Wild Fish

When chef Thomas Keller heard about the quality of seafood from a supplier in Maine, he wrote to the company's owner. "Would you sell me lobsters," Keller recalled asking. The answer was no. "She wasn't interested in selling me lobsters because she didn't know who I was and what my standards are. " It took Keller two years to get his first shipment of lobsters from Ingrid Bengis, a Fulbright scholar who has had a career as a writer in addition to running her company, Ingrid Bengis Seafood.

Pacific Bluefin tuna, a fish threatened with extinction, has been successfully bred in captivity for the first time, Japanese researchers say. Researcher Yoshifumi Sawada, of Kinki University, told Reuters: "This is the first time the fish has been taken from egg to egg at the hands of man. "This has enormous potential for not only does this mean we may be able to get Bluefin without depleting limited wild resources, we also may someday be...

An increase in the double-crested cormorant population is taking a bite out of once-thriving catfish farms. The birds that once faced extinction now increase at a rate of 29 percent every year in North America. "The farm has literally been brought to its knees by the birds," said Albert "Rusty" Gaude, a Louisiana catfish and crawfish farmer. From Mississippi to Maine, farmers face the population growth of various fish-eating birds. Cormorants, egrets, white pelicans and herons, once decimated by agricultural chemicals such as DDT, are taking a chunk out of farm-raised and wild fish stocks.

On April 20, we witnessed one of the worst oil spills in American history, an event that has caused oil to surge into the Gulf of Mexico for weeks now. Workers installed a siphon into the broken pipeline to capture some of the flow on Monday, when an estimated 5,000 barrels of oil were spilling into the Gulf every day. But the spill continues, and the estimates of its flow have grown, creating an environmental disaster not seen since the Exxon...

As a native New Englander, I know full and well how much we depend on the oceans. They have often been a solution for our problems. They've been a highway for goods and people, connecting us to the world, and a barrier against foreign invasion, protecting us from the world; a source of food and wealth, going back to our earliest beginnings, when whale oil lit our houses and when cod were so plentiful that huge specimens were commonly stacked like...

More than a million coho once returned to Oregons coastal streams each year. But in recent years fewer than 100,000 fish have returned.A federal court ruled Monday that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it decided to rely on an Oregon conservation plan to protect coho salmon instead of listing them as threatened under the federal act.The court ruling gives the fisheries service 30 days to reanalyze its...

ENN More than a million coho once returned to Oregons coastal streams each year. But in recent years fewer than 100,000 fish have returned. A federal court ruled Monday that the National Marine Fisheries Service violated the Endangered Species Act when it decided to rely on an Oregon conservation plan to protect coho salmon instead of listing them as threatened under the federal act. ;The court ruling gives the fisheries service 30 days to reanalyze its...

In a sea of opinions on the integrity of farmed salmon, one indisputable measure is taste. Research already shows that wild salmon is healthier and environmentally friendlier than farmed salmon. Now comes evidence from fisheries experts, government officials and journalists that wild salmon tastes better than its cousin on the farm. At a recent blind taste test conducted by conservation groups, diners evaluated the flavor, texture, mouth feel and color of wild salmon and farmed salmon, which were prepared the same way. Out of a possible 640 points, wild salmon received 487; farmed salmon scored 338. "Just as we enjoy the seasonal bounty of the earth, we need to look at salmon as a seasonal food from our waters," said Nora Pouillon, owner of Restaurant Nora where the salmon tasting took place.

We all know what happens when urban sprawl gets out of control: Commutes back up, smog thickens, and concrete suburbs gobble up green spaces. But what about "ocean sprawl"? Until recently, no one gave that idea much thought. But the oceans, like the land, have gotten crowded, and now scientists and policy makers are looking for ways to plan ocean development -- with the aim of preventing our public-owned seas from turning into sprawling, watery versions of Houston, Texas, or Atlanta, Georgia.

For decades, pioneering environmentalist Stewart Brand, the founder and editor of the Whole Earth Catalog, opposed the use of nuclear power. Now he sees it as vital to efforts to combat climate change.Earlier this month, Brand made the case for nuclear power in a debate with Stanford University professor Mark Jacobson at the TED Conference in Long Beach, California. His outspoken support for nuclear power comes as the White House has been pushing for the first new nuclear plants in the United States in three decades.