Fishing and refuse disposal are to be banned in the 1st high seas Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Southern Ocean, an area of the ocean that contains more species than the Galapagos Islands.

This will allow scientists to monitor the effects of climate change in this region. This is only the first of possibly twelve such areas.

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Long line fishing is being blamed for a startling drop in the number of albatrosses around the world.  Fish, squid and other bait are trailed on hooks behind a trawler to catch tuna and swordfish.

However, because the hooks for these fish are set just below the surface it attracts albatrosses who think they’ve spotted a nice free meal and dive into the water to get it.

Instead they get hooked and tangled in the line, dragged under the water, and drowned.  In many cases the bait has been dislodged meaning that hook will now catch nothing.

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[UPDATE: Japanese Dolphin Slaughter to Continue Despite Current Suspension]

Ric O’Barry reports that the horrific annual dolphin slaughter in Taiji has been suspended due to publicity from the film, The Cove.

September 1st usually marks the first day of the year for the brutal killings, but for the first time the Japanese media has arrived in Taiji en masse, causing the local fishermen to pause while the world takes notice.

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A century ago the Seine, which flows from the north of France, through Paris to the English Channel, hosted a large flourishing population of Atlantic salmon. The salmon migrated from the sea to their freshwater birth place to reproduce from December to June every year.

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We have all been waiting for this day. Finally, shark repellent has arrived to the world… except this shark repellent is not used to save humans from sharks. No this shark repellent was made to save sharks from humans. With good reason, while only about 4 people die of unprovoked shark attacks each year, humans kill an estimated 73 million sharks each year. You do the math and tell me who is the biggest threat to whom?

Many sharks are inadvertently killed in fishing equipment used for tuna, swordfish, and other commercial fish. This is called bycatch. These unwanted sharks are often thrown back into the ocean dead, dying, or injured.

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17 dams recently built on the Mekong River in Southeast Asia are threatening fisheries, destroying a vast ecosystem, and starving millions. And 11 more dams are currently in the planning process.

The dams already in place are blocking fish from traveling upstream to spawn, and the new dams– many of which will sit nearer the river’s headwaters– could threaten the entire river ecosystem. 65 million people currently live and rely upon the Mekong for their sustenance and livelihood, and about 80 percent of their protein intake comes from the river’s fisheries.

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In 2003 “Nature” published a study showing that 90% of the large fish living in our oceans were fished out of existence. A group of scientists recently predicted, major seafood stocks will collapse by 2048. This is a staggering number, considering the technology and amount of people needed to cause overfishing is a relatively new phenomenon, starting really only in the late 19th century.

Most governments have shrugged these claims off, and continued their fishing practices. Alaska has shown to be the only sovereign state willing to self-police their fishing practices. Sarah Palin jokes aside… Threatened with the loss of one of its top industries, Alaska began limiting the number of fishing vessels, restricting the size of their catches; and perhaps most importantly, giving incentives to fishermen. Alaska currently gives fishermen a stake in the long-term viability of salmon and other fish.

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Image ©Beth Bader

Nine shark attack survivors will lobby the Senate to put new restrictions on fishing for sharks. The current legislation, Shark Fisheries Management Plan, implemented in the late 1990s, and the Shark Finning Prohibition Act of 2000 has failed to prevent thirty-two percent of the sharks and rays that live in the open ocean from being classified as “threatened” this year by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.

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Iraq’s marshlands are the largest wetland habitat in the Middle East, but years of damming, drainage, and pollution have rendered the area inadequate for the survival of the area’s plants, animals, and humans.

Untold numbers of people, many of whom living in extreme poverty, have been displaced by the drying marshlands. After initial improvements after the expulsion of Saddam Husein’s regime, water levels have shrunk down to below 2003 levels due to drought, causing many who returned to the area to leave.

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Fishing nets often inadvertantly become entangled around whales, and while that is a crime under the Endangered Species Act, hardly anyone ever faces charges. But one unlucky fisherman has been caught in the act.

Robert J. Eldridge Jr. faces up to a year in prison and a $100,000 fine if convicted of three felony charges.

The district attorney says he “did knowingly and unlawfully take a marine mammal, to wit, a humpback whale in waters under the jurisdiction of the United States by acts of pursuit, torment, and annoyance which had the potential to injure said marine mammal in the wild.”

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To update a previous post on the topic, above is a video of activists confronting government scientists and press representatives about the plan to kill up to 85 sea lions because they’re eating salmon. Activists organized a protest today at the Bonville dam and are encouraging all Oregon and Washinton residents to contact their local representatives.

Apparently sea lions like salmon a little too much. People in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho are threatened — they want all the tasty salmon for themselves.

Okay, perhaps that’s a bit of an oversimplification. But I have to wonder — if salmon didn’t taste good, would people be going to such great lengths to prevent a natural predator-prey relationship between a sea mammal and a fish?

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According to a new Wildlife Conservation Society study, reef fish levels along middle class coastal communities in Eastern Africa tend to be significantly lower– up to 4 times lower– than along areas bordering wealthy or poor communities.

Reasons for the disparity are numerous, and they involve a complicated interplay between traditional customs, economic development and population dynamics. But middle class apathy could also be to blame.

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In response to the rapid decline of Arctic sea ice in the last thirty years, the North Pacific Fishery Management Council has unanimously voted to prohibit fishing in nearly 200,000 square miles of Arctic waters.

The plan bans commercial fishing in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches from 3 miles offshore to 200 miles offshore, starting at the Bering Strait and extending north and east to the U.S.-Canada border.

No fishing of any considerable scale occurs in the Arctic, and the few surveys of fish stocks done there have not shown large populations. But some experts say it’s that commercially valuable seafood species such as pollock or crab populations could expand in the Arctic, especially as water warms and ice unlocks.

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A 23-year-old homeless man in San Luis Obispo, California has been sentenced to 10 days in jail for catching and cooking a federally protected Central Coast steelhead trout from a creek.

While the sentence is perhaps overly harsh, the fish was a pregnant female, so wildlife experts say his meal caused a severe blow to the struggling species. And anyway, fishing of all kinds is prohibited in the creek.

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Along with wanting to curb overfishing, Lubchenco has also been a voice for curbing greenhouse admissions that contribute to global warming, reports the Washington Post. Her appointment will put the NOAA in a rank of prestige, as Lubchenco is a member of the National Academy and the Royal Society, of America and England respectively.

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Although you may or may not be a part of the cultural elite who consider themselves caviar connoisseurs, if you have interest in the environment and economy you may be able to appreciate the developments occurring in in the world Caviar market thanks to a number of U.S. based fisheries.

For hundreds of years caviar was harvested for the wealthy and affluent of the world in much the same way. Large fishing boats would hall in nets full of sturgeon during spawning season. For most vessels the operation was for deck hands to sort the fish, males would be deposited into a holding tank for market. Females would be cut open for their eggs to be harvested for caviar and the rest would be discarded or kept in another holding tank for the fish markets. It was this approach, yielding only one harvest per female fish, which helped contribute to caviar becoming such a high priced luxury for the affluent.

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The graph below paints a sobering picture of how much fish populations have dwindled – and where they might be headed if we don’t act soon: In 1950, just 15 percent of stocks were overfished; in 2003, 70 percent were overfished or had totally collapsed

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Poachers killed an indigenous man on the remote Indian Andaman Islands after him and other members of his tribe, the Jarawa, requested that the poachers share their fish bounty with the tribe. The Andamans and their surrounding waters are protected but an increasing number of poachers have been fishing in the area.

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