fishing

Voters in Texas will decide today whether to amend the state constitution to specify "the right to hunt, fish and harvest wildlife, including by use of traditional means," subject to game laws. The proposed amendment, Proposition 6, also says, "Hunting and fishing are the preferred methods of managing and controlling wildlife."

The United States imported $19 billion worth of seafood last year, more than nine times the value of the domestic catch that is consumed at home, writes Deborah Zabarenko in a story at Medium. Only 1-2 percent is inspected by FDA and the rejection rate was 0.33 percent in 2012. According to the seafood industry and government officials, the inspection net falls much wider, covering as much as 40 percent of imports.

After decades of being treated as a marine nuisance, beavers "could help ease the water woes" that pit farmers against fishermen in California, says the magazine onEarth.

The mosquito nets distributed in Africa to combat malaria are being used "from the mud flats of Nigeria to the coral reefs off Mozambique" as fishing nets, says the New York Times...

The White House unveiled 15 recommendations against so-called pirate fishing - seafood fraud and the illegal, unreported and unregulated catch of fish - as a way to protect fishery stocks and bolster the income of legal harvesters.

China Tuna Industry Group Holdings has withdrawn its application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange to become a publicly traded company because of adverse publicity, says Undercurrent News.

The American paddlefish, a relative of the sturgeon that looks like a prehistoric marine reptile, is the prey in the insatiable international market for caviar, writes Michelle Nijhuis. She describes a poaching frenzy on the Osage River in central Missouri, where hundreds of pounds of roe were sold to racketeers who labeled it as Russian caviar worth $300 an ounce. The paddlefish is the latest species to be decimated to satisfy the carving for caviar.