MOST angling gear is designed to hold onto fish. But some new equipment is fine-tuned to be more selective — holding tight to some fish and letting go of others, especially if they are Atlantic bluefin tuna — a fish whose numbers have fallen sharply.

Starting this month, commercial fishing vessels that drop long lines in the Gulf of Mexico in search of tuna are mandated to use lightweight circular hooks that retain approved fish like yellowfin tuna, but flatten under the weight of the far heavier bluefin and allow them to swim free.

by Nicole Makris

From a health perspective, fish and seafood offer benefits that are hard to find elsewhere. Unfortunately, the current consumption of seafood, specifically fish, is wrought with controversy and ecological degradation.

Great Whites Could Go Extinct Before Tigers

Two of the world's most famous carnivores are now under the microscope for being perilously close to extinction. One of them, the tiger, has gotten plenty of PR recently, along with the frightening revelation that the entire species could be on the brink of being wiped out. But it turns out that the Great White shark may be even more endangered. With only a few thousand left in the wild, and an icier public opinion towards them, the fearsome Great White could well go extinct in coming years.

The Great White Plight

According to the Guardian, a recent survey completed as a part of the Census for Marine Life, has found that there are only some 3,500 individual Great Whites left in the wild--around the same number of tigers that conservationists believe are left. And shark populations are plummeting around the world--the Great White being no exception. The sharks are being killed from collisions with shipping vessels and from overfishing.

But you can’t stop something so terrible from happening if you don’t know about it or know why you should even care.

Palau creates the world's first shark sanctuary. The nation is a hot spot for hammerheads, leopard, white tip and more than 130 other species threatened with extinction in the Pacific.

This was announced today at the UN. They hope this will inspire others to global conservation efforts. Good for Palau, heroes come in all sizes and this nation show us the way.

A Singaporean couple has tied the knot in a shark-infested tank to highlight the plight of the animals which die to fulfill the increasing Chinese taste for shark-fin soup.

"We wanted to do something different and help raise consciousness of the environment," said the bride, Juliana Khoo, after she married Lester Kwok at Underwater World, an aquarium on Singapore's Sentosa Island on Tuesday.

Friday, 26 April, 2002, NOTE THE DATE ON THIS ARTICLE FROM THE BBC!
By Alex Kirby
BBC News Online environment correspondent

Conservationists are joining a European aquarium chain to campaign for a worldwide ban on the cutting-off of sharks' fins.

1. Support international shark fisheries’ management and conservation efforts.

2. Contact your local government representative. Demand that shark management and conservation efforts become a priority.

With Shark Week beginning on August 2 right around the corner and the Shark Conservation Act of 2009 on the legislative table, shark conservation has been at the center of many ocean advocacy groups. Including Oceana, the largest international organization dedicated solely to ocean conservation, who works hard to safeguard sharks all year round. These often misunderstood creatures are in grave trouble, and they need your help to spread the truth. So here are 5 things you (and everyone you know!) should know about sharks:

1.Sharks are not a serious threat to humans. In fact, you are more likely to get killed by a vending machine or get hit in the head by a coconut than get killed by a shark. And of the over 350 species of sharks, only three (the white, tiger and bull shark) are responsible for the majority of shark attacks.

A judge overseeing endangered salmon on the Columbia and Snake Rivers is raising the possibility of dam removal. If politics trumps science this time, how can we hope to deal with climate change?
By Paul VanDevelder
July 6, 2009

If ever there were a story that foreshadowed the political and legal Waterloos that loom in seeking solutions to climate change, surely that cautionary tale is the one about the Columbia and Snake rivers' salmon and their imminent extinction. And like most stories about endangered species or environmental threats, this one is not only about fish and rivers -- it's about us.