One part of my PhD research was working with NSW DPI and UOW to assess the performance of marine protected areas (MPAs). We recently had an article published in Biological Conservation where we used seafloor mapping to improve the assessment of the Lord Howe Island Marine Park (free download here till July 20th). Here’s a quick rundown on what we found…
Pregnant Sharks and Rays Abort Offspring When Fished – Guest post by Kye Adams
Have you ever seen a viral video of a shark or ray giving birth (e.g. River Monsters)? Unfortunately, it turns out these videos have a pretty dark explanation: There’s a fairly high chance the female is actually aborting her pups due to the stress of being caught. Continue reading
Are you concerned about the health of New South Wales marine environment?
If you are, it is worth looking at the NSW Marine Estate Threat and Risk Assessment Draft Report and providing a submission or comment to improve the assessment.
The report will be used to determine the most important threats and risks to the NSW marine environment and your submission could help decide where management actions are directed. Note: submissions are due this Saturday the 30th of April.
The website contains the current threat and risk assessment for a range of human activities on environmental assets (for e.g. fish, beaches, rocky reef etc.). It is interesting to see what the current risk ratings are for certain human activities and how the NSW Marine Estate justify these ratings.
To search for this information the NSW Marine Estate has developed an interactive tool to help you navigate through the draft assessment. Once you have identified a human activity (for e.g. recreational fishing) and its risk on an environmental asset (for e.g. the fish assemblage) there are links to a variety of reports used to justify this ranking plus a link to provide your own feedback.
The interactive tool did take me some time to get the hang of, so below are instructions and screen grabs to help you navigate your way through the site.
Voting is now open for the Fly Life Magazine‘s photo competition and all of the finalists have some cracking entries.
Big congrats to our mate Angus Kennedy for reaching the finals with his shot of Matt guiding his canoe down the rapids of a remote south coast Bass stream. Continue reading
A few weeks ago, we helped Conservation Volunteers Australia and the William Beach Bush Care group to improve fish habitat along the shores of Mullet Creek, Lake Illawarra. Continue reading
Mobula Rays at Aussie Point, Munda, Solomon Islands. Photo Leonard Clifford
This time round we have a lot to catch up on! Guest blogger, and founder of The Fins United Initiative, Melissa Márquez (@mcmsharksxx) drops in, Evie hands in her thesis, we hear about whales bigger than blue whales! *, fish gorging on mice, and the shark attack ‘problem’.
Rubbish on the sea bed. Petr Kratochvil
June Fishbits: Going plastic free for the sea, bridging the divide between different interest groups, and writing our science heaps more betterer!
We as consumers, particularly in western countries, are pretty boring when it comes to our seafood. Given the diversity of fish in our oceans this seems pretty strange. It’s like our taste buds are only fond of a handful of species such as tuna, cod, salmon, flake etc. But our obsession for these fish (majority of which are apex predators), has resulted in many of their stocks becoming overfished and deterioration of the ecosystems in which they live in. So it’s time we started mixing things up in terms of what seafood we catch, order, buy and cook!! This leads me to today’s guest post by Lauren Yates of Ponytail Journal. Lauren runs a super successfully blog covering all things from fashion, food and travel. When it comes to cooking, Lauren is a huge advocate of using sustainable seafood, regularly encouraging her followers to steer clear of the ‘trendy’ species that are overexploited and explore more sustainable options. Read her post below on why salmon can’t be on the menu anymore… Continue reading
One of my all-time favourite styles of fishing is targeting Luderick (Girella tricuspidata) off wave exposed rock ledges with a float, centre-pin reel and a handful of seaweed. A couple of weekends ago, Niko, Gus and I went exploring in the Royal National Park just south of Sydney to find an empty rock platform and some hungry Luderick. Gus being the super talented videographer that he is filmed the action and produced a short video that captures, what I think Luderick fishing is all about (watch below in HD if possible 🙂 ).
One aspect of my PhD is to understand a little bit more about the ecology of pelagic fishes, specifically what habitats they prefer in coastal waters. But before I could do this I first had to determine the best way to sample these fishes and this is what todays post is on. Continue reading
Fish Thinkers 