Towering over the average human and weighing as much as a grand piano, the brown bears found in south-west Alaska are considered among the best in the world to observe as they pad around in a largely untouched wilderness of soaring mountains, pristine rivers and rocky beaches. About a third of Alaska’s 30,000 brown bears […]
Around the world, fishermen use gillnets to catch tuna. But they don’t just catch tuna. Sadly, other fish and marine animals become “bycatch” like sea turtles, sharks, and cetaceans. Dolphins, in particular, are killed by the tens of thousands by this fishing technique. A recent study found that “More than 80% of Indian Ocean dolphins […]
Another deadly season for dolphins and whales has begun in Taiji, Japan. Every year, a large-scale, brutal hunt of dolphins takes place in the small fishing village. During this period, hunters utilize techniques to herd large numbers of dolphins to shore. Once trapped in a cove, the dolphins are either brutally slaughtered for their meat […]
A sixth sea lion has died after being entrapped in a squid trawling net off the coast of New Zealand last week. Perhaps the world’s rarest sea lion, this particular species is only found in and around New Zealand, and has only about 12,000 individuals total. Limited historical data suggests New Zealand sea lion populations […]
Sharks are villainized and feared, but they suffer terribly at the hands of humans. Humans killaround 100 to 273 million sharks every year, while sharks killless than 10 people per year. People often argue for shark culling because they want surfers to feel safer in the ocean, but the ocean is the shark’s habitat and […]
Competition for fish stocks with fisheries to feed humans could be forcing seabirds to go hungry, according to new research. The study, published Dec. 6 in the journal Current Biology, reveals that seabirds’ share of fish has dropped by nearly 20 percent over a span of 40 years. Expanding large-scale fisheries, meanwhile, have increased their […]
Days before the start of the summer fishing season, when guides and outfitters on Canada’s west coast gamble their financial prospects for the year, fishing lodge owner Ryan Chamberland received devastating news. The coastal waters of Vancouver Island, which he and four generations of his family had fished for salmon, would be out of bounds. […]
Given how universally revered dolphins are, and the fact that humans rarely eat their meat, you’d be forgiven for assuming that dolphins are largely spared by the fishing industry. Alas, that’s not the case. As a new report finds, fishers hunt and butcher over 100,000 cetaceans (a classification that includes dolphins, porpoises and tinier whales) […]