Fish & Fisheries

"British fish stocks have dropped by 94 percent in the past 118 years and commercial fishing has profoundly changed seabed ecosystems, leading to a collapse in numbers of many species, scientists said on Tuesday."

"Along with officials' consistently cautious predictions about the scope of the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, another group has been calling for a tempering of dire oil-spill forecasts: the Gulf of Mexico seafood industry."

"The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected a legal request by Michigan aimed at keeping voracious Asian carp out of the Great Lakes where they are considered a threat to fisheries."

"The chairman of the International Whaling Commission offered a compromise proposal Thursday that would authorize commercial hunting for the first time in a quarter-century in exchange for reducing the number of whales killed each year."

"The Obama administration is launching a significant new effort to reach out to marine recreational fishermen, an economically and politically powerful group that has previously felt shut out by the new administration."

"A new report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has confirmed a new strain of norovirus, which has sickened dozens of people and forced the closure of several oyster harvest areas in the Louisiana area." Most of the beds have been reopened after tests proved them safe.

"The Chesapeake's blue crabs, in decline for a decade, are in the middle of an extraordinary comeback, officials in Maryland and Virginia said Wednesday. The estuary's crab population has more than doubled in two years, they said, reaching its highest level since 1997."