RT @RichardMcLellan: Let's be optimistic about the future of #fish - Kathryn Murdoch #overfishing http://t.co/pEjVh480wt

European nations agreed on Friday to set up fishing-free zones in remote parts of the Atlantic Ocean in the world's first high seas network of protected areas beyond the control of national governments.

Environment ministers from 15 European states, forming the OSPAR group overseeing the North-East Atlantic, said they would seek recognition of the six areas at the United Nations and from the United States and Canada on the other side of the ocean.

The Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau of Reclamation has awarded $118.8 million in Recovery funds for a permanent pumping plant that will divert river water into the canals providing irrigation for the crops and allowing the dam’s gates to remain open so the fish can go upriver.  Screening on the plant’s intakes will prevent fish from being sucked into the pumps. The award – the largest that DOI has made – covers most of the cost of the project – $220 million

New research reveals that Europe could not feed itself on fish from EU waters for more than 189 days a year, and from today is dependent on fish caught elsewhere.

New research finds that the condition of European fisheries is worse than previously thought, with stocks of popular fish down more than 90% from peak fishing years early in the last century.

Great article about a chef who only serves sustainable fish in his award winning sushi restaurant

"Fishermen have known for years that they've had to steam farther and farther from shore to find the cod, haddock and winter flounder that typically fill dinner plates in New England.

A new federal study documenting the warming waters of the North Atlantic confirms that they're right — and that the typical meal could eventually change to the Atlantic croaker, red hake and summer flounder normally found to the south.

"Fishermen are businessmen, so if they have to go farther and deeper to catch the fish that we like to eat, eventually it won't be economical to do that," said Janet Nye, a fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the lead author of the study."

A listing of fish species which are commercially fished despite being in danger of stock collapse

There's been a spate of amazing animal discoveries recently--the giant rat-eating plants found in the Philippines, a huge woolly rat discovered in a volcanic crater--and now, yet another creature has emerged that could be right out of a sci-fi film. It's a bizarre creature that survives by eating its hosts' tongue and then attaching itself inside the mouth.

Herbivorous reef fishes not only have a key role in keeping algal growth at bay and thereby enabling corals to grow and reproduce, they are also important players in the long-term health and survival of coral reefs in the face of climate change and other threats. These are the findings of a new report published by IUCN and its institutional partners released today.

Eating fish is good for us, but catching it in the way we do devastates the sea. Nearly nine tenths of European stocks are overfished, and around a third are beyond safe biological limits: that is, the adult population is too depleted to provide replacement stock.

In my parents' lifetime, we have killed 90 percent of the world's fish. In my lifetime, we will finish off the rest -- unless we change our ways, fast. We are on course to be the people who wiped fish from the earth.

The bluefin tuna faces extinction.

This amazing creature accelerates faster than a sports car and migrates across whole oceans. But it has the misfortune to have exquisite-tasting flesh. Large specimens fetch thousands of dollars for sushi and sashimi. There may not be large specimens around much longer.

The bluefin has been listed as an endangered species for over a decade by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. It is as endangered as the giant panda and the white rhino. But to Europe and America's shame, fishermen in the Eastern Atlantic and the Mediterranean are continuing to take twice the number scientists advise and the stock is on the verge of collapse. Records suggest that the size of adult tuna migrating to the Mediterranean is half that of a decade ago, a classic indication of population collapse.

The World Wildlife Fund is now predicting that bluefin spawners will be virtually eradicated by 2012.

Faced with new evidence that utilities across the country are dumping toxic sludge into waterways, the Environmental Protection Agency is moving to impose new restrictions on the level of contaminants power plants can discharge.

Plants in Florida, Pennsylvania and several other states have flushed wastewater with levels of selenium and other toxins that far exceed the EPA's freshwater and saltwater standards aimed at protecting aquatic life, according to data the agency has collected over the past few years

Imagine a world without seafood for supper. It's nearer than you think.

Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them, including medicines used to treat high cholesterol, allergies, high blood pressure, bipolar disorder and depression

Are there really plenty of fish in the sea? University of British Columbia fisheries researcher Villy Christensen gives the first-ever estimate of total fish biomass in our oceans: Two billion tonnes.

And fish play a previously unrecognized but significant role in mitigating climate change by maintaining the delicate pH balance of the oceans, according to a study published in tomorrow's edition of the journal Science, co-authored by Christensen and a team of international scientists.