Fish

AFP U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers detected something fishy during a check in the Port of Nogales. Officers at the Port of Nogales recently seized 242 pounds of a federally protected endangered Totoaba swim bladder estimated at $2.7 million, the agency announced Monday. On April 13, Customs and Border Protection officers at the Mariposa trade facility found 270 swim bladders of the endangered Totoaba fish concealed within a commercial shipment of frozen fish fillets, Swim bladders enable some fish to maintain their water depth and not float upward or sink, Sold on the Chinese black market for traditional medicine and cosmetics, the Totoaba's profitability has led to the involvement of organized crime and has earned it the nickname of "cocaine of the sea," The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's preliminary DNA testing indicates the bladders are the endangered species Totoaba macdonaldi, endemic to Mexico's Gulf of California, according to the CBP. "This seizure is thought to be the second largest seizure of its kind in the U.S. and the largest Totoaba seizure in Arizona to date," read a statement from the CBP. Totoaba fish have been listed as an endangered species under the U.S. Endangered Species Act since 1979, and are also protected by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, the CBP noted. It is illegal to take, possess, transport or sell Totoaba under federal laws in the U.S. and Mexico, according to the CBP. The g...

Low levels of dissolved oxygen in the water made it difficult for the fish to breathe, While no one has connected this specific incident to climate change, researchers have said such kills may become more prevalent as temperatures warm and oxygen levels in lakes across the United States and Europe drop. Dissolved oxygen levels increase with photosynthesis, the process by which plants transform sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into oxygen. When there is less sunlight, photosynthesis slows and at night it stops. But plants and animals in the water continue to consume oxygen at the same rate, decreasing the concentration, Texas parks and wildlife officials said. Gulf menhaden, which fishers commonly use for bait, was the species most affected in the kill, parks and wildlife officials said. That fact means there could be benefits to the mass fish death spotted in Brazoria county, Katie St Clair, the manager of the sea life facility Texas A&M University at Galveston, told NPR that gulf menhaden is a popular snack for sea animals, and “with this die-off of fish, there is a huge nutrient pulse into our environment”. “It’s kind of a circle of life,” she added. Quintana Beach has been mostly cleared of the dead fish save for some that machinery couldn’t remove, county officials said.

Image courtesy of Kydd Pollack, US Fish and Wildlife Service ( The word fish is the same whether it is singular or plural—you can talk about one fish or ten fish. The word fish is used to refer to an individual fish or to a group of fish of the same species. The word fishes refers to multiple species of fish. Image courtesy of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration ( If you have two fish, it means you have two individual fish that are the same species, but if you have two fishes, it means you have two individual fish of different species. For example, 1 convict tang is a fish, 2 convict tangs are 2 fish, and a group of 20 convict tangs are still 20 fish (Fig. 4.2). However, a convict tang together with a moray eel would be 2 fishes (Fig. 4.3). Defining a Fish Defining a fish is difficult because the term fish includes a very wide range of aquatic animals. In fact, there are about as many species of fishes than there are of all other vertebrates combined (Fig. 4.4). Of the nearly 50,000 species of animals with backbones, approximately 4,500 are mammals, 9,700 are birds, 6,500 are reptiles, 4,000 are amphibians, and 25,000 are fishes. Although these numbers change as new species are discovered, new fishes are found more often than other new vertebrates are found. As scientists make new discoveries, it is expected that the number of species of fishes will outnumber other vertebrates even more. Image by Byron Inouye With so many animals identified as fish, it is not s...