DECLINES IN FISH STOCKS WORLDWIDE_the ecology of exinction

Agricultural run-off in inland waterways is a problem, too. Algal "blooms" in Aquia Creek (a tributary of the Potomac River) have all but killed the environment, and they are caused by fertilizer run-off. I don't know if this affects the oceans, though.

It is almost proven fact that these damage reefs and shallow coastal areas as badly as they damage rivers. Fertilizers and pesticides are increasingly a part of everyone's diet despite efforts to make the molecules short lived.

AS a traget to clean up and help retore environments, sewage (combined sewers are a disgrace) and industrial dischrages can be handled quite easily. Weve done a really good job in the US. big US rivers were historically toxic sewers until the 19702 when CWA began to incentivie and punish to clean up outfalls and "non point sources"

UNFORTUNATELY, as I see it, today one of the skankiest water pollution problems in the US is sediment laden runnoff from agriculture and development. Erosion and Sedimentation rules are getting stricter but its gonna take several years before we see several of our inland BAys like Chesapeake and Delaware begin to remove all the sediments entrained with hevy metals and ****.

In many cases the reintroduction of seafoods like oysters are being held up because the sediment laden waters kill off the "spat".
ANother really big problem is "estrogen mimics", these are relatively simple chemicals like detergents that mimic the effects of sex hormones and interrupt the breeding cycle and maturation of sea creatures and especially those that are important food fish, like flounder, perch, crabs, stripers, tog, and several other game and food fish.
SO the several species decline and overfishing cleans up the remnants. Efforts to fix ecosystems at a local level (like putting in seagrasses where striped bass nest and crabs breed) was done in the 1990's , but it was done only after a comprehensive sedimentation reduction plan was introduced in the Upper Chesapeake's major river , the SUsquehanna. SO after cleaning up enough of the sediment and then planting ea grass, the striped bass have shown a rapid return and , although its not like the late 1800's, its way better than what the commercial fishing was like in the 1950's

Sounds like jobs galore for do-gooders without doing any good but merely seeming to in the eyes of people who seek to slough off their personal responsibities and pose as virtuous for 15 minutes by empathising thrummingly.

In the US, none. WE can only do what we are good at. ANd we cannot recoil in horror and declare defeat.


Today, ecology is a rather mature applied science where management experts look at species restoration in a holistic fashion. In the Chesapeake for instance, the restoration of the crab had to consider the removal of "the mitten crab" (which preys on bluecrab larvae, the restoration of the oversilted sea bottoms with new grasses, and the "beefing up of the larval ffodfish that are food for crabs). I think youd be surprised as to how good habitat restoration can work, if only its taken seriously. Ive been following the news of how the lower delta of Nigeria is a sewer ferom oil production and pollutants upriver. The UN has begun to study the interelated aspects of the problem and will, ultimately come up with a series of interlaced programs to take action.

QWere nowhere near capacity and its a problem that is manageable. WE have to want to fix the problems and helping solve the economic problem of the world need to take a higher position, because any environmental benefits would only accrue as a result of populations that live in a free from want fashion.
In US , our overall marine environment is better now than iot was in the 1950's when entir rivers used to catch fire . I was working on a cleanup of mine waste at a serie of chrome processing facilities in the Chesapeake. QE did cores of sediment and found that , as a result of changing processes and going to higher levels of cleanup, there were much less contaminated zones as the core layers got closer to the present day layers. Also, the xhrome facilities could take greater tax breaks for installing higher cleanup levels which, serendipidous (?) allowed for a greater return on chrome per ton of ore. This same has been found in iron ore from the "RAnge" as well as aluminum from facilities on the Mississippi.

We can do it, we have the technology.I think that we need to adapt this entire aspect of applied engineering as a "new frontier". Its easy to **** up the planet and then declare that its impossible to do anything about it. Its a little more difficult to actually solve the problems but its not impossible in the least. Im convinced because Ive seen the amazing progress weve made on some US waters and land (and we aint getting any fewer).

I dont think we "need" to lose any species to make some vague point or to say "I told you the sky is falling". Nor do we have to kill off people. What we do need to do is adopt methods that were identified by world ecologists who study these niches. However, we cant sit on our asses and watch more species go into decline while some brazen country defies all international treaties and mines the oceans like it was their back yard. Resources are everyones , not just for a few, and US needs to stop being a partner to JApans severe overfishing of target species. If we keep going like they advocate, there will be nothing to share. I like fresh tuna and often eat it. I would cut back my own tuna eating to whatever is a reasonable sustainable level so long as I know that were giving the fish a chance to recover.

You just want to carry on with the 3% growth in self indulgence fm whilst assuaging your guilt farting around in a miniscule backwater called Chesapeake.

How's this for serious bullshit.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypjKxGCgO8E

Perched on the edge of salvation
DARREN GRAY
March 13, 2010
The Age (Aust.)
over the past few decades the Macquarie perch, a fish that was once abundant in Victorian waterways, has found it harder and harder to find protection.
Silt, land clearing and land use changes, dam and weir construction, changes in water temperatures, overfishing in the first half of the 20th century and, more recently, drought have left this native fish in severe decline and officially listed as endangered in both Victoria and New South Wales.
''Macquarie perch are endangered to such an extent where there's only half a dozen remnant populations of any significance in Australia

But now Victorian authorities have declared ''It's Mac time'' - a time to focus on rebuilding its numbers, protecting its habitat and saving the endangered fish.

read more
http://www.theage.com.au/national/perched-on-the-edge-of-salvation-20100312-q48n.html

Peter Garret is environment minister for the current Aust federal government and former front man for the band Midnight Oil.

Garrett rejects tuna ban
ANDREW DARBY
March 13, 2010
Australia has refused to join the US and European Union in seeking a trade ban on imperilled northern bluefin tuna.
At a meeting starting today in Doha, Australia will argue for a lesser listing that provides instead for more tightly managed trade of the fish.

''Australia strongly believes that firm and effective fisheries management, including through international fora, offers the best means to secure populations of this species of tuna across the globe,'' Mr Garrett said.

read more
http://www.theage.com.au/national/garrett-rejects-tuna-ban-20100312-q48o.html

Sushi appetite pushes bluefin tuna to brink
JUSTIN NORRIE
March 13, 2010
As a boy, Yoshio Yamada would stand on Misaki's docks and watch in awe as his fisherman father heaved giant bluefin tuna off his wooden boat and into the nearby marketplace

The bounty began to shrink, says Mr Yamada, with the spread in the 1970s of industrial fishing by large trawlers capable of scooping up thousands of fish in one go. The practice decimated the ippon-zuri industry and ravaged stocks of bluefin, prized in Japan for sushi and sashimi.

A report in October by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas found stocks of Atlantic and Mediterranean bluefin had plummeted by more than 85 per cent since the advent of widespread industrial fishing. According to the gravest forecast, by WWF International, the population of spawning females could be wiped out by 2012 unless the overfishing stops.

Alarm about the prospect prompted a US pledge last week to vote for the ban, which will require support from two-thirds of the 175 member countries to pass. The European Union has also voiced support - but will ask for the ban to be deferred a year - and has admitted the ban essentially targets Japan.

read the full artical here
http://www.theage.com.au/world/sushi-appetite-pushes-bluefin-tuna-to-brink-20100312-q47v.html

Japan to fight global trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna
KYOKO HASEGAWA
March 11, 2010
The Age (Aust)
Japan vowed Thursday to fight a global trade ban on Atlantic bluefin tuna, the pricey mainstay of sushi and sashimi, as Europe and the United States step up moves to protect the species.

The world's largest consumer of bluefin said it would ignore a global trade ban that could be decided this month on the species, which marine ecologists say faces the threat of extinction after decades of industrial-scale fishing.

The Japanese tuna traders fired back and charged that the bigger threats to fish stocks are general overfishing by fleets using so-called encircling nets that indiscriminately destroy marine life.

"What's more important is to ban overfishing and the bycatch of tuna by large scale fishing vessels with encircling nets, run mostly by Chinese and Taiwanese fishermen," Ban said.
"We, the traders and the fishermen, all suffer from overfishing.
"European and American people should know that the canned tuna they consume on a daily basis comes from overfishing by these encircling net vessels for bonito. It's said that 20 to 30 percent of their haul are young tuna fish.

Japan has argued that tuna fishing should be regulated through quotas set by other international bodies such as the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission and the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission.

read more here
http://news.theage.com.au/breaking-news-world/japan-to-fight-global-trade-ban-on-atlantic-bluefin-tuna-20100311-q17f.html

The Australian government's stance on tuna relates to support of the tuna fishing industry in Port Lincon Sout Australia.

There will have been some wheeling and dealing between Japan and Aust. with regard to whaling and exchange of information on tuna farming research.

Interesting reports, DP . . . thanks for those links.

Then I will ask the question more specifically. Since the second world war, how many species in the world have become endangered compared to those that have been removed from the endangered list and how many have become extinct ?

If you are talking to me when you say that, you had better get your facts straight. Perhaps I should join you.."unscientific running around screaming help from one spot to another is tantamount to doing nothing. We cant let the situation get any worse by emotional bullshit perpetuated by green idiots. Its impossible to save entire environments, we must save one species at a time so we will look like heros and pose for photos with sexy things like whales" or maybe I wont play your silly little game of attributing things to people who havent said them...I dont know...it is an emotional decision after all, just like the green movement.

Cant you read ? That is exactly my point. I dont think I would be surprise at all. I want to save entire habitats, not just cutsie species that attract tourist cameras.


Where do you think all that crap went ?
A) Mars
B) The oceans
C) The atmosphere
D) B & C
E) A rubbish bin out the back of McDonalds

Lets pretend it went into the oceans and the atmosphere. You can save the whale and tuna and everything else you want in the short term, but without a serious policy involving the entire planet you are on a fool's errand. And you can measure sucess...look ! They are still there ! Success !! whilst the floor slowly disappears from under them, then surprise ! one day we will have done so much damage to the vast majority of species that support the sexy ones that it will all collapse. I dont want the pleasure of telling you I told you so. I want a systematic effort to save as much of the world as possible and in the current political climate I doubt that can be done. The window is closing and I couldnt care a rats arse about a whale anymore than a cockroach. I have no sexual attraction to fat women or whales or cockroaches and I try to apply science rather than emotion as to what should be done to save the maximum amount of life on this planet, including people.

Its easy to **** up the planet and then declare that its impossible to do anything about it except what is currently being done, one species at a time.

But in the mean time you are happy to keep eating Tuna..thats the spirit !

If you read your own previous posts, they sound to me like what I call "giving up the fight because you sound like you say that all is lost". If you want to take issue with me, then you should re read what youve written and think about how it may sound to someone else entirely.

BALD EAGLES pretty much strted the "green movement" in the US. We still have deniers that say pesticide use was not responsible for their almost going extinct but when DDT was banned the entire ecosystem rebounded. (songbirds came back, eagles came back to the point where they are very common signs of winter in tge East)

Worldwide, I know of several species that went extinct bvut there was no real reason (other than politics of greed and power) for those extinctions to take place. We lost the SUmatran tiger to poaching,same thing with one of the zebra species. We are going to lose the Right whale and the Humpback espite the fact of the moratorium. One of the sea turtles was going extinct until sanctuaries were established.

If you say Im being unrealistic and too strident, Your posts read the same except from a point that I cannot really understand where the heck youre coming from. 1You seem to understand that things are going extinct but you seem to want to only handle them on a "mega planetary scale, even though you realize that weve got success stories and abysmal failures of many of the same species dependent upon which country youre in. The Japanese story that Dadpad had just posted is prime example. Japan will be key to keeping tuna from going extinct yet their approach of gradual trimming ofcatches may not be satisfactory to the tuna population. Nobody seems to know how many are actually left so how can they develop a formula, Meanwhile the tuna are still disappearing and losing biodiversity so that is some big environmental crunch comes, we lose all bluefins maybe. (Thats whats happening to the humpback whale)


The "crap" (industrial and human wastes) that you dont seem to want to recognize is still a problem has been handled pretty mush by chemical/biological processes. In the 1950's and until the US Clean Water ACt. Discharges were just dumpd into the bay by pipes. Today, most industrial systems have very good treatment systems that account for an "In situ" reduction of most pollutants. Nitrogen and phosphorus are handled by biochemical means (They dont dump the chemical into the environment without reducing the concentrations to below some regional target that is harmless (actually beneficial() to marine life.
Weve also adjusted the very formulas of chemical in our products and have gone from solvent based things to water based things (varnishes, ect).

Im not saying its perfect because now, with the economy, were seeing many states cutting back on their inspection programs and the US SUpreme court has recently ruled that a key provision of the clean water act may be fuckin UNCONSTITUTIONAL. (Our present SUpremwe Court needs some early retirements).
There are still uncontrolled discharges and unterated **** going out the pipes. Cities are really bad actors because if we get heavy rains the combined seqers systems just discharge untreaed sediment laden water into the estuaries and **** up the quality for months. Its not perfect but its working a lot better than if we just gave up and let everything go to chaos.

So we disagree on the proper way to do it. (clean up and restore habitats). I say to get on with it and act responsibly, put in new technologies, handle the water treatment in a fashion that is being done in US (in theory) try to export that "common sense" approach to the world. (I understand that Germany and the Netherlands have reasonably strict water diascharge standards and treatment requiremenst).



Thats a bit of a pompous kind of cop out. You seem to want to declare anybody who doesnt agree with you , an idiot, yet if you really want to clean up the environment and restore habitats, you oughta get moving while you still have a barrier reef. "One species and habitat at a time" to me means "The Chesapeake Bay" Its a bay thats a door to the US mainland and is larger than any estuary in most European countries who(except for a noted few) are doing precious little . A single habitat and species can be the coral of your barrier reef, there are several major research efforts going on just to do that.

SAving one species , like tuna or chilean sea "bass" is one ecosystem in effect but tuna can travel in the entire N ATlantic.

As far as my own "Tuna tastes" I try to eat albacore or yellowfin. I like bluefin but I really dont find it exceptionally different except in sushi, so I try to avoid "fatty tuna sushi . ITs a gradual awareness that is slowly moving over our country and we may have to enforce the 200 mile limit on Japan, (as well as cutting our own fishing fleet takes).

Im infavor of doing something that is measurably positive. Arguing about it and not doing anything in the end is as bad as arguing politics and then not voting.

You seem to be particularly against anyone that is part of the Green Movement. In the US thats usually a sign of someone who believes everything that Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh say. Its sort of a shibboleth , a tattoo of the "true believers" in chaos and libertarian politics. If you are of that ilk, I understand where youre coming from. I just refuse to buy any of it because th Conservatives are the best "stall tactic" politicos we have. Theyve made an industry of stalling rather than doing, and its been a standard approach since the 1970's whe n they fought the Clean Water ACt as it was originally proposed.

People only have a limited attention span and a limited amount of money they want to spend. Why doesnt europe rebuild its forests ? Why dont we round up people like you and make them live in multi-level apartments ? This would limit the human footprint and make available more land for presrvation of species.

You give the perfect example of what I am talking about - the bald eagle wasnt saved by mating them, they were quite happy to do that themselves. They were saved by removing the eco-system based threat, which was not only endangering them, but other species also. If there had not of been a ecosystem approach, no amount of money or breeding programs would have saved them.

So long as we have a save the cute ones philosophy we are in danger of damaging the base of every eco-system we have. We need a world wide approach to pollution and harvesting.

I am glad the Chesapeake Bay is safe, but anything that close to that much money was never threatened.

Saving sharks and whales and tuna takes away focus, responsibility and money from things that really matter. Insects and plant life ( esp microscopic life in the oceans) are far more important and recieve nothing. Now if those greenpeace clowns were out ramming their boat into someone polluting the planet I could manage a small cheer...but to save whales is nonsense when there are bigger things to save.

I think it speaks volumes that your emphasis is to save what you can have your picture taken with....

????? And you formed this opinion how ???

You will have more credibility when you speak with your mouth not full.

They have failed. The "ohhh ....isnt it cute " approach has been tried and things are worse. You point out success and show total ignorance as to how it has failed.

I have no idea who they are.

You are in favour of camouflaging the damage being done with false success stories. Who says I dont want to do anything in the end ? You made that up and it does your side a disservice.

Im trying to follow but you seem to be trying to occupy both sides of an argument . Your fixation with "cute" species sounds a bitt uninformed and more than a bit swelf congratulatory.

I dont think you have any idea how bald eagles were saved in the US. (hint: ecosystem management had nothing to do with it). AFter DDT was outlawed, eagles were artificially mated by a process called "hacking" Females were tricked into laying several clutches of eggs and eggs were incubated and raised by humans then the eaglets were released into the wild . AFter two decades, the hacking program "Took" (notice, not one bit of an ecological niche was harmed or even consulted in the making of these young). Today, in PA alone are about 500 breeding pairs of eagles and theyve adapted to everything from deep forests to a suburban lifestyle.


You're bitter over everything I say, I guess we have little to actually communicate about. Ill bid you adieu

I dont think you can follow your own argument so I am not disapponited that you cant follow anyone else's.I hope you understand this mess, because I dont think anyone else can follow you. If a deliberate attempt was made to improve the eco-system than that was management.

I had to read that twice to realise you werent talking about your side of the argument. Your whole approach has been self-congratulatory and your idea of knowledge is that if we have saved one and twenty have perished we are doing very well and no-one has the right to suggest an alternate approach. Your whole approach smacks of someone who knows very little about eco-systems but has read every green literature he can lay his hands on and has gleefully swallowed every lie without any critical thinking.

I have tried to explain a holistic approach but you have pointed out little pieces and said see how clever the current system of conservation is...well, no, I dont.

Only you and one other had entered the term "cute" into what you call an argument. I never used the term except once when cornered by RG who had introduced the term and I, in exhaustion, said that I DID consider several of thge animals to be "cute". HoweverThat has no bearing into the program to save these species as important members of ther own ecosystem. Using the term "cute or cutesy" or saying Im only interested in saving something to have a photo op with it, thats just an attempt by someone like you to keep a high dudgeon going. The only reason that your not calling me "**** for brains" is because youre using that at present in describing no less than 2 other members . (Ever since you expressed your professional opinion that I seek help to treat my Alzheimers, Ive been working hard to exercise my memory , so Im extra sensitive of overuse of any one pejoritave at a time).

Ive entered this argument with a hope that, sooner or later youd put something of real substance of your own in. All youve been doing is seriatem clips of me (and others) and doing 180 responses that are, for the most part, free of anything that approaches scientific substance. If you have data or evidence, quotes from literature or statements by recognized individuals or teams, Id be glad to be shown the error of my ways. However, up till now, I give the "meat and taters> and you just respond by calling names.
Not a real effective way to make a point sir. Im starting to doubt your veracity and depths of knowledge.

Now, if youre trying to say that eagles were saved from extinction in the lower 48 states of the US by "ecosystem management" youre going to have to be way more specific and compelling .

Ima little tired of being the one supplying facts and then just watching your clipart tactics of doing mass refutation without ANYTHING of substance.

Ive been up most of the night dealing with newborn lambs that have decided to be born so, Ive lost a bunch of sleep so as it is. Im sitting here reading several threads and Ive seen that many of yours are showing up and I must say that there are a few other subjects to which you feel compelled to add your own brand of "scholarship" (opinion without much substance).
I think that youve been
OUTED by folks more skillful than I , since I am, as everyone knows, fair and balanced and quite pliant when being shouted down. SOOO, if your gonna keep beating me up, please at least add some bases in fact to what your attempting to get across.(just a suggestion)

I'm a little tired of watching this exchange, too, farmer.

Nothing you can say will satisfy Ionus, who is stuck in "objecting" mode. (For whatever reason. Who know why? ) He just wants to argue for the sake of argument , whatever you might say.

As for the "cute" anti-conservationist argument ...

Well, that is what one argues when one has nothing substantial to argue back with.

I am not going to pay any more attention to future Ionus posts in this vein on this thread. I will be voting such posts down.

And I sincerely hope you stop wasting your time trying to deal rationally with such irrational crapolla.