FISH
And the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, and had life, died and the third part of the ships were destroyed.
—Rev. 8:9
1703 Catching The World’s Fish
Americans eat about 7 billion pounds of fish yearly. Japan catches 11 million tons of fish annually, half of it taken from foreign seas, including nearly one-third from coastal waters off America and Russia.
The largest recorded catch of fish happened in 1972 with a total of 65 million metric tons. Peru is the nation with the largest national haul of fish totaling 12 million metric tons, mostly anchoveta.
The world’s largest fishmongers are MacFisheries, a subsidiary of Unilever Ltd. of England. They had over 300 retail outlets.
1704 The 200-Mile Fishing Zone
In 1976, the US Congress enacted the 200-mile fishing zone. Foreign fishing vessels would no longer freely operate in these areas—a total of 2.2 million square miles of some of the world’s richest fishing grounds.
The European Economic Community stretched its controlled fishing zone from 12 to 200 miles in 1976. So has Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Russia declared its 200-mile zone in March 1977. Result: a tide of tension.
Hardest hit is Japan, the world’s largest fishing nation.
1705 Teeming Sea Life
Sea life is home of teeming forms of life, from microscopic floating plants to the largest mammal—the whale, which can weigh over one hundred tons. Among its dwellers are over 40,000 species of mollusks and over 20,000 kinds of fish. Gen. 1:20 says, “And God said, “Let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life …””
1706 Salmon Feat
The fact that adult salmon return from the ocean to the very gravel bed where they were hatched in some swift-flowing northern stream in order to reproduce before death, is fairly well-known. But not everyone realizes what is involved in their doing so.
A salmon swims three to ten miles a day against the current for a total distance of hundreds of perhaps even thousands of miles to get back to his birthplace. The spectacular part of his return trip is when he encounters waterfalls that must be ascended. He has been observed swimming a sheer ten-foot waterfall in one leap. Higher falls can be conquered by a series of tall leaps from shelf to shelf for a total distance of maybe forty or fifty feet.
—Selected
1707 Traveling Eyes Of Fish
There are some species of fish—most of them bottom dwellers—that have a most unusual development cycle, particularly as regards their eyes. The group includes halibuts, flounders, and plaices. They pass their early life swimming like any other fish, then a remarkable change occurs. They turn onto their sides and swim that way the rest of their lives; hence they are known as flat fish. The most astonishing aspect of this change is that the eye on the underside moves to the top side of the fish’s head and remains there so that it becomes known as the “eyed side” while the underneath is referred to as the “blind side.”
—Virginia Whitman
1708 Almost Indestructible Starfish
Found in oceans around the world, sea stars are almost indestructible. An arm accidentally lost is soon regrown. Oyster men once tried to get rid of starfish invading their oyster beds by chopping them into pieces. But they eventually learned that if a portion of the central disk was attached to the severed parts, these parts regenerated into whole new sea stars—increasing rather than decreasing their numbers.
1709 Sea Herring In Unison
Sea herring, traveling in closely-packed schools too numerous to count have a marvelous faculty for synchronizing their movements. Even when some floating obstacle compels a group to divide, with part of them swimming on one side and the rest on the other side of the obstruction, their rhythmic motion continues in absolute unison as if they were one instead of thousands. They coordinate their movements up or down, right or left, as if subject to a command control.
1710 Fantastic Number Of Eggs
The growth of the mighty ocean sunfish mola is a miracle of multiplication. To begin with, the egg is so minute that one ovary of the female fish contains 300 million of them. When a ripe egg ruptures, the emerging hatchling is but one-tenth of an inch long. At first it resembles the usual small fish, but when it has become one-half inch in length it begins to resemble the adult form, which may be six to eight feet long and eventually gets to weigh over a ton.
1711 Dolphins As Potential Helpers
The ancient sea creature, the dolphin, has special membranes analogous to man’s vocal cords. It can make a variety of noises such as chirps, pops, clicks, squeaks, groans, whines, and other sounds in frequencies from 3000 to 30,000 cycles per second. Researchers say the dolphin can mimic human-created sounds such as laughter, whistles, and even word syllables in high frequency ranges. An electronic device, the sceptron, has been contrived to “memorize” sounds of the dolphins, to catalog dolphin-sounds, and record communication patterns. It is even speculated that the fish could ultimately inform man about such matters as missile cones falling into the sea, current temperatures, land formations, and so on.
1712 Oyster Rhythm
In their native habitat, oysters swing their shells open and shut with the rising and falling of the tide. Placed in a tank 1000 miles away from their point of origin they maintained the same rhythm. Curiously, after two weeks, they suddenly stopped opening and closing their shells. Had they “forgotten” the movement of the tides? Four hours later they resumed their rhythm. Why? Apparently because that was the hour the moon was above where they now were instead of when it would be at its highest where they formerly were.
1713 Worms In Dolphins’ Cavities
A group of dolphins got stranded on a beach near Boston. Scientists feel that they may have run aground because of a hearing problem. The animals, which use sound waves to judge depths, were found to have worms clogging their sinus cavities and inner ears, possibly making them hard of hearing.
The dolphins were unable to gauge the depth of water in which they were swimming. They thought they were in deep water, but found themselves stranded on the beach.
—Prairie Overcomer
1714 Ballooning Fish
There is a fish belonging to the angler group that can puff itself up by swallowing water until its stomach is distended like a balloon. Presumably this tactic is to render it more difficult for a predator to swallow. The spitlure frogfish, as it is called, has an even cleverer device. On top of its head is a built-in wormlike appendage with a jointed base. When not in use it is rolled up to one side of the dorsal fin, but in action it waves around so that it looks for all the world like a juicy fishworm. The moment a likely victim comes near to investigate, the fish swallows it in one king-size gulp.
1715 Black Swallower
Consider the small, blackish deep-sea fish popularly known as the “black swallower.” It sometimes swallows fish much larger than itself. Some have been caught distended with fish inside them two or three times their own size. Their stomach, mouth and throat are distensible, and their teeth can be pressed backwards. Their throat and stomach stretch like a rubber balloon. This monstrosity did not evolve; it was made that way as a unique creation, to show the versatility of our God.
—Christian Victory
1716 Man-Of-War
We were reading recently about the man-of-war, a marine creature that is often carried ashore by strong winds and waves. Called “man-of-war” because it floats on the surface of the sea with its sail-like crest displayed, this creature gives no indication at all of its deadly character. Above the water it appears like a graceful, iridescent bubble, but below the surface it trails behind it myriads of poisonous tentacles. These tentacles often stretch down a hundred feet or more.
This strange creature is aided in its deadly work by nomeus, the shepherd fish, which partially immune to the venom of the man-of-war, swims in and out of the deadly strands. But larger fish, seeing an easy catch, rush to seize him, only to be snared and quickly paralyzed by the poison stings, thus providing a meal for nomeus and his deadly host.
—Selected
1717 The Archer Fish
Among the reeds that line the banks of river swamps in the East Indies is a most unusual fish that has remarkable skill with which to secure its prey. It is called the archer fish, but it doesn’t shoot arrows; it shoots drops of water from its mouth. Catching sight of a fly or spider, it shoots out a jet stream and with surprising accuracy can bring down an insect as far as three feet away. Actual photographs have been taken of such a fish “shooting” its victim.
1718 Getting The Oyster Out
Did you ever see an oystershell, the whole shell, without an oyster in it? How did the oyster get out? The oyster-man did not take it out with his knife, for the two parts of the shell are still together. If you look you will see there is a small hole in the top of the shell. How came this? A little creatures called a whelk, made it. This animal has an instrument like a small auger or gimlet. With this it bores into the shell of the oyster, then it sucks the oyster through the hole, and little by little eats it up. The whelk is little, but it does great harm. If we want to save the oysters we must kill the whelks.
—Selected
1719 Four-eyed Fish
I read about a minnow-like fish called “Four eyes,” which makes his home in Central and South America. What’s unusual about him is his large, bulging eyes. They are so situated on his head that he can spend his time cruising along the water with only the upper half of each eye above the surface. The top half has an air lens and the bottom half has a water lens, which amounts to a set of bifocals, giving him the ability to see in both the upper and under world.
—M. R. De Haan II
1720 Fighting The Urchins
In the coastal waters off Palos Verdes, California, there once grew a lush underwater forest. But in recent years countless sea urchins have turned parts of this forest into an underwater desert. The urchins, small, spiny echinoderms known as the “pin cushions of the deep”, have wiped out the big trees of the ocean’s forest—kelp—-by eating away their anchors.
Officials have launched an all-out attack upon the sea lifeguard boats, and killed an estimated 750,000 urchins in four hours. Project backers now hope to plant kelp and restore the balance of nature.
1721 The Shark Attack File
Over $100,000 has been spent in maintaining the International Shark Attack File at the Mote Marine Laboratory, Siesta Key, Florida. More than 1700 cases are recorded—gleaned from medical and scientific reports, newspaper clippings, morgue photographs, military reports, first-person accounts and slide tapes.
All these were gathered in a joint project between the US Navy and the Smithsonian Institution, which believed that we have enough troubles in life without having to worry about being eaten by a fish. So far, however, nothing concrete has been discovered on how one may be protected from shark attack.
1722 Jellyfish Caused Contest Failure
Starting out from Shakespeare Bay near Dover in ideal conditions to beat the world record set by Wendy Brooks, Cindy Nichols failed in her attempt to swim the English Channel. The reason? Waves? The coldness of the water? It was neither of these. Cindy ran into jellyfishes a few miles from the French coast and was stung by them.
1723 A Fish Marred Photograph
One late September afternoon as I was hiking up the eastern slope of Mt. Whiteny, I suddenly reached a vantage point overlooking a beautiful lake. It was so surrounded by mountainous slopes as to be protected from even the slightest breeze. Thus it served as a perfect mirror, reflecting every detail of the overhead trees and the deep blue sky. The scene was so beautiful I took a picture. Imagine my surprise to find that the reflection had been marred by a fish which had come to the surface of the water just at the instant I snapped the camera.
—Albert Mygatt
1724 Intimidating Them
Calvin Coolidge was an ardent fisherman and fishing in the River Brule was one of his favorite ways of relaxing from his presidential duties.
Returning from one of these excursions to Washington, the President was asked if he had had any luck.
“Well,” replied the President, “I estimate that there are forty-five thousand fishes in the River Brule and, although I haven’t caught them all yet, I’ve intimidated them.”
—Selected