Insects are an economical, environmentally efficient, nutrient rich feed that could reduce the need for wild caught fish feed or other plant-based protein feed additives in aquaculture. This seems like a win all around, right?
Category: Fisheries Management
CO2 Fish Barriers
Asian carp are here in the US to stay. This group of fishes are often called Bigheaded carps, and typically includes silver carp, bighead carp, grass carp, and black carp. Each species was brought to the US from Asia for different reasons—for example, grass carp were introduced for weed control as they eat vegetation. Each…
Thank You Jaws! The Upside for Sharks 40 Years Later
By: Tobey Curtis, guest blogger When Jaws hit theaters 40 years ago this week, it changed everything for sharks. Steven Spielberg’s film adaptation of Peter Benchley’s monster shark novel is now so iconic that it requires no introduction. The thrumming, two-note cello riff can still send shivers down your spine even if someone starts humming…
NOAA Stock Status Update: Good News
Last week NOAA (the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) reported its annual Status of Stocks, a document that provides an update on the overfished and overfishing status of many US fish population. (See a summary here.) Overfishing is defined as the catch rate being too high to sustain a population of fish, while overfished refers…
Fish Take Underwater Elevator Before Surgery (videos)
By Patrick Cooney During the cold winter this year at the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago, Illinois, one of Shedd’s researchers was heading to the warm waters of the Bahamas to better understand the movement patterns of Nassau Grouper. Dr. Kristine Stump joined Shedd Aquarium about a year ago as a Postdoctoral Research Associate, and has a history of leading…
IUU fishing: Should we consider Illegal, Unreported, and Unregulated fishing together?
IUU fishing is shorthand for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Does it necessarily make sense to lump all three types of fishing together?
Explosive questions
By: Dana Sackett Successful marine protected areas (MPAs) have helped to improve many fisheries. What, may you ask, helps those successful MPAs be successful? Well, there are a number of things that need to be considered to effectively pick a site and implement an MPA. Some of these include fish biology, politics, societal needs, and…
The Mystery of the Unidentified Fish Prey
What do fish eat? With regard to the non-native Blue Catfish in Virginia’s tidal rivers, this question is routinely answered as “everything!” Once these Blue Catfish grow over 23 inches, however, they shift to piscivorous (eating mostly fish) diets that allow them to grow to weights in excess of 100 pounds! These fishy diets wouldn’t…
Freshwater, Fish, and the Future
While fishing, itself, is often the largest anthropogenic influence on marine fisheries, inland fisheries are often impacted by other societal needs and uses of water resources, particularly competition for freshwater needed for agricultural production, human consumption, and power generation.
Q-n-A: Marine Fisheries Observer
Bycatch from commercial fishing vessels is a major fisheries issue. But did you ever wonder how bycatch is estimated and accounted for? This week, we sat down with Mitchell Masser, a National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) certified North Pacific groundfish observer, to get a feel for the importance of the work of marine fisheries observers….
What is the actual value of our nation’s fisheries?
Why should you care about fisheries in the United States? The Factual Fish Squeezer eloquently explains the economical, ecological, and cultural reasons in the following video. Dr. Jesse “Factual Fish Squeezer” Trushenski is a fisheries scientist, foodie, and fish culturist, or “fish squeezer” as they are affectionately known. The Factual Fish Squeezer is committed to communicating…
Depletion boat electrofishing
by Brandon Peoples Boat electrofishing is one of the most effective methods of sampling fishes in lakes and non-wadeable rivers. Depletion boat electrofishing involves conducting several electrofishing passes while retaining fish after each pass. Hopefully, workers will capture consistently less fish in each pass. Depletion electrofishing allows biologists to perform quantitative population estimates, rather…
Stream Planning Tools in the 21st Century
By Mark Scott, Guest Blogger The noted flowing-water ecologist H.B.N. Hynes wrote about the stream and its valley, pointing out that water quality, channel form, biological communities, and other stream conditions are linked to characteristics of the drainage basin. Countless studies have since reinforced that observation, and although Clean Water Act provisions to address point…
How can you turn volunteers into Citizen Scientists? Go Fish!
Guest Author Katie Pierson: “I enjoy empowering diverse parties in scientific research, be it citizen science or facilitating research collaboration. No matter where life takes me, I will always love being out in the field with people and fish.” s heavy fog nestles into the corners of the bay and sea lions loudly discuss their…
How many fish are in the sea?
By Dana Sackett The old adage, “there are plenty of fish in the sea” begs the question, how many fish are actually in the sea? Many fisheries scientists have worked tirelessly to answer this question. Estimating the size of a fish population (which can range from largemouth bass in a few lakes in North Carolina…
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