Tag: #fish — 19 segments on Living on Earth
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November 28, 2025:
Stream Life is Thriving 5 Years After Oregon Fires
In 2020 Oregon faced its most destructive wildfire disaster, when more than a million acres burned in the “Labor Day” fires. The sheer size and severity of those fires gave scientists a unique chance to learn what happens after a massive burn. Jes Burns of OPB reports on the surprising resilience of fish and amphibians five years after the fires.
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October 03, 2025:
Salmon Run Fattens Bears
The champion of Fat Bear Week 2025 is officially number 32 - “Chunk”, a big male who overcame a broken jaw to take the prize. Mike Fitz, the resident naturalist at explore.org, launched Fat Bear Week as a ranger at Katmai National Park in Alaska. He joins Host Aynsley O’Neill to explain how this year’s strong salmon run in the Brooks River helped the local grizzlies bulk up.
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August 29, 2025:
Oyster Trash to Treasure
Oysters on the half shell are big business on Nantucket Island, and a local program recycles oyster shells from restaurant waste into habitat for young oysters. Host Aynsley O’Neill reports on how these recycled oyster shell reefs are helping to protect the coastline from worsening storms and rising seas.
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August 01, 2025:
Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels
Eels play an important ecological role in many rivers and streams, but they’re so eel-usive that even eel scientists have been challenged to observe them mating in the wild. Ellen Ruppel Shell is author of the 2024 book Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels, and she sheds light on the eel’s murky ecology and path through the seafood industry.
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April 04, 2025:
Note on Emerging Science: Orcas Wear Salmon as Hats
Orcas in the Pacific Northwest have again been observed carrying dead salmon on their heads. Living on Earth’s Kayla Bradley explains what scientists think this unique behavior may indicate about orcas’ diet, health, and culture.
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November 08, 2024:
Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels
Eels play an important ecological role in many rivers and streams, but they’re so eel-usive that even eel scientists have been challenged to observe them mating in the wild. Ellen Ruppel Shell is author of the 2024 book Slippery Beast: A True Crime Natural History, with Eels, and she sheds light on the eel’s murky ecology and path through the seafood industry.
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August 02, 2024:
Why Fish Don’t Exist
Fish scientist David Starr Jordan discovered thousands of new fish species around 1900, and kept going even as he faced repeated disasters that threatened to obliterate his life’s work. His stubborn optimism is the springboard for science journalist Lulu Miller’s new book, “Why Fish Don’t Exist”, and the search for order in a cold, chaotic world. Lulu Miller and Host Steve Curwood discuss what her journey into science and the past uncovered about the astonishing life of David Starr Jordan.
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June 28, 2024:
Listening on Earth: African Penguin Calls and Chicks
In this short segment we hear why African penguins are sometimes nicknamed “jackass” penguins. Also, four chicks that recently hatched at the New England Aquarium are giving some hope to this threatened species.
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April 05, 2024:
Land Back for the Yurok Tribe
On the northern California coast the Yurok tribe is getting 125 acres of its stolen land back thanks to an historic partnership between the National Park Service, California State Parks, and Save the Redwoods League. Chairman of the Yurok Tribe Joseph L James joins Host Jenni Doering to describe how the land will help nurture Yurok cultural traditions.
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December 29, 2023:
Wildly Magical: Animal Encounters in the Galapagos
Writer Jennifer Junghans had always dreamed of going to the Galapagos to swim with the marine iguanas. In 2017 she finally had her chance, and although the iguanas stayed high and dry, the experience brought her up close with blue-footed boobies and blacktip sharks, and face-to-face with a curious pufferfish. Jennifer shares her story of visiting “the remote wilderness of her dreams” with Aynsley O’Neill, who spent a memorable summer studying in the Galapagos.
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November 03, 2023:
Beyond the Headlines
This week, Living on Earth contributor Peter Dykstra and Host Steve Curwood discuss the nutritional value and relative ease of growing pumpkins. Also, the construction industry offers a huge opportunity to incorporate recycled materials. And in history, they look back to when Congress passed an act to protect the popular striped bass also called rockfish.
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October 27, 2023:
BirdNote®: Spooky Shearwaters
At Halloween, we think of ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggitty beasties – indeed, you may even get some of them at your door demanding candy. And as Michael Stein tells us in today’s BirdNote®, some of our avian acquaintances would fit right in.
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October 13, 2023:
Beyond the Headlines
This week, Living on Earth Contributor Peter Dykstra joins Host Paloma Beltran with a couple of warnings from scientists about how the warming planet is affecting species, from brook trout that may get wiped out from streams in the Great Lakes region to mother polar bears who can’t make enough milk because of shrinking Arctic sea ice. In history, they look back to 1988, when three gray whales stuck in the ice captured the world’s attention.
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June 30, 2023:
Oh, Say Can You See?": Kingfisher on Long Island Sound
The fourth of July is a time for Americans to feast on hot dogs, veggie burgers and corn on the cob. But as Living on Earth’s Explorer in Residence Mark Seth Lender observers, the kingfisher has its own version of an Independence Day picnic.
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February 24, 2023:
Dolphins and People: Fishing Buddies
In the coastal community of Laguna, Brazil, many net-casting artisanal fishers have an unexpected fishing partner in dolphins. Fishers who work with dolphins catch a lot more fish and now scientists have figured out what the dolphins are getting out of it. Mauricio Cantor is an Assistant Professor of biology and behavioral ecology at Oregon State University and the lead author of the study. He joins host Bobby Bascomb.
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February 03, 2023:
Ice Fishing on a Tidal River
Winter can be cold and dark, but the bright light reflected from frozen lakes, ponds, and streams can be cheery and warm. And that's the secret of ice fishing. Mark William Damsel explains the joys of ice fishing on a frozen river in this audio postcard from Living on Earth's Bobby Bascomb.
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February 03, 2023:
Designing Whale-Safe Lobstering Gear
Ship strikes can be deadly for North Atlantic Right Whales, but many of their untimely deaths are from entanglements with fishing gear, usually the long ropes that attach lobster and crab traps at the bottom of the ocean to buoys at the surface. So, there are efforts to design gear that would render the constant presence of those ropes unnecessary, making it much safer for nearby whales. Mark Baumgartner of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution joins Host Bobby Bascomb to explain the options and challenges of transitioning to this type of fishing gear.
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February 03, 2023:
Lobster Industry on the Hook to Save Right Whales
Entanglement in fishing gear for crab and lobster traps is one of the biggest threats to the critically endangered North Atlantic Right Whale. So, the Marine Stewardship Council recently suspended its sustainability certificate for the lobster fishery in the Gulf of Maine, which led Whole Foods to halt its sale of Maine lobsters. Nicole Ogrysko, Bangor News Correspondent for Maine Public Radio, joins Host Bobby Bascomb to discuss the impacts to Maine lobstermen who are already struggling with high fuel prices, volatile lobster prices and the trade war with China.
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January 06, 2023:
Midnight in the Everglades
Alligators have such gaping jaws you might wonder what they eat. For one group of researchers looking into this, the answers so far point to snails and amphibians like the giant salamanders known as amphiumas, rather than fish or hapless mammals that walk too close to swampy waters. Living on Earth’s Don Lyman spent a night in Florida’s Everglades with a team investigating this and shares his story.
