The BP oil spill saga continues..

More than 2 years have passed since the BP–Deepwater Horizon rig spill caused more than 200 million gallons of oil and 1.8 million gallons of dispersants to be dumped into the Gulf of Mexico. Despite being one of the largest oil spills in history, the Gulf fisheries were back in business only months after the flow of oil was plugged.  The decision to re-open the fisheries was based on promising initial reports that the chemicals from the spill would degrade relatively quickly and result in minimal damage to the environment. However, recent research suggests that the ecological impacts may be more widespread than originally thought.

The Deepwater Horizon rig on fire in April 2010. Source: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/naturalresources/article3601877.ece

Why do native plants matter?

Plants are often overlooked as important contributors to the long term health and integrity of aquatic systems.  As a result, impacts to riparian areas as well as invasive vegetation introductions have had devastating impacts on fish populations across the globe.

For example, Appalachian brook trout were once found in abundance from Canada to Georgia along the Appalachian Mountain Range.  Logging practices in the early 1900s removed vegetation from mountain sides and stream banks.  This greatly increased erosion and water temperatures subsequently decimating trout populations.  As a result, Southern Appalachian brook trout could only be found remaining in the purist of headwater streams.

Logging in the 19th century along the Appalachians led to the loss of Brook Trout (Source).

Q-n-A: Journal Editor

Welcome to The Fisheries Blog's second Q-n-A!   This segment is designed to showcase the knowledge and specialty of someone in the fisheries world who flat out knows their stuff.  For this Q-n-A, we are featuring Derek Aday, the new Editor of Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.  I recently asked Derek what it's like to be an Editor of a major fisheries journal...


1. You are a new editor of Transactions of the American Fisheries Society (TAFS), the flagship journal of the largest group of fisheries professionals in the world.  What are the main duties of the editor and what is the hardest part of the job?

Something's Fishy

To kick-off the New Year, I wanted to share something fun, and what’s more fun than fish idioms! You may be wondering: what's an idiom? An idiom is a figurative expression such as “big fish in a small pond” or “fishing for a compliment.” Some fish expressions are relatively obvious in their meaning and origin (e.g. packed in like sardines, a fish out of water, slippery as a fish) while others may surprise you. 

Some examples of fish idioms. Source: http://aclil2climb.blogspot.com/2011/03/idioms-part-19-food-fish-interactive.html