(Credit: Gasland) Before we begin to grasp the impacts of Fracking on fish, let’s take a quick look at an energy boom that swept the continent and world more than a century ago that presented similar challenges. Like a scene in a cheesy 80’s movie, my family pushed south on Interstate 5 on our annual journey through California’s Central Valley…
Fish Farming in Haiti: Part III
This is the final part of a 3 part series. Click here for Parts I and II. It takes about 15 minutes to travel the two miles from the main road down to the fishing village situated on Lake Azuei. We bounce around in the truck like popcorn; I know people in the US who…
Fish Farming in Haiti: Part II
This is Part 2 of a 3 part series. Please click here for Part 1. The city of Croix des Bouquets (pronounced ‘quad ah boo-kay’) is hot, and dry wind whips through, distributing a small film of dust on everything. There, outside a bustling police station, Val pulls up next to us in a Toyota…
Fish Farming in Haiti
In early June 2012 I spent some time in Haiti. One thing I was able to do was to get a firsthand look at a fish farming operation that is not only a model of success in an otherwise challenging landscape, but helps dozens of extremely poor families in seven villages by providing work and…
JAWS Returns: Signs of recovery in well-managed shark populations
Humans have done far more damage to great white shark populations than they have done to us. (Credit: Tobey Curtis) Sharks and their relatives, the skates and rays, have become poster children for the ‘global overfishing crisis’. Largely due to increasing demand for high-priced shark fin soup in Asia, shark populations worldwide have…
The Latest on Ciguatera Fish Poisoning
By: Dana Sackett Friedman et al. 2008. (http://www.mdpi.com/1660-3397/6/3/456) Ciguatera fish poisoning can cause a number of nasty symptoms (nausea, vomiting, painful electric-shock-like sensations, reversal of hot and cold sensations, intense itching, tingling, numbness, slowed heart rate, weakness, fatigue, muscle and joint pain, depression, headaches, and others) that can last from a few days to…
Cutthroat Conservation: Saving the Yellowstone Ecosystem
Yellowstone cutthroat trout deserve intense focus. (Photo: Patrick Cooney) An elusive Lamar River Yellowstone cutthroat trout was the target for my only fishing day in Yellowstone National Park, and an early autumn sow-bellied beauty was eyeing my offering. As my eyes intensely focused on the golden prize, and my finger balanced delicately on the line like a needle…
Ear bones in all shapes and sizes
One of the difficulties of fisheries management is that we can’t observe fish all the time to know exactly when and what they eat, who eats them, and which individuals mate, among other behaviors. To get around this, we infer life histories from sampled individuals, but we also know there are inherent difficulties with sampling…
Eliminating an Invasive Predator: Lessons From Lake Davis Pike
It was like the loud crash of an old Batman episode: BOOM!! KAPOW!! The shock waves from the explosion tore through the water and blew the fish apart from the inside by fatally rupturing the gas filled swim bladder, the organ designed to provide buoyancy in the water column. Desperate times and previous blunders had led…
Trout, a canary in the phosphate-mine
By: Dana Sackett Recent debates on fish selenium toxicity due to mining operations in southern Idaho have brought to light selenium’s toxic effects on fish populations and the various views on selenium policy from different environmental constituents (e.g., industry, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), Forest Service, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality,…
Modeling Gig Over Spring Break!
Folks…we have our first Guest Author! Below you will find an account of an Undergraduate Student’s all expense paid trip to the Florida Keys to model for Spring Break. PARTY TIME!!! While I have not lied, I have misled. The student attended a high level fish population modeling course called the Marine Resources Population Dynamics Workshop at…
Book Review: Overfishing
Overfishing: What everyone needs to know Ray Hilborn, with Ulrike Hilborn Many fisheries scientist know that it’s hard to use an often unqualified term like ‘overfishing’. The specifics of overfishing mean many things to many people, but a general definition would be fishing a stock beyond its ability to produce maximum biomass or profit. (See,…
The Forgotten Name in Sport Fish Restoration
The Sport Fish Restoration Act is such a successful program in the United States that few anglers know that it took 11 years, an expensive world war, and overcoming a Presidential veto to eventually become law. Not only do we take for granted the immense struggle that was surmounted to enact this legislation, but we don’t even associate…
Ocean Acidification and How Little We Actually Know
By: Dana Sackett Ocean acidification, sometimes referred to as “the other carbon dioxide (CO2) problem,” is a major concern for our future marine ecosystems. The rate at which CO2 is taken up by the ocean increases as its concentration increases in our atmosphere, resulting in more acidic ocean water. The resulting decrease in pH can…
Estimating Recreational Catch: The New Marine Recreational Information Program (MRIP)
For many of us, our jobs directly or indirectly have to do with estimating fish populations. We may be part of a project that samples specifically to estimate abundance or productivity, or we may be working on a specific biological question that has demographic implications. For all stock assessments, harvest (catch or removal) is a…
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