Congratulations NOAA

Congrats!!! NOAA discovered fisheries ecology. Here it comes (From NOAA's Fish News digest):

National – Trio of Factors Drive Marine Fisheries Production in Northern Hemisphere Ecosystems Comparisons of marine fisheries in thirteen northern hemisphere ecosystems reveal that a trio of factors— fishing, food web/predator-prey interactions, and environmental conditions—drive marine fisheries production. Better understanding of the relative influence of this triad of drivers on fish populations can make fishery management more effective, as well as improve overall understanding of how fisheries work within an ecosystem. Ten studies, published online July 12 in Marine Ecology Progress Series, identify trends and common patterns governing fisheries productivity in northern hemisphere temperate marine ecosystems. The studies resulted from two international workshops in 2010 and 2011 in Woods Hole, Mass. organized and hosted by NOAA’s Northeast Fisheries Science Center.
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WOW!!! Not just overfishing! Also environmental conditions (that involve not mentioned here pollution and habitat destruction). Predator-prey interactions... ho, ho! This would comprise also the all-protected marine mammals (each seal 4-6 kg of fish/day; each dolphin - 5-7 kg/day, killer wales... well, well...). Does it mean less fishermen flogging?    Anyway, BRAVO, CHEERS, MAZAL TOV, SALUTI to NOAA.

Overfishing? sometimes...

What I'm now focusing on is the effect of aquatic pollution and its separate components  on fish populations, as a factor in their impoverishment. See the case of the dredging in the port of Gladstone QSL, Australia, and the associated mortalities of marine life.

This is one of the subjects that are cautiously and circuitously avoided, if not totally ignored by management establishments and most NGOs;  why to annoy petro-chemical interests when they've got fishermen to bash…  Well, see who's financing them.   

EQUITABLE RIGHTS OR PRIVATIZATION?

Hi, here's an interesting piece of news:

…//…A United Nations-backed committee today endorsed a set of far-reaching global guidelines to help governments protect the rights of people, especially the poor, to own or access land, forests and fisheries.
“Giving poor and vulnerable people secure and equitable rights to access land and other natural resources is a key condition in the fight against hunger and poverty,” said the Director-General of the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), José Graziano da Silva.  …etc……//…

In spite of some haziness (own or access), when it comes to marine fishing, I'm afraid that these news wouldn't go too well with selling and buying access and rights to fish in the sea and other forms of privatization of fishing grounds.

THE WONDERS OF TECHNOLOGY: Robot to monitor conditions, fish in gulf

http://www.benyami.org/

May 4, 2012 - The newest ocean research tool in NewEngland looks like a surfboard, but it acts like a surveillance drone. An oceangoing robot known as a Wave Glider was launched Thursday for a six- to eightweek test run through the Gulf of Maine. Unmanned and remotely operated, the 7-foot robot, which uses waves for propulsion, will collect data on ocean conditions and identify the locations of certain tagged fish. The demonstration project is coordinated by the US Integrated Ocean Observing System. Read the full story from the AP. So, now fisheries scientists won't have to go to sea at all...

You may also read it ar http://www.worldfishing.net/; go to Features --> Ben-Yami, and you'll find it. 

See a new book review at my website   www.benyami.org/FishingPeople.html
and select Fishing People folder, where you'll find the article

Fishermen's Wife Log - a Fishing Lore Saga

EGO

                                             EGO

  Everybody carries an ego. The ego is a balloon incorporated in

  one's character.

  The ego-balloon tends to be inflated. The hot air it is inflated

  with is lighter than air.  The owner of a big, inflated ego

  looks big and heavy, but in fact he's just a fat lightweight.

  Also the ego tends to lift its owner from the firm ground.

  Therefore, the owner of a big and inflated ego tends to lose

  contact with the ground and the reality.  The more one's ego

  gets inflated the weaker gets one's contact with reality.

  People with extremely inflated ego face several dangers:  they

  may float away if the wind gets too strong for them to hold

  ground; their ego may explode and they may find themselves

  without any ego at all; worse of all, somebody may puncture

  their ego just when they are taking off and they may crash on

  a hard, rocky reality letting out the hot air in a loud and smelly

  fart.

Against jailing for contraception

Attn. all. Go to the link
http://www.avaaz.org/en/no_prison_for_contraception_global/?tta  and protest.

Easter Greetings

To all of my Christian friends and colleagues

May this new spring holiday season bring with its renewal of the earth

and the warmth of the sun

blue skies above

filled with hope

passion for life

yearnings for peace and tranquility

May we all find the strength of will

Commitment of spirit

And persistence of character to continue

to labor so that this coming year will in fact be a year of

Social justice

Equality   And real peace.

Happy Easter

(Words by G. Baskin)

COUNTING FISH IN THE OCEAN; HOW RELIABLE?

NOAA has made a new cod stock assessment"

"The 2008 assessment estimated the offshore cod biomass at 17,672 metric tons. The new assessment estimates the stock at 9,494 metric tons.

Based on the new estimates and modeling, NOAA dropped the hypothetical size of the rebuild stock from 148,084 metric tons to 140,424 metric tons."

Would you believe it? They tell you how many fish there're in the sea to the last tonne. What a precision...
Not 18,000, not 17,600, but exactly 17,672. Wow!!! 
That's how fish stock assessment are assessed: THE MORE PRECISE THE LEAST RELIABLE !!!

TRUE LOVE

Find arms that will hould you at your weakest...
Eyes that will see you at your ugliest...
Ears that would listen to you at your stupidest...
And a heart that will love you at your worst.
Then you have found true love!

PROBLEMS WITH STOCK ASSESSMENTS

According to the U.S. fisheries management, they made a big mistake (by 100%) in the 2008 cod stock assessment. So, fishermen caught twice too much and should now more or less stop fishing to "rebuild" the cod stock. Their new assessment is based on additional, new data, but uses the same model.

I've got 3 questions. One: does their model consider the consumption of cod, at all its life stages, by predators of all sorts?  Two: who's catching more, fishermen or predators? Three: do the predators follow the management's rules, or would just enjoy reduced catches by fishermen?

WHO OWNS THE SEA?

• “There are some things we will always own in common. No one will ever homestead an ocean. ” – Wally Hickel

Discards, discards

The EU fisheries commision wants to ban discards.

Discarding results in as much as two-thirds of the fish caught being thrown back in the water, with about 1m tonnes estimated to be thrown back each year in the North Sea alone. So why there's so much resistance among European fishermen?

Because discarding is a consequence of the strict quotas in the EU under the common fisheries policy on the amount of fish that boats may land. When fishermen exceed their quota, or catch species of fish for which they do not have a quota, they must discard the excess. If Ms. Damanaki, the Commissioner, wants to stop or reduce discards, the way is to reform the EU fisheries management by stopping single-species managing in multi-species fisheries, and replacing the ITQ quota system with management by input that would fit the different fisheries according to the biology and ecology of the targeted species.

From Einstein's wisdom

• "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

Tsunami

One year passed since the Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, which destroyed villages and port towns in Japan's Tohoku region, killing over 15,000 people, and caused major damage to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station.

One year later, over 3,000 people remain unaccounted for,  and more than 340,000 evacuated from the disaster zone have not been able to return.

The economic damage is enormous. And, probably the most affected sector was fishery with many of the dead an unaccounted for were fishing people. This was the  greatest natural disaster, since the 2004 Christmas tsunami that caused havoc and mass deaths all over South Asia's coasts, reaching as far west as the East Africa's shores. Also then, fishing people and their livelihood and communities were the most affected. They all should be remembered. 

Somebody hates fish quotas

The following sent me an American commercial fisherman:

With IFQs or catch shares , the number of boats goes downhill fast; jobs are eliminated, Money starts getting scraped off the top and is sent off to other places in lease fees.  Who has and who doesn't have, gets to be obvious and the discourse that evolves from that is terrible.   People are thrown into panic, they see their neighbors going thru the same turmoil and uncertainty , and the fact that their life as they knew it, isn't happening anymore, It's no fault of theirs. People in power didn't listen and didn't care anyway, as all they see is $ signs! 

  No matter what some groups say about how it's going to be better in the long run and just wait and see, be patient.  I can tell you all from personal experience, living in  Kodiak Ak, since 1981, that the proof of the economic impact of IFQs for Halibut, sablefish and crab, has had a devatating effect on our once vibrant and exciting economy!  there is hardly anywhere for a new guy to get in .  a person has to be rich first to fish halibut, tho it used to energize and encourge participation and the bounty the ocean brought. this plan is all about greed for the powerful.  I truly hope that this suit is the beginning, or at lest a continuation, of the bright light being shown on the injustice of the privatization of our ocean resources, and that acknowledgement that there is no way to give a resource to 'any one', and have it be 'fair to ' everyone else'!  We are sharing equally now, or were, at least there was opportunity in other systems.  Catch shares are about the elimination of opportunity, because someone else has already taken it and there is none left for the rest of us.  Abolish Catch Shares , under ALL CIRCUMSTANCES!  It's all here'  'Enclosing the Fisheries, People, Places and Power'., by Lowe and Carothers.  Thank You Your Honors, and I truly hope you can see the big picture, and  see fit on one OWNS the fish, before it's caught! 

 Thank you, Rhonda Maker  907 481 3100

From a world class scientist who is kept from speaking out at his agency. He help;s me on things now and then. Best to you.

Bob Jones, Executive Director
Southeastern Fisheries Association
http://www.seafoodsustainability.us

JOIN SFA TODAY---SAVE YOUR CULTURE

-----Original Message-----
From: peterrubec <peterrubec@cs.com>
To: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
Sent: Fri, Feb 24, 2012 5:06 pm
Subject: Re: A thought from Menachem Ben-Yami....A very wise person.

Bob, Ben-Yami is indeed a wise person.

Peter

-----Original Message-----
From: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
To: bobfish <bobfish@aol.com>
Sent: Tue, Feb 21, 2012 9:41 am
Subject: A thought from Menachem Ben-Yami....A very wise person.

"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…"

Fisherman: when you kick me won't I scream?

THOUSANDS OF COASTAL FISHERMEN
TO RALLY IN WASHINGTON DC ON MARCH 21

In another historic show of solidarity, U.S. recreational and commercial fishermen will gather at Upper Senate Park in Washington DC on March 21, 2012 starting at noon in an organized demonstration supporting sensible reform of the Magnuson Stevens Fisheries Conservation and Management Act.

This is a follow-up to a rally in February of 2010 that brought some 5,000 recreational, commercial and party/charter vessel owners, fishermen and people in fisheries dependent businesses from all over the country to Washington. Twenty plus Members of the Senate and House of Representatives spoke regarding efforts to reform Magnuson.

Signed into law in 1976, the 36-year-old law “most notably aided in the development of the domestic fishing industry by phasing out foreign fishing,” according to the National Marine Fisheries Service. In recent years however, the act has been transformed from its original intent into a weapon employed by a handful of mega-foundations and the so-called marine conservation organizations they subsidize aimed at reducing overall participation in our nation’s rich fisheries while driving both commercial and recreational fishermen off the water.

Rally organizers are asking legislators for help by amending the law to provide a better balance of marine conservation and coastal commerce, as it was originally intended to do.

The upcoming rally is being billed as Keep Fishermen Fishing, and once again unites the commercial and recreational sectors under one common message; “Fix Magnuson Now.” There were more than 40 chartered buses filled with rally participants in 2010, and efforts are once again underway in many coastal states to transport fishermen to the rally.

“Those who didn’t attend or perhaps chose not to support the original rally are mostly unaware of the strides we’ve taken since 2010,” said Jim Donofrio, executive director of the Recreational Fishing Alliance and one of the rally organizers. “With the support of the two dozen members of Congress who addressed us at Upper Senate Park, leaders from both sides of the aisle have pushed to make Magnuson reform a Congressional priority. As a result, the House Natural Resources Committee is now reviewing eight different pieces of fisheries reform legislation.”

“Our coastal fishermen represent the true spirit of Main Street America, as over-burdensome regulations supported only by organizations and individuals supported by a handful of mega foundations is forcing third and fourth generation fishermen off the water and away from sustainable public resources,” said Nils Stolpe, producer of FishNet USA, representing the interests of U.S. commercial fishermen. “The plight of our coastal fishermen is finally getting the media and legislative attention it deserves, and we hope to keep that momentum moving forward on March 21.”

Keep Fishermen Fishing organizers thus far include Recreational Fishing Alliance, Southeastern Fisheries Association, National Association of Charterboat Operators, Morro Bay Commercial Fishermen’s Association, Garden State Seafood Association, United Boatmen, Long Island Commercial Fishing Association, Panama City Boatmen, Viking Village Dock, Fishermen’s Dock, Hull’s Seafood Markets, Lund's Fisheries, Westport Charterboat Association, Southern Off Shore Fishing Association, Garibaldi Charters, Florida Keys Commercial Fishermen's Association, New York Fishing Tackle Trades Association, Save the Summer Flounder Fishery Fund, New York Sportfishing Federation, Monkfish Defense Fund, Atlantic Capes Seafood, North Carolina Watermen United, Big Game Fishing Journal, West Coast Seafood Processors Association and Bristol Bay Regional Seafood Development Association.

For more information including bus details, visit http://www.keepfishermenfishing.com/.

Follow Keep Fishermen Fishing on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/pages/Keep-Fishermen-Fishing/282791548442919, through our blog at http://fixmagnusonnow.blogspot.com/, via our Twitter feed at https://twitter.com/#%21/FishMarchDC2012 or search for Keep Fishermen Fishing on Google+.

Commercial sector contact: Nils Stolpe (386-409-0675)
Recreational sector contact: Jim Donofrio (888-564-6732)



How f/v TASU was ditched

M. Ben-Yami Column          WORLD FISHING, February 2012, p.7

DITCHING A FISHING BOAT: NO PROBLEM – JUST FOLLOW THE RULES

I started my marine career as a wireless operator. An upcoming "sparker", as we were fondly called by other seamen, one of the first subjects they taught me in the maritime school was how to react to safety problems and, in particular, when yours or other ship was in distress. Obviously, it was the sparker's task to radio for help, which in those times consisted of Morse-code message starting with SOS (in Morse: …---…). Asked by our instructor, a blunt WW2 British Navy veteran, what does SOS mean, remembering some of the sea-lore books I read, I answered: save our souls. "F…k your souls" – said the guy – "it's save our ship"!

This was over sixty years ago, nevertheless when I looked up SOS in Wikipedia I found the following: In popular usage, SOS became associated with such phrases as "save our ship", and "send out succour". Well, nowadays, the Morse-run radiotelegraphy belongs to history if not archeology, and instead, the expression Mayday repeated thrice is the international distress signal. According to the Wikipedia:  "A Mayday call is roughly equivalent of a Morse code SOS. When they receive a mayday call the coast guard may launch lifeboats and helicopters to assist the ship that is in trouble. Other ships that are nearby may divert course to assist the vessel broadcasting the mayday".

In the old times the unwritten rule among seafarers used to be that you don't desert a vessel in distress. First, you do your best to save it and if you do – you can claim a reward, with the boat itself serving as collateral.

It appears that nowadays this rule is not always and not everywhere followed. At least it was not followed when on 13 October, 2011, an old 48-foot classic West American wooden  troller, the F/V Tasu, was grounded at high tide on the sandy beach at Bolinas (north of San Francisco, California). While she was still partly floating undamaged on a slack tide the skipper-owner called the Coast Guard to give her a tow off the beach before the tide went out and Tasu would lay over, possibly cracking her keel. 

Well, whoever took the call at the San Francisco Coast Guard station asked whether the crew was OK, and when the skipper truthfully answered that positively, he was told to contact a private company, for it was the U.S. Coast Guard policy not to lend assistance in such cases.  This, in spite that the Coast Guard with divers and equipment was less than 45 minutes away, and if the Tasu would not be removed soon and the tide went out, the vessel could be heavily or even irreversibly damaged, with her fuel and oil leaking into the nearby National Marine Sanctuary.

Willy-nilly the skipper called the private salvage company recommended by the Coast Guard. They asked for and he gave them his credit card number, but after a while they informed him that his credit was insufficient to cover their costs. As time was running out, other fishermen radioed that they'd help with the salvage costs, but still the company refused to come. While fishing boats in the area were willing to try to tow the Tasu from the beach, they had no means to run a line to the stranded Tasu, such as should available at the nearby S.F. Coast Guard station.

     Well, some Coast Guard and also California Fish & Game staff did arrive, but by land, and only to make sure that fuel and oil were pumped off to avoid a spill in the adjacent sanctuary. They had no capacity or authority to avoid the loss of a $100,000 fishing boat and fisherman' and his family’s livelihood. Time passing, the tide went out and the boat remained grounded only to be battered by surf and tides. According to local press report, Tasu was not insured.

California press wrote also that the TASU tragedy left a wake of bad feelings among the local population and the other fishermen. Especially that all of this could have been avoided, would both the S.F. Coast Guard commanding staff and the salvage businessmen were following the old SOS "save our ship" maritime rule -  Tasu would be refloated and fisherman's livelihood sustained.     

On the top of his misfortune with Tasu's grounding, her skipper had to hire a company to remove the fuel from the boat, to prevent an environmental hazard and then to have the wreckage removed, and bear considerable costs.

Additional irony of this tragedy is that the "Vessel Assist" salvage firm's parent company is the Boat Owners Association of the United States (based in Virginia). Well. they said that they're going to investigate…

Maybe the fisherman should've exaggerated his situation and told the Coast Guard that he's in danger, too. Or maybe, the people who're paid for helping mariners in trouble should've shown little flexibility with their rules and made some effort to save the boat?

 

The good old small-scale fishery

In the 1980s the National Fisherman, an American fisheries journal had held a                  column written  by an East Coast fisherman Capt. Perc Sane. At that time the governmental fisheries management was much less wide-ranging than nowadays. Nevertheless, the       various limitations, including allowing catching only a single species, have been already         practiced on the West Coast. In 1983, Perc Sane, visited the West Coast and was stunned     by the various restrictions affecting small-scale fishery there. He described his impressions in    his column, and explained why the less management at the East Coast makes more           sense. Here're some extracts (Courtesy: National Fisherman):

Perc Sane goes West  …//…   The way it is, a Maine fisherman has to lobster a little       in the summer, dig a few clams n’worms in the fall, jig some smelts through ice in         the winter n’gillnet some alewives in the spring. When he ain’t busy with these,            he catches a few rock crabs, drags mussels, seines a bunch of herrin’, pots a few     snails, rakes irish moss, picks spruce gum n’snips the ends of balsam trees for  Christmas wreaths, which is called tipping. …//…

…//…  In Maine, when she ain’t so good, we drive our lobster boats right up in the    shore alders on a high tite n’say t’hell with it. Take off the CB maybe, n’let her sit     there ‘till things look sunnier. …//…

This is an excellent description of some of the old times small-scale/artisanal fisheries that in a few words explains why they were sustainable and why they wouldn't overfish their       resources. Such inherent flexibility allowed fishermen to move between the various stocks,        or stop fishing, whenever their yields went down below a certain level, and to fish in          accordance with the nature's shifting seasons. How wise and effective used to be               those traditional autochthonic management systems, that followed the ways and seasonality      of nature, moved among fishing sites and times and never tried to curb catches.

But today's fishery managers consider such flexibility just another bygone along with the whole traditional management, which is one reason why many coastal fisheries are being over-regulated to death.

Catch shares and management targets

In theory, participants in catch-share management schemes should have a vested interest in the health of stocks over the long term. Yet, it remains unclear

whether catch share systems improve fisheries management and stock status.

Dr. Michael Melnychuk of the University of Washington and his co-authors assessed 345 marine fish and shellfish stocks from around the world to determine whether catch share programs were better at reaching management targets than catch limits or effort controls. The authors found that catch share systems have some benefits. In particular, catch share fisheries achieve target catch levels more consistently. Another observed benefit, decreased overfishing, appears to be due more to the presence of a fleet-wide quota cap than to the   division of that quota into shares. The analysis, however, did not provide evidence that any of the management approaches resulted in increased average size or biomass of fisheries stocks.

About Iran and Israel from Britain

Here is a short video of a speech of the journalist and author Douglas Murray at a recent debate at Cambridge University relating to the Iranian nuclear threat with an Israel angle.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dBzslDdQ_g

It is not often one hears in Britain the kind of argument against the hypocritical and rather immoral position much of Europe and many Western academics hold toward Israel.
Recommended to watch. MB-Y

SALT IN OUR BLOOD - a book, a saga in making

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.

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...

CLIMATE MIGRANTS

However late, the research report published recently in Current Biology journal by Dr. Steve Simpson from Bristol University and 7 others (Continental Shelf-Wide Response of a Fish Assemblage to Rapid Warming of the Sea) is throwing more light on how the Nature stirred up the wrangling over mackerel quota between the EU and Norway and Iceland and the Faeroes. Evidently, the warming of the NE Atlantic Ocean during several decades has been accompanied by a shift in the composition of commercial fish populations.

It appears that the majority of fishes common in the area are affected by the warming. Thus, mullet, hake, grey gurnard, red gurnard, John Dory, lemon sole, dab, and hake have become more abundant in the now warmer waters surrounding Great Britain. These warmer-water species are smaller, living shorter, growing faster, and hence less prone to overfishing. The authors, who have analyzed trawl data covering some 100 million fish, even assume that UK waters may become more productive as climate change keeps bringing new species in from the south. They've also observed that the number of species that increased with the warming was 3 times the number of declining species.

On the other hand, however, the populations of historically most popular but cold-waters preferring cod and haddock, as well as pollock and whiting, may be dwindling in UK waters, much of them has migrated northwards. Also in the NW Atlantic the mackerel normally found in waters from Cape Hatteras to Newfoundland, shifted about 250 km northwards and 50 km eastwards and into shallower 5 deg.C waters, their preferred temperature range, perhaps also due to shifts in plankton concentrations.

In view of these ocean dynamics, the quarrel about national shares of the mackerel TAC seems to me a bit anachronistic. No doubt, the shares had been set before mackerel spread in Iceland's and Faeroese waters. Such changes don't go away, just because Europe's fishery managers prefer to stick to their inertia. It seems logical that the management rather follows the migrational pattern of the various fish species and their stocks, and readjusts national shares accordingly. It is politically and logically unreasonable to request the Faroese and the Icelanders to observe their former small shares in the mackerel TAC, when the formerly rare mackerel has become so abundant on their own national fishing grounds.

Shouldn't the European fishery management establishment start adapting its measures to the ongoing changes in the composition of fishing stocks in the EU-managed areas?

The conservation bluff of individual quota management

A group of American scientists were asked to evaluate the effect of catch shares (another name for ITQs - individual tradable quotas) in those fisheries

where catch shares had been applied. They found some benefits, but their main finding, IMO, was that the catch shares have had no effect on fish biomass. This means that the number one claim of catch shares promoters that they represent a tool for fish stocks conservation/sustainability, etc., doesn't hold water. Characteristically, and unfortunately, the social persecussions of the quota system were totally absent from the analysis.

BTW, I posted today the abstract and reference to this report on the FISHFOLK discussion list, as well as link to the whole article. For those interested, but without access to FISHFOLK, ask me for the link at benyami@actcom.net.il, or through the my Facebook page.     MB-Y  

 

Add a comment

Hixon's 10 Commandments

Some 5 years ago, Mark Hixon from the Univ. of Oregon, published an article presenting 10 Commandments for fishery scientists ans managers. Here they are, abridged:
1 - Entire ecosystem management should replace single-species management.
2 -  Question every assumption, including, e.g., the (flawed) traditional fishery goal of "maximum sustainable yield". 3 -  Maintain an "old growth" structure in fish populations, since big, old fish, susceptible  to overfishing, are the best spawners. 3 - Maintain  management boundaries so that they match natural boundaries and the spatial structure of fish stocks in the sea. 4 - Monitor and maintain fish habitats and (5 - )  resilient ecosystems able to withstand occasional shocks. 6 - Identify and maintain critical food-web connections. 7 - Be ready to adapt to ecosystem cyclic changes, including global climate change. 8 - Account for evolutionary changes caused by selective fishing off large, older fish.
9 - Include the actions of humans and their social and economic systems in all ecological equations.
Well, I couldn't find the 10th Commandement, but Amen to these nine. If I had to add mine, it would be: 10 - Remember that you can't manage either fish or climate, all you can manage are (fishing) people.

U.S. Coast Guard - a salute

I read the recent USCG report (1992-2010). The number of fatalities among American fishing people in recent years is about half than during the preceding period.

The USCG saved many hundreds of lives and many vessels. It is probably the only  world's armed force that saves many more lives than it takes. Saving lives and vessels is it's priority task. Salute, USCG, cheers!

ECOSYSTEM APPROACH AND FISHERY MANAGEMENT

The U.S Federal ecosystem management plan explains that inter-species relations and environmental variations must be considered. Single species management simply does not fit those conditions, neither single species TAC nor individual quotas under any name. If the U.S.govt. wants (rightly so) to apply ecosystem management, it must IMO overhaul the whole system.
Bob McDonald from Australia posted yesterday about their fishery-history. His last sentence was: Academic disciplines, only 150 years odd old, have not yet evolved sufficiently to deal with integrated coastal and marine ecology…

There's certainly a problem with the Magnusson Act, which IMO is based on wrong assumptions. I doubt whether it can live with the new ecosystem approach that, if not corrupted by "super-greenies" into "what fishing is doing to the ecosystem, fullstop", and indeed integrates all the environmental and interacting factors into a multifarious and dynamic picture, is the right way to go. More on the subject at my site www.benyami.org.

FISH STOCK SHRINKS? NOT NECESSARILY OVERFISHING

Ben-Yami's Fishing about





The term OVERFISHING is often misused or over-used.

Some years ago, I proposed to forfeit the term overfishing, wherever there's no evidence that a stock of fish shrunk because of fishing.
I suggested the term "impoverishment" for such cases. As we should all know, most fish populations fluctuate with environmental conditions, and with the state of their prey and predators, even without any fishing. They also perform, sometimes multiannual, migrations, when major shift in temperature occurs, as for example, the recent shift of whole mackerel stocks northwards in the NE Atlantic.

Thus, not every apparent impoverishment of local stocks is necessarily overfishing. It may be even not impoverishment at all, just moving out of the area. Survey or a statistical data that indicate that a stock has diminished, therefore, should be supported by additional data and information, leading to the causality of the phenomenon. There are documented opinions, information and actual data indicating that in some areas marine birds and marine mammals, each, consume more fish than related fisheries. Coastal pollution and longshore development may affect or even destroy habitats essential for fish spawning and larval feeding and growth.

SELECTIVITY: have we got it wrong?

Since the dawn of modern fisheries releasing the smaller and younger fish from nets has been management’s dogma. We’ve  been always told to fish only or mainly older, larger fish, and let the younger and smaller fish grow, mature and procreate. The assumption has been that the surviving spawners will produce

huge numbers of eggs and larvae, more than enough to replenish the population. Scientists and managers were prescribing minimum

hook sizes, and minimum mesh sizes for gillnets, trawl codends,

and seine bags.

But, recently more and more scientists appear todissent from

this dogma. What in fact we do, they say, is that by removing the large spawners, who produce large eggs and strong larvae, we

let spawn only the smaller ones, who produce much less and

smaller eggs per spawner and, consequently, smaller, weaker

larvae. Such selection may also lead to fish spawning at lower

age and much lesser size. Remember cod? It would spawn not before the age of 6, when it was three quarters of a meter long.

And now?...  St.Bernard has become a poodle... 

 

Inagine a human population of which every individual, who

exceeds 1.60 m in height is removed, so that only the short ones can procreate. How would such population look after several

generations?