The Ocean Gets Heat Waves Too, and They Are Threatening Marine Ecosystems
A new study shows that marine heat waves have become more frequent and more severe as ocean temperatures have climbed.
Fisheries
Are Wealthy Nations Hoarding the World's Fish Supply?
A recent paper found that rich nations are catching the vast majority of fish, even in the waters of lower-income countries, but doubts about the study's conclusions remain.
More Extreme Weather Means More Risk for Fishers
A new study looks at how the increased storminess of a warming planet will make an already dangerous job even more deadly.
How Governments Fund Harmful High-Seas Fisheries
A recent study demonstrates how billions of dollars in government subsidies funds much of the reckless fishing that takes place in international waters.
Flooding, Heat Waves, and Destabilized Ecosystems: Here's What the Next 100 Years of Climate Change Could Bring
A new study predicts a steep drop in fisheries' production. It's the latest in a growing body of research to show how changes to the Earth's ecosystems will cause disruption to its inhabitants.
Is the Demand for Sustainable Seafood Unsustainable?
Consumers want more than fisheries can supply, and certification standards are falling.
Breeding Tropical Fish to Save Their Schools
For every tropical fish that becomes a pet, four are killed. Joan Holt wants to take the violence out of their world.
Can Farmed Fish Flourish on a Veggie Diet?
It’s a fish-eat-fish world out there, which is bad news for ailing fisheries providing feedstock for aquaculture. If only some key dinner-table species were vegetarians, smaller fish would be spared.
Quake Rescues Reserve, Shakes Baja Fishing Town
An earthquake has helped seal off a traditional fishing spot in Mexico, pleasing conservationists but hurting locals who depend on an annual fishing frenzy to sustain their economy.
Lowering Flags of Convenience for Fish Poachers
New international measures to end fish poaching on the high seas would enforce laws where the poacher calls, not where their ships are registered.
Something's Fishy About That Red Snapper
Preventing seafood fraud won’t be easy, but a new law has potential to stop fish poaching and laundering, which involves mislabeling fish in restaurants.
Ocean Health Index: The Audacity of Necessity
The researchers behind the budding Ocean Health Index recognize the hubris of trying to summarize everything from water quality to fishing status to recreation in a single number, but they maintain it’s a necessarily audacious move.
Ocean Health Index Accounts for Human Benefits
Oceans are peopled, too! Assessing all of the ways the world’s oceans directly benefit humans is not easy, but it must be done in any honest accounting for the Ocean Health Index.
Dam Busting: A Concrete Victory for Fish, Jobs
Dam busting has local economic benefits other than clearing the way for an endangered species or restoring a watershed.
Three Reasons for Creating a Single Ocean Health Index
As the gross domestic product shows us, a single number that represents the health of a complex and dynamic system can have amazing and perhaps unexpected power.
The Making of the Ocean Health Index
In the first of a series of stories tracking their progress in real time, three scientists explain the genesis of a global effort to present the health of the world's oceans with a single number.
Poor Kenyan Fishermen Demonstrate Value of Marine Reserves
Marine biologist Tim McClanahan asks if poor Kenyan fishermen can improve themselves without destroying local coral reefs? (Hint: yes)
Curiouser and Curiouser Podcast: Overfishing and Oceans
In this debut podcast of Curiouser and Curiouser, host Jai Ranganathan interviews Duke University marine biologist Larry Crowder about how fishing, historically and currently, has changed the oceans.
Snakeheads: the Asian Fish That Terrified Arkansas
How a government team called Operation Mongoose tried to get rid of the invasive northern snakehead by poisoning 400 miles of Arkansas waterways.
The Success of Vizcaino's Fishing Cooperatives
Dependency and balance, two attributes that aren't immediately associated with human fishing, prove their value on a remote corner of Baja.
Blue Protection Devastated by CITES Vote
U.N. body comes down heavily against ban on fishing for iconic bluefin tuna.
Pocket Guides Identify Tasty and Sustainable Fish
Bottom-up campaigns to educate seafood lovers and sellers about what species are in trouble haven’t turned the tide yet, but there’s still hope they’ll help.
Fishing for Answers in Alaska
Can the unusual politics, economics and culture of the Alaskan salmon trade serve as a model for sustainable world fisheries?
The Perils of Being Selfish With Shellfish
Bandits, then locals, broke the rules in self-governed marine reserve, marring what had been a heart-warming conservation success.