Tag: Sea Around Us

Daniel Pauly publishes second edition of his book on how fish breathe and grow

Daniel Pauly publishes second edition of his book on how fish breathe and grow

Daniel Pauly publishes second edition of his book on how fish breathe and grow

For more than 40 years, Dr Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us initiative at the University of British Columbia’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, has been collecting evidence to further develop his Gill-Oxygen Limitation Theory, also known as GOLT.

Back in 2010, he presented his findings in a slim book titled Gasping Fish and Panting Squids: Oxygen Temperature and the Growth of Water Breathing Animals, whose second edition has just been released; a Chinese edition will soon follow.

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Recreational fishers catching more sharks and rays

Recreational fishers catching more sharks and rays

Hammerhead shark. Photo by Kris Mikael Krister, Wikimedia Commons.

Recreational fishers are increasingly targeting sharks and rays, a situation that is causing concern among researchers.

A new study by an international team of scientists reveals that recreational catches of these fishes have gradually increased over the last six decades around the world, now accounting for 5-6 per cent of the total catches taken for leisure or pleasure.

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Popular fish in China would increase in value if they were caught with larger meshes

Popular fish in China would increase in value if caught with larger meshes

Popular fish in China would increase in value if they were caught with larger meshes

Largehead hairtail. Public domain photo.

Fish that are highly valued by Chinese consumers, such as largehead hairtail, would grow in value and in the amounts that are caught if industrial fisheries increased the mesh size of their nets.

New research by the Sea Around Us initiative at UBC’s Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries found that trawlers operating in China’s coastal waters are overfishing 21 economically important species because the mesh size is so small that, together with large, desirable fish, undersized fish are also getting caught. This means that fish are being taken out before they are able to reproduce.

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