Tag archives for fish
Posted by 
As National Geographic’s annual Explorer’s Symposium came to an end, NG Weekend revisits some of our favorite adventures from the previous classes of Emerging Explorers. In the coming weeks and months, we will introduce the 2013 class of Emerging Explorers on the show. Here are some of our favorites from over the years…
Posted by 
Some female animals—including fish, snakes, and octopi—store sperm in their reproductive tracts for years after mating. But why?
Posted by 
On June 8, people from around the world take a moment to celebrate the beauty and bounty of the oceans on World Oceans Day. It tends to be a day crowded with announcements from every ocean advocacy organization, which is both exciting and a bit dizzying – it’s easy for important individual messages to get lost…
Posted by 
Some people’s parents pass on to their children a love for skiing, some a love for cooking, my father passed along to me a love for tuna. By love for tuna, I don’t mean a love for eating spicy tuna rolls or a love that makes me anti-fishing, it more is the kind of love…
Posted by 
The top stories on our radar today: Scientists have unearthed what might be the most complete triceratops skeleton ever found, at least 12 new volcanoes have been discovered in Alaska, and …
Posted by 
By Andreas Merkl, President, Ocean Conservancy Smart fisheries management is a great place to start a conversation about putting the ocean at the center of the world’s biggest challenges. This is because the most profitable type of fishing is sustainable fishing – better management helps fishermen and the ocean at the same time. Sustainable fishing…
It’s not everyday you get to see large-scale illegal fishing in progress. But on April 14, that’s exactly what passengers aboard the National Geographic Explorer seem to have witnessed. This passenger ship was two-thirds of the way through a voyage up the coast of West Africa, and guests were enjoying a day at sea. As…
Posted by 
Bass fishing in the American Southeast may have just gotten a little bit more complicated. According to a release filed this week, biologists from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) would like to name a new species of black bass, the Choctaw bass, or Micropterus haiaka. In 2007, FWC scientists found an unusual DNA…
Posted by 
A team of researchers recently announced the discovery of Cyanogaster noctivaga, a brand new species of transparent fish that lives deep in the Amazon. Indeed, with its transparent skin and dazzling blue belly, the discovery constitutes an entirely new genus and, despite being very hard to see, has been given an eye-catching name that means…
Posted by 
Let’s say it’s Saturday night and you’re out to dinner with your family, a friend, or even better – on a date. You check out the menu and a seafood dish featuring “wild rockfish” really wows you. Just as you’re about to order you begin to rethink your decision. Questions such as: “How fresh is…
Posted by 
The coral grouper communicates with other ocean predators to find prey—a surprising ability for a fish, a new study says.
Posted by 
It rises in Ethiopia’s Shewa Highlands, and flows for 760 kms through terraced hillsides, volcanic outcrops and fertile grasslands as far as the world’s greatest desert lake, Lake Turkana, in Kenya. The lower valley of the Omo River is believed by some historians to have been a cultural crossroads for thousands of years, where a…
An iconic freshwater fish of tropical South America, the arapaima is a massive, slender beast that can grow up to 10 feet (3 meters) long and weigh 440 pounds (200 kilograms). It is known as the pirarucu in Brazil and the paiche in the western Amazon, and is one of the largest freshwater fish in…
By Alison Barratt of Monterey Bay Aquarium Is it really OK to eat Chilean seabass? For nearly a decade, we’ve been hearing “Take a pass on Chilean Seabass,” that pirates are plundering our oceans to put this fish on our plates. And now the Seafood Watch program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is saying some of it…
On April 3, 2013, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala and a team of colleagues from around the world published a scientific paper called “A General Business Model for Marine Reserves” in the journal PLoS ONE. Building on the work of National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Expeditions (see clickable map below), the team analyzed available data to show…
Just how much eating fish is good for you has been a question of debate for some time, and now a new study adds some more data to the pile. Older adults who have high blood levels of omega-3 fatty acids — as found in fatty seafood — “may be able to lower their overall…
Studies Link Warming to Increased Weather Extremes
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on March 28, 2013 A new study in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) finds global temperatures to be one of the best predictors of hurricane activity. In fact, the PNAS study found that a one degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) rise in global temperatures could multiply the frequency of Katrina-like storms by two to seven times. In the Arctic, melting sea ice—which reached its sixth lowest…
Posted by 
The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world’s available surface freshwater–enough to cover the continental United States with 10 feet of water if you turned them upside down. In many places along the lakes, you can stand on one side without seeing the shoreline on the other because they are so huge. It’s difficult…
Posted by By Carl Safina and Elizabeth Brown In the 1990’s many U.S. fisheries found themselves in crisis. The fish they relied on were deeply depleted from decades of getting caught faster than they could reproduce. After years of bitter argument and concerted conservation-group efforts, Congress in 1996 passed a sweeping set of amendments to the federal…
While one could make a case that pigs should be this week’s Freshwater Species of the Week, since they have turned up by the thousands in a Chinese river, I decided to focus my attention a bit closer to home. Today, authorities announced that eight men have been indicted for alleged trafficking in American paddlefish…
The Great Lakes are the largest supply of freshwater in the world, and more than 36 million people depend on them for drinking water. As a result, monitoring and maintaining the health of the Great Lakes ecosystem is an urgent priority. Of the diverse organisms inhabiting freshwater systems, fishes are familiar to scientists and laypeople…
Posted by How many fish are in the ocean? How much water does a wild river carry? How much oxygen does a forest produce? These are the kinds of questions posed by “Natural Numbers: The Value of the Planet in Minutes.” This new project is producing a series of short – three-minute – documentaries on a range…
Posted by 
I just returned from an incredible trip scuba diving with great hammerhead sharks. This was one of the most exhilarating experiences of my life. While underwater I was amazed by these awesome predators. I was able to capture a series of photos (both during day and night) of these mysterious creatures. As you look…
Posted by 
It is in the nature of human hubris to assume Man Knows Better than Nature. Which is why, perhaps, when it comes to trout, things are a downright mess. Thanks to the British, as the Empire expanded beyond the sunset, so did trout. In 1864, they were introduced to Tasmania, India in 1889 and South…
At Ocean Views, we’ve covered the specter of mis-identified seafood several times. Today, the conservation group Oceana released a new report that brings the issue into even more focus. Oceana collected fish samples from 674 retail outlets in 21 states and used DNA testing to compare those products against U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) seafood labeling…
