"A federal effort to ban the sale of raw oysters harvested during the warm months along the Gulf Coast has kicked up a hurricane of opposition from oystermen and members of Congress and threatened to derail a signature food-safety initiative by the Obama administration."

"At an emotional meeting, a state panel imposes the landmark restrictions to help restore species, catches of which have dropped up to 95%. The plan was forged out of contentious negotiations."

"An international fisheries group set up to protect Atlantic tuna has done the opposite and driven one species of the fish, the bluefin, to the edge of extinction, environmentalists said Thursday."

"Federal officials plan to ban sales of raw oysters harvested from the Gulf of Mexico unless the shellfish are treated to destroy potentially deadly bacteria -- a requirement that opponents say could deprive diners of a delicacy cherished for generations."

"The latest mass escape from a British Columbia fish farm has led to renewed calls from the New Democratic Party to change how the farms are run."
 

A trawl survey that has been conducted weekly for some 50 years in Narragansett Bay is finding profound changes in the composition of sea life there. Biologically, the news is bad. Despite huge investments in cleaning up the Bay, climate change seems to be the villain.

"Cod is slipping closer to disappearing from key European fishing grounds, officials warned Friday, saying that only steep catch cuts will prevent the disappearance of a species prized for centuries for its flaky white flesh."

"The Obama administration’s new plan to show that salmon and hydroelectric dams can coexist along the Columbia and Snake Rivers is not all that different from the Bush administration’s old plan, according to critics who want a federal judge to rule against it."

"Just a few years ago, king salmon played an outsize role in villages along the Yukon River....But this year, a total ban on commercial fishing for king salmon on the river in Alaska has strained poor communities and stripped the prized Yukon fish off menus in the lower 48 states."

Federal water managers open valves this week for an ambitious effort to restore salmon from the San Joaquin River.

"Government researchers have released data indicating that Alaska's Bering Sea pollock population remains low. ... The pollock fishery in the eastern Bering is the nation's largest commercial fish harvest by weight, and it is Alaska's most valuable fishery, worth nearly $1 billion annually."

"Seattle -- Fisheries managers announced Tuesday that they would enhance but not significantly alter the government's current strategy for saving salmon from extinction in the rivers of the Pacific Northwest, drawing criticism from conservationists."

"Government scientists figure that one out of five male black bass in American river basins have egg cells growing inside their sexual organs, a sign of how widespread fish feminizing has become."

"The federal government, acting to protect endangered fish, is setting up new rules to limit where and when orchardists, farmers and others can use some common pesticides. ... The rules, coming from the Environmental Protection Agency, follow from a decision last year by the National Marine Fisheries Service to require limits on three common pesticides -- chlorpyrifos, diazinon and malathion -- in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and California."

"Half of all the fish eaten in the world now is raised on fish farms rather than caught in the wild, according to new research by an international team of scientists."