HOT News from the IGFA - May 2008

From the IGFA -- Did You Know?

• Age at which sandbar sharks (Carcharhinus plumbeus) become reproductively mature.
  • Males at 14 years
  • Females at 16 years
• Temperature of a recently discovered hydrothermal vent-- 400º C
• Size of the Greenland ice sheet—1.7 million km2 and 3 km thick
  • If it melted it would raise global sea level 7 m
• World's smallest fish—Paedocypris progenetica is 7.9 millimeters at maturity

• World's largest fish—Whale shark, Rhincodon typus, can grow to 20 meters
• Scientists believe that sharks are restricted to 30% of the world's oceans
• Cruise ships can produce 30,000 gallons of sewage and 19 tons of garbage each day
• The Atlantic bluefin tuna population has declined by more than 80% since the 1970s

Fishy Quote—and we do mean fishy
"With existing methods of fishing, it is inconceivable that the great sea fisheries, such as those for cod, herring and mackerel, could ever be exhausted"
Thomas Henry Huxley, UK Royal Commission on the Sea Fisheries, 1866