West Coast Salmon Show Up in East Coast Courtroom

A federal court in Virginia is being asked to overturn a decision with major impacts on salmon and steelhead in California and three other western states.

The National Marine Fisheries Service recommends buffers of at least 500 feet where certain pesticides can't be sprayed around salmon streams, and last year, a lower court agreed. But Dow Chemical and two other manufacturers are fighting the decision, saying buffers aren't necessary and will cost them business.

The case is being heard in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in Virginia because that's the closest appeals court to the Fisheries Service headquarters.

LINK

Despite a NOAA 2008 biological opinion that chemicals used in pesticides – diazonin, malathion, and chlorpyrifos - are likely to jeopardize 27 populations of salmon on the West Coast that are listed as either endangered or threatened, Oregon state regulators just rejected the idea of requiring pesticide-free buffers around rivers and streams.

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England accuses Romania of cheating at World Carp Angling Championships

Sometimes sports can seem so formulaic. Show up, play by the rules, stay between the lines, get your check, go home. Where's the intrigue, the gamesmanship, the clinical insanity?

International carp-fishing competitions, that's where.

Winners Romania spent the five months preceding the tournament feeding the fish of Lake Corbu with a secret bait recipe.

Unfortunately for the 10-man England side, who finished 18th, they turned up at last month's tournament with £10,000 worth of traditional "boilies".

The mash-up of flour, egg and flavourer such as blended dried dog food is popular with British fish but failed to spark a flicker of interest in the Romanian carp which were happy to gorge on the feed offered on the hooks of their hosts which they had grown obligingly fat on throughout the summer.

LINK (via: Deadspin)

That's one bad fish

Click to see full size

Australian Sam Cahir had been taking part in a Great White tagging trip when he found himself face-to-face with a Short Finned Mako off the Neptune Islands, South Australia.

Just one of a series of amazing pictures.

LINK (via:Mail Online)

Is Your Fish Toxic?

New data collected by Columbia Riverkeeper show shocking levels of toxic pollution in local fishermen’s catch in Oregon and Washington. A Portland, Oregon, fish, for example, contains PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyl) at levels 27,000 percent above what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) considers safe for unrestricted consumption.

LINK (via: EcoWatch)

Teacher injured in airborne fish attack

A Naples High School teacher suffered minor injuries after an airborne assault by fish. But deputies say the fish likely had an accomplice - read the witty report written up by a school resource deputy after the September incident.

LINK (via:abc-7)

Silvery Fish Elude Predators With Light-Bending

It's why you wear polarized glasses.

Silvery fish like sardines and Atlantic herring are masters of camouflage. A new study explains how the fish use their silvery skin to stay invisible to predators from nearly every angle.

“What these fish do is get around a fundamental law of reflection,” said Nicholas Roberts, a biologist at the University of Bristol and one of the study’s authors.

LINK (via: The NY Times)