Tagged: Fish

You can pick up a number of different Audubon-style guides if you're a bird watcher.  But it’s a different story when it comes to fish.  Many Idaho fish haven’t been studied.

That nice piece of fish you might order at a restaurant or pick up from the grocery store may not actually be the type of fish you think it is.

How much fish do you eat every week?  That’s a question Idaho’s Department of Environmental Quality wants to answer.  The agency has asked state lawmakers for funding to study that question. 

When you order that special filet at a restaurant or store, you're often going on trust that the fish actually is what the menu or label says it is. In Washington, two state agencies are asking for tougher penalties to deter seafood fraud.

The Northwest’s declining salmon runs have spurred marathon legal battles and inspired billions in spending to save the iconic species.

But Idaho’s coho salmon were never listed as endangered before they went extinct in 1987. Few people noticed when the fish were gone. But the Nez Perce Indian tribe did. And thanks to its extraordinary efforts, coho are once again returning by the thousands to Idaho waters.

Here’s an image you usually don’t see without the help of Photoshop: two-headed fish.  Pictures of deformed baby trout with two heads show up in a study of creeks in a remote part of southeast Idaho.  The study examined the effects of a contaminant called selenium.  It comes from a nearby mine owned by the Boise-based agribusiness giant, J.R. Simplot.  Critics say the two-headed trout have implications beyond a couple of Idaho creeks.