by Debora MacKenzie Fishing is causing cod to evolve faster than anyone had suspected it could, fisheries scientists in Iceland have discovered. This turbo-evolution may be why the world’s biggest cod fishery, the Grand Banks of Newfoundland, crashed in 1992 and has yet to recover. The Icelandic cod fishery, almost the only large cod fishery […]
By Jeremy Hance The first global report on the state of shellfish was released today at the International Marine Conservation Congress in Washington, DC. Painting a dire picture for shellfish worldwide, the report found that 85 percent of oyster reefs have vanished. Threats such as over-development on coasts, destructive fishing practices, altered river flows, dams, […]
By Jeremy Hance A few weeks into the bluefin tuna fishing season and Turkey has decided to go it alone. Breaking international agreements, the Turkish government has announced that it will ignore agreed-upon bluefin tuna quotas. The news is not good for the survival of the critically-endangered fish species, since Turkey operates the largest Mediterranean […]
The ecosystem of the Cape Gannet, a protected bird species, has gone haywire. As a result of overfishing, the birds are no longer able to find enough food to rear their young. Pelicans, kelp gulls and seals are becoming increasing threats – the lack of fish means that these predators are attacking Cape Gannet chicks […]
Europe’s Common Fisheries Policy has failed and a completely new fishing management system is needed, the European Commission has admitted. By Bruno Waterfield in Brussels A new Brussels position paper highlighted severe problems with fisheries and urged a complete rethink of a key European Union policy. EU officials have been forced to admit that, despite […]
KAMPALA (Reuters) – Overfishing on Lake Victoria has seen Nile Perch stocks drop 81 percent to 370,000 metric tons in 2008 from 2 million metric tons three years ago, “annihilating” the species, Uganda said Thursday. Fishing is one of Uganda’s leading export earners. The east African nation boasts four major lakes — Victoria, Lake […]
MADRID (Reuters) – Overfishing will wipe out the breeding population of Atlantic bluefin tuna, one of the ocean’s largest and fastest predators, in three years unless catches are dramatically reduced, conservation group WWF said on Tuesday. As European fishing fleets prepare to begin the two-month Mediterranean fishing season on Wednesday, WWF said its analysis showed […]
Campaigners claim as many as 5000 killed a year in Scotland. By Auslan Cramb The Seal Protection Action Group said as many as 5,000 of the mammals were shot every year. However, the industry claims the figure is nearer 500, and insists that seals have to be controlled to protect commercial stocks. It is currently […]
(Cell Press) By combining data from 48 studies of coral reefs from around the Caribbean, researchers have found that fish densities that have been stable for decades have given way to significant declines since 1995. The study appears online on March 19 in Current Biology, a Cell Press publication. "We were most surprised to discover […]
TUCSON, Arizona, March 11, 2009 (ENS) – Conservation and health groups today filed emergency petitions with eight midwestern and southern states, seeking to end the commercial harvest of freshwater turtles sold for food in the United States and abroad. Not only are the turtles vanishing into extinction, but consumers are eating meat from turtles […]
