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""We're restoring fished-down predator species, so the demand for prey is going up," said Ken Hinman, president of the National Coalition for Marine Conservation. "We're looking at a breakdown in the Chesapeake Bay food web. Rockfish, bluefish, sea trout, ospreys and loons all depend on menhaden, which are disappearing when we need them the most." . . . "Since menhaden are the prime forage for rockfish and other species, their abundance is vital to a healthy estuary. Goldsborough called it "perhaps the most important fish on our coast." Yet menhaden is the only species on which ASMFC [Atlantic States Marine...

No-take reserves are not a cure-all -- they do not address problems such as pollution and rising temperatures -- but several recent studies suggest they can help restore fish populations and damaged ecosystems. In 1994, after fisheries collapsed in the Gulf of Maine's Georges Bank, for example, federal authorities prohibited groundfish fishing and dragging for scallops in three areas spanning 6,600 square miles. Within five years, haddock and witch flounder stocks rebounded, while scallops grew bigger and became nine to 14 times more dense than in fished areas.

Casting Blame for the World's Overfishing WASHINGTON, DC, June 13, 2003 (ENS) - The rising tide of debate over the world's fishing practices hit the Senate Commerce Committee Thursday and although there was widespread agreement that overfishing is a global problem, disagreement raged over the state of fishing in U.S. waters. "There is a disaster globally, but I do think witnesses are bringing the domestic scene into that disaster area and we do not belong there," said Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, a Republican. "Why can we not take credit for what we are doing?" "I would urge you who...

<p>WASHINGTON, May 14 (AScribe Newswire) -- The cover story of the May 15 issue of the international journal Nature reveals that we have only 10 percent of all large fish - both open ocean species including tuna, swordfish, marlin and the large groundfish such as cod, halibut, skates and flounder - left in the sea. Most strikingly, the study shows that industrial fisheries take only ten to fifteen years to grind down any new fish community they encounter to one tenth of what it was before.</p>

The Insanity of World Wide Fishery PoliciesAll over the world, fishing communities are screaming for the heads of seals, dolphins, pelicans, and even whales. The reason for this is grossly diminished populations of commercial fish. Simply put, most of the world's commercial fisheries have collapsed or are in a state of collapse. The reason for the collapse has been a combination of mismanagement and corruption within governmental fishery departments, industrial over-fishing, increasing demand from steadily rising human populations, and just plain greed by fishing corporations. Instead of facing up to the real reasons, government bureaucrats, fishermen, and the public...

Shark Populations Plunge in North Atlantic By Cat Lazaroff WASHINGTON, DC, January 21, 2003 (ENS) - Shark populations in the north Atlantic have plummeted by more than half since 1986, shows a new study by researchers in Canada. The decline, blamed largely on overfishing, has affected top predators including the great white and hammerhead sharks, impacting marine food chains in ways that are still being studied, the researchers said. The scientists, from Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, Canada, looked at records of shark catches between 1986, when fishers and fisheries managers began keeping thorough records, and 2000. CAPTION Hammerhead...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. One of the jewels of the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries has been its venerable Massachusetts State Lobster Hatchery in Oak Bluffs. However the Vineyard Gazette reports that the hatchery may have to be appended to the Woods Hole Marine Biological Laboratory as one way to allow it to continue to function. A $1 million project to upgrade and expand the facility is on hold as the state grapples with its fiscal crisis and its new governor, Mitt Romney, came to office on a ‘no new taxes‘ pledge. Two months ago,...

Centuries of Overfishing Push Ecosystems to the Brink An article I recommend reading. Two excerpts: "Essentially, by overfishing our coastal oceans for centuries, we are doing uncontrolled experiments and witnessing the transformation of the global coastal ocean," Jackson said. "We’re witnessing the disappearance of large organisms and the increasing ascendancy of small invertebrates and microbes throughout the coastal ocean. We don’t know how easy it is to reverse the process, assuming we have the will to do it." and... "He points to ship logs from Christopher Columbus’s voyages, describing Caribbean waters so abundant with green turtles that crewmen feared...

Northern European Cod Collapse Predicted COPENHAGEN, Denmark, October 28, 2002 (ENS) - Scandinavians who once depended on abundant codfish as a staple food, will have to eat something else, and lovers of fish and chips will not find cod in the deep fry. Cod populations from the waters off western Norway to the Atlantic shores of Scotland are now so depleted that "all fisheries in this area that target cod should be closed," scientists from the International Council for the Exploration of the Seas (ICES) warned Friday in their latest six month report. The chance of "a collapse must...

Reef Fish Laundering Hides Pacific Overfishing AVARUA, Rarotonga, Cook Islands, July 15, 2002 (ENS) - Money laundering gets the headlines from Majuro to Paris. But an untold story of fish laundering and reef destruction has become a major concern in the Pacific, conservationists told regional journalists in Rarotonga on Thursday. In the Pacific the volume of live fish taken by foreign fishing companies for sale in Asia has risen rapidly since the mid-1990s, said Cristina Balboa of the Washington, DC based World Resources Institute. This information comes as market demand for live reef fish in Hong Kong and other...