The indiscriminate use of gillnets by fishers in Bangladesh has become a major threat to the two freshwater dolphin species found there: the Ganga River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the…
VANCOUVER, Canada — Alongside the millions of Atlantic Salmon clustered in the open net pens that dot the waterways around Broughton Archipelago’s over 200 islands, sea lice, a tadpole-shaped parasite,…
Large hydropower dams that obstruct the Amazon basin have long come under fire for their environmental and cultural impact — Belo Monte being the most prominent example. Yet a bigger…
On an iron grill, six catfish are almost ready to eat. Hilda Rodríguez crouches to move the firewood and stoke the fire. She flips over the inguiris — green bananas…
The asprete, a ray-finned freshwater fish species that lives only in Romania, has long captured Mircea Marginean’s imagination. He remembers hearing about the species in 2011, when he was a…
Amid Mexico’s Day of the Dead celebrations, a fish species considered extinct in the wild has been granted new life. Adorned in colorful costumes and marigolds, a parade of kids,…
The Halda River — the world’s only gene bank for pure Indian carp fishes such as ruhi (Labeo rohita), catla (Labeo catla), Mrigal (Cirrhinus cirrhosus) and Kalibaush (Labeo calbasu) —…
It may look like a nondescript silvery fish, but hilsa, or Tenualosa ilisha, accounts for an eighth of Bangladesh’s total fish catch, and more than 1% of the country’s economic…
DHAKA – Khalilur Rahman, 65, has been fishing in a tributary of the old Brahmaputra River in Kishoreganj for 50 years. Nowadays, he often returns home empty-handed. “The river has…
NDJI, Cameroon – Batchenga, 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, is slowly reopening. After serving as a ramp at the start of a national road linking the…
The July 2021 rupture of a tailings dam at a diamond mine in Angola killed off much of the aquatic life in the Lova, Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. Twelve people…
In 2006 and 2010, Congolese researcher Raoul Monsembula collected catfish and other species from the rivers in Salonga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Then he hopped…
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic consumed humanity’s attention, our species ran through 4.5 trillion doses of myriad pharmaceuticals. In India alone, one drug, paracetamol — a pain reliever used to treat…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived…
SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “I remember seeing a buffalo, its head tied to a floating barrel, drifting down the river,” says Pheng Sisuwath, gesturing to the Sekong River from his…
BUJUMBURA — The squeal of passing bikes fills the air in the center of a newly created wetland on the outskirts of Burundi’s main city and largest urban settlement on…
CHHNOK TRU, Cambodia — From her sun-bleached wooden houseboat in the floating village of Koh Tapov, on the southeastern side of the Tonle Sap lake in Kampong Thom province, Hai…
PREK TABAEK, Cambodia — Bat Savoeun claims he has Prime Minister Hun Sen’s signoff to farm his 2 hectares of land in Prek Tabaek village, on the edge of the…
Fish are an essential part of the diet for most people living in the Amazon Rainforest. But overfishing is seriously threatening biodiversity and the ecosystem’s ability to feed people, according…
BANYUMAS/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A muddy flood polluting a river on the Indonesian island of Java earlier this year depleted its fish stock, raising calls for restoration and restocking efforts in…
The largest freshwater fish ever recorded was captured in the Mekong River last week by a fisher collaborating with researchers to document the river’s biodiversity in northern Cambodia. The 4-meter…
Salatou Sambou, a fisherman and father of five, has been involved in the Kawawana ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in Senegal since 2008. One of the first members of…
KATHMANDU — Villagers living near Nepal's Bardiya National Park have discovered the first successful nesting and breeding site of gharial crocodiles in the park in more than 16 years. They…
CHIANG KHAN, Thailand — In the rustic old town of Chiang Khan on the Mekong River, a tourist haven in northeastern Thailand’s Isaan region, local fishing communities now live in…
An underwater expedition has confirmed the presence of some of the world’s largest and most threatened freshwater fish in a remote and barely studied stretch of the Mekong River in…
It might be surprising to learn that, in a lake as large as Victoria, a single fish could shape so much of East Africa’s history, culture and, now, an uncertain…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
One of Brazil’s most threatened biomes, the Atlantic Forest, now faces a new hazard: genetically modified zebrafish that glow in the dark. Despite these so-called GloFish being officially banned in…
At a young age, Mekong giant catfish look the same as striped river catfish, their regular-size, widely consumed relatives. But as they mature, the giant catfish quickly eclipse their smaller…
Amazon Basin urban centers are contaminating the Amazon, Negro, Tapajós and Tocantins rivers with pharmaceuticals and wastewater, with still largely unknown impacts on aquatic ecosystems.
