Latest news with #skate
Telegraph
07-05-2025
- General
- Telegraph
Ray wing with peas and orange
Ray is one of my favourite fish – its texture and flavour are unlike anything else, and it offers excellent value. I'm often surprised by how many fishmongers and restaurants sell skate which is actually a species of ray. However, it's important to note that the common skate is critically endangered, so it's always worth asking your fishmonger which species their skate comes from. Overview Prep time 15 mins Cook time 30 mins Serves 5 Ingredients 100g butter 2 large shallots, finely chopped grated zest and juice of 1 orange 100ml fish stock 4 tbsp rapeseed or olive oil 4 tbsp plain flour, for dusting 4 pieces of skinned ray wing on the bone (about 200g each) 150-160g fresh or frozen peas (podded weight), blanched in boiling water and refreshed in cold water Method Step Heat 50g butter in a small pan and gently cook 2 large finely chopped shallots for 1-2 minutes, until soft. Step Add the grated zest and juice of 1 orange, along with 100ml fish stock, and season to taste. Simmer for 2-3 minutes, then lower the heat and whisk in 50g butter until emulsified. Remove from the heat. Step Fry the ray for 3-5 minutes on each side, depending on thickness. You may need to cook the pieces 2 at a time if they do not all fit in the pan. Keep the first 2 warm under a loose sheet of foil while you cook the remaining 2. Step Put the sauce back on the heat and stir in 150-160g fresh or frozen peas (blanched in boiling water and refreshed in cold water) to warm through. Transfer the ray to serving plates with the peas and sauce.
Yahoo
29-04-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Dead salmon create election stink on Australian island
On a tree-lined beach in Australia's rugged island state of Tasmania, locals discovered popcorn-sized bits of dead salmon washed up along the sand. When the stinky remains landed in Verona Sands, population 131, they stirred up a festering environment-versus-industry row shortly before Saturday's general elections. The fish remnants found in February were traced to a mass die-off from vast, circular salmon farming pens set up in the waters of the surrounding Tasman Sea estuary. The Tasmanian fish farming industry produces 75,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon a year -- 90 percent of Australia's total output. But in the warm, summer temperatures, a bacterium had taken hold in some of the salmon pens. "What I saw was little chunks, the size of small plums, and they were scattered the entire length of the beach," said Jess Coughlin, a campaigner with community group Neighbours of Fish Farming. When she sought advice to identify the mystery morsels, a diver who had worked in fish farms told her the industry referred to them as popcorn. "It's a common occurrence when the fish are left dead in the pens for a number of days and they start to rot and break down," Coughlin told AFP. - Rotting salmon - At first, the dead salmon sink. "The flesh and fat pull away from the body and, because of the pressure of the water and the wave action, as it makes its way up to the surface it clumps into these balls." Dead salmon falling apart within pens where fish are still being grown for human consumption is "incredibly disturbing", she said. Tasmania's environmental regulator described the die-off in salmon pens in the area -- the D'Entrecasteaux Channel -- as an "unprecedented salmon mortality event". The state's chief veterinary officer, Kevin de Witte, reported that in the warm, summer waters, the fish had been infected with an endemic bacterium, Piscirickettsia salmonis. "P. salmonis fish bacterium does not grow in humans and do not present a human or animal health, or food safety risk," he assured people. Industry body Salmon Tasmania said the microbe had devastated some farms in the area, and operators worked around the clock to clean up the mess and keep fish healthy. - 'Catastrophe' - "While industry always does its utmost to raise healthy fish, just like all animals and primary producers, salmon and our farms are not immune to the vagaries of our natural environment," it said. Some estimates put the number of dead salmon in the millions, said the Bob Brown Foundation, named after its co-founder, an environmentalist and former lawmaker. "This catastrophe is not just a 'natural vagary'," the foundation said. "This is the direct result of excessive nitrogen pollution, overstocking of pens, corrupt governance and a consequent failure to regulate, all directly attributable to the foreign-owned salmon corporations' endless greed." The salmon industry is notably blamed for threatening the existence of the endangered Maugean skate, a species of ray that grows to about the length of an adult person's arm. An estimated 4,100 Maugean skates remain in the world, and fewer than 120 of them are old enough to reproduce, according to the Australian Marine Conservation Society. They are found only in western Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour, which is also home to about 10 percent of the state's salmon industry. Official advice to the federal government in November 2023 said it may have to reconsider the industry's legality -- and eventually even suspend its operations -- due to scientific findings of an "increased extinction risk" to the skates. - 'Anger and distress' - Less than six weeks before the elections, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government intervened to block that possibility, saying it had to protect jobs. Parliament adopted a law curbing the environment minister's power to review years-old rulings -- effectively shielding the Macquarie Bay salmon farmers. But the bay only represents 10 percent of Tasmania's salmon industry and it is a gateway to rural tourism, the environmentalist Bob Brown told AFP in the weeks leading up to the election. "There's a mood of anger and distress that I haven't seen for decades and it's getting stronger and there's a lot of young people involved and it's very heartening," Brown said. Some candidates in Tasmania are campaigning to bring a halt to salmon farming operations based in the open sea. "I think there will be a bigger vote away from the big parties," Brown predicted. "I think the vote against them will be a record." gp/cho/djw/sft/pbt
Int'l Business Times
29-04-2025
- Health
- Int'l Business Times
Dead Salmon Create Election Stink On Australian Island
On a tree-lined beach in Australia's rugged island state of Tasmania, locals discovered popcorn-sized bits of dead salmon washed up along the sand. When the stinky remains landed in Verona Sands, population 131, they stirred up a festering environment-versus-industry row shortly before Saturday's general elections. The fish remnants found in February were traced to a mass die-off from vast, circular salmon farming pens set up in the waters of the surrounding Tasman Sea estuary. The Tasmanian fish farming industry produces 75,000 tonnes of Atlantic salmon a year -- 90 percent of Australia's total output. But in the warm, summer temperatures, a bacterium had taken hold in some of the salmon pens. "What I saw was little chunks, the size of small plums, and they were scattered the entire length of the beach," said Jess Coughlin, a campaigner with community group Neighbours of Fish Farming. When she sought advice to identify the mystery morsels, a diver who had worked in fish farms told her the industry referred to them as popcorn. "It's a common occurrence when the fish are left dead in the pens for a number of days and they start to rot and break down," Coughlin told AFP. At first, the dead salmon sink. "The flesh and fat pull away from the body and, because of the pressure of the water and the wave action, as it makes its way up to the surface it clumps into these balls." Dead salmon falling apart within pens where fish are still being grown for human consumption is "incredibly disturbing", she said. Tasmania's environmental regulator described the die-off in salmon pens in the area -- the D'Entrecasteaux Channel -- as an "unprecedented salmon mortality event". The state's chief veterinary officer, Kevin de Witte, reported that in the warm, summer waters, the fish had been infected with an endemic bacterium, Piscirickettsia salmonis. "P. salmonis fish bacterium does not grow in humans and do not present a human or animal health, or food safety risk," he assured people. Industry body Salmon Tasmania said the microbe had devastated some farms in the area, and operators worked around the clock to clean up the mess and keep fish healthy. "While industry always does its utmost to raise healthy fish, just like all animals and primary producers, salmon and our farms are not immune to the vagaries of our natural environment," it said. Some estimates put the number of dead salmon in the millions, said the Bob Brown Foundation, named after its co-founder, an environmentalist and former lawmaker. "This catastrophe is not just a 'natural vagary'," the foundation said. "This is the direct result of excessive nitrogen pollution, overstocking of pens, corrupt governance and a consequent failure to regulate, all directly attributable to the foreign-owned salmon corporations' endless greed." The salmon industry is notably blamed for threatening the existence of the endangered Maugean skate, a species of ray that grows to about the length of an adult person's arm. An estimated 4,100 Maugean skates remain in the world, and fewer than 120 of them are old enough to reproduce, according to the Australian Marine Conservation Society. They are found only in western Tasmania's Macquarie Harbour, which is also home to about 10 percent of the state's salmon industry. Official advice to the federal government in November 2023 said it may have to reconsider the industry's legality -- and eventually even suspend its operations -- due to scientific findings of an "increased extinction risk" to the skates. Less than six weeks before the elections, Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's government intervened to block that possibility, saying it had to protect jobs. Parliament adopted a law curbing the environment minister's power to review years-old rulings -- effectively shielding the Macquarie Bay salmon farmers. But the bay only represents 10 percent of Tasmania's salmon industry and it is a gateway to rural tourism, the environmentalist Bob Brown told AFP in the weeks leading up to the election. "There's a mood of anger and distress that I haven't seen for decades and it's getting stronger and there's a lot of young people involved and it's very heartening," Brown said. Some candidates in Tasmania are campaigning to bring a halt to salmon farming operations based in the open sea. "I think there will be a bigger vote away from the big parties," Brown predicted. "I think the vote against them will be a record." Salmon pen belonging to the Tassal company located off Charlotte Cove, in the d'Entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania. AFP A salmon pen belonging to the Tassal company located off Charlotte Cove, in the d'Entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania. AFP A salmon pen belonging to the Tassal company located off Charlotte Cove, in the d'Entrecasteaux Channel in Tasmania. AFP Campaigner Jess Coughlin said she had found chunks of rotten fish along the beach at Verona Sands, Tasmania AFP
The Guardian
08-04-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
It's up to each of us to help save life on Earth – I love this challenge
Extinction. In 1844 Ketill Ketilsson won the race to grab the last pair of great auks. They were nesting on Iceland's Eldey Island. Millions of these penguin-like birds had been slaughtered for feather-stuffed quilts to keep Europe's burgeoning human population warm. Ketilsson strangled the two but tripped over and broke their egg. Never mind, he won the reward being offered by museums in Copenhagen for the final specimens. A perverse market rule on species had been established: the rarer a species gets, the more valuable it becomes. It came too late for those who killed the last dodo, moa or Steller's sea cow – but look at the money now going into resurrecting mammoths and thylacines. Extinction is forever but it is mostly ho-hum for the rulers of our age of materialism. In this world of commercial expedience, it can even be a worthy thing. In 1888 the Tasmanian parliament legislated a one-pound bounty on thylacine heads – more than 2,000 bounties were paid – in its successful bid to 'extirpate' the species. The rate of loss of nature has accelerated ever since and in my short lifetime three-quarters of the world's volume of wildlife has been eradicated, including most of the big specimens of human-edible fish. The Maugean skate is a contemporary headache. This ancient fish survived when the dinosaurs didn't but is now having its habitat polluted by problematic industrial fish farm activity in Macquarie Harbour on Tasmania's west coast. To save the profits of the foreign-owned salmon corporations both the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and opposition leader, Peter Dutton, have promised laws to guarantee the fish pens – but not the Maugean skate. Get Guardian Australia environment editor Adam Morton's Clear Air column as an email Environmentalists are a problem because they publicise the reality of impending extinctions. Corporations have had to have parliaments pass laws banning peaceful protests in forests and near fish pens and to criminalise the nature-defending ringleaders. Eco-sabotage is subsidised while eco-rescue risks a jail sentence. Nevertheless, the polls show a huge majority of Australians want to end native forest logging to save what's left of koalas, greater gliders, swift parrots, masked owls and black cockatoos. So far the corporate lobbyists have managed to keep the big-party politicians subsidising the forest destruction even though primary schoolchildren, and the national minister for the environment, know that it is a prime cause of habitat loss and extinction. Then there's coal and gas extraction driving an age of global heating and consequent worldwide extinctions. That includes coral bleaching. The corporate-dependent parties back more coalmines and gas extraction and promise cuts in the 'green tape' which protects species – but their stand is not free of political risk. Millions of voters, especially young voters alarmed about their future in a nature-depauperate world, have turned to the Greens and green-minded independents to stop the rot. The new generation is very aware that things are worse than the conventional and co-opted commercial coverage makes out and is not comforted by the false government estimate that since 1788 'only 100' species of plants and animals have gone extinct. According to the Biodiversity Council's Prof John Woinarski and the researcher Jess Marsh, 9,000 species of Australian insects may be extinct, including many 'ghost extinctions' of species before they were discovered or described. Sign up to Clear Air Australia Adam Morton brings you incisive analysis about the politics and impact of the climate crisis after newsletter promotion February's bushfires in Tasmania's world heritage-value takayna burned 100,000 hectares including some Huon pines, one of the longest-living species on the planet. The fires will have caused another bout of ghost extinctions as well as edging this high-profile species closer to oblivion. Huon pines are depleted from two centuries of logging and global warming, and the February fires were child's play compared with what's to come. In the hands of arrogant, empathy-lacking autocrats and billionaires like Trump and Putin, both quite capable of using ecocidal weapons, we risk the end of our own species through a nuclear, microbial, chemical or genetic weaponry war. Or via artificial intelligence getting the drop on us very soon. On current evidence, our empowering big brains are an evolutionary own goal set for self-extinction. Perversely, the chances of most other life forms on Earth getting through the next century depend on our own urge for survival. That is, human common sense has to prevail for them as well as for ourselves. It's up to each of us to help save life on Earth by voting the exploiters of nature out, by peacefully obstructing their destruction, or through civil disobedience for our children and fellow creatures. I love this challenge. Such green-flag action may be risky but it is deeply rewarding compared with wallowing in white-flag hopelessness. The prospect of getting what's left of nature through to the Sustainocene or next age of assured life on Earth is incalculably attractive and remains within our reach – but only if enough of us take action. Bob Brown is a former senator and leader of the Australian Greens and is patron of the Bob Brown Foundation
CNN
26-03-2025
- Politics
- CNN
Here's why a politician held up a ‘rotten, stinking, extinction salmon' in parliament
Sarah Hanson-Young, a senator for Australia's Greens Party, held up a fish in parliament in protest of new legislation that would support salmon fishing in the country's southern island state of Tasmania. The legislation could affect of the Maugean skate, a ray whose sole habitat is the Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania, according to Australia's Marine Conservation Society.
