Models, models...

To start with, I have a few heretical questions:  Do we really need models, however complete, to embark on ecosystem management? How about starting with reducing or, where still feasible, preventing river-borne pollution, municipal, agricultural, and industrial effluents? And providing more protection to inshore, and along-shore habitats? Can’t we do all these and more, apart from, but together with fisheries management without models?

Now about models. I’m most certainly not an expert on modelling, but I have very strong opinion on applying models where they do not belong. When a (mathematical/statistical) model is proposed it should be examined as to whether it comprises all the important elements required to generate results and whether and to what degree are the data fed to those elements sufficient and trustworthy.

I think that the key problem with economic, ecosystem, fisheries and any other management models of whatever sort is that they themselves need to be wisely managed. What I mean is that whenever any such model is about to be applied to provide practical solutions or forecasts, its should be peer reviewed (by quite independent panel) for the following: is it correctly designed; does it fit the situation to which it is supposed to be applied; if “yes” to the latter, what is going to be its reliability level with respect of providing appropriate answer/solution.

I trust that, provided that data and information collection would develop to feed computers with the right stuff, with continually improving computing power also models would be improving.

For, as the late Dr.Bill Silvert wrote: a model is never complete…

HOW MUCH SHOULD A FISHERY BE EXPLOITED?

More than once, I read and heard in various media and official statements that:
"According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 85 per cent of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited, overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion-- the highest percentage since FAO began keeping records, and a 10 per cent increase from four years ago".

I wonder how this percentage increase is shared by the different fully exploited, overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion fisheries... I also wonder why "fully exploited fisheries" are included in the above total percentage of 85%. 

I think that the normal logic would say that "fully exploited" is the best state of things, provided that the "fully exploited fishery" is sustainably exploited. Why should fisheries remain "under-exploited", which is the only category not included in the FAO's 85%? BTW, FAO itself is not flocking them, but is presenting  separate figures for each category.  Well, advocacy is not science, even when it pretends to be based on it.

SALT IN OUR BLOOD

I just finished reading a book by Michele Ann Eder - a fisherman's wife from Newport, Oregon. This is a sort of log-book extending over some 3 years of her and her family life, written from a point of view of a wife of a commercial fisherman, a skipper-owner. Bob Eder's and his two sons' boats were fishing with crab and fish pots. This is one of the more dangerous fishing methods, because the pots are heavy and stored on the deck, which willy-nilly rises the vessel's centre of gravity, thus reducing stability. The book is a saga of wife's and mother's love, constant worrying, doing shore-service chores, and, tragically so, of mourning. Michele and Bob lost their elder son to the ocean, when his boat capsized drowning Ben and three other crew members.
Salt in our Blood is an unusual and admirable book, which draws the reader into a fishing family, to a degree that eventually one feels himself as its friend.

FISHING QUOTAS AND FISH DISCARDS

I just read a book review. The book represents memories of an American fisherman's wife Judy Dutra of Provincetown. It's entitled:  NAUTICAL TWILIGHT.
There was one paragraph in this review (Judy's quotation) which is telling in a few words how the quota system represents a cause for discards of perfectly marketable and valuable fish (they are jettisoned dead or dying), and how it frustrates fishing people. Her husband had to discard such fish, for he was prohibited to land them.
“Our codfish allocation is 2,000 pounds a year. He threw over 10,000 pounds of codfish when he had a big tow. He called and they said he could stay out seven more days or throw it overboard or only come in with 800 pounds. It’s rules, rules, rules,” Dutra sighed. “Every week we have a pile of mail. There are thousands of people employed by the government to keep my husband from fishing. He always says all these people have a job because of him.”

Read more: http://www.wickedlocal.com/capecod/entertainment/x240493991/Memoir-of-a-Provincetown-fishing-family-recalls-better-days#ixzz1gW1zoMyP

INTEGRITY IN SCIENCE

During the few first days of December 2011, I read two news items of interest to fishery science. Item 1: A discovery of dangerous virus in farmed salmon by a Canadian scientist has been depressed by her government bosses for ten years, and only now revealed. Item 2: NOAA, which is the U.S. Administration among other things in charge  of fisheries, just published its new policy regarding integrity in science. Its scientists may now publish their findings in general media and in peer-reviewed scientific journals, they may even talk to the media. All this without undue pressure and, of course, provided that they and not the administration are responsible for the fairness and accuracy of their statements. Etc., etc.

Interesting, what had been the situation at NOAA science, before the new policy was published? Hope, not as in Canada...