Fish & Fisheries

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

"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."

"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."

"California's third year of drought has worsened the already dire outlook for endangered coho salmon, as coastal creeks used for spawning dwindle into disconnected pools where fish get trapped and die."

"The Gulf of Mexico opened to industrial-size fish farms Thursday after federal regulators declined to oppose the plan."