Category Archives: Fish

Hundreds of thousands of fish dead after NSW floods

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Scientists find fish that could normally tolerate low oxygen levels among those killed in Richmond river

Hundreds of thousands of fish have died after recent flooding in northern New South Wales caused “severe deoxygenation” of rivers, with researchers alarmed at discovering carcasses of species that traditionally tolerate lower oxygen levels.

Scientists are still researching the full of extent of the destruction to marine life along the Richmond river, where multiple fish kill events occurred following flooding in late February and early March. The flooding led to a total lack of oxygen in a 60km stretch of the waterway, between Coraki and Ballina on the northern NSW coast.

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Wolverine fish and blind eel among 212 new freshwater species

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Report from Shoal on 2021’s newly described species shows ‘there are still hundreds and hundreds more freshwater fish scientists don’t know about yet’


Scientists are celebrating 212 “new” freshwater fish species, including a blind eel found in the grounds of a school for blind children and a fish named Wolverine that is armed with a hidden weapons system.

The New Species 2021 report, released by the conservation organisation Shoal, shows just how diverse and remarkable the world’s often undervalued freshwater species are, and suggests there is plenty more life still to be discovered in the world’s lakes, rivers and wetlands.

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Conservationists call for ban on explosives to scare seals at salmon farm in federal waters off Tasmania

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Federal government has not ruled out the use of underwater explosives and ‘bean bag rounds’ in trial off north-west Tasmania

Environment groups have called on the federal government to rule out the use of explosives and guns loaded with “bean bag” rounds to scare seals at a proposed salmon farming trial in commonwealth waters off the north-west coast of Tasmania.

Under Tasmanian laws, the companies are allowed to use underwater explosives, known as “seal crackers”, to deter predators at farms in state waters. Other authorised measures include shooting seals with fabric coated plastic shells containing lead shot, known as bean bag rounds and darts with blunt tips known as “scare caps”. Official documents show some seals have been killed.

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Chemical from tyres linked to mass salmon deaths in US found in Australia for first time

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Scientists find 6PPD-quinone in Queensland creek and call for urgent research to see if local aquatic life was harmed

A toxic chemical released from tyres as they wear down on roads and implicated in mass deaths of salmon in the United States has been found in an Australian waterway for the first time.

Scientists detected the compound – known as 6PPD-quinone – among a cocktail of chemicals and hundreds of kilograms of tyre particles washed into a creek from a motorway during storms.

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‘Showing respect’: revival of Japanese technique that promises fish a better way to die

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Fishermen in Mexico are using the ike jime method, which aims to reduce fish trauma, to improve the quality of catches and help sustainability

Every morning, hundreds of small white fishing boats dot the dark blue waters of Veracruz’s coastline on the Gulf of Mexico. Most of the crews, many of whose families have been fishing for generations, employ traditional methods – using nets to catch large numbers of fish, which then slowly asphyxiate once out of the water.

But a few of the fishermen are doing something different, using a technique that emerged in Japan several centuries ago. It is a method for slaughtering fish that emulates a process called ike jime, which is based on a simple scientific principle: the less trauma the fish experiences, the longer the flesh remains fresh.

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Bisquey business: Maine politicians bemoan China lobster deal flop

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Senator Angus King urges US trade representative to press Beijing to live up to promise to increase spending on tasty crustaceans

China has failed to live up to its promise to buy more Maine lobster under a deal that opened the door to an easing of a trade war under Donald Trump, Maine’s congressional leaders say.

Maine’s lobster industry was hurt by retaliatory Chinese tariffs in 2018 but failed to see substantial export gains after China committed to buying an additional $200bn in US goods, the delegation contends.

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‘Families are starving’: Chinese trawlers’ overfishing is destroying lives, say Sierra Leoneans

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As illegal industrial-scale fishing by foreign fleets pillages fish populations, despairing coastal communities feel powerless

Along Tombo’s crumbling waterfront, dozens of hand-painted wooden boats are arriving in the blistering midday sun with the day’s catch for the scrum of the market in one of Sierra Leone’s largest fishing ports.

In a scrap of shade at the bustling dock, Joseph Fofana, a 36-year-old fisherman, is repairing a torn net. Fofana says he earns about 50,000 leone (£3.30) for a brutal, 14-hour day at sea, crammed in with 20 men, all paying the owner for use of his vessel. “This is the only job we can do,” he says. “It’s not my choice. God carried me here. But we are suffering.”

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Coral crusaders: Costa Rica’s young divers learn to protect their seas

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In Puerto Viejo, scuba diving was once just for tourists, but a centre is training young people with few opportunities to care for the ocean on their doorstep

“I put fresh almond leaves in your underwater masks as anti-fogging – a way to avoid using chemicals. You can remove them once in the water, just before diving,” says Salim Vasquez, 14, pushing her dreadlocks away from her mask.

She distributes the equipment to her fellow divers, who are aged between 14 and 24, and Ana María Arenas, a group coordinator. It is 8am on a cloudy Sunday morning in Puerto Viejo, a Jamaican-inspired city in the south of Costa Rica. The young conservationists are preparing to dive into the Caribbean water for their weekly reef monitoring.

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The 90-year-old Australian fish who likes belly rubs is likely oldest aquarium fish – video

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A primitive Australian fish living in a San Francisco museum is believed to be the oldest living aquarium fish in the world. Methuselah is a four-foot-long (1.2-meter) Australian lungfish, weighing around 40lb (18.1kg). The species has both lungs and gills and is believed to be the evolutionary link between fish and amphibians. The lungfish was brought to the San Francisco museum in 1938 from Australia and now lives at the California Academy of Sciences. The species is threatened and can no longer be exported from Australian waters so biologists at the academy say it's unlikely they'll get a replacement once Methuselah passes away

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Methuselah: oldest aquarium fish lives in San Francisco and likes belly rubs

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Biologists believe the Australian lungfish, a primitive species with lungs and gills, is about 90 years old with no known living peers

Meet Methuselah, the fish that likes to eat fresh figs, get belly rubs and is believed to be the oldest living aquarium fish in the world.

In the Bible, Methuselah was Noah’s grandfather and was said to have lived to be 969 years old. Methuselah the fish is not quite that ancient, but biologists at the California Academy of Sciences believe it is about 90 years old, with no known living peers.

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‘It’s mind-boggling’: the hidden cost of our obsession with fish oil pills

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The market in this prized commodity is worth billions – but are the supposed benefits worth the cost to global ecosystems?

• Revealed: many common omega-3 fish oil supplements are ‘rancid’

Scanning the shelves and internet for fish oil is a dizzying task. There are dozens of brands available and, although the typical consideration for the popular supplement is that quality matters most, it is not the only factor.

These prized products travel a long way before being labelled as “pure” and “fresh” – starting with the industrial-scale grinding down of a tiny fish that is crucial for healthy ocean and food systems.

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Char siu pork and General Tso’s golden hake – recipes for the lunar new year

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Three food writers suggest celebratory Cantonese, Sichuanese and Taiwanese dishes that will have you over the moon

Traditionally, a whole fish is steamed at the new year to symbolise abundance and unity, because the homonym for fish means “abundance”. I’m using sustainable hake fillets which are tender and succulent. They belong to the cod family so they still have a wonderful texture, slightly smaller flakes than cod but still a delicious sweet taste. For this recipe, I am using hake fillets with the skin on (to keep their shape), sliced into 2cm chunks. I love to shallow fry the fish pieces, make a hot, sour and sweet General Tso’s sauce with dried red chillies, peppers and onions, and then toss the fish pieces back into the dish.

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Huge icefish colony of 60m nests found on Antarctic seabed – video

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Researchers exploring Antarctica’s seabed have discovered a thriving, unprecedented colony of icefish 'about a third of the size of London'. 'We expected to see the normal Antarctic seafloor … [but] during the first four hours of our dive, we saw nothing but fish nests,' said Autun Purser, of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in Germany, and lead author of the study published in Current Biology.

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‘Babies here are born sick’: are Bolivia’s gold mines poisoning its indigenous people?

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The government has been criticised for apparent inaction as evidence mounts that mercury contamination is causing illness in fishing communities

Outside a small brick house shared by four families, Daniela Prada, who is heavily pregnant, gathers guava leaves to make a tea for her two-year-old son.

“My baby gets sick a lot,” she says, boiling a pot of water in her outdoor kitchen. “He always has diarrhoea and last night he had a fever. Most of the time I give him natural medicine.”

In an identical house nearby, town leader Oscar Lurici says fevers are a part of life in Eyiyo Quibo village on the Beni River in northern Bolivia. People of all ages suffer from debilitating head and body aches, bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea, memory loss and tiredness. Some children show signs of cognitive development delays.

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UK zoo helps lost Mexican fish live to see another Tequila sunrise

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Declared extinct in the wild in 2003, species has been reintroduced to its native river after being bred in Chester

A “charismatic little fish” declared extinct in the wild has been reintroduced to its native Mexico after being bred in an aquarium at Chester zoo.

The tequila fish (Zoogoneticus tequila), which grows to no bigger than 70mm long, disappeared from the wild in 2003 owing to the introduction of invasive, exotic fish species and water pollution.

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Plastic beads could make nets more visible to cetaceans, scientists say

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Beads add hardly any extra weight to fishing gear and could save thousands of lives, it is claimed

Simple plastic beads could save the lives of some of the thousands of porpoises and other cetaceans that get caught in fishing nets each year, scientists say.

Harbour porpoises use echolocation to find their prey and for orientation. However, their acoustic signals cannot pick up the mesh of a gillnet, and as a result they often become trapped.

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I spent my house deposit on a boat to reach the Mokohinau Islands – the magic on our doorstep | Clarke Gayford

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It wasn’t a financially astute move but it led to my TV series and helped me discover the truly important things in life

  • Guardian writers and readers describe their favourite place in New Zealand’s wilderness and why it’s special to them

My entire experience of Auckland changed when I got a boat. It was the perfect antidote to a professional DJ lifestyle, where getting up at 5am to be on the water become immeasurably preferable to coming home at 5am from work. On trips out I began sticking my head underwater with such vigour that I somehow turned it into a whole new profession.

It didn’t happen straight away, of course. My 40-year-old, 14-foot beige fibreglass boat with a semi-reliable two-stroke engine, named Brown Thunder, only had so much range, and my real goal lay much farther offshore, tantalisingly out of reach. A place where tales of clear blue tropical water and huge fish swirled around a group of uninhabited islands, teasing me from the pages of marine magazines or the crusty lips of old salty sea-mates.

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Brexit one year on: so how’s it going?

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Those promised rewards for Britain of leaving the EU should surely be with us by now. What have been the costs and gains of ‘taking our country back’?

• UK and the EU set to remain best of enemies as 2022 dawns

On New Year’s Day the UK will have been fully out of the European Union for a year: out of its political and legal structures, out of its single market, out of its customs union.

This was what Boris Johnson and Michael Gove – who led the Leave campaign – had wanted. No awkward halfway house like Theresa May had negotiated. No Brexit light. Out completely. Gone. Brexit well and truly done.

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Batman loach returns: fish feared extinct found in Turkey

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Scientists working on the Search For The Lost Fishes project have spotted the freshwater Batman River loach, which has not been seen since 1974

A freshwater fish that scientists thought was extinct has been found in south-east Turkey, after an absence of nearly 50 years.

“I’ve been researching this area for 12 years and this fish was always on my wishlist,” said Dr Cüneyt Kaya, associate professor at Recep Tayyip Erdoğan University. “It’s taken a long time. When I saw the distinctive bands on the fish, I felt so happy. It was a perfect moment.”

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