May 18, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
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Photo credit: Sean Cosgrove
May 17 – “Slinging Mud” – The mud in Casco Bay, Maine, is changing. According to an article last fall in the Bangor Daily News, areas that used to contain vast quantities of economically valuable clams are now “dead mud.” Local clammers are finding that sites of former abundance are now completely devoid of shellfish. Even efforts to seed the formerly thriving areas with shellfish larvae are not yielding results. Some scientists think that the increasing acidity of the mud, due partly to the increased carbon dioxide being absorbed from the atmosphere, is making conditions unsuitable for shellfish larvae to form, well, shells. We may not yet be able to quantify the damage ocean acidification will cause in New England waters – although researchers are trying. But we don’t want to sit on our hands and wait to see how bad it will get.
- May 18 – “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 18” – This week’s interesting fishing and seafood-related stories: the ethics of seafood; NOAA’s annual status of the stocks report; making sure funding for ocean programs stays in the federal budget; CLF’s Peter Shelley talking about seafood on WGBH; and what local seafood to keep and eye out for at the market this summer.
May 11, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
- May 9: “Why fishermen should care about the National Ocean Policy” – Maine lobsterman Richard Nelson writes about the need for fishermen and coastal communities to get involved with regional ocean planning efforts. (Reprinted from the Bangor Daily News.)
- May 11: “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 11” – This week’s interesting fish stories: how much fish is safe to eat without danger from contaminants; a new seafood purchasing opportunity in NH lets consumers buy fish directly off the boat; interviews with one of New England’s last remaining weir fishermen; and a video from a fishing village in Thailand.
May 4, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
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The NOAA Fisheries Northeast Regional Office in Gloucester (photo credit: NERO website).
Monday, April 30: “Penny wise and politically foolish” – Two weeks ago, a Senate Appropriations Subcommittee determined that federal dollars would be better spent by closing down the Northeast Regional Office of NOAA Fisheries in Gloucester, MA and moving almost all operations to the NMFS headquarters in Silver Spring, MD. This move was proposed as a cost-saving measure, but we believe it is a short-sighted proposal.
- Friday, May 4: “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, May 4” – Interesting stories this week: a New York chef takes a trip to the Boston fish market; the Boston Globe supports NERO staying in MA; more confusion over which sustainable seafood guides to trust; a new stock assessment confirms that river herring populations are depleted; and upcoming trips to take a look at herring runs.
Apr 20, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
- Wednesday, April 18 – “Talking Fish by the Numbers” – It’s been just over one year since we launched TalkingFish.org, and we’re proud of how far we’ve come in that time. In December, we wrote a year-end post pulling out our favorite blog posts of 2011. To celebrate our one-year anniversary, we thought we’d go with a different approach: TalkingFish.org by the numbers.
Visitors come to TalkingFish.org from all of the countries shaded in green on this map. The top five countries with the greatest number of visitors over the past month are (in decreasing order, with the number of visitors shown over each country) the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Australia, and the Philippines.
- Friday, April 20 - “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, April 20″ – Interesting stories that caught our eye this week: the potential dangers of eating sushi, a review of Dr. Ray Hilborn’s new book on overfishing, and a detailed look at the new Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment and what it means for Maine fishermen.
Apr 13, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
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Bluefin Tuna in the Mediterranean Sea off Spain.
Wednesday, April 11 – “Bluefin Tuna: Value Beyond Measure” – National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry writes, “I’ll never forget the first time I saw a bluefin tuna in the wild for I knew instantly that I was seeing a supreme ocean creature…I suppose I should have been afraid of being hit by something so large and powerful, but rather than fear I was struck with awe instead.”
- Thursday, April 12 – “Sustainable Seafood Teach-in April 29″ – Over the last few years, Boston’s Museum of Science has stepped up to the plate and sponsored some great programming on all aspects of food: the science, policy and reality of making healthy and sustainable food choices in our daily lives. As part of that conversation, the Museum is putting together a day of sustainable seafood discussions on Sunday, April 29.
- Friday, April 13 – “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, April 13″ – This week’s roundup of interesting fish stories: Legal Sea Foods to make supermarket seafood traceability easier with a new label; climate change could drastically reduce the economic value of the services oceans provide; the reasons behind and economic consequences of eating or not eating fish on Fridays; and taking a lesson from ancient Hawaiian fish stock protection.
Mar 30, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
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TalkingFish.org interviews Chef Jeremy Sewall, shown here plating a delicious dish (Photo credit: Jeremy Sewall).
Wednesday, March 28 – “Chef Jeremy Sewall seeks high-quality local seafood for his daily menus” – TalkingFish.org interviews well-known Boston chef Jeremy Sewall, the Chef/Owner of Lineage and Island Creek Oyster Bar and the Executive Chef at Eastern Standard.
- Thursday, March 29 – “Little Fish, Big Fishery” – The latest post in the “Bottom Line” series by Lee Crockett of the Pew Environment Group. Within the next few weeks, alewife and blueback herring, collectively known as river herring, will begin their annual migration from coastal waters to their native rivers.
- Friday, March 30 – “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, March 30″ – A roundup of fish stories in the news: the commercial striped bass fishery in Massachusetts will be allowed to continue; some rivers are reporting higher-than-average herring runs this year, and consumers are becoming more interested in eating the fish; warming Gulf of Maine waters may be bad news for ocean ecosystems; Whole Foods commits to keeping overfished seafood out of stores; and a lucrative elver season is underway in Maine.
Mar 23, 2012 by Samantha Caravello | Bio | Leave a Comment
- Monday, March 19 – “Eating with the Ecosystem” – A new venture in Rhode Island takes a holistic view of local seafood and aims to encourage us to eat a diverse array of species, rather than depleting our marine resources by consuming the same few fish. Read this blog post to learn more about Eating with the Ecosystem and how you can enjoy it at a participating restaurant.
- Wednesday, March 21 – “Recap and Roundup of News on Today’s Fishermen Rally” – This week, fishing groups held a rally in Washington, D.C. to voice to lawmakers their support for bills that would eliminate significant conservation measures from the Magnuson-Stevens Act, the 36-year old law that governs the management of our nation’s fisheries and has helped bring severely depleted fish populations back from the brink of collapse. TalkingFish.org compiled a list of interesting opinion-based coverage of the rally and the forces behind it.
- Friday, March 23 – “Fish Talk in the News – Friday, March 23″ – Interesting stories from around the web this week: what river herring are and why they’re important; what to expect from the show “Wicked Tuna”; and a video and recipes to help you make sushi at home.
Feb 17, 2012 by Emily Long | Bio | Leave a Comment
The Gulf of Maine (Northern) shrimp season ends today (Photo credit: Aldric D'Eon, courtsey of the NEFSC).
- February 13: “A behind the scenes peek at the Gulf of Maine cod stock assessments” - What really happened to Gulf of Maine cod? Heather Goldstone of Climatide investigated last week by talking to Liz Brooks and Mike Palmer, two of the scientists at the Northeast Fisheries Science Center who were involved in producing the 2011 Gulf of Maine cod stock assessment.
- February 14: “To help GOM cod, NMFS should not touch closed areas” - It’s been widely reported that at its February meeting, the New England Fishery Management Council voted to ask the National Marine Fisheries Service to take emergency action on Gulf of Maine cod for the 2012 fishing year. The measures proposed, including a mere 3-13% reduction in the catch limit, were notable largely for their failure to address the condition of the depleted cod stock. But there is an aspect of the proposed package that has received little attention, which is troubling, because it would have NMFS open up five of the six existing areas currently closed to groundfishing.
- February 17: “Fish Talk in the News” - A weekly roundup of stories we think will interest readers. This week: news and opinion on Gulf of Maine cod regulations and fisheries science, the end of this year’s Gulf of Maine shrimp season.
