Free Republic

Faced with the threat that Asian carp could enter the Great Lakes, Michigan is turning to the public for new ideas and plans to offer a prize to whoever comes up with a way to stop the voracious fish. Michigan's global search challenge comes after the U.S. government and others have spent hundreds of millions searching for a solution to stop the carp from entering the world's largest freshwater system. If they aren't stopped, officials fear the aggressive fish will crowd out prize native fish and hamper recreational boating in large sections of the lakes...

The peninsula's tiny islets are well-suited to nesting and have sardines and anchovies close to the shoreline. The flightless birds come on shore in September and October and stay while the males and females take turns caring for their eggs and hunting for food. The warm-weather birds breed in large colonies in southern Argentina and Chile and migrate north as far as southwestern Brazil between March and September.

Radiation inside one of the damaged reactors at the Fukushima nuclear power facility has reached an “unimaginable” level according to experts. Because so much nuclear material from Fukushima escaped into the Pacific Ocean, there are many scientists that believe that it was the worst environmental disaster in human history, but most people in the general population seem to think that since the mainstream media really doesn’t talk about it anymore that everything must be under control. Unfortunately, that is not true at all. In fact, PBS reported just last year that “it is incorrect to say that Fukushima is under...

An Onalaska angler caught with more than 2,500 panfish pleaded no contest Tuesday to four citations for exceeding possession limits. Stanley Paalksnis, 74, faces fines totaling $24,683, although prosecutors agreed to ask a La Crosse County Circuit judge impose a $10,000 fine, revoke his fishing privileges for 12 years and order Paalksnis forfeit his 15-foot boat seized by authorities. He will be sentenced at a later date. Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources wardens Nov. 4, 2015, on Lake Onalaska saw Paalksnis keep 47 bluegills, according to court records. The daily limit is 25. Pause Current Time 0:00 / Duration Time...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration on Wednesday finalized a rule that lets wind-energy companies operate high-speed turbines for up to 30 years — even if means killing or injuring thousands of federally protected bald and golden eagles. Under the new rule, wind companies and other power providers will not face a penalty if they kill or injure up to 4,200 bald eagles, nearly four times the current limit. Deaths of the more rare golden eagles would be allowed without penalty so long as companies minimize losses by taking steps such as retrofitting power poles to reduce the risk of...

Fish as Smart as Apes? by Jeffrey P. Tomkins, Ph.D. * Evidence for Creation Since evolutionary thinking permeates the entire spectrum of biology, scientists are consistently surprised by the mental abilities of creatures thought to be lower on the so-called tree of life. In this mythical tree of evolutionary progression, apes are thought to be at the top of the intelligence scale—second only to humans. But now we have numerous examples of other land creatures, most notably birds, that rival or exceed apes’ mental capabilities.1-3 But what about fish, the supposed ancient ancestors of all land-dwelling animals? With such a...

It was hook, line and sinker — literally — for a man who went out fishing over Thanksgiving. Equipped with only a small rod, Wilmington, North Carolina, resident Riahn Brewington struggled as he tried to pull out a fish from Cape Fear River last week. He caught a catfish, but not just any catfish: a giant catfish that weighed more than 112 pounds. The bloated fish was bigger than the top half of Brewington’s body. Brewington couldn’t believe his eyes, and neither could his friends when the fisherman posted his prized catch on Facebook. “Holy Catfish!!!” one Facebook user exclaimed....

An amusement park in southwestern Japan has closed its ice-skating rink after public outrage over the rink's key feature: 5,000 dead fish frozen into the ice itself.... “We had intended to give the feel of the ocean to this ice skating rink, with the image of fish swimming in the ocean,” Space World general manager Toshimi Takeda told the newspaper. “And we intended to make visitors have fun and learn more about fish.”... “We sincerely apologize to everyone who was upset by the 'Ice Aquarium,' " the theme park tweeted.

There were two sightings of Western yellow-billed cuckoos this year, both in Delta County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. The secretive birds are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is considering designating parts of western Colorado as critical habitat for the migratory bird, including lands along the Colorado River through Mesa County. Sightings — which frequently involve people hearing the cuckoo’s distinctive “klak-klak” sound — have been recorded in Mesa and Delta counties in previous years. ... “We have changed the initial map due to comments from the proposed...

Washington (CNN)It isn't exactly a squid pro quo, but scientists are naming a new fish after President Barack Obama partly as a way to say thanks for his decision last month to create a new protected area off the Hawaiian coast. National Geographic reported Friday that the maroon and gold creature, which was discovered 300 feet deep in the waters off Kure Atoll, is the only known fish to live within Papahānaumokuākea, an expanse of coral reefs and seamounts home to more than 7,000 species. One looking for the fish's official name, however, is likely to stay hooked -- a...

Humans are eating more fish than ever. And since 2014, most of what we eat has come not from the wild, but from fish farms operated by the fast-growing aquaculture industry. But what do these farmed fish eat? The answer is just as unappetizing as it sounds — and just as worrisome to advocates of sustainable seafood. The typical fish-farm diet (“aquafeed,” in industry parlance) contains fish — specifically fish meal and fish oil, made largely from wild-caught “forage” fish. And because stocks of wild fish are declining, that poses a serious long-term problem for the world food supply. Wild...

The Harassment of the Hammonds Upon examination of the government’s trail of paperwork spanning a period of nearly two decades , between the Hammonds and the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge (MNWR), it is apparent that they were being persecuted by the federal government for simply insisting upon exercising their historical right to trail cattle. This began long before the controlled burn in 2002 and the backfire in 2006 that resulted in them being sentenced to five years in federal prison. What is plainly “a long train of abuses” has been well documented...

In this July 6, 2016 photo, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel struggle with carrying an adult alligator gar to a transportation tank at the Private John Allen National Fish Hatchery in Tupelo, Miss. Alligator gar can weigh several hundred pounds and be over eight feet long. Several male and female adult alligator gar are captured in fresh water lakes and rivers and are brought to the facility so they can lay and fertilize the eggs as biologists and environmentalists are working to reintroduce the once-reviled alligator gar as a weapon against another huge species: invasive Asian carp. The gar...

It's a toothy giant that can grow longer than a horse and heavier than a refrigerator, a fearsome-looking prehistoric fish that plied U.S. waters from the Gulf of Mexico to Illinois until it disappeared from many states a half-century ago. Persecuted by anglers and deprived of places to spawn, the alligator gar — with a head that resembles an alligator and two rows of needlelike teeth — survived primarily in southern states in the tributaries of Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico after being declared extinct in several states farther north. To many, it was a freak, a "trash fish"...

Dozens of activists were detained in Vietnam's two biggest cities Sunday as they tried to hold protests calling for greater government transparency over a recent spate of mass fish deaths. Tonnes of dead fish and other marine life began washing up on central Vietnamese shores two months ago and continued to appear for two to three weeks, sparking widespread anger. Frustration has been further fuelled by a perceived lack of clarity from the communist leadership about what caused the deaths. Major streets in central Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City were temporarily deserted on Sunday morning as security forces blanketed...

This bowfin is trying to fight back from becoming a meal, losing its head won’t stop this determined fish. Watch a fish dinner try and turn the tables on some poor woman and bite the hand that’s trying to make it into a fish fry. See the zombie fish in action here.

Hundreds of people demonstrated in Vietnam on Sunday against a Taiwanese firm they accuse of causing mass fish deaths along the country's central coast, with some also blaming the government for a sluggish response to a major environmental disaster. Though an official investigation has found no links between the fish deaths and a $10.6 billion coastal steel plant run by a unit of Taiwan's Formosa Plastics, public anger against the company has not abated. Hundreds gathered in Hanoi holding banners that said: "Formosa destroying the environment is a crime" and "Who poisoned the central region's waters?" Others said: "Formosa out...

Islamic State earns millions of dollars a month running car dealerships and fish farms in Iraq, making up for lower oil income after its battlefield losses, Iraqi judicial authorities said on Thursday. Security experts once estimated the ultra-radical Islamist group's annual income at $2.9 billion, much of it coming from oil and gas installations in Iraq and Syria. The U.S.-led coalition has targeted Islamic State's financial infrastructure, using air strikes to reduce its ability to extract, refine and transport oil and so forcing fighters to reportedly take significant pay cuts. Yet the militants, who seized a third of Iraq's territory...

The largest fish ever caught and approved as IGFA All-Tackle World Records. This is all about big fish. Many of these big fish are sharks and billfish as well as some other species best released. Many of these records are decades old, during a time when a different awareness and sensibility about releasing fish prevailed. While today, we prefer to photograph such fish at the boat and let them go, we feel these catches represent a valid — and eye-popping — part of the history of sport fishing. — SF Editors

A 300 million year-old fossil mystery has been solved by a research team led by the University of Leicester, which has identified that the ancient 'Tully Monster' was a vertebrate -- due to the unique characteristics of its eyes. Tullimonstrum gregarium or as it is more commonly known the 'Tully Monster', found only in coal quarries in Illinois, Northern America, is known to many Americans because its alien-like image can be seen on the sides of large U-haul™ trailers which ply the freeways. Despite being an iconic image -- a fossil with a striped body, large tail, a pair of...