Cupping a tiny, translucent eel in the palm of his hand, New York environmental researcher Chris Bowser shook his head in amazement. "This is worth about one dollar," he said. As every spring, baby eels -- big black eyes at the end of bodies the size of earthworms -- are wriggling their way from the Atlantic into rivers all along the North American coast. Bowser, who works with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, calls it "one of the greatest, most mysterious migrations on the planet." But there are fewer and fewer eels making that journey.

Japan and Taiwan have completed legal procedures to enforce a bilateral fishery agreement, concluded in April, that allows Taiwanese fishing boats to operate in Japan's 200-nautical-mile exclusive economic zone near the Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea from Friday, Japanese government officials said. Japan's Fisheries Agency, an arm of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, has sent fishery patrol boats to the waters to keep watch on Taiwanese fishing boats in the waters.

Colourful carp-shaped streamers fluttered all over Japan on Thursday as an increasingly elderly nation readied to pray for the health of young sons and mark Children's Day. The large fish flags, which inflate with the breeze like a windsock, are hung in towns and villages all over the country, with many strung across rivers. Tango no Sekku (Boys' Festival) coincides with Children's Day, a national holiday that this year falls on Sunday, but which will give Japan's salarymen a day off on Monday as part of the "Golden Week" holiday period.

The government of the Pacific paradise of New Caledonia said Wednesday it had decided to ban fishing of sharks, which are being decimated to feed growing demand for luxury goods. "New Caledonia took the decision to ban the fishing, capture, detention or commercialisation of all species of sharks" in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ) -- an area roughly the size of South Africa, authorities in the French territory said.