It’s been estimated that close to 10% of US households have aquariums. And why not—aquariums are an inexpensive and interactive way to observe a variety of fish, often with minimal upkeep for a pet. Yet despite the ease with which you can purchase and possess a wide range of fish species, there is a growing…
Finding Nemo lied to your kids, and they will do it again in the sequel: Finding Dory!
By Patrick Cooney The Disney film, Finding Nemo, lied to your kids! Disney would simply argue that they altered reality to create a more entertaining storyline, but read below for the true story, and you tell me which you think is a more entertaining. Disney forced them to hide the truth! How Finding Nemo started:…
Scientists group fishes to improve prediction
Brandon Peoples Most scientists share the gripping compulsion to place things into tidy categories. Fish ecologists are no exception. Why group? Grouping species helps improve our understanding and management of aquatic ecosystems. Because local fish diversity can be quite high, predicting responses of individual species to environmental change or nonnative introductions can be difficult. Grouping…
What’s So “Great” About the Great White Shark, Anyway?
Don’t you hate it when radio stations play a song that you really like so much that eventually you can’t stand to hear it anymore? What may have been a legitimately great song gets over-played to the point that its quality becomes diminished somehow. That’s how I feel when it comes to Shark Week and…
Get to Know an Introduced Species: Northern Snakehead
This article begins a series of 10 posts dedicated to discussing introduced fish species in US waters. Some species are headliners, while others have been around so long that we think of them as part of our wild fauna. Check back for more installments, and Get to Know an Introduced Species! Steve Midway The Background…
Fisheries CSI: DNA in the Water
By Brandon Peoples Fisheries managers often must monitor rare species. Regardless of the sampling gear being used, detecting numerically rare fishes can be difficult. With traditional fisheries gears, increasing detectability often means increasing sampling effort—which costs more money. Recently, researchers have found a new way to monitor rare species: environmental DNA (eDNA). Like any animal,…
Conference Review: Deep-Sea Fish Biology 2013
By Patrick Cooney In a rare occurrence, the early July sun shone brightly for a week on the Scottish landscape that is so typically shrouded in dark clouds and rain. In a similarly bright and rare occurrence, nearly 100 of the world’s leading deep-sea fish researchers convened at the University of Glasgow, Scotland for a…
Young Anglers Team with Scientists
By Patrick Cooney Flame azalea blooms blanketed the opposite river bank in vibrant orange while long morning shadows still harbored temperatures that required a warm beverage to chase away the chills of the Appalachian Mountains. A gaggle of kids, warm with excitement, flanked the close shoreline like a battalion ready to face its adversary. The…
Happy 4th of July from The Fisheries Blog!
We here at The Fisheries Blog are taking a week off—our summer vacation! We’ll be back with new content next week, but to all our readers: Enjoy the holiday week and we’ll see you soon! And for those who just need something to read, here’s a short, light read that will make you smile. (Source)…
Fish Fry? Forest Fires and Stream Fish
Many of us growing up in the US can easily recall Smokey the Bear, the US Forest Service’s mascot who placed in our hands the responsibility of preventing forest fires. The message was solid—for those who enjoy the forest, be sure to extinguish campfires and other sources of fire. And for many years, forest fire…
American shad: Invading the West
By Patrick Cooney The disconnect of East and West was no longer so vast with the driving of the Golden Spike on the United States Transcontinental Railroad on May 10, 1869. Seth Green, an entrepreneur who is often credited with the invention of the fish reel, saw a golden opportunity to expand his empire with…
Doctor Fish: What seems to be the problem?
By Erin Miller Walking through a touristy district of Bangkok, Thailand, I saw a sign that read “Fish Massage: Only $300 Baht For 30 Minutes!” As always, my imagination ran wild. I pictured a carp, sprawled out across a massage table, cucumbers over his eyes, a steaming, damp towel over his forehead, relaxing as two…
What can fish tell us about ecosystem health?
by Brandon Peoples Chances are if you’re reading this post, I don’t have to convince you that clean water is important. We’re responsible to ourselves to maintain enough clean water to support our society. Most obviously, we must maintain water quality for human consumption. In addition, agencies are required to manage water quality to protect…
The Adipose Fin: Old Mysteries with New Answers
If you are a fish, your fins are obviously critical for making a living. Fins provide a long list of essential functions, from generation of movement to stabilization, turning, stopping, and dynamic lift (to name a few). Yet only select families of fish—namely trouts and salmons and catfishes—possess a small nub-like fin behind their dorsal…
Anadromous, Catadromous, Amphidromous, Oceanodromous, or Potamodromous
By Patrick Cooney Can you say ‘potamodromous‘ and can you guess what it means? A) Mood disorder from eating too many potatoes. B) An aquatic dinosaur that crawled across land. C) A migration of fish entirely in freshwater. If you pronounced it like ‘poe-tuh-moe-droe-miss’, then you are off to a great start. But what about the…
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