fish

In a rare bit of positive news about the U.S. diet, Americans upped their seafood intake by a pound last year to 15.5 pounds, according to the annual Fisheries of the United States Report released by NOAA last week. Even though that only amounts to about four extra seafood meals per person per year, it constitutes the “biggest biggest leap in seafood consumption in 20 years," says NPR.

Overfishing is taking away many of the big fish species that live in coral reefs, but just as importantly, it’s taking away their pee, according to a new study published the journal Nature Communications. Rich in phosphorus and nitrogen, the urine of large predator species like grouper and snapper are vital to coral ecosystems.

The Columbia River sockeye run is off to a record-setting start, says The Seattle Times, despite the fact that earlier in the season fishery managers forecasted a low salmon return due to high water temperatures. As of Monday, “June 13, a total of 33,496 sockeye [had] been counted at Bonneville Dam, the highest count through that date since at least 1938 — the previous record was 24,728 sockeye last year,” reports the Times.

In California, federal fisheries regulators are mulling two new plans to save the state’s endangered winter-run Chinook salmon and Delta smelt—plans that could mean serious water shortages for farmers. While this year saw ample rain and snowfall in the northern half of the state, regulators warn that the precipitation wasn’t enough to make up for several years of historic drought.

Baby fish prefer plastic particles to the zooplankton that makes up their natural diet, according to a study published in the journal Science. The researchers from Uppsala University in Sweden "found that the larval fish that were exposed to microplastic particles displayed a shift in behavior and stunted growth," reports The Christian Science Monitor in an article on the study.

Twenty-nine countries from Iceland to Sudan established the world’s first fisheries pact designed to stamp out pirate fishing, the UN FAO said. The Agreement on Port State Measures to Prevent, Deter and Eliminate Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated Fisheries (PSMA) took effect on June 5.

A federal appeals court in Chile has ruled that the country’s salmon farmers have to disclose their level of antibiotic use, says Reuters. The international environmental group Oceana filed the claim for transparency in 2014, when Chilean salmon producers upped their antibiotic use by 25 percent in order to fight off a devastating bacteria known as SRS or Piscirickettsiosis.

With less than 1 percent of North American oceans under protection, the continent is falling far behind international targets to conserve ocean ecosystems, says a report out by NGOs in Canada, the U.S. and Mexico.

A federal judge ruled that the U.S. government’s attempts to recover Northwest salmon populations, hurt by dams, have failed. “In his ruling, US District Judge Michael Simon in Portland, Ore., lambasted the federal government’s current plan to ameliorate the effects of the dams, saying it violates both the Endangered Species Act and the National Environmental Policy Act,” says The Christian Science Monitor.

Chemicals in hydraulic fracking are capable of disrupting the endocrine systems of fish and potentially humans, says a new study that tested water around a fracking wastewater disposal site in Fayetteville, West Virginia.

A new study by researchers from the University of California Santa Barbara, the Environmental Defense Fund, and the University of Washington demonstrates that adopting “rights-based fishery management” (RBFM) would not only help fish populations recover, but would mean more money for fishermen, reports The Christian Science Monitor.

“A fish will often go through five to 15 sets of hands in the supply chain, from the boat to the retailer or restaurant,” reports Ensia. Many customers are willing to pay a premium to know the origins of their fish, especially if they've heard how rampant fraud is in the seafood business.

The level of mercury has dropped 50 percent in ocean fish and the level of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) has fallen more than 90 percent in the last 40 years, according to a new review by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.

In the northeast United States, scallops, eastern oysters, the quahog clam and Atlantic salmon will be the most vulnerable to changing ocean conditions associated with climate change, a federal study says.

Hatchery-raised fish show dramatic alterations in their DNA from wild fish in just one generation, says a new study published in Nature Communications by Oregon State University.

The massive algae bloom plaguing Lake Erie again this summer is now turning away anglers, says the Detroit Free Press.

Topsoil and subsoil moisture levels continue to decline in the Pacific Northwest, where streamflows have shriveled to record or near-record lows, says the weekly Drought Monitor.

Scores of studies have established that neonicotinoids, the most widely used pesticides in the world, are contributing to the steady decline of bees and other insects across North America and Europe. Now evidence is growing that these compounds, tailored to take out invertebrates, can also harm mammals, birds, and fish, as Elizabeth Royte explains in FERN's latest story, published with National Geographic.(No paywall)