Commercial Fishing

 Excerpted from Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man, by Mark Kurlansky, copyright © 2012 by Mark Kurlansky, available May 8. Published by arrangement with Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc. HE HAD WORKED for the United States government in the frontier West and as a fur trapper in Canada's frigid Labrador, but the life of adventure seemed well behind Clarence Birdseye...

 Excerpted from Birdseye: The Adventures of a Curious Man, by Mark Kurlansky, copyright © 2012 by Mark Kurlansky, available May 8. Published by arrangement with Doubleday, an imprint of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, a division of Random House Inc. HE HAD WORKED for the United States government in the frontier West and as a fur trapper in Canada's frigid Labrador, but the life of adventure seemed well behind Clarence Birdseye...

ARE WHALES wonderful? Think herring. Are penguins cute? Think krill. Like hooking stripers? Think menhaden. "I'm not sure you can ever make them sexy, but if you take out the herring, you take out the whales," said Ed Houde of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "Charismatic marine mammals and seabirds get all the attention. But historically, we really haven't measured the abundance of their food. Lots of these things depend on menhaden and herring for 50 to 100 percent of their diet.

ARE WHALES wonderful? Think herring. Are penguins cute? Think krill. Like hooking stripers? Think menhaden. "I'm not sure you can ever make them sexy, but if you take out the herring, you take out the whales," said Ed Houde of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science. "Charismatic marine mammals and seabirds get all the attention. But historically, we really haven't measured the abundance of their food. Lots of these things depend on menhaden and herring for 50 to 100 percent of their diet.

M ARSHFIELD - When it comes to fishing at sea, hazardous conditions are part of the job: It's tough work that requires long hours and hard labor, often in bad weather. And all too often, says Marshfield Harbormaster Michael A. DiMeo, today's commercial fishermen are taking bigger risks - staying out longer and with fewer hands on deck. "A lot of guys have to go further offshore," he said. "They're being forced to go out in tough conditions, or they'll lose their days.

WASHINGTON - After encouraging gains in the 1990s, populations of loggerhead sea turtles are now dropping, primarily because of commercial fishing, according to a federal review. The report stops short of recommending upgrading the federally threatened species to endangered status. But scientists and environmentalists say it should serve as a wake-up call about the future of loggerheads, which can grow to more than 300 pounds and are believed to be one of the oldest species.

ANCHORAGE - Something is holding down the herring population of Prince William Sound, and marine scientists are tailing some rather large suspects: humpback whales. Humpbacks, once hunted to near extinction, are thriving in waters fouled 21 years ago by the Exxon Valdez, the supertanker that ran aground and leaked nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil. The herring population crashed after the spill but should have rebounded by now. One hypothesis is that humpbacks, traditionally summer residents in the sound, are taking a big bite out of vast herring schools that form...

WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department said yesterday the survival of sea otters in southwestern Alaska is threatened and proposed adding them to the government's list of endangered species. If the proposal were adopted, it would lead to a recovery plan requiring conservation efforts for the northern sea otter. It inhabits waters in the western Gulf of Alaska stretching toward the Bering Sea, including the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands, and Kodiak Island. "No one is certain yet what is causing this, but listing this population as 'threatened' under the Endangered...

HONOLULU - On New Year’s Eve each year, thousands line up at fish counters across Hawaii to buy blocks of raw tuna, hoping that eating it will bring good luck and prosperity in the new year. This year, the long tradition may get a little more difficult to observe. For the first time, federal regulators are expected to prohibit the catching of bigeye - Hawaii’s favored variety - in waters west of the islands once the fishermen hit their annual catch limit. They’re on course to do that around the first or second week of December.

The Bahamas has banned commercial fishing of sharks, awarding protection to the more than 40 species circling the island chain that touts itself as the shark diving capital of the world. Activists cheered the new law approved Tuesday. They had demanded more protection for sharks after a local seafood company announced last year that it planned to export shark meat and fins to Hong Kong. The ban applies to an estimated 243,000 square miles (630,000 square kilometers) of water surrounding the archipelago.

M ARSHFIELD - When it comes to fishing at sea, hazardous conditions are part of the job: It's tough work that requires long hours and hard labor, often in bad weather. And all too often, says Marshfield Harbormaster Michael A. DiMeo, today's commercial fishermen are taking bigger risks - staying out longer and with fewer hands on deck. "A lot of guys have to go further offshore," he said. "They're being forced to go out in tough conditions, or they'll lose their days.

The Bahamas has banned commercial fishing of sharks, awarding protection to the more than 40 species circling the island chain that touts itself as the shark diving capital of the world. Activists cheered the new law approved Tuesday. They had demanded more protection for sharks after a local seafood company announced last year that it planned to export shark meat and fins to Hong Kong. The ban applies to an estimated 243,000 square miles (630,000 square kilometers) of water surrounding the archipelago.

ANCHORAGE - Something is holding down the herring population of Prince William Sound, and marine scientists are tailing some rather large suspects: humpback whales. Humpbacks, once hunted to near extinction, are thriving in waters fouled 21 years ago by the Exxon Valdez, the supertanker that ran aground and leaked nearly 11 million gallons of crude oil. The herring population crashed after the spill but should have rebounded by now. One hypothesis is that humpbacks, traditionally summer residents in the sound, are taking a big bite out of vast herring schools that form in the deep...

HONOLULU - On New Year’s Eve each year, thousands line up at fish counters across Hawaii to buy blocks of raw tuna, hoping that eating it will bring good luck and prosperity in the new year. This year, the long tradition may get a little more difficult to observe. For the first time, federal regulators are expected to prohibit the catching of bigeye - Hawaii’s favored variety - in waters west of the islands once the fishermen hit their annual catch limit. They’re on course to do that around the first or second week of December.

WASHINGTON - After encouraging gains in the 1990s, populations of loggerhead sea turtles are now dropping, primarily because of commercial fishing, according to a federal review. The report stops short of recommending upgrading the federally threatened species to endangered status. But scientists and environmentalists say it should serve as a wake-up call about the future of loggerheads, which can grow to more than 300 pounds and are believed to be one of the oldest species.

WASHINGTON -- The Interior Department said yesterday the survival of sea otters in southwestern Alaska is threatened and proposed adding them to the government's list of endangered species. If the proposal were adopted, it would lead to a recovery plan requiring conservation efforts for the northern sea otter. It inhabits waters in the western Gulf of Alaska stretching toward the Bering Sea, including the Alaska Peninsula, Aleutian Islands, and Kodiak Island. "No one is certain yet what is causing this, but listing this population as 'threatened' under the Endangered...

Ryan McCullough has been fishing since childhood, for some 15 or 16 of his 22 years, and initially he was thrilled with his July 25 catch in the White River, just downstream of the federal fish hatchery in Stockbridge, Vt. "The second I pulled it out, I was like, ‘Wow!' " recounted McCullough, whose catch of a lifetime quickly turned into a whale of woe and a date next month in Windsor (Vt.) District Court. "I was thinking, ‘This is the biggest trout I've ever caught in the White River.' "Heck, it was bigger than anything my grandfather ever caught, and he's been fishing that part of the river...

PORTLAND, Maine — Fishing vessels in the Northeast that catch haddock, cod, and other so-called groundfish earned more money during the first nine months of new commercial fishing regulations, even as the harvest fell, federal officials said. Fishermen got higher prices for their catches, according to a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration report on the first nine months of the 2010-11 fishing season. Boats in the seven-state region from Maine to New Jersey caught 192.1 million pounds of groundfish and other seafood species, down 7 percent from the 2009...