Court of Appeals Issues Landmark Ruling Concerning Effects of Three Pesticides on Salmon Species

On February 21, 2013, a three judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous landmark decision in Dow Agrosciences v. National Marine Fisheries Service setting aside a Biological Opinion (BiOp) prepared by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) that found that use of the pesticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion could jeopardize the viability of certain species of salmon and their habitat.

This new decision will have far-reaching consequences because of the large number of pesticides that may be subject to referral to either the NMFS or the Fish and Wildlife Service (the Services) in connection with previous actions by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) during pesticide reregistration or future actions by EPA during registration review.

LINK (via: Environmental Expert)

World Record Bonefish in Islamorada

Michael Larkin explains why Islamorada is the Bonefish Capital of the world.

Ever wonder why you don’t see schools of tiny bonefish on the flats?

                                     Can you see me now?

Recent research by Christopher Haak, a PhD student in Andy Danylchuk's Fish Ecology Lab at UMass Amherst (and funded by Bonefish and Tarpon Trust), may have finally answered this question. 

Juvenile bonefish (as small as an inch long!) may in fact be “hiding in plain sight”, mixing in among schools of similar-sized mojarras, whom they closely resemble when young.  With roughly 1 bonefish for every 50 mojarras, the odds are you won’t see the bonefish, and neither will their predators!  In the photo above, a 2-inch long bonefish (about 4 months old) feeds among mojarras.

Fish on Prozac Are Violent And Obsessive

Prozac’s host of side effects aren’t just limited to depressed humans. Fish, too, suffer when the drug washes into their streams, rivers and lakes. When people excrete Prozac’s active ingredient, fluoxetine, in their urine, the chemical finds paths into natural waterways through sewage treatment plants that are unequipped to filter it out. When male fish ingest the drug, it seemingly alters their minds to the point of dysfunction and even destruction. 

LINK (via:Smithsonian)

Adopt a Bonefish!

THE PROJECT

Culebra, a small island to the east of Puerto Rico, is notorious among seasoned anglers for its unusually large bonefish.  However anecdotal evidence suggests that bonefish populations inhabiting relatively small, isolated, reef flats such as those found on Culebra may be particularly vulnerable to human-induced disturbances such as illegal gill netting and habitat loss.

To learn about their potential vulnerability, an international team of researchers launched a multi-year study examining the movement patterns of bonefish in Culebra.  In the summer of 2012 we began by creating a research infrastructure in Culebra, and deployed an array of nearly 50 acoustic receivers (listening stations) encompassing the entire island, allowing us to detect tagged bonefish and follow their movements at scales as small as a few yards!  

After months of testing and fine-tuning, we deployed an initial batch of tagged bonefish and the preliminary data is amazing.  Based on this test of the array, we planned to surgically implant transmitter tags into 30 bonefish in the spring of 2013, collecting data on their movements well into 2015!

THE PROBLEM

Due to spending cutbacks by the U.S. federal government, the grant that made this work possible has been cut by half.  This means we can barely afford to maintain our infrastructure and network of listening stations, and most importantly, that we can no longer afford to purchase and deploy 30 transmitter tags this spring as planned.  In other words, 30 bonefish will be swimming around our extensive array of listening stations in Culebra without any transmitter tags in them, providing us with NO DATA!

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Adopt a Culebra Bonefish!  We need to raise $19,500 for 30 transmitters to implant in bonefish, with purchase and deployment of each tag costing $650.  Please consider Adopting a Bonefish as part of this project.  As a thank-you, we will name the bonefish tagged in your honor, and you’ll receive a thank-you packet, including a photograph of the bonefish and its personal details, (length, weight, sex when known), as well as bi-yearly updates on their fish’s status! 

Don’t let Culebra’s bonefish go another season without providing us with valuable information about how to conserve them!  Adopt a Culebra bonefish now! 

Time is of the essence! 

Contact Dr. Andy Danylchuk (danylchuk@eco.umass.edu) to adopt your bonefish today.

Fish Ladders and Elevators Not Working

For reasons no one completely understands, fish ladders and elevators are not helping fish at some mainstem dams in the East.

Scientists and engineers set targets for the transport capacity of fish passages. And yet, the study lays bare that those targets are being missed by orders of magnitude. For instance, the first Merrimack River dam aims to let 300,000 river herring pass through; the mean number for the years 2008 to 2011 was 706 per year. The goal at the first Connecticut River dam is 300,000 to 500,000 fish. There, the mean for those same years was 86. And for the Susquehanna, the goal is 5 million river herring spawning above the fourth dam, which passed an average of seven herring from 2008 to 2011. This means that very few fish are reaching quality breeding grounds, which has likely contributed to the decimation in river herring populations.

LINK (via:Science)