Fish and aquatic news

Florida anglers are being sharply criticized after a video of them free-gaffing a Mako shark off South Florida this week was made public on the Internet.

According to Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Association chief executive Brian Jeffriess, industry experts expect the tuna stocks to have recovered by 2013.

Federal stimulus money will be used to pay about 40 diving fishermen to recover lost fishing nets from the Puget Sound.

The Netherlands now join Norway in the effort to save the European eel Anguila anguila from extinction.

As of August 12, 2009 the harvesting of krill in the in the Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off the coasts of California, Oregon, and Washington will be prohibited by federal law.

Tens of thousands of crab pots litter the ocean floor, forming lethal obstacle courses of plastic lines and weighed-down metal cylinders. Lost crab pots are responsible for killing a long row of air breathing ocean dwellers, such as whales, sea lions and turtles.

A 22-pound, 5-ounce largemouth bass (picture) has been caught by Manabu Kurita, a pro staffer representing Deps Tackle Co. in Japan. This breaks George Perry’s old record from June 2, 1932.

A Japanese team of scientists are now announcing that they are close to completing genome sequencing of the Bluefin tuna. Once they have reached this goal, their next project will be to use their knowledge to create a tuna breeding program for a new type of tuna specially designed for aquacultures.

Norwegian fisheries regulators have banned all fishing of the critically endangered European eel starting in 2010 and cut 2009 catch quotas by 80 percent. The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries also has announced that all recreational fishing of European eels shall stop on July 1st.

A study proposing a ban on spear guns and gill nets in the Great Barrier Reef is now being criticised by Australian scientists saying its results – which were obtained from Kenya and Papua New Guinea – aren’t relevant to the Great Barrier Reef.

The work towards replenishing depleted stocks of wild sea cucumber with captive hatched ones is moving forward at a steady pace; two Philippine hatcheries has now successfully managed to hatch sea cucumbers outside their natural habitat and one batch, comprised of roughly 2,000 juveniles, has been released inside sea pens in the Philippines.

Indonesia is getting ready to sink foreign boats carrying out illegal fishing in Indonesian waters.

“We are glad the House`s Commission IV supports us in this,” Marine Resources and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numbery said at a meeting with the House commission this week.

As reported earlier, fish populations may adapt and change in response to significant fishing pressure. Researchers are now suggesting that the genetic make-up of cod in the Atlantic Ocean might be changing, since cods genetically predisposition to seek out shallower waters are more likely to end up in nets or on fishing lines, while deep-dwellers are more likely to survive and reproduce.

Eleven suspected abalone poachers have been arrested in northern California, officials said Friday.

Since the tide was unusually low in Mendocino County, California Department of Fish & Game wardens were aware of the increased risk of poaching activity and kept their eyes on the coast line, including the coral reefs that had become exposed as the water disappeared.

A group of conservationists and scientists are planning a research trip to the world’s largest rubbish pile; the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Also known as the Eastern Garbage Patch, the Pacific Trash Vortex, or simply the Great Plastic Vortex; this gyre of marine litter has been gradually building over the last 60 years but we still know very little of this man-made monstrosity.