Using data from the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service, the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) has revealed hundreds of tonnes of shark fin are being exported from Australia every year.

They say on a conservative estimate that is the equivalent of 10,000 adult sharks.

The WWF is using the figures to add weight to its call for the Queensland Government to ditch a proposal to issue specific licences to target sharks.

The Federal Government says a final decision is yet to be made but it will take a precautionary approach.

WWF's Dr Gilly Llewellyn says the appetite for shark fin overseas which Australia appears to be feeding, is insatiable, and in the past 13 months 230 tonnes of shark fin have been exported from our shores, mainly to Asian markets.

"Using a really conservative estimate using the largest possible size of shark, using a low fin to weight ratio, that's still 10,000 sharks that would have needed to be killed for that amount of fin," she says.

Dr Llewellyn says there is no scientific evidence to show whether that amount of shark fishing is sustainable.

She is calling on the federal and state governments to make conservation a priority.

"Start protecting places like Osprey Reef out in the Coral Sea, one of the few places in the world where sharks come in large numbers, they aggregate there," she said.

The above story clipping is available in full here

This excellent article by Jerry Neuburger, webmaster for the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, discusses attorney Mike Jackson's plan to intervene in a suit by the corporate water contractors to strip protections for striped bass. The striped bass is one four species, including the delta smelt, longfin smelt, and threadfin shad, that has plunged to record low population levels as part of the Pelagic Organism Decline on the California Delta. Striped bass are the victims of gross state and federal mismanagement of Central Valley rivers and the Delta, as are collapsing Sacramento River chinook salmon populations.

"Striped bass have coexisted with salmon and smelt in the Delta estuary for more than a hundred years," said Bill Jennings, Executive Director of CSPA. "The dramatic almost 30% increase in the amount of water exported in recent years is the one clear culprit that has led to population crashes of numerous species; including salmon, steelhead, striped bass, Delta smelt, longfin smelt, splittail and threadfin shad, among others!"

Today's action follows yesterday's threat by desperate Sunshine Coast trawler operators that they will blockade major Australian ports if the federal government refuses to provide their industry with emergency funding.

They said if help wasn’t forthcoming, the industry would be dead on the Coast by Christmas.

Rally organiser Michele West, who has been fishing for the past 20 years, said high fuel prices and the indiscriminate dumping of cheaper imported prawns on the market would spell the end of the industry.

Fisheries officers will now board commercial barramundi fishing boats during the next three months to observe the fishers' interaction with threatened species.

Fisheries spokesman Steven Matthews says more details need to be collected about the encounters that have been recorded in log books, which were introduced in July last year.

"A number of fisheries staff and suitably qualified people will be accompanying the fishers on their day-to-day activities, to observe how they set their gear, how it's retrieved and obviously recording and interaction if it does occur," he said.

Seafood Council spokesman Rob Fish says the observer program will initially run for three months.

"We have actually spoken to some of the fishermen at this stage and the log book just says interaction," he said.

"Some of it has just been crocodiles stealing fish from nets. So what we need to do in the first instance is to confirm and redefine what an interaction is."

He says the long term goal is to have no interactions in the log book.

"The positive is, the industry has come forward and reported some interactions with some of the species that we try to avoid through our code of conduct," he said.

"That step now allows us to look at measures to mitigate these measures further, or check the level of the interactions that are occurring."

But the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS) is calling on the NT Government to do more to control the practices of commercial barramundi fishers.

AMCS spokeswoman Prue Barnard says some methods of fishing used impacts heavily on the environment and fishers need to be more careful.

"I'm very saddened. It would be very sad to think that the barramundi that you're eating at the shop is potentially killing an endangered species," she said.  News Article

Many Moms really enjoy outdoor adventure. If your Mom is one of this breed, plan a backpacking getaway in the mountains, pitch a tent on the beach, raft on a river or explore a regional desert bursting with springtime wildflowers. A nearby outdoor destination can provide a spectacular backdrop to any Mother’s Day weekend:

• Choose a stimulating weekend of kayaking, canoeing, rock climbing, SCUBA, fly fishing, even skiing.
• Perhaps the perfect trip for Mom is a relaxed and carefree weekend camping and enjoying nature in its stillness and tranquility. In that case, make reservations at a campground and start packing.
• Attack the mountains on horseback, or just hike with a backpack. If Mom is truly extreme, consider hang gliding from the summit.