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Oregon and Washington have been given permission to resume removing or killing California sea lions at Bonneville Dam on the Columbia River, a federal agency said Friday. The decision by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration came about six months after a federal appeals court struck down a similar permit aimed at reducing the number of threatened or endangered salmon eaten by the hungry marine mammals. ... the California sea lion population is healthy, estimated at 238,000, while wild Columbia River spring chinook salmon are listed as endangered. ... NOAA Regional Director William Stelle said new data suggest sea lions...

OPINION: Fishermen are worse than BP? However, according to Jane Lubchenco, head of NOAA, in a statement in the Miami Herald on Dec. 30, in her estimation it wasn't BP and the biggest accidental oil spill that the world has ever seen or the wanton use, with her approval, of toxic chemical dispersants that was responsible for the dead turtles. It was fishermen. Last year's BP oil spill resulted in 1 1/2 to 2 1/2 million gallons of petroleum products being released into the Gulf of Mexico every day for three months. It was the largest accidental oil spill that...

The state of Alaska filed a lawsuit Tuesday in an effort to stop a federal agency's plan to protect endangered sea lions by restricting fishing in the western Aleutian Islands. According to Parnell's office, up to 900 people are employed by fleets in the areas where fishing will be restricted. It says the plan would cost fishery losses of tens of millions of dollars annually, and it believes the federal agency committed procedural violations that limited input from the public and experts.

Leaders of the recreational and commercial fishing industry are planning a boat protest against federal policies Thursday outside the harbor of Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard, where President Obama and his family are summer vacationing. The protest is being organized after a bipartisan, bicameral coalition of federal lawmakers -- including the core of the President’s Congressional base on banking and health care issues -- have given up hope of working productively with Obama’s top appointee for oceans and fisheries, Jane Lubchenco, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Boats from Gloucester and New Bedford, the hub ports of New...

I spotlighted the neon green radical-led White House ocean grab last week that is undermining the health of the fishing industry. On Thursday, a fleet of fishermen will gather at Martha’s Vineyard to protest Obama’s destructive eco-policies. It’s just one more wave of the citizen backlash by thousands of victims of the White House war on jobs (flashback: Pushing back: Thousands of Obama’s drilling moratorium victims rally in La. ). From the Gloucester Daily Times via the Boston Herald: Leaders of the recreational and commercial fishing industry are planning a boat protest against federal policies Thursday outside the harbor of...

"Rev. Edwards, with a black and gold Bible in hand, said it's time for President Obama to come to small towns like Pointe a la Hache and hear firsthand from the men and women who are scraping by, angry with the bureaucracy that is preventing the resources from flowing. He is still seething from a meeting last week with Kenneth Feinberg, the Washington, D.C. attorney President Obama appointed to oversee the $20 billion fund BP established to assist victims of the disaster. "This guy sounds like BP all the way," said Edwards, who didn't like what he said was Feinberg's...

A fisherman's wife speaks out against BP, saying the oil is making fishermen sick. CNN's Elizabeth Cohen reports.(Click video to view.)

Stuart H. Smith of the law firm Smith Stag, LLC, New Orleans, Louisiana has assembled a working group of lawyers from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida to prosecute claims for those who have been affected by BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Commercial fishermen and shrimpers have filed a class-action lawsuit against BP and owners of the oil rig for economic losses stemming from the disaster. The lawsuit was filed late on Wednesday, April 28 in U.S. District Court in New Orleans.

Fishermen and charter boat captains from Maine to Louisiana rallied outside the Capitol Wednesday to demand changes to federal fishing limits they say are putting them out of business

Fishermen captured a 748-pound shark just 18 miles off the Fort Lauderdale coast, WPLG-Ch. 10 reports.

UMM QASR — Rear Adm. Jawad, commander of the Iraqi Navy, paid a surprise visit to a group of Iraqi fishermen Dec. 21. Jawad and a group of Coalition leaders were returning from a visit to Iraq’s offshore oil platforms when he decided to board a fishing dhow near the entrance to the Khawr Abd Allah. “The admiral decided he wanted to go alongside one of the Iraqi fisherman,” said Royal Navy Capt. Paul Abraham, Maritime Strategic Training Team commander. “Just to talk to them, see how the fishing was going, and to let them know the Iraqi Navy was...

JHARKHALI, India — The fishermen were hauling in the first net of the morning when the tiger pounced. Kumaresh Mondal managed to run a few steps before the 450-pound beast knocked him down with a leap, tore into his throat, and dragged his limp body into the dense mangrove forest.

Australian fishermen net 500-pound squid 4 hours agoMELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Australian fishermen have hauled up a 20-foot-long giant squid off the country's southeastern coast.Skipper Rangi Pene said Monday that the 500-pound squid was already dead when it was caught in a trawler's nets Sunday night in waters more than 1,640 feet deep.Paul McCoy, a fisheries research biologist, said it took 10 men to lift the squid onto a stretcher and place it in a storage freezer in the city of Portland. A museum will collect it this week.McCoy said an analysis by the museum would determine the type...

22 N. Korean drifters executed after return home: source SEOUL, Feb. 17 (Yonhap) -- A group of 22 North Koreans who had been returned home after their boats drifted into South Korean waters were all immediately executed by North Korean authorities, a source here said Sunday. Two fishing boats carrying the 22 North Koreans, including 14 women and three teenagers, drifted into the western waters off South Korea's Yeonpyeong Island on Feb. 8 and were sent back home after South Korean interrogators found they had no intention to defect, the National Intelligence Service said in a press release on Saturday....

California citrus farmers would get $20 million, spinach growers $25 million and salmon fishermen $60.4 million in an emergency war spending bill that passed a House committee Thursday. The money for citrus and spinach growers is part of $3.7 billion for farm disaster relief in the bill, including $1.8 billion for crop loss assistance and $1.48 billion for livestock compensation. Farmers in California and other states would be able to apply for that crop and livestock money. The relief comes as part of a $124 billion war spending bill - including $95.5 billion for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq...

Three Mexican fishermen who disappeared in the Pacific Ocean nine months ago have been rescued nearly 8,000 kilometres from their home, saying they survived by eating seagulls, drinking rainwater and reading the Bible. A Taiwanese tuna boat scooped the men out of the water about halfway between Hawaii and Australia on Aug. 9. They had drifted all the way from San Blas, a fishing village about 160 kilometres north of Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where they were last seen in late October or early November, 2005. Fishermen in San Blas, a hamlet of about 8,000 people, are celebrating the men's astonishing...

Basques were fishermen more than 8,000 years ago 06/13/2006 The Basques that settled 8,300 years ago in the Jaizkibel Mountain near the Basque coast were skillful enough to go fishing two kilometres out to sea. The human beings that lived in the Basque Country in the Mesolithic, more than 8,000 years ago, set sail out to sea fishing, something which meant 50 percent of their diet, Aranzadi society of sciences reported Tuesday after examining archaeological remains found in Gipuzkoa. They did not hunt whales, as their descendants many years after, neither tuna nor anchovy as the current Basque fishermen but...

ABOUT 500 fishermen were stranded on a large ice floe off the island of Sakhalin in far eastern Russia, officials said today. Rescuers had managed to take 15 people off the ice using motorboats, Russia's emergency situations ministry said. A strong wind was pushing the floe out to sea and officials were preparing to use a hovercraft and helicopters in the rescue effort, Russian news agencies reported. Despite repeated warnings from authorities, fishing through holes in the ice remains popular in Russia and fishermen often stray far from the shores of lakes and seas.

Fishermen released after court fails to find translator Charges against nine Indonesian fishermen have been withdrawn in the Darwin Magistrates Court because an interpreter could not be found to translate their obscure sea-faring language.Nine Indonesian fisherman were apprehended in the Australian fishing zone almost five nautical miles from the Ashmore Reef. They have been in custody since late March.But in court today all charges against the fishermen were withdrawn because an interpreter could not be found in Australia that spoke a discrete sea gypsy dialect, called bajo. While only six of the fishermen spoke bajo the Crown Prosecutor said...

The staff of Unicef’s Sri Lanka operation are in their Colombo offices dealing as best they can with a flood of desperate people, people at the end of their tether, people in overwhelming need of immediate help. CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, for instance. Ms Amanpour, or at least her producer, wants two orphans, preferably brothers who have lost at least six other members of their families, please, on the coast road between Bentota and Galle, tomorrow after two o’clock local time for a Sri Lanka — Land In Turmoil prime-time special. It is now 7.30 p.m. When approached by his assistant...