Daily Archives: November 5, 2017
Alligators eat sharks — and a whole lot more
Alligators don’t just stick to freshwater and the prey they find there. These crafty reptiles can live quite easily, at least for a bit, in salty waters and find plenty to eat — including crabs, sea turtles and even sharks. “They should change the textbooks,” says James Nifong, an ecologist with the Kansas Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit at Kansas State University in Manhattan, who has spent years documenting the estuarine gator diet. Nifong’s most recent discovery, splashed all over the news last month, is that the American alligator (Alligator mississippiensis) eats at least three species of shark and two species of rays, he and wildlife biologist Russell Lowers report in the September Southeastern Naturalist. click here to read the story 21:46
Sitka Police – Suspect identified in Eliason Harbor fishing boat shooting, held on $100,000 bail
Sitka Police Department have released more information about the suspect of a shooting Saturday evening that left one man injured. 35-year-old Nathan Leask has been identified as the suspect who allegedly shot a man on a commercial fishing boat before fleeing. Sitka Police say they received a call around 5:30 p.m. that a man had been shot on a commercial fishing boat in Eliason Harbor. “Upon arrival, officers located an adult male with a gunshot would on his thigh and blunt force trauma to the head,” said the press release from Sitka Police. “Leask had entered the vessel occupied by the victim and female and a physical altercation had broken out.” Leask was apparently armed with a handgun during the fight. It was said to have discharged, resulting in the injury. click here to read the story 18:46
Boudreau family makes local shipbuilding history
The largest modern fishing boat ever manufactured on Isle Madame hit the water in October. Father and son duo Adolphe and Shawn Boudreau completed construction on the fishing vessel All Segments, which was purchased by the Everett family of Digby. The hulking 50-foot by 30-foot boat weighs in at 90 tonnes. click here to read the story w/photos 16:30
How Nantucket Came to Be the Whaling Capital of the World
Today Nantucket Island is a fashionable summer resort: a place of T-shirt shops and trendy boutiques. It’s also a place of picture-perfect beaches where even at the height of summer you can stake out a wide swath of sand to call your own. Part of what makes the island unique is its place on the map. More than 25 miles off the coast of Massachusetts and only 14 miles long, Nantucket is, as Herman Melville wrote in Moby-Dick, “away off shore.” But what makes Nantucket truly different is its past. For a relatively brief period during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, this lonely crescent of sand at the edge of the Atlantic was the whaling capital of the world and one of the wealthiest communities in America. click here to read the story 14:46
Pacific Ocean ‘blob’ appears to take toll on Alaska cod
Gulf of Alaska cod populations appear to have nose-dived, a collapse fishery scientists believe is linked to warm water temperatures known as “the blob” that peaked in 2015. The decline is expected to substantially reduce the Gulf cod harvests that in recent years have been worth — before processing — more than $50 million to Northwest and Alaska fishermen who catch them with nets, pot traps and baited hooks set along the sea bottom.,,, Scientists don’t ascribe the blob specifically to climate change. Gulf of Alaska temperatures — influenced by atmospheric conditions such as wind strengths — have always fluctuated over time. But researchers have never before tracked such an extreme heat wave that spread across such distances and penetrated to such depths. click here to read the story 11:52
Eating Fish During Pregnancy Might Prevent Childhood Asthma
Consuming an actual fish by the mother as compared to fish oil could actually be beneficial in protecting the offspring from asthma. The research was the work of the researchers at the University of South Florida in Tampa, Fla wherein they conducted a scientific review of two studies that show that children whose mothers who consume high-dose omega-3 fatty acids daily during their third trimester have lesser chances of having breathing problems. click here to read the story 11:16
‘Cover-up’ claim over ban on fish farm pesticide
The Scottish Government put pressure on its environmental watchdog to drop a plan to ban a toxic pesticide in 2018 so as not to upset the fish farming industry. Emails released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) reveal that senior government officials intervened directly to delete any mention of the proposed 2018 ban from a policy briefing for the environment minister, Roseanna Cunningham, following a complaint from the industry. The pesticide, known as emamectin and marketed as Slice, is widely used by fish farmers to kill the lice that plague caged salmon. But new scientific evidence suggests it is also causing widespread damage to wildlife in Scotland’s sea lochs. click here to read the story 09:10
