Oceans

Washington Will at Last Regulate Fish Farms

Chances are pretty good that the last fish you ate never saw a river or the open ocean. That’s because the U.S. imports 84% of the 5 billion lbs. of seafood we consume each year and more than half of that is raised on fish farms and other aquaculture operations. The U.S., however, has not gotten invested in the aquaculture game as …

Why Australia’s Great Barrier Reef Is in Trouble

A few weeks ago when the floods first hit eastern Australia, I wrote about their potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef as fresh water plumes send sediment and nutrients into the waters offshore. Here’s my longer take in this week’s international editions of the magazine on why the world’s largest protected coral system is in …

What is killing the pacific salmon?

The great sockeye salmon run from the Pacific Ocean to Canada’s Fraser River was for decades an example of nature’s fruitful bounty. Some 60 million fish returned annually to spawn. But starting in the 1990s, the sockeye’s productivity declined precipitously—and in 2009 only 1 million fish returned to the run.

Fool’s Gold: Giant Tuna Sold for Nearly $400,000 in Tokyo

A behemoth bluefin tuna sold for a record 32.49 million yen — or about $396,000 — in Tokyo’s famed Tsukiji fish market on Wednesday, smashing the 2001 record when a bluefin auctioned for 20.2 million.

The fish, bought by a sushi restaurant in Tokyo’s Ginza district and a Hong Kong sushi chain, weighed in at market at an …

What Australia’s Floods Mean for the Great Barrier Reef

As New York shovels out of the snow and LA digs out of the mud, Australians are facing their own onslaught of extreme weather. The worst floods in half a century have hit the central and southern parts of Queensland, forcing at least 1000 residents to evacuate their homes with warnings that the worst may be yet to come as rivers in the …

A Happier Year in Store for America’s Sharks?

Sharks caught a break yesterday after the Senate passed a piece of important legislation aimed at reducing the number of sharks finned in U.S. waters. The Shark Conservation Act of 2009 passed the Senate on Monday, strengthening existing legislation by closing a few gaping loopholes in the law, and is now due to move to the House.

The …

Greenpeace’s New Board Game

Looking for the perfect gift for your radical, left-wing activist nephew? Greenpeace has just the product for you: a free downloadable board game called “Deepsea Desperation” that pits oil industry versus Greenpeace for control over deapsea oil reserves.
According to the Greenpeace website, the game is for two players, or teams of …

Why Are The Red Sea Sharks Stalking Humans?

CSI Sharm el-Sheikh: What is causing the normally harmless sharks of the Red Sea to start mauling holidaymakers in Egypt?

Shark experts have this weekend converged on the popular resort to investigate a series of attacks that have killed one tourist and badly injured four others. But they have already reached consensus on a general …

Oceans: The Bluefin Tuna Could Be on a Path to Extinction

I didn’t understand just how valuable a bluefin tuna could be until I spent a year in Tokyo. Before Japan, sushi was a California roll with artificial wasabi and too much soy sauce. In Tokyo, I discovered how different a meal could be with fresh fish, expertly prepared by a sushi chef standing sentinel behind his counter. And nothing …

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