overfishing

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That Colorful Aquarium Masks a Sometimes Dark Trade

Experts say demand for fish is contributing to degradation of delicate coral ecosystems

(Newser) - Millions of saltwater fish of all shades and shapes are caught in Indonesia and other countries every year to fill ever more elaborate aquariums in living rooms, waiting rooms, and restaurants around the world. "It's just so much fun to just watch the antics between different varieties of...

Massive Dump of Dead Fish Prompts Investigation

More than 100K came from huge fishing trawler off the coast of France

(Newser) - From the air, it looks for all the world like an ordinary streak of sea foam, notes France24 . It's only up close that it becomes clear the streak of white is actually a massive blob of dead fish—an estimated 100,000 or more of them off the coast...

These Fish Are So Loud While Getting It On It's Deafening

Racket of mating Gulf corvina is so loud it could damage hearing of dolphins, say researchers

(Newser) - A type of Mexican fish heads every spring to the Gulf of California to spawn—and their "reproductive orgies," as the AFP puts it, are so loud they can damage hearing in other marine life. A pair of studies from the same researchers, one published in June in...

News Is Worse Than Thought for Seahorses

Fishermen's nets kill tens of millions annually

(Newser) - Seahorses, known not only for their funky shape but also for being monogamous and for the odd trait that it's the males who give birth, might be in more trouble than thought. It's long been known that the small fish are just one of many to get caught...

Maine's Vaunted Blue Mussels Are Vanishing
Maine's Vaunted
Blue Mussels
Are Vanishing
NEW STUDY
Aug 28, 2016 9:11 AM CDT

Maine's Vaunted Blue Mussels Are Vanishing

Probably thanks to warmer waters, overfishing, predatory species

(Newser) - New England is running out of mussels. The Gulf of Maine's once strong population of wild blue mussels is disappearing, scientists say. A study led by marine ecologists at the University of California at Irvine found the numbers along the gulf coastline have declined by more than 60% over...

Study: Overfishing Is Worse Than We Knew

 Overfishing 
 Is Worse Than 
 We Knew 
study says
Jan 19, 2016 6:40 PM CST

Overfishing Is Worse Than We Knew

'The world is withdrawing from a joint bank account of fish'

(Newser) - Global overfishing might be much worse than previously thought, Discovery reports. A new study finds that UN figures have vastly understated the problem and that yearly fish hauls are declining three times faster than realized. According to the study, the UN—using numbers from the Food and Agriculture Organization—stated...

Sea Life Has Halved Since 1970
 Sea Life Has Halved Since 1970 
Sep 16, 2015 6:41 AM CDT

Sea Life Has Halved Since 1970

Decline has been dramatic, and researchers say we're to blame

(Newser) - The oceans, with more than 90% of the habitable space on Earth, still contain most of the life on our planet, but there's a lot less of it than there was just 45 years ago, according to a deeply dispiriting report from the World Wildlife Fund. The group, which...

Record-Breaking Shark Killed on Reality TV Show

1,323-pound shark's capture to air on Outdoor Channel hunting show

(Newser) - News of a record-breaking shark capture in Southern California made headlines this week, with a group of fisherman hooking an eye-popping 1,323-pound mako shark off the coast of Huntington Beach on Monday. And reality television will bring the chum-filled escapade into your home, the LA Times reports. The capture—...

Move to Save Fishing Industry Could Kill It

Cod fishermen say slashed Gulf of Maine quotas will spell doom

(Newser) - Faced with dangerously declining cod stocks, New England fisheries officials voted yesterday to massively cut cod quotas—down 77% from last year's catch for the next three years in the Gulf of Maine, and by 61% for the next year in Georges Bank, near Cape Cod, reports the New ...

A New No-No for Diners: Mackerel

Once-sustainable species now overfished

(Newser) - Mackerel has long been considered a sustainable choice for seafood eaters—but no more. Now, top UK conservationists have taken it off their "fish to eat" list due to overfishing, the Guardian reports. "The total catch is now far in excess of what has been scientifically recommended,"...

Lobsters Going Cannibal, Eating the Little Ones

Infrared cameras record the attacks in Gulf of Maine

(Newser) - Lobsters are so overpopulating the Gulf of Maine that they've discovered a tasty new meal: each other. Researchers from the University of Maine have found that young lobsters tethered by rope to the ocean floor—and watched with an infrared camera—are almost always eaten by bigger lobsters rather...

EU: End Waste, Give Unwanted Fish to Poor

Millions of tons of fish thrown away at sea

(Newser) - Europe's fishermen need to stop throwing millions of tons of unwanted fish back into the sea every year, the European Union's fisheries chief has decided. Maria Damanaki has outlined a plan to end the practice of throwing back the edible fish, almost all of which die. The unwanted...

Marine Scientists: Ban Deep-Sea Fishing

Stocks are being dangerously depleted, they warn

(Newser) - A group of marine scientists has issued a damning report about deep-sea fishing and called for the practice to be banned, reports the Washington Post . The paper in the journal Marine Policy says it's not so much fishing as "mining" and the sea is more like a "...

Slimy Hagfish Is Threatened— and Vital

Study says some species in danger of extinction

(Newser) - Pity the poor hagfish: It has an awful name, an even-worse nickname ("slime eel"), shudder-inducing eating habits (it is thought to burrow into dead and dying creatures on the ocean floor and absorb nutrients through its skin), and now troubling numbers about its very survival. Of 76 species...

We're Headed for Vast Ocean Extinction: Panel

Human activity is rapidly wiping out marine life, panel warns

(Newser) - Human activity has degraded the world's oceans with dizzying speed and a mass extinction of marine life only seen five times before in the planet's history is likely if urgent action is not taken, a panel of marine experts warns. The International Program on the State of the...

Fish Stocks Are Plentiful, So Don't Feel Guilty About Digging In: Aquatics Professor Ray Hilborn
 Fish Stocks 
 Are Fine, 
 So Dig In 
OPINION
Apr 15, 2011 12:55 PM CDT

Fish Stocks Are Fine, So Dig In

Reports of overfished oceans are exaggerated: Aquatics professor

(Newser) - The last few years have seen lots of gloom-and-doom scenarios about how the world is running out of fish . Don't believe it, writes aquatics professor Ray Hilborn in the New York Times . Flawed studies produced those results. In reality, "fish stocks worldwide appear to be stable, and in...

How to Save the Oceans: Eat Sardines

Overfishing has led to wildly unbalanced ecosystem

(Newser) - Want to help restore the ocean’s severely unbalanced ecoysystem? Develop a taste for anchovies and sardines. A new study shows that a worldwide appetite for smaller, “grazing” fish would do wonders to restore balance after years of overfishing the more popular, and larger, varieties. Humans tend to like...

Why I Finally Love Farmed Fish
 Why I Finally Love Farmed Fish 
Opinion
Sep 5, 2010 8:37 AM CDT

Why I Finally Love Farmed Fish

Former skeptic Josh Ozersky sees benefits to the earth

(Newser) - Not even a fish-loving foodie can justify the environmental cost of wild-caught salmon . "If I could, I would only eat wild," writes Josh Ozersky for Time. "But I can't in good conscience." Sure, farmed salmon's "taste is duller, the flesh flabbier, the finish forgettable."...

The Tuna on Your Plate May Be Endangered

(Newser) - You might suspect a sushi restaurant that doesn’t specify what sort of tuna you’re eating of trying to pawn off an inferior species. Not so. Researchers using novel DNA barcoding technology found that though nearly a third of tuna sold in 31 US restaurants was the prized—and...

Overfishing Plagues Filet-O-Fish's Main Ingredient

New Zealand's hoki center of overfishing controversy

(Newser) - What exactly is the fish in a Filet-O-Fish sandwich? It’s a bug-eyed creature from New Zealand called the hoki, and it is apparently under pressure from overfishing, the New York Times reports. New Zealand—while not specifically citing that cause—has been cutting the allowable catch as conservation groups...

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