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YOKOHAMA, Japan, Nov. 28 (UPI) -- An aquaculture company in Japan says it raised 50,000 fogu, or puffer fish, that are non-poisonous when consumed. The Daily Telegraph reported Saturday while scientists have created a safe version of the potentially deadly culinary delicacy, at least one chef in Japan remains dedicated to the art of carefully preparing puffer fish for customers. Shinichi Ueshima, chef of the Dote fugu restaurant in Yokohama, Japan, said the thrill associated with eating puffer fish is part of the animal's allure. "It's a very tasty fish, but that's not the only reason people choose to go...

NILE, Wash. – A gigantic landslide that buried a highway, uprooted homes and rerouted a river in Washington state's Cascade Range left hundreds of smaller victims: fish. The landslide that inundated the Naches River last month created a barrier of millions of cubic yards of silt, mud and rock that slowed — and likely confused — spawning salmon and hungry trout. Then workers opened a freshly dug river channel that stranded small fish in ponds and marshes. Fisheries biologists from 10 government agencies and private groups are working shifts to try to save the fish. The effort marks a step...

Animal rights campaigners have criticised the Chinese over their extreme eating habits after a video of diners eating a live fish became a hit on the internet. The film, in which a part-fried fish is shown breathing and wriggling on a plate as it is being slowly eaten alive in a restaurant, has been posted on the video-sharing website YouTube. In order to keep the carp alive chefs cook its body but wrap its head in a wet cloth to keep it breathing, before covering it in sauce and serving in on a plate. The YouTube video shows diners, who...

The one that didn't get away     Nibble ... Sean and his massive catch GEOFF ROBINSON         By RICHARD MORIARTY Published: 12 Nov 2009     AN angler has netted a giant catch — a huge catfish weighing more than new heavyweight world boxing champion David Haye. Sean Kinnear, 27, was amazed when he felt a fierce tug on his fishing line and pulled in the 9ft monster, which weighs a whopping 17 STONE. He waged a 15-minute battle to land the beast, which hits the scales at an incredible 233lb 6oz — more than...

LOVELAND, Ohio, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- An Ohio man landed a 95-pound blue catfish in Lake Isabella, a park district record and only one pound less than the state record holder, park officials said. Lake Isabella Harbor Manager Harry Scott said the massive catfish, which he weighed twice for accuracy, dwarfs the previous largest catch in Hamilton County Park District's history, a 50-pound blue catfish, and weighs in at only one pound under the 96-pound state record, the Cincinnati Enquirer reported Wednesday. "I've never seen anything this big in my whole life, and I've seen lots of fish," Scott said....

Over the years I've had many fish tanks. More recently I had to "settle" for goldfish because of exigent circumstances. Got a couple of "junk fish" from Wal-Mart and a used an old 30 gal tank. These hearty goldfish thrived and lived literally through fire and ice storms. I named them Franny and Zooey. They thrived and grew and "loved" each other. On occasion they developed "Ick" - Ichthyophthirius multifiliis, a single-celled parasite also known as Ich. Treatment with medications always solved the infection. A few days ago Ich raised it's ugly head and, despite "heroic" efforts short of CRP,...

DESTIN — News that a federal agency had slammed the door on this year’s amberjack season without notice didn’t sit well Tuesday with charter fishermen. They believe Big Brother is out to take their livelihood from them. “They’re killing us,” said boat captain Thomas Swanson. “They’re flat killing us.” Read the press release from the NOAA Fisheries Service » A morning announcement that no greater amberjack could be caught after midnight Friday swept across the docks at Destin Harbor. It didn’t take long for an angry group of fishermen to gather to vent. It also didn’t take long for the...

FORT WORTH — This story may sound fishy to you, but the Smith family of Joshua has a photo to prove it. Four-year-old Caden Smith, who weighs 40 pounds, hauled in a 45-pound flathead catfish Saturday while fishing from the banks of the Trinity River near downtown. "He battled for his life," his uncle Dan Smith of Hurst said Wednesday.

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- A nonprofit group filed a federal lawsuit Thursday seeking a decision about whether to grant added protections for the delta smelt. The Council for Endangered Species Act Reliability alleges the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has failed to make a timely decision about the tiny silver fish. It filed suit in U.S. District Court in Sacramento. Executive director Craig Manson said the federal agency should classify the threatened smelt as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Obama White House to 60,000,000 Anglers: We Don't Need You Obama White House takes on 60,000,000 American anglers. (Hawaii Leisure) A recently released White House document could result in the closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas.Shimano reported: Feds to 60 Million American Anglers: We don't need you A recently published administration document outlines a structure that could result in closures of sport fishing in salt and freshwater areas across America. The White House created an Interagency Oceans Policy Task Force in June and gave them only 90 days to develop a comprehensive federal policy for all U.S....

...The original White House memo and not surprisingly the Task Force report contains multiple references to developing a national policy where Great Lakes and coastal regions are managed, “consistent with international law, including customary international law as reflected in the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea” - a 300-page treaty the U.S. has never ratified...

Finally acknowledging that there is a significant government-created crisis in the San Joaquin Valley, the Interior Department convened a public hearing Sept. 30, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein has announced she has asked her staff to begin assembling a major piece of legislation to address the water crisis facing the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has issued a "memorandum of understanding" that will keep representatives from six federal agencies talking to various interest groups in California. The problem is that it will take months to make such decisions and years for results to be apparent. The crisis is...

Some of these I haven't yet seen, and I've seen a lot of these clips. Words from: Russ Feingold Kathleen Sebelius Paul Krugman Barney Frank Ezra Klein Rahm Emanuel and Jan Schakowsky

Dave Mackie is running an online Sudoku competition where his luxury home in Lancashire will be given away as a prize. He has already received thousands of entries around the world, but will let his 'koi' pick the winner from the correct entries. The insurance broker and puzzle fan plans to install a touch sensitive pad in the pond and when the fish touch it one of the 14,000 entries will be selected. He hopes this will mean the fish select someone who will look after them when he moves out- though given it is random they are just as...

Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt. (snip) The Senate rejected the amendment by a largely party-line 61-36 margin, with Feinstein opposing the restoration of water deliveries to farmers. The California senator claimed she was blindsided by the amendment to the bill she was managing in the Senate, bizarrely comparing the move to a "Pearl Harbor." "No one from California has called, written or indicated they wanted this on the calendar," Feinstein protested.

Delta smelts: Preferred over humans. Environmentalism: Sen. Dianne Feinstein votes to deny water to California's drought-stricken San Joaquin Valley. Farmers, families and food are being held hostage to an endangered fish called the delta smelt.There was a time when the San Joaquin Valley was the most productive agricultural region in the world. It was a large part of what made the Golden State golden.Now it's a place where farmers no longer farm, but instead line up at food banks to feed the families of those who once fed the rest of the country and a good chunk of the...

Nearly a quarter-million acres worth of contracted federal irrigation deliveries have been cut from the big farms of the west side of the San Joaquin Valley in central California. The water in large part is being diverted to the salty San Francisco Bay and the delta to improve marine ecology. The result of the cutbacks is that many crops in the San Joaquin Valley have gone unplanted. Farm income is down. Thousands of farm laborers are unemployed. Growers and workers are now livid at environmentalists, federal bureaucrats, and judges for worrying more about fish than about people and food growing....

The latest weapon in the battle over the legitimacy of some functional brain scanning studies is a dead fish. In study titled "Neural correlates of interspecies perspective taking in the post-mortem Atlantic Salmon", researchers scanned 1.7 kg (3.8 pounds) of a dead salmon while it was shown images of humans in various social situations. It's not clear how long the salmon had been dead by the time it was studied, but Craig Bennett at the University of California, Santa Barbara, says he scanned it about an hour after picking it up from the supermarket, so it was definitely already a...

September 1, 2009 (MOSCOW) -- Thousands of tropical fish reportedly have died at a Russian airport after being held in customs for 15 hours in the summer heat. The state RIA Novosti news agency says more that 4,000 fish worth $480,000 died in the Black Sea resort of Sochi after customs officials spent 15 hours clearing the cargo Saturday. The fish had been shipped from China and made a brief stop in India. [snip]

SAN PEDRO, Calif. — If the tide is high, the weather is warm, the clock is approaching midnight and the beach you're standing on is in Southern California, it's a given that romance is in the air — or the water. In these parts, it's a time for grunion love.

The environmental lobby is downright nutty out in California, as they have shut off the water wells for Farmers, all because of some idiotic fish. Congressman Devin Nunes (R) of the 21st congressional district in California has fought against this since it was enacted, pushing for legislation in Congress, which would turn the pumps back on, as with them off.....farms are drying up, a man made drought is occurring, and unemployment is through the roof.

More waters from San Francisco to Mendocino off-limits in effort to restore delicious marine wildlife populationsB The State Fish and Wildlife Commission approved a plan to expand protected areas in the stretch of California coast from San Francisco to Mendocino and 3 miles out to sea. The new marine reserves will protect 20 percent more coastal areas from commercial fishing, in the hopes of restoring one of California's tastiest natural resources. Commercial fishermen wanted slightly fewer protected zones, and less strict restrictions on abalone diving. The abalone population in particular is threatened and in decline, but some recreational abalone diving...

I only wish that before I die I could hookup on a catch like this. I found this old photo dated 1951 going through boxes from a storage lot I bought. On the back of the photo it states fiesh caught at Romayor Texas, Liberty County below an around RR bridge.It is my guess that the larger one there would probably go 140 pounds or better.

We've all heard it before: a diet rich in fish is good for the heart. But now there's new evidence that eating a healthy dose of PETA's recently rebranded "sea kittens" can help ward off dementia as well. (I couldn't resist posting a quick note about this study on the heels of PETA's "Sea Kitten State Park" proposal.) One of the largest efforts to establish a clear connection between fish and brain health — and the first such study conducted in the developing world — has found that older adults in Asia and Latin America were less likely to develop...

The perch, which was two feet three inches long and weighed 17.5 pounds, was speared on Sunday at Lac Majeur after it bit six swimmers over the weekend, Fabio Croci, a fish warden, told local media. Two swimmers were treated in hospital for bite wounds up to four inches long after being attacked at the lake, which borders Italy, he added. 'World's tallest man' shuns Guiness Book of Records Silvio Berlusconi newspaper: Italy better than Britain Lemon sharks feeding frenzy in Bahamas captured on camera Incredible moment shark almost swallows diver Increase in dragon attacks frightens residents of Komodo Police...

-- Scientists have confirmed the oldest penis-like structure in an ancient fish specimen. The discovery of the 400 million-year-old reproductive organ is one of the earliest examples of internal fertilization in vertebrate animals. Understanding the anatomy of these ancient fish could reveal further details in the evolution of vertebrates -- including humans. The research is published in today's advanced online ahead of print edition of Nature. Earlier this year the team, led by Australian palaeontologist Dr John Long, predicted some ancient fish from the Devonian era, had an attachment to their pelvic bone, which were used by males to fertilize...

Researchers have found that taking a supplement of omega 3 for six months had a beneficial effect on people with age-related forgetfulness and loss of learning ability. They tested the affect of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA), which is most commonly found in fish oil, on 485 healthy people and found that memory and general brain function increased significantly. The research, based on volunteers with an average age of 70, showed taking 900mg capsules every day was the equivalent of turning back the clock three years, it was found. Now it is hoped that further studies could show that the fatty acid...

The summer is a great time to load up the family and head to the water. Children love to catch fish and that is one of the keys to creating the next generation of outdoor aficionados. In order to hook them for life a father or mother's job is to make sure they catch fish and lots of them. The best way to do that is to go light. Using light tackle turns the common bluegill into a formidable adversary, science project, and all around mystery for a child. As a parent you get to be the one who introduces...

Lol...

The discovery of a rare blood-sucking fish in the River Wear is proof of high water quality, conservationists said. Seven adult sea lampreys, which have toothed, funnel-like sucking mouths, have been found in the river near Chester-le-Street, County Durham. Only three species of lampreys remain in Britain, and they are protected under European law. The Environment Agency said the creatures only breed in water which is very clean. So far the agency has identified twelve spawning sites, known as redds. Fisheries officer Paul Frear said: "We were thrilled to discover lampreys back in the River Wear, as these rare blood-suckers...

On July 4 from 12:01 a.m. until 11:59 p.m., anyone—resident and non-resident—can fish in any public water in North Carolina, including coastal waters, without the purchase of a fishing license or trout privilege license. slideshow On July 4 from 12:01 a.m. until 11:59 p.m., anyone—resident and non-resident—can fish in any public water in North Carolina, including coastal waters, without the purchase of a fishing license or trout privilege license. All other fishing regulations, such as fish length and daily possession limits, as well as bait and tackle restrictions and park-use fees, apply. Authorized by the N.C. General Assembly and started...

Every angler dreams of adventurous fishing opportunities. Some anglers are content to make the rounds within their own state to get their fix of fishing fever while others travel to other states. So how much fun would it be to try to fish all 50 states in the same number of days? That's exactly what Jeff Turner and his 17-year-old son, Taylor, are in the process of doing right now. "Ever since I was a small boy I've dreamed of adventure," said the elder Turner. "I'm just an average father looking at one summer left with my son with college...

Governor Charlie Crist signed CS/SB 1742 into law and repealed the resident shoreline exemption from the Florida Saltwater Fishing License. The shoreline exemption repeal was a top legislative priority for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission and CCA Florida. With help from Senator Lee Constantine (R-Altamonte Springs), Senator Carey Baker (R-Eustis), and Representative Baxter Troutman (R-Winter Haven), the bill was carried through the Florida Legislature and placed on the Governors desk. "The repeal means that shoreline anglers capable of buying a license will now be contributing to marine fisheries conservation," said Bill Bird, CCA Florida Chairman. "Most importantly the...

Vital nutrients found in fatty fish like salmon and tuna can stave off the progression of age-related macular degeneration (AMD), which affects around 200,000 people in Britain and is the leading cause of blindness in the elderly. More and more people are predicted to develop the condition, which initially involves an inability to make out fine details, as the population ages. Researchers say that the omega 3 fatty acids found in fish could offer protection against the disease. Their findings, published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, show that progression to both the dry and wet forms of advanced disease...

A Boeing 757 and a fleet of armored cars for Michelle's sight seeing tour! Michelle OneOn Sunday, President Obama flew back to the United States on Air Force One. His wife, two daughters and her mother did a bit of shopping in Paris before taking their own Boeing 757 (C-32) over to London to do some sight seeing. We all remember Obama's admonishment to corporate CEO's in February:"You can't get corporate jets, you can't go take a trip to Las Vegas or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers dime."Apparently that doesn't apply to his wife. The London...

People with age-related macular degeneration (AMD) should eat oily fish at least twice a week to keep their eye disease at bay, say scientists. Omega-3 fatty acids found in abundance in fish like mackerel and salmon appear to slow or even halt the progress of both early and late stage disease. The researchers base their findings on almost 3,000 people taking part in a trial of vitamins and supplements. The findings are published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology.

Judge Sonia Sotomayor, President Obama's nominee to replace Supreme Court Justice David Souter, ruled in a 2007 case that power companies must protect “fish and other aquatic organisms” from being sucked into cooling vents regardless of the costs, saying the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) was not allowed to use a cost-benefit analysis in measuring power companies’ compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. The Supreme Court disagreed, ruling on April 1 of this year that a cost-benefit analysis was entirely appropriate when judging whether a power company was following the law. The case involved a section of the Clean Water...

A Peruvian fisherman takes a paiche, a giant South American tropical freshwater fish, to sell at a market in Iquitos, Peru, in 1993.

Subordinate individuals living within a group of vertebrates sometimes assist a more dominant pair by helping to raise the dominant pair's offspring and this has been shown to occur among subordinate female cichlids. Dik Heg and colleagues at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and the Ohio State University, suggest that rather than engaging in an act of reciprocal altruism, these subordinate females actually benefit from the care-giving they offer as the more helpful subordinates are more likely to reproduce. A number of hypotheses have been proposed to explain why subordinate female cichlids (Neolamprologus pulcher) often help to raise the offspring...

Marine pedicures have popped up in Illinois -- and clients are biting: nlike many fish, the Garra rufa is unafraid of humans. In fact, these pinkie-size fish like you. They like you very much. Which is key to why they're turning up in salons in Virginia, Ohio and now, Aurora and Gurnee. People are paying $25-$50 to plop their feet and/or hands in water tanks and let swarms of the gray, toothless fish work as Neptune's exfoliators. "They have very firm lips," said Olena Manakina, co-owner of Fun Fins in the Gurnee Mills Mall. "They literally suck off the tiny...

A species of bream, sarpa salpa, which can trigger hallucinations when eaten, has been been discovered in British waters due to global warming.The species of bream is normally found in the balmier waters of the Mediterranean and South Africa, was found by fisherman Andy Giles in his nets in the English Channel. Mr Giles, 38, caught the fish, which is instantly recognised by its gold stripes running along its body, six miles south of Polperro, Cornwall. "We were trawling for lemon sole and hauled up the net at the end of the day and almost immediately saw this striped fish,...

[Wisconsin] officials have shut down the fish-nibbling skin care salon at Mayfair Mall after a month of operation, the owner of the business said Wednesday. Gerald Williamson, owner of Doctor Fish Magnifique, said the Department of Regulation & Licensing ordered his business closed Tuesday, saying it violated state rules. In the shop's regimen, about 100 little Asian "doctor fish" - formally, garra rufa fish - nibble away dead skin cells on patrons' feet as they soak in a clear plastic tank. Department officials earlier had said that people offering pedicures must sanitize equipment for each customer and questioned how fish...

One doesn't often see the word moi, as in the fish, outside Hawaii — but it appeared in the James Beard Foundation newsletter last week under the heading, "Eat this Word." Moi was once prized by Hawaii's high chiefs, the newsletter explained, without any detail about the fate that would befall a commoner caught eating the delicacy that was actually kapu — reserved for those high chiefs' exclusive consumption. Moi, or Pacific threadfin, were raised in traditional Hawaiian fishponds until "the post-colonial dissolution of the island's indigenous political structure led to the cessation of this ancient fish-farming technique," the newsletter...

Saying she still has no idea who sent her a box of dead fish, former top homeland security bioweapons official Maureen McCarthy says she has resigned from the department and begun legal action to clear her name. Occasionally breaking into tears during a 45-minute telephone interview, McCarthy called her resignation "involuntary" and said she had suffered severe financial distress since being suspended without pay in February over the incident. "I resigned against my will," she said. "I had no income, and I couldn't use my accrued annual leave" for cash. "By resigning I got that back," she said, and could...

Fish don't make noises or contort their faces to show that it hurts when hooks are pulled from their mouths, but a Purdue University researcher believes they feel that pain all the same. Joseph Garner, an assistant professor of animal sciences, helped develop a test that found goldfish do feel pain, and their reactions to it are much like that of humans. "There has been an effort by some to argue that a fish's response to a noxious stimuli is merely a reflexive action, but that it didn't really feel pain," Garner said. "We wanted to see if fish responded...

Men who consume fatty fish and marine omega-3 fatty acids appear to have a reduced risk of heart failure, a new study has found. Between 1998 and 2004, U.S. and Swedish researchers followed nearly 40,000 Swedish men, ages 45 to 79, recorded details of their diets and tracking their health outcomes. During that time, 597 men with no history of heart disease or diabetes developed heart failure, and 34 of them died from the disorder. Men who ate fatty fish -- such as salmon, mackerel, herring, whitefish and char -- once a week were 12 percent less likely to develop...

Federal biologists checking the upper Potomac River have found that abnormalities in bass there are even more widespread than they'd earlier reported. But they're no nearer to understanding what's causing it. At least 82 percent of male smallmouth bass and 23 percent of the largemouth bass had immature female germ cells in their reproductive organs, according to a release by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey. Abnormalities also were found in some female fish.

ScienceDaily (Apr. 19, 2009) — New evidence gleaned from CT scans of fossils locked inside rocks may flip the order in which two kinds of four-limbed animals with backbones were known to have moved from fish to landlubber. Both extinct species, known as Ichthyostega and Acanthostega, lived an estimated 360-370 million years ago in what is now Greenland. Acanthostega was thought to have been the most primitive tetrapod, that is, the first vertebrate animal to possess limbs with digits rather than fish fins. But the latest evidence from a Duke graduate student's research indicates that Ichthyostega may have been closer...

I'd just returned home after an exciting morning of scouting turkeys and even before I could climb out of the truck my son came running over with a can in his hand. "Daddy look what I found under the black plastic by the side of the garden," he yelled with a big smile as he held out a tin can filled with worms. "I looked under the plastic and there were worms everywhere. I'm sure I found enough for us to go fishing... So can we go down to the lake and try to catch some yellow perch?" I'd never...

I am the owner of the lake located behind the old Rockmart High School on College Street. A few weeks ago I observed that there was something floating at the top of my lake and I called my grandson to come check out the situation. When my grandson arrived at my house, he and one of his friends floated out in the lake to see what it was. Once he was out in the boat, he realized that it was an injured carp that I had purchased when the fish was only 8 inches long. He and his friend pulled...