By: Anela Choy (guest blogger and postdoctoral researcher at MBARI) Plastic debris in the ocean is no stranger to headline news… Surfers gliding through waves filled with plastic in Indonesia. The world’s largest landfill in the middle of the ocean, a vast area otherwise deemed the “Great Pacific Garbage Patch.” Sea birds ingesting large amounts…
Category: Threats to Fisheries
Plankton or Plastic?
By: Dana Sackett At the end of this article you will get to play a game that many aquatic species are playing these days: Plankton or Plastic? If aquatic animals get it right and choose plankton, they get to enjoy a tasty treat full of life-sustaining nutrition, if not, they fill the much-needed space in…
Pope Francis uses faith and science to discuss climate change (and fish!)
Pope Francis is the leader of the largest faith community in the world and polls indicate that he is one of the most trusted global leaders. He just may be the advocate the climate change community needs to garner momentum for change.
Invasive species recipes
by Brandon Peoples Invasive species are one of the greatest threats to global biodiversity. Eradication of most invasive fishes is rarely feasible. However, reducing the biomass of invasive species to keep them from getting a leg-up (so to speak) can be a lucrative alternative. Establishing commercial and recreational fisheries for invasive fishes can be a…
Is seaweed stank preventing coral reefs from recovering?
By: Dana Sackett Chemical cues are ubiquitously used by animals and plants in every environment; often with the intended purpose to attract a nearby friend or repel an unwanted enemy. A recent article by Dixson and others examined these chemical cues from corals and seaweeds, enemies that fight for habitat in our shallow ocean environments. …
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…
Nutrients: how too much of a good thing can be bad
By: Dana Sackett Consuming too many nutrients is something many of us can understand following the holidays. Similar to ourselves too many nutrients in streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans can cause major health problems. In fact, excess nutrients that enrich plant growth in aquatic ecosystems has a special name: eutrophication. While this term was originally…
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…
As it turns out, what we don’t know can hurt us.
By: Dana Sackett Perfluorooctanesulfonic acid or perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) is quite the mouthful and while, like me, you may have difficulty pronouncing it, chances are you, along with almost all of your surrounding aquatic environments, are home to these chemicals. A potential problem considering that recent research has a number of scientists concerned about the prevelance, persistence…
Q-n-A: The Susquehanna River
By Steve Midway Welcome to another Fisheries Blog Q-n-A! This segment is designed to showcase the knowledge and specialty of someone in the fisheries world who flat out knows their stuff. For this Q-n-A, we are featuring Megan Kepler, a PhD student at the Pennsylvania State University who is conducting dissertation research on fish in the Susquehanna River basin….
Blurred lines: Can climate change-induced range expansion qualify a species as invasive?
Does range expansion from climate change qualify a species as invasive if it impacts resident native species in its new habitat?
Plastic trash is an increasing but preventable hazard to fish health
By Sarah Wheeler Look around you. How many plastic items are within your arms reach? There is no question that it is virtually impossible to avoid plastic. It wraps our food, transports our water, and is the building block of countless products. But, less than half of produced plastic ends up in landfills, and alarming…
Killing sea lions to save salmon
By Patrick Cooney I rubbed my eyes, focused, and asked: Is it Sasquatch? A massive beaver pushing a log? Or is it Humphrey the Wayward Whale up to his old shenanigans? After spending much of my life in rivers around the globe, I had never seen such a large hairy beast plying freshwater like I…
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