Sea Shepherd Cries Foul Over Western Australia Shark Cull. October 1, 2012 It’s Time for the Fear-Mongering to End by Julie Andersen, Director, Shark Campaigns Tiger Shark caught in shark net Photo: Mark AddisonIn response to current reports that officials in Western Australia are to begin waging war on sharks by initiating a cull of any sharks swimming near beaches in the region, Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is crying foul. The shark cull comes in response to five deaths to surfers due to shark bites over the last year on Western Australia’s beaches. However, given all that is known about sharks, including their quickly dwindling numbers, the critical role they play in our oceans, and the small threat they actually pose to humans in the grand scheme of things, it is hard to fathom that the archaic concept of killing these animals for our “protection” still exists. For a country like Australia — whose citizens are known for their enlightened, balanced view of our natural world — to declare war on sharks is particularly unsettling.
North Sea cod: Is it true there are only 100 left? 29 September 2012Last updated at 19:16 ET By Hannah Barnes & Richard Knight BBC News If recent reports are to be believed, the North Sea cod's days are numbered. But should we believe these reports? What do the experts say about the numbers of fish that are left? The Daily Telegraph recently ran the headline: "Just 100 cod left in the North Sea". "It just makes my blood boil - 100 cod in the North Sea? " It's not a trivial issue. The story was picked up by other media, including the Atlantic Wire and Canada's Globe and Mail, but it started in the The Sunday Times which reported there were "100 adult cod in North Sea".
The newspaper got the figure by looking at data from the International Council for the Exploration of the Sea (ICES). It then asked researchers from the British government's Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas) for help with the numbers. The Sunday Times chose to class an adult cod as aged over 13. Continue reading the main story Source: ICES. Global warming 'may lead to smaller fish' - Climate Change - Environment. Warmer oceans will carry less dissolved oxygen, causing fish to grow to smaller sizes and forcing them to move to cooler waters, the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change claims. Scientists predict that a rise in global temperatures over the coming decades will cause the average body size of sea fish to decline by between 14 and 24 per cent. The predication is based on a study of more than 600 species of saltwater fish, including the Atlantic cod and the North Sea haddock.
About half of the shrinkage will be due to changes in the distribution and abundance of fish caused by changes to their environment, and half will be the direct result of living in oxygen-poor water. Species living in tropical and intermediate-latitude oceans will suffer the most, with an average reduction in weight of more than 20 per cent, according to the study by William Cheung and colleagues at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada. OCEARCH Global Tracking Central. Shark fin debate in Hong Kong - Shark Year Magazine. Endangered Species of the Week: Atlantic halibut. Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) Species: Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus) Status: Endangered (EN) Interesting fact: The Atlantic halibut is the largest flatfish in the world.
Like other species of flatfish, the Atlantic halibut is curiously adapted to life on the ocean floor. They have evolved to lie on one side of their body, flattened sideways. The Atlantic halibut is found in the cold waters of North Atlantic coasts. The slow growth rate and late onset of sexual maturity makes the Atlantic halibut extremely vulnerable to the effects of overfishing. There is currently no management plan in place for this fish and it is thought that numbers of Atlantic halibut will continue to decline. Find out more about this endangered flatfish on the Fisheries and Oceans Canada website. See images and videos of the Atlantic halibut on ARKive. Lauren Pascoe, ARKive Researcher.
Floating robot helps track great white sharks. Some At-Risk Shark Species Are Ending Up In U.S. Soups. By April Fulton | NPRFriday, August 10, 2012 Sharks are some of the most feared and fascinating animals on the planet. They've had their own week of awareness-raising and celebration on the Discovery Channel for the last 25 years. But some say they are also delicious — as in the Chinese delicacy — shark fin soup. As we've reported before, shark finning to meet demand for the soup is a booming business: An estimated 73 million sharks are killed each year. But just what kind of shark fins are ending up in the soup in the U.S.? It's pretty impressive that the scientists were able to find any usable DNA at all in a highly processed food product like soup. The researchers had to devise their own DNA sleuthing methods; Chapman hopes law enforcement officials will adopt these techniques in states with restrictions on the sale, trade and possession of shark fins.
Copyright 2016 NPR. View this story on npr.org. Sharks tagged off Scotland monitored online. Venezuela Ends Shark Finning, Creates Protected Area. Washington Pew applauds action to ban shark fishing in critical breeding habitat Resources:Press photos Venezuela set forth a series of measures this week to protect sharks within its waters. Most significantly, commercial shark fishing is now prohibited throughout the 3,730 square kilometers (1,440 square miles) of the Caribbean Sea that make up the popular Los Roques and Las Aves archipelagos, whose pristine beaches and coral reefs make it a diving and fishing attraction. Scientists have identified Los Roques, located about 128 kilometers (80 miles) off the Venezuelan coast, as an important breeding ground and nursery for populations of several species of sharks, including the lemon shark and the Caribbean reef shark.
The new regulation also prohibits the practice of shark finning (cutting off the fins and dumping the body overboard at sea) and mandates that all of these animals caught in Venezuelan waters must be brought to port with their fins naturally attached. Bowmouth guitarfish videos, photos and facts - Rhina ancylostoma. Pocket : The Surprisingly Mysterious Eels. One quarter of grouper species being fished to extinction. The orange-spotted grouper, Epinephelus coioides, from the Indo-Pacific is categorized as Near Threatened (photo: Luiz Rocha): An international team of scientists has made a global assessment of threats and extinction risks in the multi-billion dollar grouper industry May 2012.
Groupers, a family of fishes often found in coral reefs and prized for their quality of flesh, are facing critical threats to their survival. 20% threatened with extinction by overfishingAs part of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, a team of scientists has spent the past ten years assessing the status of 163 grouper species worldwide. They report that 20 species (12%) are at risk of extinction if current overfishing trends continue, and an additional 22 species (13%) are Near Threatened. These findings were published online on April 28 in the journal Fish and Fisheries. 90,000,000 groupers captured in 2009!