It’s no secret that human activities affect fish, particularly those that must migrate to reproduce. Years of building dams and polluting rivers in some regions have left fish such as salmon struggling to return to their home streams and give birth to the next generation. A new University of Washington study points to yet another human factor that hampers the ability of fish to reproduce: the timing of our fishing seasons.
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Aquaculture has been a mainstay of Washington’s economy since the state’s founding, and there is still potential for more growth. Three federal grants announced this week will provide total funding of $1.1 million to Washington Sea Grant, based at the University of Washington’s College of the Environment, for research that will sustainably further shellfish and finfish aquaculture in the state. The grants were awarded through two competitions designed to identify projects that will lead to the responsible development of the domestic shellfish, finfish and seaweed aquaculture industries.
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“Our work is part of a movement to democratize local food movements and make them more accessible to more people.”
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Deep below the ocean’s surface, shielded from satellite signals, the gradual movement of the seafloor — including along faults that can unleash deadly earthquakes and tsunamis — goes largely undetected. As a result, we know distressingly little about motion along the fault that lies just off the Pacific Northwest coast. University of Washington oceanographers are working with a local company to develop a simple new technique that could track seafloor movement in earthquake-prone coastal areas.
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Like old-growth trees in a forest, old fish in the ocean play important roles in the diversity and stability of marine ecosystems. Critically, the longer a fish is allowed to live, the more likely it is to successfully reproduce over the course of its lifetime, which is particularly important in variable environmental conditions. A new study by University of Washington scientists has found that, for dozens of fish populations around the globe, old fish are greatly depleted — mainly because of fishing pressure.
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