Our Oceans are Under Attack

Ill go check it out Brian
thing is the extent of the events were so dramatic and although most folks have heard of it most have no clue how much actually died off
90% of marine life and 75% of terrestrial life
in both events everything over ~ five pounds ( I think might have been 5 kilo's )
but there was another one that occurred with the advent of oxygen
would love to se something like the Burgess shale's found full of those critters

this one starts out talking about the origins of life having been in the deep ocean a relatively new theory but a few minutes in it goes into the Burgess shale's

 

"...Stellar Sea Lions..." - I, personally, made the Cape Wrangle count in, I believe, 1999. I climbed the westernmost peak of the westernmost island of the Aleutians (Not counting the Komandorskis) and added up 167 Stellars, 20 or thirty left-over foxes from the fox fur craze and more bamboo and plastic bottles with Chinese characters on them than I've ever witnessed closer to the American continent. Stellars are endangered from the Pye Islands westward. Educate yourself a little by reading a "one afternoon" book by Corey Ford, "Where the Sea Breaks It's Back".
I've been looking and still havn't seen my first blue (although I've personally seen Stejneger's,Baird's, and Cuvier's beaked whales).
"I’m afraid our Great American Republic has allowed evil to flourish" - Would it be presumptuous to suggest you stay the hell away and stop reminding of your America fixation in most every damned thing you post?

 

did the foxes revert to there original color patterns or did they keep the captivity based anomalies they developed

 

Phil Bolger has died

As I read the Sailing Anarchy reference, this section caught my attention as an unknown project he was perusing;

"This reality emerged amidst an intriguing series of consultancies for US Navy, and increasing pro-bono work (1750+hrs) in an effort to prepare the Gloucester commercial fishing fleet for the age of $5.-+/gal. - The relationship with Navy has just recently been refreshed again in a warm and productive encounter with our client/patron, a Division Director at NAVSEA. - On the 'Low-Carbon' fisheries-project he recently has had opportunity to personally present the policy-proposal to Congressman John Tierney's respectful and encouraging reception, with key policy-advisors in both U.S. Senator's offices studying the proposal as well. He did take great comfort in the trust and support expressed by 40 local professional fishermen of all tribes and fisheries, a select number of shore-side stake-holders, and the continued encouragement by New England's Conservation Law Foundation. But after well over six emotionally exhausting years his efforts had yet to find constructive reflection in catalyzing jobs- and tax-base-generating marine-industrial local and state public policy for his ailing home-port, America's oldest Seaport of Gloucester."

 

Sorry about Phil. I didn't know him personally but was touched by his work.
I forgot to mention that the sea lion count was over 20,000 a decade earlier but I wasn't there then. The foxes on all of the Aleutians are gray and have no natural enemies - you can sometimes kill 'em with a stick. I once walked up to a sleeping fox on Kanaga or Tanaga (don't remember which) and knelt watching him breath until my radio made noise and he went straight up like a scared cat! Foxes are a big problem on islands in Alaska (fox farmers loved islands - no need for fences).
Still don't see much plastic in the first 1000 miles of the AK peninsula and Aleutian chain - just occasional and almost all fisherman's lost gear - not Asian litter like out west.

 

sounds like he lived a long and happy life
let us all be so brave
now lets not disturb his rest
B

 

I was under the impression that the fox farming craze went out because the animals began to morph in captivity and the fur color pattern went all funny with completely unnatural patterns resulting in basically worthless hides
so the farmers just kinda gave up and let em go

ya the Stellar count has been dropping dramatically over the last decade or so
no proof but all the research Ive read on it indicates its a decline in fish stocks

 

I assumed they were just ratty lookin'. I have seen some beautiful pelts come off of Adak and Atka. I believe that the Stelller's sea lion are only endangered from the Pyes westward. Funny thing, when working inter-agency for NMFS, as I recall, we used to take a guy named Richard Merrick ("My name, slll, is Richard Merrick, slll-ll..." oh, nevermind) to Unimak Pass, among other places. He was a biologist that LIVED sea lions, in fact stayed on a rock not much bigger than what's necessary for a rookery for entire summers studying these things. Anyway, we were observing one rookery on the west side of the pass (can't remember the name) and watching orca cruise laps around the islet. I asked Richard "what percentage of the lion problem is attributed to orca?"
"We don't include that - it is statistically too small to bother..."
"Not to the pups that stray, I imagine"
This is my impression of how "scientists" often work - forming an opinion, then getting government money to research how they can make experiments jibe with their pre-formed conclusions.
That being said, MY observations were, and are, that adult lions do fine and move onto another food source as trawlers take a bite out of the Atka Mackeral, or whatever. The nursing pups do fine, if smart enough to not stray into deep water when orca are present. The teenagers, not being fast and agile enough to run down larger quarry, are what do not survive when the water body rapidly changes temp and kills off a capelin bloom. Capelin are THE food in central and western Alaska, about the size of a small herring, oil and nutrient rich, tasting and smelling like cucumber without a "fishy" note.
They are wonderful, and tho I have seen as much as a seventeen year stretch without a big bloom in key spawning areas, all it takes is for temps and lack of predation to line up right and incomprehensible numbers of halibut, salmon, salmon sharks, dogfish, pacific cod and hundreds of humpbacks get fat. If the humbacks find a big bloom in sufficient numbers, we will go another ten to seventeen years without this table being set (see why I don't get too fuzzy about whales?) The orca removed ten or fifteen grey whale tongues last year, and they had a cheerleading squad!
Biologists don't look at problems dispassionately, they seem to all have an agenda. Biologists can tell you where in which book to find how many gill rakers a rarely seen rockfish has but they might have an agenda and rarely is it tempered by common sense. If one wants to know the mechanics of something happening in my world, with a bookworm college student may not be the only place to ask questions...
The solution? Get used to fewer sea lions until 'chovies come north in the warmer water - and enjoy a swim (57° F water last summer!)

 

interesting read
I saw a silver fox pelt the other day and it was spectacular
the Killer whales have a thing for whale tongue
Ild love to try it and find out what thats all about
I bet my eskimo friends might have a handle on that stuff
maybe if Im lucky I can get a hold of some but thats a slim chance thanks to overfishing of the whales way back in the fifties
but I dont recall eating Capelin
sounds like something I should try though
back on the cape we used to be able to grab quoahogs off the bottom slice em open and down the hatch
amazingly good
but the water is all polluted now and its not recommended

 

ya the Stellar count has been dropping dramatically over the last decade or so
no proof but all the research Ive read on it indicates its a decline in fish stocks

OK I will toss in on this one. I have fished Pollock in the Bearing Sea and Aleutian Islands since 1984. Been a Capt. since 1987. So what......

We lived through some amazing times when the Stellar Sealion population went into decline. They originally accused us trawlers of catching them. A program of federal observers was implemented to record everything we did 24/7. Something we have to pay for of course.

After a couple years they discovered the entire fleet had taken 3 sea lions.

They figured it had to be us taking the fish away from them. So they implemented Sea Lion restricted zones. A 10 mile circle around any rookeries where we could not fish. and a 3 mile circle where a boat was not allowed to even pass through.

There was so many holes in this theory, but we had to live with it. There were many, many rookeries out in the western Aleutians where no one was trawling that the population was also declining.

Still after the 10 mile zones were in place, the Sea Lions declined. So they made 20 mile circles. A 20 mile circle is a lot of square miles out there.

Still they declined.

So about the time Gore was fighting to get in office as Pres.....they implemented a line at 56 degrees north! I had to run 120 miles north in the Bearing Sea in the dead of winter before I could set a net.

About that time a scientist in BC Canada did a study on Stellars. He fed them as much Pollock as they wanted all day and night. The result was they lost a half a pound a day. There is no fat in Pollock.

He fed them a controlled amount of herring, caplien and other oily fish and they gained weight.

Combined this with scat samples at the rookeries, and they came to the conclusion Sea Lions do not eat Pollock.

Guess where the Pollock was? Inside the rookeries....big time inside. And they were the dominant species in the Bearing Sea, and have been for 25 years.

We were pushing the Pollock right into the rookeries, and wiping out the food supply I guess.

The Pollock were scooping up all the food for the Sea Lions.....When you run over a school of fish that is 50 miles long, and 10 to 20 fathoms thick...and your down sounder thinks the school is the bottom because it can't shoot a signal through the school, it is too thick. Well...that is a lot of mouths to feed.

No one brought up haw the population grew in a huge way in SE Alaska. These animals move around.

They moved the zones back down to 10 miles, the zones are still full of Pollock. The fish are not stupid. If there friends are disappearing over that line they move inside.

My vessel catches 20 million pounds a year of Pollock. We are carefully watched to make sure we are in line. It is highly regulated. We have been whacking on them for 25 years, and the population continued to grow or stay stable.

Nature is the biggest player. I know the managers would like to take credit for a good fishery. But Nature is the biggest player. And they have a fish that grows to reproduction size in 4 years.

If you whack a rock fish school, it will not recover as they are so old. Just can't include every fish as being the same. Some take fishing pressure better than others. I have no doubt there are decimated stocks all over the world. It's a drag. Too bad we can't all be Pollock fishermen. A 150 ton bad of fish is bigger than any whale...

 

the Alaskan Pollock fishery is about the most vibrant fishery on the planet
Im not surprised they protected them in those areas but glad to hear they figured it out
I also regret that well meaning regulations are found to be not only frustrating the guys on the ground so to speak but found to be worthless in the long run as well. There must be something that was eating the Pollock that is not around any more in sufficient numbers to keep it from adversely effecting the other fish stocks.

if a fish is properly managed in such a productive place like Alaska you should be able to take huge quantities out and still have a viable population
without placing to much stress on the surrounding species

frankly that Alaskan fishery is the last best hope we have

 

Thought a few more shots would be fun......the thread is called "our oceans are under attack"....

 

that is really cool
I cant wait to get back to the water
Ill be heading up to the Seattle area later this summer
maybe Ill be lucky enough to sea some good sets as I make my way out to some diving

 

ya the Stellar count has been dropping dramatically over the last decade or so
no proof but all the research Ive read on it indicates its a decline in fish stocks

You confuse me a bit there Boston. From your first statement, it sounds like the fish stocks are on the decline as well as the "dramatic" drop in the Sealions.

Then you go on to praise Alaska Pollock fishery as the last best hope for us all......

But it is all the same thing.....maybe the reports you read proved that all the fish declines (other than Pollock) are a reason the sea lions are in decline. Did they say how heavy the Pollock moved in on the fish?....I bet not. So intelligent people like yourself get fooled into thinking what comes naturally. Sure, sounds perfect, fish stocks in decline (because of fishing) causing Sea Lions to decline. See how easy it is to take the facts and give them a half twist, then let the human nature take over and point fingers at us trawlers (because we are literally the only human activity around up there, so it must be our fault.) .....
We are all looking for evidence to support our beliefs. It is human nature, we cannot get away from it. A human would rather fight for his belief than to consider a change in a belief.....you only have to look at religious wars for evidence of this.
We believe something, we filter out any evidence that conflicts with this belief, we hang around with people who believe like we do, and we experience reinforcements of those beliefs. Then our experience of all this tells us our belief is real and worth fighting for.

 

I think although some will surely disagree that you will find me to be a very open minded individual well able to admit when I am wrong about something
I prefer to be on the winning side of any debate and if that entails a little education then so be it.

the Alaskan fishery is about the most productive one we have left
its regulation although a cluster of sometimes outdated rules and regulations has managed to keep it going when all others have failed miserably. even so there seems to be some imbalance going on and some species are failing, why is still in question. There has been a dramatic decline in the Stellars and it does appear to be related to a lack of there preferred species. If that lack is not well understood then it needs to be a focal point of someones research and fast cause that will eliminate worthless regulations when its fewer but more meaningful regulations that will win the day. Im all for the fishermen who work hard and try to follow the rules and in case no ones noticed I defend em at nearly every turn. Its the factory fishing fleets and the poaching, poor regulations of the open sea and the lack of enforcement that is going to be the death of us, not some hard working honest Joe who is out there making an effort.

I would love to see a toxicology report on this species

and I was referring to the entire Alaskan fishery not just the Pollock it may be possible to farm raise some species for reintroduction into other waters once the stark reality of localized extinction sets in. Not sure its a viable idea but if a food webs can be reintroduced into a given protected area it may be possible in time to rebuild some of the fisheries from the ground up. Maybe.

the worlds oceans are in big trouble with an average of 95/100 fish over one foot having been removed already and not coming back any time soon
if you read back through you will see a video at the beginning of the thread
its pretty frightening
and the guys credentials are impeccable

I dont mean to be contradictory but its the honest folks we need to be rewarding and the dishonest ones that need lined up and shot
cause with 6.7 billion of us
we dont have room to screw this up any longer
and we have done a spectacular job of screwing up so far