By Ker Than14 September 2016 (Stanford University) – An unprecedented pattern of extinction in the oceans today that selectively targets large-bodied animals over smaller creatures is likely driven by human fishing, according to a new Stanford-led study. “We’ve found that extinction threat in the modern oceans is very strongly associated with larger body size,” said […]
By Rachael Bale29 August 2016 PUERTO PRINCESA, Philippines (National Geographic) – Years ago Christopher Tubo caught a 660-pound blue marlin in the South China Sea. The fishing was good there, he says. Tuna fishermen would come home from a trip with dozens of the high-value fish as well as a good haul of other species. […]
8 July 2016 (IUCN) – New IUCN Red List assessments reveal that growing human pressures on whale sharks, winghead sharks and Bornean orangutans are putting these species at an increasing risk of extinction. Whale sharks and winghead sharks are now listed as Endangered and Bornean orangutans as Critically Endangered – only one step from going […]
By Elaine Kurtenbach20 April 2016 TOKYO (Associated Press) – The latest scientific assessment paints a likely bleak future for the Pacific bluefin tuna, a sushi lovers’ favorite whose population has dropped by more than 97 percent from its historic levels. A draft summary of a report by the International Scientific Committee for Tuna and Tuna-like […]
By Matthew Green24 February 2016 (The Guardian) – On 2 August 2015, a flotilla of white-hulled fishing boats assembled in Sant’Agata di Militello, a port in northern Sicily, in the late afternoon sun. As a brass band played, a holiday crowd gathered along the quay. A float bearing a statue of the Virgin Mary, crowned […]
By Chelsea Harvey 19 January 2016 (Washington Post) – The state of the world’s fish stocks may be in worse shape than official reports indicate, according to new data — a possibility with worrying consequences for both international food security and marine ecosystems. A study published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications suggests that the […]
By Fiona Harvey15 September 2015 (The Guardian) – Tuna and mackerel populations have suffered a “catastrophic” decline of nearly three quarters in the last 40 years, according to new research. WWF and the Zoological Society of London found that numbers of the scombridae family of fish, which also includes bonito, fell by 74% between 1970 […]
By Lynne Rossetto Kasper9 May 2015 (Splendid Table) – Three years ago, I interviewed Eric Prince, a research fisheries biologist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southeast Fisheries Science Center. He and his colleagues had found that a huge dead zone, an area of the ocean with very little oxygen, had developed in the […]
By John R. Platt 7 May 2015 (Takepart) – For the first time, plastic particles have been found in the stomachs of tuna and other fish that are a staple of the human diet. More than 18 percent of sampled bluefin, albacore, and swordfish caught in the Mediterranean Sea and tested in 2012 and 2013 […]
17 November 2014 (IUCN) – Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Pufferfish, American Eel, Chinese Cobra, and an Australian butterfly are threatened with extinction. Fishing, logging, mining, agriculture and other activities to satisfy our growing appetite for resources are threatening the survival of the Pacific Bluefin Tuna, Chinese Pufferfish, American Eel and Chinese Cobra, while the destruction […]
