eastern seaboard’s longest continuous shark-targeted survey (UNC), conducted annually since 1972 off North Carolina, demonstrates sufficiently large declines in great sharks to imply their likely functional elimination. Declines in seven species range from 87% for sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus); 93% for blacktip sharks (C. limbatus); up to 97% for tiger sharks (Galeocerdo cuvier); 98% […]
Cover Study of Nature Provides Startling New Evidence that Only 10% of All Large Fish are Left in Global Ocean 90% of All Large Fish Including Tuna, Marlin, Swordfish, Sharks, Cod and Halibut are Gone Leading Scientists Say Need to Attempt Restoration on a Global Scale is Urgent The cover story of the May 15th, […]
By MARY PEMBERTON (AP) ANCHORAGE, Alaska — Yukon River smokehouses should be filled this summer with oil-rich strips of king salmon — long used by Alaska Natives as a high-energy food to get through the long Alaska winters. But they’re mostly empty. The kings failed to show up, and not just in the Yukon. One […]
By Gloria MaenderOctober 2003 The rapid removal of at least half a million great whales from the North Pacific Ocean by intensive industrial whaling more than 50 years ago may have unleashed a complex ecological chain reaction that has since rippled resoundingly from ocean to coastal ecosystems, according to a team of eight scientists, including […]
By Jennifer Hattam, Istanbul, Turkey “The sea back in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s was thick with fish and we were the envy of the town. My pockets were always full and I traveled a lot,” says Mustapha Shaalan, 68. Now, like other Lebanese fishermen, he is lucky to make $200 a month, as daily […]
This graph presents only seafood caught by fisheries. Overall per capita seafood (or aquatic products, including freshwater fishes and invertebrates) therefore, will be maintained only if aquaculture picks up the slack. Pauly, D., Lectures to the 2003 class of the United Nations University Fisheries Training Program, Institute of Marine Research, Reykjavik, December 15-19, 2002 Technorati […]
The Sea Around Us Project investigates the impact of fisheries on the world’s marine ecosystems. This is achieved by using a Geographic Information System (GIS) to map global fisheries catches from 1950 to the present, under explicit consideration of major critical habitats of fish, marine invertebrates, marine mammals and other components of marine biodiversity. North […]
By Michael Perry SYDNEY (Reuters) – Mounting loss of seagrass in the world’s oceans, vital for the survival of endangered marine life, commercial fisheries and the fight against climate change, reveals a major crisis in coastal ecosystems, a report says. A global study of seagrass, which can absorb large amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide, found […]
