Friday Fishy News - October 27

[Flattieman]

Aren't you meant to eat fish?

Pelican makes a meal of a pigeon

By James Burleigh

telegraph.co.uk

October 25

A wonderful bird is the pelican

His bill will hold more that his belican.

So wrote Dixon Lanire Merrith, an American newspaper editor and humorist, in his much-quoted limerick. However, he made no mention of a pigeon – like the one that this Eastern White Pelican, which originates from northern Russia, was seen eating in St James's Park, central London yesterday.

The moment was caught on camera by Cathal McNaughton, a Press Association photographer. He said: "There was a bit of a struggle for about 20 minutes, with all these people watching. The pelican only opened its mouth a couple of times. Then it managed to get the pigeon to go head-first down its throat.

"It was kicking and flapping the whole way down."

An RSPB spokesman said "It is almost unheard of for a pelican to eat a bird. Their diet should be strictly fish."

Dog hooked on fish bait

iol.co.za

October 20

A dog has survived after swallowing a fish hook.

Leon the Bull Mastiff ate the hook, which had a piece of mackerel attached, while on a camping trip in Wales with his owner Marva McFarlane.

According to ICWales she said: "Rodney - my partner - and I were horrified when we saw what Leon had done. My son, Miles, was in tears as he adores him.

"We looked inside his mouth, but there was no sign of the fish hook and the fishing line was just dangling from his jaw! Amazingly, Leon wasn't the least bit disturbed by what happened.

"In fact, the expression on his face suggested he didn't understand what all the fuss was about."

Leon was taken to vets at Hendon PDSA PetAid hospital, west London, where x-rays revealed the fish hook was lodged in his stomach along with part of the fishing line.

Vet Natalia Eisenberg said: "The fish hook had to be removed immediately, otherwise it could have caused a serious and life threatening infection. This was a risky procedure as the fish hook might easily have punctured Leon's stomach."

Leon is set to make a full recovery.

Ms McFarlane, from Hendon, north west London, added: "From now on when we go fishing, we'll both be keeping a close eye on our bait - and Leon."

Scientists Discover World's Oldest Fish Fossil

allafrica.com

BuaNews (Tshwane)

October 26

Scientists from the University of the Witwatersrand and the University of Chicago have discovered a 360 million-year-old lamprey.

The discovery was made at Witteberg Group rocks near Grahamstown, in the Eastern Cape.

According to the scientists, this demonstrated that modern lampreys are remarkable living fossils.

The report is published in Nature today.

This jawless fish fossil was discovered by Robert Gess, a PhD student at the Bernard Price Institute for Palaeontological Research at Wits, under the supervision of Professor Bruce Rubidge of Wits and Dr Mike Coates of the University of Chicago.

Scientists from around the world are currently engaged in reconstructing the evolutionary tree of life, combining data from the structure of living organisms, the fossil record and the analysis of DNA.

A statement from Wits University said in ancient seas, jawless vertebrate fish predated and gave rise to jawed fish, from which all vertebrates, including humans, descended.

The only surviving group of jawless vertebrates are the lampreys which, as a result, are attracting intense scientific interest.

Only in living lampreys may jawless vertebrate embryology or DNA be studied, resulting in lampreys being increasingly used as surrogate ancestors in researching jawed vertebrates.

"Lampreys are, however, highly specialised for a parasitic existence, sucking onto living fish, using a disc that surrounds their circular mouth, to feed on blood and tissue with the aid of a rasping tongue," said the university.

"Knowing when lampreys acquired this specialization, would suggest how representative they really are of ancient fish."

The boneless cartilagenous skeletons of lampreys have, however, left virtually no fossil record - only three fossil species having previously been described, in none of which is a sucker-disc visible.

The remarkably well-preserved new fossil, described in the prestigious scientific journal Nature, is older than any previously discovered fossil lamprey by 35 million years.

Only 42mm long, it reveals details of its fin, gill basket and, most importantly, its mouth region.

Its circular mouth, situated at the centre of a large sucker disk and encircled by small teeth, is remarkably like that of living lampreys, revealing that lamprey adaptations for a blood-sucking lifestyle were acquired in ancient seas, before modern fish faunas arose.

Lampreys are therefore "living fossils" that have remained largely unaltered through more than 360 million years and four major extinction events.

The fossil has been named Priscomyzon riniensis (from Latin prisco (ancient) myzon (a lamprey) and Rini, the Xhosa name for Grahamstown and surrounds.

It is one of a remarkably diverse fossil fish and invertebrate fauna revealed by the researcher Robert Gess during more than a decade of excavations at a locality revealed by road building in 1985.

Through the helpful co-operation of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), he has been able to preserve this locality through a number of subsequent roadworks and to prepare a large collection of unique fossils for scientific study.

Approximately 20 cubic meters of the fossil bearing material was transported to Bathurst where Gess was to continue studying the material, in the hope to find additional fossils.

The research was sponsored by the National Research Foundation, the Department of Science and Technology and the Palaeontological Scientific Trust

Fish co-op turns to tourism plan

ABC News Online

October 24

A New South Wales far south coast fishing cooperative is looking at a multi-million dollar move into the tourist market in an attempt to stave off its closure.

The Bermagui Fishermen's Cooperative will ask the Federal Government for up to $4 million to revamp the fish receiving facilities.

It follows the Government's buy-out of much of the operating licences for the east coast trawl fleet.

Project coordinator Alan Broadhurst says the plan would allow the Bermagui co-op to continue to serve the remaining trawl, lake and estuary fishermen and help secure the town's economy.

He says the plan is ambitions but achievable.

"We are looking at working up some more tourist facilities here and hopefully that will bring more people into Bermagui," he said.

"Whatever we do has to have some connection with marine-type things, so we would looking at ... apart from obviously upgrading our own fish shop and fish restaurants and that sort of thing ... we may also put facilities in for visiting yachts, maybe an office to help doing all the charter bookings and those sort of things ... a tackle shop, just to make it a bit more of a hub of marine activities."

Meanwhile, the Eden Fishing Cooperative is meeting on Friday to discuss how it is going to cope with the downturn in the industry.

The Eden trawl fleet has been reduced from 14 boats to eight, slashing the throughput of the Twofold Bay Fishing Co-op.

Chairman Fritz Drenkhahn says members will discuss plans to either power-up the facility or close it down.

"The impact is not so much on Eden because they will still be catching fish, the impact is on members of the co-op," he said.

"Where do they go and how do they run their businesses, or supply the businesses themselves, or move to another company and into the control of another company?

"At the moment, the Twofold Bay Co-op members, being members of the co-op, have a say in the future of their direction."

Fish with cultural significance added to White Earth Lake

Kevin Schnepf, The Forum of Fargo, N.D.

Star Tribune, Minneapolis - USA

October 23

WHITE EARTH, Minn. — As the wind howled on the banks of White Earth Lake bringing in the region's first taste of winter — Joe Bush was praying for nearly 13,000 sturgeon fish.

The spiritual leader of the White Earth Indian Reservation, Bush was asking for the blessing of the tiny sturgeon fingerlings about to be dumped into the 2,000-acre White Earth Lake. He blew smoke from his pipe onto one of the sturgeon being held in the hands of Randy Zortman, White Earth fisheries manager.

The Ojibwe tribe of White Earth has been praying for the survival of sturgeon for the past six years — the length of time it has been working with other groups to reintroduce sturgeon to White Earth Lake and nearby Round Lake.

The sturgeon, a holdover from prehistoric times that can grow to more than 100 pounds, was once plentiful in the lakes and tributaries of the Red River watershed. But unregulated commercial fishing in the late 1800s all but wiped out the population.

"The sturgeon is not just an economic and biological resource, it's also a cultural and spiritual relative of the Ojibwe," said Winona LaDuke, head of the White Earth Land Recovery Project that helped spearhead the sturgeon restoration project.

"It's very significant to see something like this coming back. It just kind of warms your heart."

There were plenty of warm feelings during a chilly October day when 8,000 fingerling sturgeon were dumped into White Earth Lake and 5,000 more into Round Lake.

Included in the ceremonies were Willy Wilson and Joe Hunter of Rainy River First Nations in Ontario, where White Earth officials purchase the sturgeon eggs. Also present was Scott Yess of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, whose department raises the sturgeon eggs into fingerlings at a national fish hatchery in Genoa, Wis.

Mike Swan, the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources director at White Earth, told the crowd gathered at White Earth Lake that it will be a 20-year project.

"It takes the fish about 10 to 15 years to mature and be able to reproduce again," Swan said. "So it will be a long process of reintroducing these fish."

Ken Bregel, of nearby Waubun, also watched the ceremonies and stocking. Last August, Bregel caught and released a 36-inch, 8-pound sturgeon in White Earth Lake. It was estimated to be five years old.

"If you catch that same fish next year, it will probably weigh 20 pounds," Swan said.

In 1926, a lake sturgeon weighing 176 pounds was caught in White Earth Lake. According to Swan, the story is fishermen saw the sturgeon on a sandbar, jumped off their boat and wrestled it.

Sturgeon, one of the oldest species of fish in existence, can live to be 150 years old. They are bottom feeders, needing lakes that are deep like the 120-foot White Earth Lake and the 80-foot Round Lake.

With their projecting wedge-shaped snouts, they stir up the soft bottom. By means of their sensitive barbells, they detect shells, crustacean, insect larvae and crawfish. Having no teeth, they are unable to seize larger prey.

Sturgeon like to migrate. White Earth is working with DNR and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to alter or remove dams along the waterways, so the sturgeon can swim upstream to spawn.

"With two dams recently removed, the sturgeon can get into the Red River and get back here," Yess said. "Where this batch ends up, it remains to be seen."

Native American cultures were partially dependent on the availability of lake sturgeon. Indian villages were often located near water where sturgeon spawned.

Early European settlements hinged, in part, on commercial fishing for lake sturgeon — which were prized for their meat and eggs, which were eaten as caviar.

Since the turn of the century, lake sturgeon populations have declined due to the construction of dams, water quality problems and overfishing. Because they are rich in oil, sturgeon were also used to fuel boats on rivers.

"They would lay the sturgeon down like planks, or logs, and throw them in and burn them," LaDuke said. "By 1920, they were wiped out. On some level, it was a spiritual loss to the community."

Comparing the sturgeons' fate to that of the buffalo, LaDuke said its demise also meant the disappearance of age-old traditions of the White Earth Reservation like annual harvest gatherings and celebratory feasts or mythological stories of ancestors living with the fish or turning into them.

"Sturgeon are part of our culture," LaDuke said.

"We are thinking ahead seven generations," Zortman said. "We're putting them back in here for our children and grandchildren."

Scientists note hormone changes in fish

Monsters & Critics .com - Science & Nature

October 20

LAS VEGAS, NV, United States (UPI) -- Chemicals that are altering fish in U.S. freshwater sources are causing concern for at least one scientist who says he wasn`t allowed to publish his findings.

The U.S. Geological Survey released a summary of a decades-plus worth of studies linking wastewater chemicals to changes in male fish that were found developing female sexual characteristics, the Las Vegas Sun said Friday. Scientists found traces of pesticides, pharmaceuticals and chemicals used in plastics manufacturing and fragrances, and other substances in Lake Mead, near Las Vegas, and other freshwater sources, the Sun said.

A researcher said he studied the issue for years and officials are understating the dangers of the trace substances to humans. He said he was fired from the Geological Survey and not allowed to publish his findings, the Sun said. The Geological Survey said he was fired because he didn`t publish.

Water resource officials around the country, though, said they have noticed changes in the fish, the Sun said. One official said treatment of the water in his area made it safe for drinking; another said human health issues were outside the Geological Survey`s purview.

Flattieman.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Flattieman

[Flattieman]

hahahaha... how funny is the pigeon one,

it would be great if the pelicans took out a few more of them

CFD

I've actually seen a pelican almost swallow a cormorant in a squabble - got it head first... Luckily, the cormorant escaped. One bitten, twice shy... I thought that this behaviour was very strange until it happened again about 5 minutes later! Here's another picture:

Flattieman.

Edited October 27, 2006 by Flattieman

[mrmoshe]

A follow up on that bird eating pelican:

From The BBC:

Pelican's pigeon meal not so rare

A pelican who found himself in the news after scooping up and eating a pigeon in a London park may not have been behaving as unusually as it first seemed.

The pelican's snacking antics made headlines when he was caught on camera by a professional photographer snapping wildlife pictures in St James's Park.

The RSPB said it was "almost unheard of" for a pelican to eat a bird, with their diet usually being strictly fish.

But it has emerged that pelicans scoffing birds may not be as rare an occurrence as first believed.

'Bit of struggling'

Pelicans have lived in the park - near Buckingham Palace - for more than 300 years, having been introduced when the Russian ambassador presented some to King Charles II in 1664.

There are currently five pelicans living in the 58 acre (23 hectare) park, all bred in captivity, four of them from eastern Europe and one from Louisiana in the US.

They are fed 12lb (5.4kg) of fish a day, plus a vitamin supplement, with the daily afternoon feeding time advertised as a visitor attraction.

The Eastern White pelican who had a pigeon for lunch made the front page of national newspapers as well as being reported by the BBC, after being snapped by Press Association photographer Cathal McNaughton.

The coverage on the BBC News website - which was among last week's most-read stories on the site - prompted a number of emails from readers saying they had seen pelicans eat birds in the park before.

Alex Worrall said he saw a pelican in the park eat a duck about 20 years ago, while John Stather said he saw two of the birds eat pigeons at the same time six years ago.

Mr Stather said: "First of all one pelican grabbed a pigeon, and then one of the others did exactly the same.

"There was a bit of struggling and the pelicans filled their bills with water to drown or wash the pigeon down.

"So it has clearly happened before and presumably will again."

A film of a pelican eating a pigeon, posted on the internet before last week's incident, can be seen on a number of video-sharing websites, appearing to back-up their claims.

Louise Wood, spokeswoman for the Royal Parks, admitted the birds did sometimes stray from their more natural menu choices of fish.

She said: "These birds will naturally devour other items that appear food-like to them - in this case, a pigeon.

"Although the RSPB is correct in stating that the main diet of pelicans is fish in the wild, birds used to human contact tend to be much more opportunistic.

"We don't have figures for how often it happens, but it can happen.

"Having chatted with those that are in close contact with the pelicans, they say their behaviour is very different when they are in this sort of semi-urban environment to when they are in the wild.

"They can eat birds, or possibly left over dinners - so we do particularly ask that people don't feed the pelicans or the pigeons."

Ms Wood apologised to anyone distressed by the pelican eating the pigeon and said the park had never had to get rid of a bird which had eaten the wrong thing.

"Were they regarded as a danger to the public it would be a different matter.

"But nature is cruel - it's quite hard to control what is the natural instinct of chase and feed."

[Flattieman]

Thanks mate. That's proof of my cormorant story!

Flattieman.

[Sharky]

Theres a video on with the pelican eating the pigeon its filmed on a camera phone and the quality isnt the best. I will see if I can find it.