Excerpt from latimes.com Scientists have discovered a fossilized fish so well preserved that the rods and cones in its 300-million-year-old eyeballs are still visible under a scanning electron microscope. It is the first time that fossilized ph...
Tag: fish (page 2 of 4)
Scientists find a 300-million-year-old fish fossil with eye tissue with rods and cones still visible
Excerpt from natmonitor.com
An international team of researchers, during a survey of the Mariana trench has found a new species of fish and found evidence of other known species living at new depths.
The Mariana trench is the deepest known part of the ocean, far too deep for humans to visit. At the deepest part of the trench the water pressure would be the equivalent of “one person trying to support 50 jumbo jets” according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA).
The survey was conducted using the Hadal-Lander, a vehicle built in Aberdeen Scotland for deep sea research. The vehicle is equipped with a variety of high resolution cameras, scientific instruments and an array of small baited funnel traps used to lure and trap small animals.
The researchers deployed the craft an unprecedented 92 times along the trench at depths ranging from 5000 – 10,600 meters.
At a depth of 8145 meters the team observed a kind of snail fish, 500 meters deeper than any fish has been observed previously.
“This really deep fish did not look like anything we had seen before, nor does it look like anything we know of, it is unbelievably fragile, with large wing-like fins and a head resembling a cartoon dog,” said Dr Alan Jamieson from the University of Aberdeen in a statement.
During the expedition the team also captured images of a ‘supergiant’ amphipod. These extremely large crustacean was originally discovered in traps off of New Zealand in 2012 but has never before been observed in its natural habitat. Video footage collected by the team shows the animal swimming, feeding and fighting off predators. A number of other species were also filmed, setting new depth records for three fish families.
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Excerpt from livescience.com
When a pair of fishermen waded into the frigid waters of the southern Baltic Sea about 5,000 years ago, they probably didn't realize that the shifting seabed beneath their feet was recording their every move. But it was.
The long-lost evidence of that prehistoric fishing trip — two sets of human footprints and some Stone Age fishing gear — was recently discovered in a dried up fjord, or inlet, on the island of Lolland in Denmark. There, archaeologists uncovered the prints alongside a so-called fishing fence, a tool that dates back to around 3,000 B.C.
Archaeologists have found fishing fences before, but the footprints are the first of their kind discovered in Denmark, according to Terje Stafseth, an archaeologist with the Museum Lolland-Falster, who helped excavate the ancient prints.
"This is really quite extraordinary, finding footprints from humans," Stafseth said in a statement. "Normally, what we find is their rubbish in the form of tools and pottery, but here, we suddenly have a completely different type of trace from the past, footprints left by a human being."
The Stone Age footprints were likely formed sometime between 5,000 B.C. and 2,000 B.C., Jensen said. At that time, the water level of the Baltic Sea was rising due to melting glaciers in northern Europe. Also at that time, prehistoric people were using these inlets as fishing grounds.
These individuals constructed elaborate traps, called fishing fences, to catch their prey. The wooden fences were built in sections several feet wide — thin switches of hazel suspended between two larger sticks — and the sections were lined up consecutively to form one long, continuous trap. The trap was placed in the shallow water of the fjord, which would be flooded with the incoming tide, the archaeologists said. When the fishermen wanted to move their gear, they would pluck the sections of the fence from the claylike floor of the fjord and move the whole apparatus to a new location.
"What seems to have happened was that at some point they were moving out to the [fish fence], perhaps to recover it before a storm," Jensen said. "At one of the posts, there are footprints on each side of the post, where someone had been trying to remove it from the sea bottom."
The archaeologists said the footprints must have been made by two different people, since one set of prints is significantly smaller than the other. Jensen and his team are now making imprints, or flat molds, of the footprints to preserve these ancient signs of life.
In addition to the human tracks, the team uncovered several skulls belonging to domestic and wild animals on the beach near the fjord.
The researchers said the skulls were likely part of offerings made by local farmers, who inhabited the region from around 4,000 B.C.
"They put fragments of skulls from different kinds of animals [on the sea floor], and then around that they put craniums from cows and sheep," Jensen said. "At the outermost of this area, they put shafts from axes. All in all, it covers about 70 square meters [83 square yards]. It's rather peculiar."
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| An artist's rendition of the amphibious Cartorhynchus lenticarpus. (Stefano Broccoli) |
My absolute favorite moment of the study though had to be the team's conclusion that the foot and a half long green amphibian "probably had a happy life". I could see now a room full of white lab coats concurring with one another. "Yes yes, happy indeed. I concur." A young lab technician then sheepishly speaks up. "I must disagree sirs. My research shows its not easy being green." "Oh yes, yes," the group of senior scientists now concede. "Indeed, it's not easy being green."
Motani's statement that his team now hopes to find the preceding evolutionary ancestor to Cartorhynchus lenticarpus as their next major breakthrough is the part of this report that I can't get out of my mind. What would the odds be that this small group of researchers not only find one crucial missing link, but will also discover the very next missing piece of the long evolutionary puzzle chain, evidence countless archeologists, scientists and researchers have been, for centuries, turning over stones in search of. Something smells fishy here, and it isn't the great, great, great grandfather of Kermit the Frog.
Greg Giles
Excerpts from the washingtonpost.com article by Rachel Feltman:
Researchers report that they've found the missing link between an ancient aquatic predator and its ancestors on land. Ichthyosaurs, the dolphin-like reptiles that lived in the sea during the time of the dinosaurs, evolved from terrestrial creatures that made their way back into the water over time.
But the fossil record for the lineage has been spotty, without a clear link between land-based reptiles and the aquatic ichthyosaurs scientists know came after. Now, researchers report in Nature that they've found that link — an amphibious ancestor of the swimming ichthyosaurs named Cartorhynchus lenticarpus.
"Many creationists have tried to portray ichthyosaurs as being contrary to evolution," said lead author Ryosuke Motani, a professor of earth and planetary sciences at the University of California Davis. "We knew based on their bone structure that they were reptiles, and that their ancestors lived on land at some time, but they were fully adapted to life in the water. So creationists would say, well, they couldn't have evolved from those reptiles, because where's the link?"
Now the gap has been filled, he said.
The creature is about a foot and a half long and lived 248 million years ago.
"Initially I was really puzzled by this fossil," Motani said. "I could tell it was related [to ichthyosaurs], but I didn't know how to place it. It took me about a year before I was sure I had no doubts."
One of the most important differences between this new ichthyosaur and its supposed descendants comes down to being big boned: When other vertebrates have evolved from land to sea living, they've gone through stages where they're amphibious and heavy. Their thick bones probably allowed them to fight the power of strong coastal waves and stay grounded in shallow waters. Sure enough, this new fossil has much thicker bones than previously examined ichthyosaurs.
"This animal probably had a happy life. It was in the tropics, and it was probably a bottom feeder that fed on soft-bodied things like squid and animals like shrimp," Motani said. "And for a predator like that to exist, there has to be plenty of prey. This was probably one of the first predators to appear after that extinction."
This single fossil hasn't revealed all of the ichthyosaurs' secrets. Motani hopes to find the preceding evolutionary ancestor next — one that was also amphibious, but spent slightly more of its time on land. "We're looking for that one now," Motani said.
Excerpt from techtimes.comYou may not be able to play a proper game of fetch with fish, but that doesn't mean they don't know how to have fun. It turns out that some species of fish play to have fun just like other animals, according to a new stud...
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| Artist’s impression of the Milky Way. Its hot halo appears to be stripping away the star-forming atomic hydrogen from its companion dwarf spheroidal galaxies. Image credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF |
Excerpt from
earthsky.org
Astronomers have discovered that our nearest galactic neighbors are devoid of star-forming gas, and that our Milky Way is to blame.
New observations by large radio telescopes reveal that within a well-defined boundary around our galaxy, dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of hydrogen gas. Beyond this point, dwarf galaxies are teeming with star-forming material.
The Milky Way galaxy is actually the largest member of a compact clutch of galaxies that are bound together by gravity. Swarming around our home galaxy is a menagerie of smaller dwarf galaxies, the smallest of which are the relatively nearby dwarf spheroidals, which may be the leftover building blocks of galaxy formation.
Further out are a number of similarly sized and slightly misshaped dwarf irregular galaxies, which are not gravitationally bound to the Milky Way and may be relative newcomers to our galactic neighborhood.
Kristine Spekkens is an assistant professor at the Royal Military College of Canada and lead author on a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. She said:
"Astronomers wondered if, after billions of years of interaction, the nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies have all the same star-forming ‘stuff’ that we find in more distant dwarf galaxies."
Spekkens said:
"What we found is that there is a clear break, a point near our home galaxy where dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of any traces of neutral atomic hydrogen."Bottom line: New observations by large radio telescopes reveal that within a well-defined boundary around our galaxy, dwarf galaxies are completely devoid of star-making hydrogen gas. Astronomers say our Milky Way is to blame.
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| Neighboring galaxies to our own Milky Way (Descriptions below) |
| NAME | DISTANCE (kpc) | DISCOVERY PAPER |
|---|---|---|
| Canes Major | 7.2 | Martin et al. 2004, A dwarf galaxy remnant in Canis Major: the fossil of an in-plane accretion on to the Milky Way |
| Segue 3 | 17 | Belokurov et al. 2010, Big Fish, Little Fish: Two New Ultra-Faint Satellites of the Milky Way |
| Segue 1 | 23 | Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions |
| Sagittarius | 24 | Ibata, Gilmore & Irwin, 1994, A dwarf satellite galaxy in Sagittarius 1995, Sagittarius: the nearest dwarf galaxy |
| Segue 2 | 34.7 | Belokurov et al. 2009, The discovery of Segue 2: a prototype of the population of satellitesof satellites |
| Bootes II | 43 | Walsh, Jerjen & Willman, 2007, A Pair of Bootes: A New Milky Way Satellite |
| Coma | 44 | Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions |
| Willman 1 (SDSSJ1049+5103) | 45 | Willman et al. 2005, A New Milky Way Companion: Unusual Globular Cluster or Extreme Dwarf Satellite? |
| Bootes III | 46 | Grillmair 2009, Four New Stellar Debris Streams in the Galactic Halo |
| LMC | 50.8 | - |
| SMC | 59.7 | - |
| Bootes | 60 | Belokurov et al. 2006, A Faint New Milky Way Satellite in Bootes |
| Ursa Minor | 66 | A.G. Wilson of the Lowell Observatory in 1955, Sculptor-Type Systems in the Local Group of Galaxies |
| Sculptor (Scl) | 79 | discovered in 1938 by Harlow Shapley, A Stellar System of a New Type |
| Draco | 82 | A.G. Wilson of the Lowell Observatory in 1955, Sculptor-Type Systems in the Local Group of Galaxies |
| Sextans | 89 | Mike Irwin, M.T. Bridgeland, P.S. Bunclark and R.G. McMahon, 1990 A new satellite galaxy of the Milky Way in the constellation of Sextans |
| Ursa Major (UMa) | 100 | Willman et al. 2005, A New Milky Way Dwarf Galaxy in Ursa Major |
| Carina | 103 | Cannon, R. D., Hawarden, T. G., & Tritton, S. B., 1977, A new Sculptor-type dwarf elliptical galaxy in Carina |
| Hercules | 140 | Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions |
| Fornax | 140 | discovered in 1938 by Harlow Shapley, described in "Two Stellar Systems of a New Kind", Nature, Vol. 142, p. 715 |
| Canes Venatici II | 150 | Sakamoto & Hasegawa 2006, Discovery of a Faint Old Stellar System at 150 kpc |
| Leo IV | 160 | Belokurov et al. 2007, Cats and Dogs, Hair and A Hero: A Quintet of New Milky Way Companions |
| Pisces II | 182 | Belokurov et al. 2010, Big Fish, Little Fish: Two New Ultra-Faint Satellites of The Milky Way |
| Leo II (Leo B) | 208 | Robert G. Harrington and Albert George Wilson, 1950, Two New Stellar Systems in Leo |
| Canes Venatici | 220 | Zucker et al. 2006 A New Milky Way Dwarf Satellite in Canes Venatici |
| Leo I | 254 | Robert G. Harrington and Albert George Wilson, 1950, Two New Stellar Systems in Leo |
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| Human brains are about three times as large as those of our early australopithecines ancestors that lived 4 million to 2 million years ago, and for years, scientists have wondered how our brains got so big. A new study suggests social competition could be behind the increase in brain size. Credit NIH, NADA |
livescience.com
There are many ways to try to explain why human brains today are so big compared to those of early humans, but the major cause may be social competition, new research suggests.But with several competing ideas, the issue remains a matter of debate.
Compared to almost all other animals, human brains are larger as a percentage of body weight. And since the emergence of the first species in our Homo genus (Homo habilis) about 2 million years ago, the human brain has doubled in size. And when compared to earlier ancestors, such as australopithecines that lived 4 million to 2 million years ago, our brains are three times as large. For years, scientists have wondered what could account for this increase.
Behind the hypotheses
The climate idea proposes that dealing with unpredictable weather and major climate shifts may have increased the ability of our ancestors to think ahead and prepare for these environmental changes, which in turn led to a larger, more cognitively adept brain.
The ecology hypothesis states that, as our ancestors migrated away from the equator, they encountered environmental changes, such as less food and other resources. "So you have to be a little bit more clever to figure it out," said David Geary, a professor from the University of Missouri. Also, less parasite exposure could have played a role in the makings of a bigger brain. When your body combats parasites, it cranks up its immune system, which uses up calories that could have gone to boost brain development. Since there are fewer parasites farther away from the equator, migrating north or south could have meant that our predecessors had more opportunity to grow a larger brain because their bodies were not fighting off as many pathogens.
Finally, other researchers think that social competition for scarce resources influenced brain size. As populations grow, more people are contesting for the same number of resources, the thinking goes. Those with a higher social status, who are "a little bit smarter than other folks" will have more access to food and other goods, and their offspring will have a higher chance of survival, Geary said.
Those who are not as socially adept will die off, pushing up the average social "fitness" of the group. "It's that type of process, that competition within a species, for status, for control of resources, that cycles over and over again through multiple generations, that is a process that could easily explain a very, very rapid increase in brain size," Geary said.
Weighing the options
To examine which hypothesis is more likely, Geary and graduate student Drew Bailey analyzed data from 175 skull fossils — from humans and our ancestors — that date back to sometime between 10,000 ago and 2 million years ago.
The team looked at multiple factors, including how old the fossils were, where they were found, what the temperature was and how much the temperature varied at the time the Homo species lived, and the level of parasites in the area. They also looked at the population density of the region in order to measure social competition, "assuming that the more fossils you find in a particular area at a particular time, the more likely the population was larger," Geary said.
They then used a statistical analysis to test all of the variables at once to see how well they predicted brain size. "By far the best predictor was population density," Geary said. "And in fact, it seemed that there was very little change in brain size across our sample of fossil skulls until we hit a certain population size. Once that population density was hit, there was a very quick increase in brain size," he said.
Looking at all the variables together allowed the researchers to "separate out which variables are really important and which variables may be correlated for other reasons," added Geary. While the climate variables were still significant, their importance was much lower than that of population density, he said. The results were published in the March 2009 issue of the journal Human Nature.
Questions linger
The social competition hypothesis "sounds good," said Ralph Holloway, an anthropologist at Columbia University, who studies human brain evolution. But, he adds: "How would you ever go about really testing that with hard data?"
He points out that the sparse cranium data "doesn’t tell you anything about the differences in populations for Homo erectus, or the differences in populations of Neanderthals." For example, the number of Homo erectus crania that have been found in Africa, Asia, Indonesia and parts of Europe is fewer than 25, and represent the population over hundreds of thousands of years, he said.
"You can't even know the variation within a group let alone be certain of differences between groups," Holloway said. Larger skulls would be considered successful, but "how would you be able to show that these were in competition?"
However, Holloway is supportive of the research. "I think these are great ideas that really should be pursued a little bit more," he said.
Alternative hypotheses
Holloway has another hypothesis for how our brains got so big. He thinks that perhaps increased gestation time in the womb or increased dependency time of children on adults could have a played role. The longer gestation or dependency time "would have required more social cooperation and cognitive sophistication on the part of the parents," he said. Males and females would have needed to differentiate their social roles in a complementary way to help nurture the child. The higher level of cognition needed to perform these tasks could have led to an increase in brain size.
Still other hypotheses look at diet as a factor. Some researchers think that diets high in fish and shellfish could have provided our ancestors with the proper nutrients they needed to grow a big brain.
And another idea is that a decreased rate of cell death may have allowed more brain neurons to be synthesized, leading to bigger noggins.
Ultimately, no theory can be absolutely proven, and the scant fossil record makes it hard to test hypotheses. "If you calculate a generation as, let's say, 20 years, and you know that any group has to have a minimal breeding size, then the number of fossils that we have that demonstrates hominid evolution is something like 0.000001 percent," Holloway said. "So frankly, I mean, all hypotheses look good."
canadajournal.net
Tiny clownfish larvae can swim up to 400 kilometres in search of a hospitable anemone – an epic ability that could help them adapt to environmental change, research has found.
The clownfish migrations were discovered by Steve Simpson of the University of Exeter who analysed the DNA of two separate populations.
The groups, from the Arabian Sea, off Oman, live 250 miles (400km) apart.
Mr Simpson and his colleagues captured 136 clownfish from a northern group and 260 from one which lived further south and compared their genetic make-up.
They found one of the clownfish had migrated north from the southern group and 14 had travelled south from the northern group.
A small number of the fish in each group were hybrids, suggesting that some of the incomers had bred with natives from the group.
Mr Simpson said the fish migrate huge distances in order to share their genes, which helps strengthen their populations.
He suggests the finding could be good news for fish as they face a number of threats from global warming, including the heating up of their habitats and the acidification of seawater.
Archeologists digging at Binchester Roman Fort near Bishop Auckland in County Durham, England have unearthed a treasure trove of Roman artifacts and buildings dating back more than 1,800 years. Lauded as some of the best-preserved Roman ruins this side of Pompeii, the site has produced an ancient bathhouse, an altar to the goddess Fortuna and a piece of jewelry that offers early evidence of Christianity in Roman Britain.
Excavations at the Binchester site (Credit: University of Durham)
Chief among the discoveries is an 1,800-year-old Roman bathhouse that would have served as the hub of the fort’s social and recreational life. The baths still feature original floors, windows and doorways, and plaster shards indicate that their seven-foot-high walls were once adorned with colorful designs and drawings. “The most unique feature of these remains is the sheer scale of their preservation,” said Dr. David Petts, archeologist at Durham University. “It is possible to walk through a series of Roman rooms with walls all above head height; this is pretty exceptional for Roman Britain.” Further digging in the bathhouse uncovered evidence of plumbing, including a drain and gaps in the walls that may have once held lead piping to channel water.
In an adjacent changing room, the archeologists excavated a carved stone altar to Fortune the Home-Bringer, one of several aspects of Fortuna, the Roman goddess of luck, chance and fate. The altar bears an inscription by a trooper garrisoned at the fort with a unit of Spanish cavalry. The etching identifies his rank as “architectus,” offering some of the first evidence that military architects may have operated on staff at provincial Roman outposts.
Excavations at the Binchester site have also yielded a silver ring with an engraving that features two fish dangling from an anchor, often considered an early symbol of Christianity. The design appears widely in Roman artifacts, but the researchers say the ring is only the second time it has cropped up in Britain. Dr. Petts dates the jewelry to the 3rd century A.D.—long before the Emperor Constantine legalized Christianity in 313. “This is a surprisingly early date for a Christian object in Britain,” he notes on the project’s blog. “Evidence for Roman Christianity is rare in Northern England, and evidence for Pre-Constantinian Christianity is even rarer.”
With its commanding views of the nearby road and river, the fort at Binchester was one of the most vital of the five Roman bastions that once operated in County Durham. The site was constructed from timber sometime around A.D. 80. on the orders of Gnaeus Julius Agricola, the Roman Governor of Britain. It was later fortified and rebuilt from stone during the Antonine period in the second century. The newer citadel included a hospital and several barracks, workshops and granaries, but it wasn’t merely a military outpost. From their guard towers, Roman legionaries would have been able to watch a “vicus,” or civilian settlement, emerge alongside their fort. Evidence shows this upstart village continued on long after the fall of the Roman Empire. A nearby 7th century church is even built from looted stone that once belonged to the Binchester fort.
References to the ruins date back to the 1500s, but the first organized study of the Binchester fort didn’t take place until the late 19th century, when John Proud and the Reverend R.E. Hoopell unearthed a 4th century praetorium, or officer’s headquarters, and an adjacent bathhouse. The current Binchester excavation is a joint endeavor between the Durham County Council, the University of Durham, the Architectural and Archaeological Society of Northumberland and Durham and several other institutions. Now in its sixth year, the project has focused on excavating a pair of trenches dug at the site. The better preserved of the two trenches houses the altar and the bathhouse, both of which appear to have been converted into a trash heap in the late-Roman period. The other site features a section of the tower wall, a cavalry barracks, horse stables, bread ovens and a latrine. Petts hopes these finds can serve as a window onto the world of both the fort and the village that once flourished beyond its walls. “Our excavations have uncovered parts of one of the best preserved Roman buildings in Britain,” he said in the press release. “The building itself and the wonderful array of artifacts we have recovered from Binchester give us an unparalleled opportunity to better understand life on the northern frontier in the Roman period.”
The recent discoveries are not the first significant artifacts associated with the Binchester project. In July 2013, an archeology student working at the site unearthed a 1,800-year-old carved stone head that may be one of the few depictions of the Romano-British god Antenociticus.
By ELLEN KNICKMEYER
The Associated Press
Twenty-one species of fish made the leap Tuesday off a watch list of seafood to avoid as unsustainably overfished, leaving conservationists and many fishermen and chefs celebrating the turnaround of a West Coast fishing ground declared an economic disaster area by the federal government just 14 years ago.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium upgraded the 21 species of West Coast bottom-dwelling fish known as ground fish — including rockfish, sablefish, and other workhorses of the white-fish seafood fillet market — from its "avoid" category on the Seafood Watch list, meaning the food industry and consumers now should feel free to sell and eat those fish without guilt.
The declaration marks a rebound from 2000, when commercial overfishing of ground fish off California, Oregon and Washington had depleted those and other species so badly as to earn a government designation of an economic disaster.
The related federal cut in the allowable catch of ground fish off the West Coast "was devastating to a lot of the fishing families, but it was so overfished," recalled Cindy Walter, the daughter of a professional fisherman and co-owner now of a Pacific Grove, California, restaurant specializing in sustainably harvested fish.
At the time, Walter assumed the ground-fish fishing ground "was going to be closed for a very, very long time, like most of my life," Walter said. The fact it reopened after only 14 years "is a great thing because it really shows when you have the fishermen and the NGOs and the government working ... they can turn around a fishery."
Key actions that helped the West Coast ground-fish rebound include greatly increased government monitoring and control of fishing boats' take, assigning fishing quotas to individual fishermen rather than to types of fish, and closing off some areas of the ocean to safeguard vulnerable habitat, those involved said.
In the early 1990s, 500 commercial fishing boats plied the ground-fish fishery off the West Coast, said Brad Pettinger, a trawl fisherman and executive direction of Oregon's state commission for trawl-fishing. Fellow fishermen helped buy out many of those 500 to help bring down the total to 100 fishing boats today, Pettinger said.
"You want to match up the available fish with the right number" of fishermen, Pettinger said. "I've been in the fishery when there are too many boats chasing too few fish. Believe me, that's no place you want to be."
Ground-fish account for more than 10 percent of fish caught in the United States, said Jennifer Kemmerly, director of the Seafood Watch program. Unlike many other types of fish, most U.S. ground fish are consumed in the country rather than shipped overseas.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has managed the Seafood Watch list since 1999 to encourage the food industry and consumers to avoid types of fish that are being harvested in unsustainable numbers. A mobile-phone app for the watch list, for example, has been downloaded more than 1 million times.
Conservation groups say more than 85 percent of the world's fisheries are being fished more quickly and heavily than breeding populations can sustain. Fish of greatest concern for overfishing now include orange roughy and sharks, Kemmerly said.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium upgraded the 21 species of West Coast bottom-dwelling fish known as ground fish — including rockfish, sablefish, and other workhorses of the white-fish seafood fillet market — from its "avoid" category on the Seafood Watch list, meaning the food industry and consumers now should feel free to sell and eat those fish without guilt.
The declaration marks a rebound from 2000, when commercial overfishing of ground fish off California, Oregon and Washington had depleted those and other species so badly as to earn a government designation of an economic disaster.
The related federal cut in the allowable catch of ground fish off the West Coast "was devastating to a lot of the fishing families, but it was so overfished," recalled Cindy Walter, the daughter of a professional fisherman and co-owner now of a Pacific Grove, California, restaurant specializing in sustainably harvested fish.
At the time, Walter assumed the ground-fish fishing ground "was going to be closed for a very, very long time, like most of my life," Walter said. The fact it reopened after only 14 years "is a great thing because it really shows when you have the fishermen and the NGOs and the government working ... they can turn around a fishery."
Key actions that helped the West Coast ground-fish rebound include greatly increased government monitoring and control of fishing boats' take, assigning fishing quotas to individual fishermen rather than to types of fish, and closing off some areas of the ocean to safeguard vulnerable habitat, those involved said.
In the early 1990s, 500 commercial fishing boats plied the ground-fish fishery off the West Coast, said Brad Pettinger, a trawl fisherman and executive direction of Oregon's state commission for trawl-fishing. Fellow fishermen helped buy out many of those 500 to help bring down the total to 100 fishing boats today, Pettinger said.
"You want to match up the available fish with the right number" of fishermen, Pettinger said. "I've been in the fishery when there are too many boats chasing too few fish. Believe me, that's no place you want to be."
Ground-fish account for more than 10 percent of fish caught in the United States, said Jennifer Kemmerly, director of the Seafood Watch program. Unlike many other types of fish, most U.S. ground fish are consumed in the country rather than shipped overseas.
The Monterey Bay Aquarium has managed the Seafood Watch list since 1999 to encourage the food industry and consumers to avoid types of fish that are being harvested in unsustainable numbers. A mobile-phone app for the watch list, for example, has been downloaded more than 1 million times.
Conservation groups say more than 85 percent of the world's fisheries are being fished more quickly and heavily than breeding populations can sustain. Fish of greatest concern for overfishing now include orange roughy and sharks, Kemmerly said.
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a message from Sarah Biermann
Wednesday, 2 May, 2012 (posted 3 May, 2012)
We’re now fully into the year 2012 and boy are we feeling it. Everything is speeding up. We really have to “shift or get off the pot!...
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U.S. Creates Largest Protected Area in the World ~ 3X Larger than California
"We thought [the monument decision] was a good way to balance what the science was telling us was important to protect and the needs of those who use the area," Boots said.
The area being protected by the administration will expand the protected areas from 50 miles offshore to 200 miles offshore around three areas—Wake Island, Johnston Atoll, and Jarvis Island—the maximum reach of the United States’ exclusive economic zone. The current 50-mile offshore protections around the Howland and Baker islands, and Kingman Reef and Palmyra Atoll, will not change.
Kerry said one measure that could help deter illegal fishing in the region, as well as around the world, would be to implement the Port State Measures Agreement, an international treaty that requires member nations to prevent illegally caught fish from entering the market. Eleven nations or parties have ratified the agreement, but a total of 25 must sign before the treaty will take effect.
"Our goal is to get this done this year," Kerry said.