Tag Archive for "France"

Millions of baby oysters dying at the French coast

Some worrying news from the coast of France. According to an article by independent.co.uk millions of baby oysters are dying at the French coastline. On some parts of the coast entire generations of oyster have died within a few days and the oyster farmers are loosing millions of euros.
The reason for the mass extinction is unknown and it is a bit puzzling that only the young oysters are dying, and that the older shellfish survives.
But the main suspect is that ocean outside France has become a bit warmer and this causes blooming of toxic algae. Another suspect is that a big increase in plankton that the oyster eat cause the young oysters to over-eat.
No matter what the reasons are, this is very worrying. What if this hurts the shellfish in the wild? This could cause serious problems in the eco-system.

Here in Northern Norway there has lately been some incredible growth of plankton and the same thing happened last year. The plankton colors the ocean light green and there is about no sight. Some fish species don’t like that there is no sight so I don’t come into the fjords as they usually do t
As a result I have not caught much coalfish this year. Coalfish usually come into my fjord in huge numbers and is an important food source for us during the summer/autumn. I hope there will be less plankton later in the summer so I can catch some yummy coalfish.

I never knew the European hamster was threatened. You learn something new every day.
Today I came across an article from telegraph.co.uk about EU stating that they will punish France with a multi-million pound fine if they do not take measures to save hamsters in Alsace, eastern France. According to Wikipedia Alsace is the last place in Western Europe where you can find the European hamster, also known as Black-bellied hamster. The population of hamsters in Alsace is under threat too because the hamsters has traditionally been seen as a vermin and been killed. In later years the local farmers has gone from producing food that hamsters like to eat to growing maize which is not ripe when the hamsters wake up from the winter sleep. This has made food sources scarce for the hamsters and their numbers has dwindled from 1,167 in 2001 to 161 only last year!

I hope EU is successful in pressuring France to protect the European hamster.

I want to travel to France

As I have mentioned before I really want to travel to France again because it such a beautiful country with great cuisine and nice people. When staying in France I will of course visit Paris and maybe stay at Hotel Paris.
Why Travel to France is a blog that I find interesting because it writes about issues related to traveling in France.