Fishy Passion

WASHINGTON (AFP) - – The US Senate toughened laws against shark finning, hoping to save the ancient fish which experts fear is on the brink of extinction due to growing demand in Chinese restaurants.

Tens of millions of sharks are killed each year by fishermen who slice off their fins -- a delicacy in Chinese cuisine -- and leave them to die in the water. Sharks live long and have few offspring, compounding risks to their survival.

The United States banned finning in 2000 and has enforced restrictions in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. The new rules close a loophole that permitted trade in the Pacific so long as sharks were not finned onboard the vessel, triggering a booming clandestine industry.

The legislation cruised through the House of Representatives in early 2009 but had languished in the Senate, which approved the measure without objection on one of the last days of its session.

"Shark finning has fueled massive population declines and irreversible disruption of our oceans," said Senator John Kerry, who championed the bill.

"Finally we've come through with a tough approach to tackle this serious threat to our marine life," the Democrat from Massachusetts said.

The bill does not ban the sale of shark fin, which is readily available in many upscale Chinese restaurants in the United States.

But conservationists welcomed the bill, saying it would curb a burgeoning but largely undocumented US trade in shark fins.

"This legislation will help address not only an unspeakably cruel practice of removing fins from live animals and then releasing them to suffer a slow death," said Nancy Perry, vice president for government affairs at The Humane Society of the United States.

"It will also help address on the macro level the rapid decline of shark populations," she said.

Environmental groups estimate that up to 73 million sharks are killed each year around the world for fins, leading to declines of up to 90 percent of some species of sharks -- which have swum the oceans since the age of the dinosaurs.

Despite campaigns from activists, demand for shark fins is seen as growing as China becomes increasingly prosperous.

Matt Rand, director of the shark conservation campaign at the Pew Environmental Group, said he recently heard of shark fins selling in California for an unprecedented 800 dollars a pound, or about 1,750 dollars a kilogram.

"The United States is a major shark exporter," Rand said. "I think this legislation sends a big signal that the United States is concerned about the decline of shark populations, not just in its own waters but in international waters as well."

Sharks are caught almost exclusively for fins. While the law does not ban the killing of sharks, all fins entering the United States must have an accompanying carcass.

In one notable incident in 2002, the US Coast Guard seized a Hong Kong-chartered, Hawaii-registered ship that was hauling nearly 65,000 pounds (30,000 kilograms) of just fins -- meaning tens of thousands of sharks died.

While closing loopholes, the Senate bill also opened one. To win support from North Carolina's senators, the law makes an exception for one shark -- the smooth dogfish.

Fishermen in the southeastern US state kill the shark for all of its meat instead of just the fins, but objected to the ban because they cut off fins in their ships.

"We had hoped they would adjust their practices so there wouldn't be any loophole," Perry of the Humane Society said. "But that was done to get the legislation over the finish-line."

Didn't think they could grow so huge?


A giant goldfish was apparently caught at a lake in France but now some are calling the story a fake, though marine experts say that a fish that size and color is very possible. Photoshop magic but it is real, Fisherman Raphael Biagini caught a huge Goldfish in France where the fish are very popular. The fish is orange in color and looks like a giant goldfish which weighs 30 pounds. Photo is several months old but it is getting popular now through an article from U.K’s Daily Mail.

During the 10-minute struggle to reel the giant goldfish in, Raphael Biagini said, “To begin with, we couldn’t tell what was at the end of the line, but we knew it was big.” After snapping the above shot, Biagnini released the fish back into the water. Experts say orange koi grow to fit their habitat so catching a fish of this size is not impossible, just rare. In fact, koi carp can even grow bigger than the one Biagini caught.

SINGAPORE - Two of the seven bottlenose dolphins, which were destined for Resorts World Sentosa's (RWS) Marine Life Park, have died in a holding area at Langkawi.

The dolphins were caught from the wild in the Solomon Islands in January. Two females - one aged between four and five years and the other, around 10 - died from an acute bacterial infection of Melioidosis in October, said RWS spokesman Robin Goh on Friday. They were in "perfect health" previously, he noted. The remaining five have no signs of infection.

The virus, Burkholderia pseudomallei, can be transmitted through contact with contaminated soil and surface waters, with infections occurring primarily during the rainy season.

The deaths are set to reignite opposition to RWS' plans to house the animals as entertainers.

Marine conservationist Paul Watson told MediaCorp the "incarceration of dolphins lowers life expectancy of the animals".

"It's a trade based on blood and misery and has no place in the 21st century," said the founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals executive director Deirdre Moss agreed: "This is a tragedy. The animals were obviously under tremendous stress ... If RWS could change its stand on whale sharks, why couldn't they on dolphins?"

Last year, RWS scrapped its original plan to exhibit whale sharks. Animal Concerns Research and Education Society founder Louis Ng hopes RWS will also "re-think" its decision to keep dolphins in captivity.

Marine Life Park is still under construction. Said RWS' Mr Goh: "We currently do not have a definite date for its opening, and likewise, details like animal configuration are also being finalised."

As for the 18 dolphins being trained at Ocean Adventure Park in the Philippines for the Marine Life Park, RWS said they were in "good health".

"We're continuing with the development and establishment of the medical, behavioural, husbandry and training programmes that include the preventive medicine programme to ensure the well-being and health of the dolphins," said Mr Goh, who added that the Marine Life Park was "part of the bid" when RWS was awarded the integrated resort licence.

"We're committed to delivering the bid and the Marine Life Park that will not only boost tourism but research, conservation and education in marine mammals in this part of the region."

However, Ms Moss reiterated: "It's cruel to capture these animals from the wild with a view to entertain the public. We should promote tourism but not at the expense of these animals."

Bottlenose dolphins are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which entail strict regulations in the trade of these mammals.

RWS has said previously it would comply with CITES.

Shocking news on Stomp about the plight of fishes caught my eyes today:
Earlier today (Dec 13), STOMPer ilovetokick arrived at work to see the pond outside his office building drained, leaving some fish dead and others gasping for breath. He contacted the SPCA, and 6 fishes, as well as 4 terrapins, were rescued.

SINGAPORE: Investigations are being carried out after several fish died at a local koi competiton. One fish owner, Jemmy Tan, is suspecting foul play.

He said all the fish in the Young Koi Show were placed in the same type of water but only his batch of 10 were affected.

A koi can command a market value of up to S$20,000 and Mr Tan is estimating his losses run into tens of thousands of dollars.

But this isn't the first time mischief has plagued the show. Mr Tan said one of his championship fish had its tail cut after winning the title a few years.

Mr Tan has filed a police report and has sent his fish for further analysis. - CNA/vm

Can't believe such a thing actually happened in Singapore.

I wonder if the people were so jealous that they had to resort to doing this.

SYDNEY – Australian scientists have discovered an octopus in Indonesia that collects coconut shells for shelter — unusually sophisticated behavior that the researchers believe is the first evidence of tool use in an invertebrate animal.

The scientists filmed the veined octopus, Amphioctopus marginatus, selecting halved coconut shells from the sea floor, emptying them out, carrying them under their bodies up to 65 feet (20 meters), and assembling two shells together to make a spherical hiding spot.

Julian Finn and Mark Norman of Museum Victoria in Melbourne observed the odd activity in four of the creatures during a series of dive trips to North Sulawesi and Bali in Indonesia between 1998 and 2008. Their findings were published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology.

"I was gobsmacked," said Finn, a research biologist at the museum who specializes in cephalopods. "I mean, I've seen a lot of octopuses hiding in shells, but I've never seen one that grabs it up and jogs across the sea floor. I was trying hard not to laugh."

Octopuses often use foreign objects as shelter. But the scientists found the veined octopus going a step further by preparing the shells, carrying them long distances and reassembling them as shelter elsewhere.

That's an example of tool use, which has never been recorded in invertebrates before, Finn said.

"What makes it different from a hermit crab is this octopus collects shells for later use, so when it's transporting it, it's not getting any protection from it," Finn said. "It's that collecting it to use it later that is unusual."

The researchers think the creatures probably once used shells in the same way. But once humans began cutting coconuts in half and discarding the shells into the ocean, the octopuses discovered an even better kind of shelter, Finn said.

The findings are significant, in that they reveal just how capable the creatures are of complex behavior, said Simon Robson, associate professor of tropical biology at James Cook University in Townsville.

"Octopuses have always stood out as appearing to be particularly intelligent invertebrates," Robson said. "They have a fairly well-developed sense of vision and they have a fairly intelligent brain. So I think it shows the behavioral capabilities that these organisms have."

There is always debate in the scientific community about how to define tool use in the animal kingdom, Robson said. The Australian researchers defined a tool as an object carried or maintained for future use. But other scientists could define it differently, which means it's difficult to say for certain whether this is the first evidence of such behavior in invertebrates, Robson said.

Still, the findings are interesting, he said.

"It's another example where we can think about how similar humans are to the rest of the world," Robson said. "We are just a continuum of the entire planet."