Latest news with #fishing
Yahoo
6 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Alliance-area news in brief for June 20
COLUMBIANA WOMEN – Columbiana Women's Club plans a 'Visit to The Gardens at Hippley Village' at noon July 16. Join creator John Hippley to discover the gardens and their role in promoting the art, enjoyment and knowledge of horticulture while exploring The Train Garden, Potting Shed, Watershed, Pick-up Truck Garden, The Ivy House plus the garden surrounding the Tudor building. Park at First Christian Church, 39 Cherry St. in Columbiana, and walk to the venue on Stanton Avenue. RSVP is required at330-482-3198 or S1Bliberty7295@ Tickets are $15 per person with lunch served at noon; or $10 per person for the program only (12:30 p.m. start time). Pay with cash or by check made payable to Columbiana Women's Club. The club is at 121 N. Main. Include the number of tickets/attendees for each program choice when sending in payment. For more information, call 330-482-2832. DEER CREEK FISHING – Stark Parks Rangers bass boat tournament will begin with 6 a.m. registration and fishing from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Deer Creek Reservoir. Participants can be individual or partnered with a five-bass limit of largemouth or smallmouth. Fee is $60 per boat, paid in cash. Weigh-in will be 3 p.m. Proceeds after prizes will go to Stark Parks Ranger Explorer Program. All state and local laws apply. 10-HP limit, electric motors only. Visit for more information. WEST BRANCH – West Branch Local Schools Board of Education plans a regular meeting at 5:30 p.m. June 24 in the high school auditorium, 14277 S. Main St. in Beloit. SEBRING LOCAL – Sebring Local Schools Board of Education plans a special meeting at 7 a.m. June 30 in the district's administrative offices for the purpose of approving fiscal year-end numbers. The board also plans a special meeting at 7:10 a.m. June 30 in the administration office. Purpose of that meeting is hiring a public employee. This article originally appeared on The Alliance Review: Alliance-area news in brief for June 20
Washington Post
6 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Washington Post
‘Jaws' made people fear sharks. 50 years later, can it help save them?
When 'Jaws' debuted in U.S. theaters 50 years ago today, it helped launch a new era in American movies. Steven Spielberg's blockbuster about a bloodthirsty great white terrorizing a beach town also stoked fear and fascination, exacting a toll on sharks. After 450 million years of evolutionary history, shark populations are collapsing, and more than a third of shark species and their relatives face extinction. Now scientists are trying to use the lure of 'Jaws' to advance shark conservation efforts. With the exception of surfers and fishermen, people 'didn't think about sharks much' 50 years ago, said David Shiffman, a marine conservation biologist at Arizona State University. But after 'Jaws' was released, many summer beachgoers began to worry about sharks, even though attacks on humans are rare. Last year, there were 28 confirmed unprovoked bites in the United States — and only 47 worldwide. This excessive fear of sharks was termed the 'Jaws effect' and helped fuel a surge in shark-fishing competitions — especially targeting white sharks. Although sportfishing posed a threat to sharks, Shiffman said the most significant impact of 'Jaws' was more indirect. When the film came out, industrial fishing was just beginning to ramp up, and the risks posed to shark populations by commercial fisheries have become clear over time. 'Unsustainable fishing practices are the single largest threat to marine biodiversity, including but not limited to sharks, more so than climate change, more so than plastic pollution, more so than oil spills,' Shiffman said. Following the release of 'Jaws,' efforts to protect sharks lost traction. The lack of movement to curb indiscriminate fishing techniques or take specific action to prevent the targeting of sharks for their fins and meat led to sharp declines in global shark populations. An estimated 100 million sharks are killed each year, according to studies, and the global number of oceanic sharks and rays has declined by 71 percent since 1970. 'We know over the last 50 years, in the period really since 'Jaws' came out, that shark populations worldwide have been absolutely smashed by fishing,' said Colin Simpfendorfer, a shark fisheries researcher at James Cook University in Australia. 'We didn't do a lot about it because a lot of people thought sharks were bad and getting rid of them was probably a good thing.' In 2022, Congress attempted to address the issue of shark finning — the practice of chopping the valuable fins off live sharks and dumping their bodies overboard. But banning finning in the United States has had little effect on the practice in international waters, especially in Asia, where the fins are prized as the main ingredient in shark fin soup. Studies have shown that bans on finning have been largely unsuccessful as long as the sale of shark meat remains legal. The European Union restricts the trade in shark fins, and the 2022 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora expanded protections for 97 shark species and further restricted the international shark trade, but effective enforcement remains a challenge. Citizen-led efforts across the world have gained momentum, including the launch of the Asian Shark and Ray Alliance this year to drive conservation across the continent. An increase in dive tourism has also spurred protection efforts in Southeast Asian nations like the Maldives and Indonesia. For endangered sharks, it's a race against time to gather information that might help save them. And while 'Jaws' might have contributed to the harms of unsustainable fishing practices, researchers and conservationists are now attempting to use the film to further scientific understanding and influence public policy. 'It created a fascination with sharks, and people began to realize we don't know that much about them, and a huge amount of research has happened on sharks and exploration of their lives in the last 50 years,' said Steve Palumbi, a marine biologist at Stanford University. Wendy Benchley, a conservation advocate and widow of author Peter Benchley, who wrote the novel on which 'Jaws' is based, said the enthusiasm generated by the film has been a powerful tool. 'Thousands of people around the world wrote letters to Peter saying, 'Oh I'm just riveted by sharks, I can't wait to learn more,' ' Benchley said. ' 'Jaws' has, and I have, been working on this for 50 years. So this moment is important because people are concentrating on sharks and on 'Jaws.' ' This interest has driven scientific advances that enabled researchers to study sharks' responses to pollution, stress and environmental change. The key to that research can be found in sharks' jaws: their teeth. Shark teeth, which are replaced every few weeks, can number in the thousands over a shark's lifetime. The chemical makeup of the teeth can reveal information about the environment the sharks lived in. And increasingly, their accumulation — or absence — is helping track how human activity has reshaped ocean life. 'There's been some really interesting work to reconstruct the population of sharks to understand exactly when human populations start to really affect sharks, and how dramatic that effect has been,' Simpfendorfer said. Recent studies have also confirmed sharks' importance to maintaining coastal food ecosystems, with significant human implications. 'Understanding the role they play in ecosystems is a powerful argument for understanding why we should protect them,' Shiffman said. 'We want healthy food chains off our coasts because they provide billions of humans with food and tens of millions of humans with jobs. And to have a healthy food chain, you need a healthy top of the food chain.' Yet as shark populations hurtle toward extinction, the perception issue persists. Other apex predators such as tigers, polar bears and lions have benefited from forceful worldwide conservation campaigns that have translated into legal protections. But sharks haven't received the same degree of attention. 'Jaws' has already given white sharks a much-needed boost, and conservationists are hoping this will translate to other species. 'Great white sharks are actually one of the best studied and best protected species of sharks, and that is in no small part because of the fascination from 'Jaws,' ' Shiffman said. 'There are many other species that are doing much, much worse. There are many shark species that don't have five scientific papers about them.' In the United States, some researchers are noticing a greater harmony between the public and sharks. 'Over the last five to eight years, more and more sharks have been hanging around the beaches of Cape Cod,' Palumbi said. 'It's led to more people realizing that they have to give way, that they have to share space with white sharks, and that means moving someplace else to swim, not going to places that the white sharks are hunting.' John Baker, president and chief program officer at WildAid, a conservation group, is hoping this trend will continue. 'With the spotlight back on 'Jaws' after 50 years, we kind of need to elevate the image of sharks as the 'polar bear of the ocean,' ' Baker said.
SBS Australia
11 hours ago
- Entertainment
- SBS Australia
"One day I'd like to be a wild woman"
A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking When world-renowned chef, Analiese Gregory gave up the restaurant business around five years ago, she started on a path of personal discovery that eventually silenced the mental noise of self-doubt. 'Before I moved to Tasmania, I was always so nervous,' Gregory tells SBS. 'I used to ask myself 'can I actually cook?' I wondered about my cooking skills constantly. I had big impostor syndrome.' This was despite the fact that Gregory was – and still is – one of the most celebrated chefs of her generation . She fine-tuned her cheffing skills under the mentorship of Peter Gilmore at his acclaimed restaurant, Quay and later worked at the Michelin star restaurant Le Meurice in Paris. Her personal journey is faithfully documented in the SBS series A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking and in season two , it's apparent that Gregory has settled into a much wilder existence. And she is also ready to come full circle as she works towards opening an eatery, run out of a renovated shed on her property. The 'anti-restaurant', which is due to open some time in August 2025, does not focus on serving fine dining dishes, nor will it focus on increasing covers. Instead, the plan is to host 10 diners at a time. Guests will eat seasonal food that Gregory has grown, hunted and foraged. The menu will work with nature and hero ingredients that celebrate the chef's connection to her local environment. In Tasmania, the chef feels she's returned to a truer version of herself and rediscovered her connection to food, the land and sea. 'There's been a real joy in living here and doing what I am doing,' she says. 'As a child I was always out in the fields. Then, I got older and hated camping. For so long in my adult years, I didn't own a flat pair of shoes (apart from my kitchen clogs). I only wanted to wear dresses and high heels, and be in big cities visiting art galleries. I was very much the city girl. 'When I lived in Sydney, before I moved to Tasmania, I didn't even cook at home. I worked six days a week and, most nights, I'd eat a staff meal before service and snacks after service. On my night off, I'd go out to eat. I think I only ever cooked at home once every six months.' Eventually, Gregory heard the call of nature summoning her to live a more sustainable life. So five years ago, she bought a cottage in need of renovation in Tasmania's Huon Valley , 40 minutes drive from Hobart, and chased her food goals. 'I used to dream of having an old wooden farmhouse and a kitchen that was filled with bowls of homegrown produce. I really tried hard to make my house in Tasmania be just like my dream. It's now all paid off.' 'When you live in any big city, all kinds of food are available at any given time of year. But in Tasmania, you have to eat and live with the seasons properly. You can fight against it but it's much easier to give into it. I've come around to accepting these sorts of things.' Now, Gregory eats regularly at home and feasts on foods that she's passionate about because she's grown, sourced or made them herself. In her kitchen there are fruits and vegetables from her garden, homemade pickles and other condiments, honey from her bees, cheese that she personally crafted and prosciutto that she cures herself. She also eats sea urchins, fish and abalone that she sources locally herself, often forages for native greens and has also raised chickens, goats, pigs and sheep, as well as grown herbs in her farm. And, she courageously takes on hunting – even if it feels confronting – and fishing in the wild, including underwater spearfishing, in a bid to stay true to her values. 'I feel as though I've come full circle. I feel more fulfilled. Nature has definitely been healing.' The impostor syndrome is also gone. 'This period in my life has been a time of upskilling. Now I'm like: 'oh okay. I can do this'.' Gregory now aims to continue strengthening her connection to nature. To do that, she seeks inspiration from Indigenous females across the globe who have traditionally fulfilled the hunter-gatherer role. 'One day, I would like to be 'a wild woman'. To me, being 'wild' means being able to live within nature but not necessarily harm it. You have to be comfortable being with yourself in nature, with your own thoughts. There's also a certain amount of self-reflection that has to happen for you to be able to do that. That's what I think of as being 'wild'. 'I don't know if I fully achieved it yet, but I feel like that is something I want to work towards.' Season 2 of A Girl's Guide to Hunting, Fishing and Wild Cooking premieres on Monday 23 June, 2025 at 7.30pm on SBS On Demand and SBS Food. Watch now Share this with family and friends
BBC News
11 hours ago
- Business
- BBC News
Lifeline for future of Polperro fishing industry
The fishing industry in a Cornish village has been thrown a lifeline following the closure of Plymouth Fish the Plymouth market operated a collection and auction service for fish landed at Polperro and other small ports in the port's only remaining trawler, the Rebecca V, has since been forced to take its catch to Plymouth for it to be transported by lorry to Brixham market. But Polperro Harbour Trust has now bought its own refrigerated van so that fish landed in the village can instead be taken to a distribution depot in Roche. Peter Hickey, the chairperson of the Polperro Harbour Trust, said the closure of the fish market in Plymouth meant the end of the collection service from the village. "As a result some of our bigger vessels that used to land and had their fish picked up, had to drop off at other ports so we lost them altogether."The purchase of the van gives us the opportunity to get the larger vessels back in the harbour." Mr Hickey said the trust, which is now 130 years old, was established and funded by a small duty charged on fish landed at Polperro."It's our heritage, it's what the village is all about, so the trustees have been working quite hard to keep commercial fishing in the village and help keep it viable," he said. "The fishing industry has been under a lot of pressure for years now with catches going down, and quotas and Brexit and all that. "So it did feel like another nail in the coffin of commercial fishing, which is why we are pleased to turn that around with the purchase of the van."The catches are going up and we're putting more fuel through the fuel facilities in the harbour so everything we hoped for is working," said Mr Hickey. The specialist van has been co-funded by the Marine Management Organisation but the trust said it would need to fundraise to keep it in service. Polperro fisherman Chris Puckey said it would help preserve the village as a proper port. "If we didn't have the van in five, ten years time we'd see all fancy white yachts in here and that's not what people come to see," he said. "There's been hundreds of years fishing from Polperro, so it would be sad to see it go just because we couldn't transport fish"
NHK
13 hours ago
- NHK
Life with the Giant Snake
Discover Sekikawa Village, where the pristine Arakawa River nurtures life. Locals cherish its gifts, while legends tell of giant snakes bringing floods. Explore its rich nature and traditions. Preparations for a local festival Sugai Masaharu fishing for ayu Sugai Toshiko growing shiitake mushrooms
