November 03, 2006

'Only 50 Years Left' for Sea Fish .
  • Yay! We win! Take THAT, stupid fish!
  • What a coincidence, fish & chips is the lunch special today.
  • well we better enjoy the sushi while we can.... :(
  • Sushi doesn't have to have seafud in it to be delicious.
  • you would say that. although I heartily agree.
  • This is why I have been saying for years that we should encourage the conscumption potato chips, candy bars, cakes, french fries, etc. These foods and others like them do not harm animal life. Some of them don't even harm plant life. When environmentalists start waking up and realizing that it is only through the embracing of synthetic foods that we can ever truly call ourselves environmentalists, then the world will be a better place.
  • not to mention we'll solve the longevity/over-pop problem with the massive youthful die-off via due to poor-diet-related illness :)
  • well we better enjoy the sushi while we can.... Read an article this morning on this very subject; the jist of it said not to worry about sushi, as commercial fisheries can easily provide sushi-grade stocks for the industry. Well, that's what it said anyways... Umm, if the fish go, they will not be the only ones... bye bye!
  • Spine-chilling and slightly sick-making. I mean, we always knew we'd run out of natural resources eventually, but that it could happen in our lifetime is sobering. All that aside, I must find and marry research leader Boris Worm.
  • Deep sea fishing is the Tragedy of the Commons. Noone owns it, so everyone who can takes as much as they can. The same can be said for near-shore fisheries and estuaries that are not well regulated.
  • yeah, not to be all gloom-n-doom but no sushi is the least of it, isn't it? I suspect we have no inkling of how intrinsically wound in the health of the greater biosphere is the health of the oceans and their biodiversity. if we do see a massive die-off/depletion of fish species I think the general impact will be catastrophic. any biology types care to speculate on some doomsday scenarios?
  • The Deep Sea Conservation Coalition is supporting a moratorium on high seas bottom trawling, an especially destructive and wasteful method of fishing. Canadian monkeys can sign a petition here here.
  • Hear, hear!
  • Near my MIL's house there's an abandoned oyster house on the waterfront. Abandoned because oysters left that part of the Chesapeake many years ago. When we would go and visit her, we'd catch blue crabs, which were deleicous. We don't any more, nor does one see any of the commercial fishermen's crab pot buoys that used to dot the water. No more crabs. You don't have to be a biology type to speculate on doomsday scenarios.
  • You know, I joke, but only because it's so mind-numbingly depressing. As a consumer, I try to make environmentally friendly purchases, but there's just so much that we don't know, and can't really find out, about the provenance of such things. Well, we can, I suppose, but after a lot of effort that is beyond the range of most. Only the political side of things, it's also incredibly frustrating, that issues like global warming or bottom trawling get pushed aside by those same self-interested corporate interests. Canada used to be one of the good guys (so we were told and readily believed) when it came to the environment, and now our governments are clearly as disinterested as can be, offerring only token measures good enough for photo ops. We have the idea that we can enforce change through the ballot box and through our spending habits, but when consumer options are stymied by corporate power (such as in the case presented in "Who Killed the Electric Car?"), or political options are limited by the realities of the entrenched political systems, where you're left to choose between the lesser of evils, rather than the progressive vision you're really after, it all only serves to promote cynicism and apathy. Do I want my tomatoes to come from California? No. Are there any local tomatoes in my supermarket? No. Do I want to drive a combustion-based car around? No. Is there public transit where I am? Of course not. It doesn't stop me from trying to do my part, but whatever I do is more than wiped out by the ephemeral corporate interests here and abroad, and by the consumers who have either no interest in the evironment, or whom have already given up on it. Still, there's an appetite for change. It just seems as if there's not enough money in feeding that appetite to induce the sea change that needs to happen.
  • you would say that. It has taken almost 3 hours for me to realize why you said that - more brain food needed!
  • *tallies one for the piscatorial comment* Hah? Haah? Eeuughhhh. /Krusty Well spoke Louis. I try to think about the idea that even the smallest effort towards positive change counts. Recycle one soda can? Okay. that's +1
  • Name three of the primary causes of the fall of the Roman Last Empire.
  • Easy: yellow, red, and . . blue.
  • Well said, pete! It can be overwhelming to feel that the weight of environmental failure is on your shoulders. To the point where you say "to hell with it". But every small act really does count. You do what you can, and try not to feel too badly about what you can't. /sappyfilter I've said it before, and I'll probably be labeled a militant vegetarian, which I'm not (not militant, anyway), but I really do think we've evolved to the point where we don't need to rely on the biological creatures of our planet for food sources any longer. There are too many of us, and if we lose all the animals, I don't think anyone can foresee the consequences completely.
  • I read this somewhere and it stuck. "A Biology Professor gives a new student a fish and tells him to look at the fish and write down everything he observes. At the end of the day, the Prof comes back and reads the student's notes then tells the student he's missed the most obvious and important point about the fish. The student has to observe the fish again. By the end of the 2nd day, the student is bloody fed up with the fish but carries on. The Prof reads the 2nd day's notes and tells the student he's missed the key point again. The student has to observe the fish for a 3rd day. The student is tearing his hair out. Finally he realises that the fish is bilaterally symetrical. It's a fundamental fact of fish anatomy." The point of this story is about making sense of what's around you and accepting that your own personal observations can lead to new insights. Science isn't absolute. Things change constantly, new ideas grow out of often very disparate observations. There is no point in being emotional or distracted by fear or a sense of helplessness - because we need to think clearly about what we can do to change things. One new insight can change an entire field of knowledge. Ecological Management is really in it's infancy in terms of scientific study. Recognition and acceptance of the observations and work of Biological/Ecological Scientists is slow getting through to the dino-brains of government and business, but it is getting there. The Bio/Eco mob are just getting around to understanding that they have to 'market' the knowledge to get the information out there but who wants to hear just the bad news? We also want to know, on a personal level, what we can do to change things. Steve Irwin was a brilliant front-man in this area. His death was a bloody tragedy for ecology, not just his family. People could relate to him in a way they can't relate to some whispy-bearded boffin spruiking about 'sustainability'. For the majority it's, "WTF! What's that mean fakrissake?" But the message is getting across. When you get Rupert Murdoch changing his perspective on the subject, you know there's a shift in attitude and it's taking hold. Didn't Ghandi say - "Think local, act global" - or something like that? It starts in your home and in your own backyard. If one person can find away to sustain their personal environment in a creative way that is easy to implement, has an attractive result and saves money and effort then other's will follow suit. Save a fish. Build you own lobster farm in your back garden. Start small, move up, make millions. ;)
  • As I posted in another blog,, This is only based on ocean harvesting under present conditions. If what is being said about global warming is true,,and if enough of the ice poles melt to affect the thermohaline circulation, then this could actually happen much sooner. It's not a question of will it happen, more a question of when. It's going to be nasty, for the majority of humans survive on the animal protein from the oceans.
  • Ass fuckity shitbags.
  • I believe that the greatest issue facing humanity today is overpopulation. It is the main cause of many of our problems. I am not being my usual silly self when I say that. We can do all we want to try to help the fish, reduce emissions, conserve fuel or water, etc. But the real problem is that there are way too many people, and it is only going to get worse. We need developed countries to begin to discourage people from having more than three children. It needs to become considered selfish and socially irresponsible to have more than three children. We need to link foreign aid to developing countries to their efforts at population control. We need to hand out condoms, vasectomies, and hysterectomies like they are candy. Eventually, laws will have to be passed. But that is all way too anti-family values and will never really happen. Instead, the wealthy nations will increasingly use military strength to hoard the remaining resources that the earth offers while secretly hoping that the increasing billions find some way to die off in enormous numbers.
  • Soylent green, people. And on a more realistic scenario, have you tasted Quorn?
  • We need developed countries to begin to discourage people from having more than three children. Do you mean "developing"? I read somewhere that the only developed country that isn't below zero population growth is the U.S.
  • Heh, Quorn. That's the food of choice for the calorie-restricted dietors, isn't it? Most of us could live on half the calories we ingest daily. Overpopulation's not the problem. It's overeating that's the problem.
  • No, I mean developed. We have to lead by example. What percentage of the world's population do you think takes in too many calories per day?
  • No, I mean developed. We have to lead by example List of countries by population growth. 107 of 235 countries have annual population growth rates below 1% including the U.S. at 0.91%. China is lower at 0.59%. The European Union's growth rate is even more striking at 0.15% and Japan's growth rate is effectively zero. We already seem to be leading by example. Only a minority percentage of the world's population takes in too many calories per day. But I'd wager that if we're talking impact on fisheries, curtailing of the overeating would have a bigger impact than curtailing the global population.(?)
  • I'd like to see a global Map of Where Fish Live. I would think that most if not all commercial fishing occurs no more than 20-30 miles from shore. The majority of the ocean is further away than that. Are there no fish out there? And if we honked a horn in the water, like the one they used to call Flipper with, would they come closer?
  • Here ya go, RTD (scroll down for maps)
  • Well, thanks, Islander. But those maps are very vague as to location, speak only to "major fisheries", and do not show us the fishy population way the fuck out there near nowhere. It seems to me we have screwed ouselves by picking all of the low-hanging fruit. The rest of the fishies will be fine, they are literally beyond our reach. For now.
  • Many fish live in shallower shoreline waters because they eat the stuff that comes out of the rivers and the bottom crawly thingies. The middle of the ocean has nothing but monsters and serpents.
  • Grilled serpent in cliantro and butter is delish.
  • yes, but have you tried the monster sashimi?? mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!
  • Mrs. TheDog & I just finished a brief discourse on the end of humanity as we know it. For me, I will be one pissed off corpse if the world ends 10, 20, 30 years after I die and I didn't get a long enough ticket to see the finale. Now, I am certainly not a rapture type, and I am not cheering on the end of our race. But if we are headed for doom due to our own stupidity or for any other reason, I'd like to at least see how this novel ends. That's my view. I got a cold stare from the other half.
  • MonkeyFilter: No more crabs
  • RTD, I have a similar grim curiosity myself. I just think, if it's going ka-boom anyway, it would be pretty cool to witness it....
  • have you tried the monster sashimi Every sashimi I eat is Monster Sashimi!
  • Alright. I'm eating haddock and chips right now, because two days in the pub lead me to believe I'm entitled. Forget sushi, for God's sake, people, won't someone think of the alcoholics?
  • Well said, Capt. And I think that a serious population curtailing is inevitable. Ma Nature is going to rub some salve on that annoying rash she's got, and that'll be that.
  • All that aside, I must find and marry research leader Boris Worm. Hey, TUM - I've just noticed he's in my neighbourhood. Shall I introduce you?
  • I have a similar grim curiosity myself. I just think, if it's going ka-boom anyway, it would be pretty cool to witness it.... Had a wicked "doomsday" dream last week. I was standing on a beach, and by all accounts everything was "normal." It was late evening, the stars were shining bright and the moon cast its reflection upon the waves... In the distant horizon, a faint and eerie orange glow appeared. Initially, I thought it was an odd remnant of the sunset, but alas, the orange glow increased and expanded with ferocity. In an instant, I witnessed a tsunami of pure molten destruction, from the waters to the upper reaches of the atmosphere - surely to devour the planet in mere seconds. What made the dream especially terrifying was that I was certain it was reality (I tend to have lucid dreams wherein I am congnizant of the fact that I am dreaming).
  • In South Park, they Blame Canada. Catchy Flash tune at the bottom.
  • I was recently SHOCKED to see "Cod", not only on sale in my supermarket for the same price as Tilapia, but in an ad for a Carls Jr. fish sandwich. Is the Cod really making a comeback? Or did the FDA just agree to a wider definition of the fish name? (Not REALLY Cod, but an incredible simulation?)
  • No Carl's Jr. at all east of Texas :(
  • Check out Hardee's (same owner using that branding in other parts of the country with similar but not identical menus, but yeah, there's the cod)