Implementing new policies could improve transparency and sustainability in North Pacific fisheries. The Pew Charitable Trusts
By Grantly Galland
The North Pacific Fisheries Commission (NPFC) works to ensure that high-seas fishing for Pacific chub mackerel, Pacific saury, two squid species and other stocks across the north Pacific Ocean is legal, transparent and sustainable. The Pew Charitable Trusts shares those goals and will for the first time attend the commission's annual meeting, July 11-18 in Tokyo, as a formal observer.
A sei whale, considered endangered by the IUCN; sei are one of three species that will be hunted commercially in Japan starting today. Gerard Soury / Getty Images
Commercial whaling ships set sail from Japan Monday for the first time in more than 30 years, The Guardian reported.
Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission / NOAA Research Permit # 594-1759
Many fish, marine mammals and seabirds that inhabit the world's oceans are critically endangered, but few are as close to the brink as the North Atlantic right whale (
Eubalaena glacialis). Only about 411 of these whales exist today, and at their current rate of decline, they could become extinct within our lifetimes.
From 1980 through about 2010, conservation efforts focused mainly on protecting whales from being struck by ships. Federal regulations helped
reduce vessel collisions and supported a slight rebound in right whale numbers.
A record number of dolphins have washed up dead and mutilated on French beaches, and scientists don't know exactly why.
Activists say 1,100 dolphins have washed up on France's Atlantic coast since January, but the number could be as much as 10 times higher than that, as many likely sink instead of washing ashore. Researchers at the La Rochelle marine laboratory Observatoire Pelagis said they had seen "extreme levels of mutilation" on the dolphins that did wash up, The Guardian reported.
A fishmonger in Elmina, a fishing port in the Central Region of Ghana. Environmental Justice Foundation
By Daisy Brickhill
Each morning, men living in fishing communities along Ghana's coastline push off in search of the day's catch. But when the boats come back to shore, it's the women who take over.
About 35 skiffs attacked a Sea Shepherd vessel in a marine protected area in Mexico's Upper Gulf of California. Alex Beldi / Sea Shepherd
The environmental organization
Sea Shepherd Conservation Society says its crew was attacked Wednesday by roughly 35 fishing boats inside a vaquita refuge in Mexico's Gulf of California.
Sea Shepherd released a video showing fishermen shouting, hurling objects and trying to foul the propellors of the M/V Farley Mowat, a Sea Shepherd vessel used in campaigns against illegal fisheries activities.
Blue fin tuna jumping to catch flying fishes. bbevren / iStock / Getty Images Plus
Bluefin tuna made the news this week when a 612-pound specimen of the fascinating but vulnerable fish sold for a record $3.1 million at a New Year's auction at Tokyo's Toyosu fish market Saturday. The purchaser was Japanese sushi chain owner and self-proclaimed "Tuna King" Kiyoshi Kimura.
"The tuna looks so tasty because it's fat and (looks) very fresh. It is a good tuna. But I think I did too much," Kimura said, as CNN reported.
There's nothing in the fridge at Akiwenzie's Fish & More processing facility. The 918-square-foot building, adjacent to Natasha and Andrew Akiwenzie's house on the shores of Georgian Bay, Ontario, sits empty and dark. Out-front, gill nets lie on the ground, unused for months.
To predict the nutrient content of fish, a new study turned to shared evolutionary history.Oceana / Eduardo Sorensen
By Amy McDermott
Eels and anchovies don't look or act much alike. One is sinuous and shy, the other a bright flash of silver in a school of thousands. Yet the two fish are cousins, both loaded with zinc.
Enypniasties eximia—a deep-sea swimming sea cucumber scientists have affectionately called the "headless chicken monster"—has been caught on camera for the first time in Antarctic waters thanks to new underwater camera technology developed by Australian researchers.
Footage of the finned sea creature will be used to aid important marine
conservation efforts in the Southern Ocean.
Although Pacific bluefin tuna remains a fraction of its historic population, the giant fish is making a comeback off the California coast after a eight-decade hiatus, due to global
conservation efforts, Reuters reported.
The world's love of sushi and rampant
overfishing has nearly decimated the species. Its population recently bumped to a meager 3.3 percent of its unfished level, up from its low of 2.6 percent two years ago, according to Pew Charitable Trusts.
