fish

What healthy fish look like

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 30th, 2008

My daughters are 7 and 8 years old. Like many children of their age, they like fish but are deeply suspicious of anything that looks like it might once have been alive. For them fish means fish sticks or cakes, crusted in unnaturally orange breadcrumbs and slathered in ketchup gore. At a push they sometimes accept a piece of Marine Stewardship Council certified sustainable pollock from the North Pacific, but breadcrumbs are mandatory. Like many parents, I want my kids to eat fish for the health benefits but what goes into processed fish troubles me.

The changing meaning of large

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 23rd, 2008

Last Saturday I found myself in the local supermarket browsing for dinner. In the seafood section I spied a slim package with two pieces of plaice in it, a kind of flatfish rather like flounder. Each was little bigger than a dollar bill and weighed just four and a half ounces. What struck me about this package was a label that proclaimed they were ‘large' fish. The fillets in the packet could not have come from an animal more than 10 inches long. Moreover, these fish were certainly immature and had never had a chance to breed. But they were legal to sell.

Spiralling fuel costs ease pressure on fish

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 16th, 2008

Recent hikes in oil prices are hitting the fishing industry where it hurts most: on the profit margin. In the process, some fish stocks are getting a much needed respite from intensive exploitation. Fishers in Europe have blockaded ports in recent weeks to protest at rising fuel costs, claiming that they can no longer make a living.

Devilfish in diabolical decline

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 9th, 2008

News comes this week that the Giant Devil Ray (Mobula mobular) has declined so much in abundance in recent years that it has been listed as endangered on the World Conservation Union's Red List of Threatened Species (according to Dulvy et al. writing in Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems). This vast fish has a wingspan that can top five metres and spends most of its time flapping gracefully near the surface, straining plankton and small fish from the water.

A Better Future for Fish?

By [node:field_contributor] / On July 2nd, 2008

Next year could herald the beginning of a momentous change to the way the sea is managed around Britain, my home country. Members of Parliament (MPs) are holding hearings into the draft of a "Marine Bill" that will be debated in Parliament later this year. If the Bill gets through in anything like its current form, it will provide the means to establish a national network of marine protected areas, some of which could be highly protected from exploitation and other sources of human impact.