Fishing // Current

Crappie Magazine

The official magazine of the Crappie bass fish.

Jenny2485
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The President's Dilemma

The Pacific islands of Kiribati were among the last places to be colonized by humans.... more

IFAD
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3 days ago
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Jupiter's Moon Europa Might Be Teeming With Fish

New evidence has come to light that the vast, ice-encrusted oceans of Europa may be... more

pjacobs51
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The Brown Dipper of the Himalayas

A close-up look at this hardy little bird, the brown dipper, who dives for insects in... more

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SOS: Save Our Seabirds From Commercial Fishing Boats

Many conservationists have been talking about how commercial fishing practices have... more

bethbot
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6 days ago
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Migingo- No Man's Island

Migingo Island in Kenya is only the size of one football field, yet in 2009 this small... more

neilgill
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12 days ago
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Mersey Fog

The blast of the fog horn guides shipping through the poor visibility. The dockyard... more

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13 days ago
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Say "Goodbye" to Bluefin Tuna

As the insistent beat of unregulated mass consumption continues, another species faces... more

Progresshiv
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15 days ago
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A Fishing Trip- Colorado River

Come fishing with me and my son. We'll kick back some cold ones and have some fun. I... more

amaness
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Enormous Jellyfish sinks Japanese fishing boat

The boat was capsized off Chiba in Japan, as its three-man crew was trying to haul in... more

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Certified sustainable: A recipe for disaster?

Sustainable is the latest buzzword in fisheries management and seafood retailing. But with experts predicting that fish stocks will be gone by 2048, can any commercially exploited marine species be classed as truly sustainable?

In 1997, with the backing of Unilever and WWF, the Marine Stewardship Council was formed. Fisheries that are assessed and meet the standard can use the MSC blue ecolabel. The MSC mission is to reward sustainable and environmentally friendly fishing practices.

In an ideal world, for the MSC to work effectively, the assessments would have been carried out from a pristine fish stock level and monitored continuously, but as we know this is now impossible. At least eighty percent of commercial fish stocks are now classified as fully or over-exploited. On this basis what purpose does the MSC label serve, except to possibly encourage the increased consumption of already severely depleted fish?

Several of the world's fishery stocks have been granted MSC certification in the face of growing opposition. Despite protests from California’s Monterey Bay Aquarium and the marine conservation group Oceana, MSC in October 2009 issued an ecolabel on fish products made with Pacific hake along the coast of the Pacific Northwest. Ben Ecticknap, Pacific project manager for Oceana, maintained that “The Pacific hake are at an all-time low population. There’s no good signs of recovery.” He said the Pacific hake population has fallen 89 per cent since the 1980s, so regulators should restrict commercial fishing and develop plans to rebuild the population.

The MSC certification of the Alaskan pollock fishery in 2005 stirred up a similar controversy with Greenpeace stating in 2008 that "the world’s largest food fishery is on the verge of collapse. Pollock, used to make McDonald’s fish sandwiches, frozen fish sticks, fish and chips, and imitation crabmeat, have had a population decrease of 50 percent since last year".

The MSC base their sustainability criteria on current scientific data gathered about fish stocks, but with fish piracy and under-reporting of catches rife how can we be sure that eco-labelling is a safe way of judging a fish species' health? Personally I don't think we can.

Before we can strike a balance between exploiting the oceans and sustainably harvesting them we must realise that, as it stands, very few so-called 'sustainable' fisheries can be sustained at current levels. As we move from one depleted species to another i.e. cod to pollock or monkfish to gurnard, the under-exploited fish becomes tomorrow's over-exploited fish.

In future we shall have to treat wild marine species as a very infrequent luxury and pay a much higher retail price for them if we are ever to ensure true sustainability when extracting marine species for food.

Even now companies are exploiting the keystone species krill to fill the commercial demand for fish oil left because of over-exploited fish stocks. Talk about fishing down the food chain, what will we do when the fish and the krill have gone?Sustainable is the latest buzzword in fisheries management and seafood retailing. But... more

Seasaver
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Obama seeks changes in Alaska hunting, fishing oversight

Sarah Palin won't be happy.

The Obama administration is launching a rapid, sweeping review of the way the federal government manages subsistence hunting and fishing in Alaska, Interior Department officials said Friday.

"The system, frankly, today is broken," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar announced in a video shown at the annual Alaska Federation of Natives convention in downtown Anchorage.

Subsistence rights -- the battle over who gets the first opportunity to hunt and fish on state or federal land -- is a headline issue at this year's convention. For decades, the debate has pitted rural Alaskans and Alaska Natives, who say they hunt and fish to survive, against sports groups and urban hunters and fishermen, who argue everyone should have equal access to fish and game.

The state makes hunting and fishing rules across Alaska. But the feds regulate subsistence on federal lands, creating a confounding, overlapping system.

In contrast to the state Constitution, a 1980 federal law guarantees rural Alaskans priority when it comes to subsistence. Some Alaska Native leaders say the feds haven't done enough to protect that right, and are proposing a resolution at the convention today that calls for broad changes to subsistence management.

AFN leaders met with Interior officials at least twice in the past four months, outlining some of those requests, said state Sen. Albert Kookesh, an AFN co-chairman who praised Friday's announcement.

"We couldn't have asked for more," he said.

Gov. Sean Parnell couldn't be reached for comment Friday afternoon. Parnell served as lieutenant governor to Sarah Palin before inheriting the job in July. Palin opposed a rural preference for subsistence hunting and fishing. Parnell's rural affairs adviser, John Moller, answered an interview request with an e-mail:

"The administration is interested in hearing more about the suggested federal review," he wrote. "We plan to take an active role in the review and look forward to hearing details on what changes the federal government believes would make the existing dual-management system more workable."

In a statement explaining Friday's announcement, the Interior Department said subsistence is vital to the physical and spiritual culture of Alaska Natives, and federal oversight needs to be retooled to better meet the needs of Native communities.

More @ linkSarah Palin won't be happy. The Obama administration is launching a rapid, sweeping... more