Where do you Stand on EATING Wild Seafood?

@Setanta,

I actually only read the first few posts shame on me, then again 6am start till 6.30 will do that to a person.

Whilst you are right, and we can't change nature in killing species, could man not have seen this and corrected it somewhat, maybe not, but maybe so too...

Environment and allowing "safe" breeding verses expense of product maybe ?

IDK..

Man can farm but they can't help natural breeding and control?

Smile

Just saying.

1 Reply

@FOUND SOUL,

There is no linkage between the conservation of wild, pelagic environments and any farming operation, including farming for fish and shellfish. As for other types of farming, much of it is done by corporate enterprises, or is subsidized by the state. These are chronically short-term thinkers. They are interested in the bottom line, and have little to no interest in the conservation of resources.

But, once again, to hew to the line of discussion, farming fish or shellfish has no impact on pelagic conditions, from which wild seafood derives. The closest anyone can come to making such an argument is to talk about pollution, but pollution is an issue in itself, not an issue of the conservation of wild species.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

These are chronically short-term thinkers. They are interested in the bottom line, and have little to no interest in the conservation of resources.

Is everything on this Earth Man Made Confused

Quote:

The closest anyone can come to making such an argument is to talk about pollution, but pollution is an issue in itself, not an issue of the conservation of wild species.

And isn't pollution man made too?

Man doesn't give a **** about life other than their life, and that of the dollar I am convinced on that note ...

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@Setanta,

Farming of pelagic species like almon is making great leaps. The salmon farms in the Fundy area are so sited and maintained as to keep pens in a minimal density condition and the fish are raised in moving waters, rather than back bay conditions. The market has responded to food snobbery and has produced an erzats "wild farmed" product that is pretty close to the taste and texture and color of wild salmon (while the problems of pollution from water products are decreased, they still occur). Now they use developing semi farming of benthic species in the same areas and these benthics are used for sport fishing. Some of the best haddock fishing is among salmon pen areas and the salmon farmers invite fishermen in MAine and NB areas .
The major problem is the need for better conservation means in the benthic and sessile benthic species (like scallops and cod ). The codfish and haddock and others are the ones that have taken relly big hits due to drag lining and "vacuuming". Conservation and new means of fishing will help bring them back but probably never will we see cod the way that early explorers described them.

1 Reply

@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

Conservation and new means of fishing will help bring them back but probably never will we see cod the way that early explorers described them.

How did the early explorers describe them?

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@Finn dAbuzz,

Quote:

Whether or not wild seafood tastes better than the farm raised variety, our tastebuds shouldn't decide whether or not a species is rendered extinct in the wild. Given extinction in the wild, we will all be eating farm raised seafood, and so the pressure to serve wild seafood, if it actually is leading to extinction, is base self-indulgence.

I couldn't agree more, Finn.
Just thumbed up your post.

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@rosborne979,

rosborne979 wrote:

farmerman wrote:
Conservation and new means of fishing will help bring them back but probably never will we see cod the way that early explorers described them.

How did the early explorers describe them?

John Cabot said the fish on the Grand Banks, and he specified the cod, were so thick they stopped his ship. He made his voyage in 1497, when European fishermen had been coming for a century or more, and landing on Newfounland to smoke or salt down the catch. A member of his crew said that: "the sea there is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets but with fishing-baskets."

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Setanta wrote:

John Cabot said the fish on the Grand Banks, and he specified the cod, were so thick they stopped his ship. He made his voyage in 1497, when European fishermen had been coming for a century or more, and landing on Newfounland to smoke or salt down the catch. A member of his crew said that: "the sea there is full of fish that can be taken not only with nets but with fishing-baskets."

Sounds very colorful. Smile

I wonder how much of that is "tall tale" and how much is reasonably accurate? Probably impossible to say. But it sure does sound like a lot of fish.

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@rosborne979,

The reports of early explorers are sufficiently similar that i doubt that it is a tall tale. Undisturbed, the Grand Banks would be the richest feeding environment for pelagic species on the planet. It's a combination of the dominant currents and the topography of the sea floor.

This is from the Wikipedia article on the Grand Banks:

Quote:

The Grand Banks of Newfoundland are a group of underwater plateaus southeast of Newfoundland on the North American continental shelf. These areas are relatively shallow, ranging from 80 to 330 feet (24–100 m) in depth. The cold Labrador Current mixes with the warm waters of the Gulf Stream here.

The mixing of these waters and the shape of the ocean bottom lifts nutrients to the surface. These conditions helped to create one of the richest fishing grounds in the world. Fish species include Atlantic cod, sword fish, haddock, and capelin. Shellfish include scallop and lobster. The area also supports large colonies of sea birds such as Northern Gannets, shearwaters, and sea ducks and various sea mammals such as seals, dolphins, and whales.

1 Reply

@Setanta,

I love the way the "old timers" expressed themselves. "stopped the ship" and "catch them in a hand basket". Very colorful.

I also read (and posted) something about the Stellar's Sea Cow a while back and remembered it being a very descriptive story. (on one of Farmerman's threads on Manatee's I think).

1 Reply

@rosborne979,

I recall that . . . i had a video game (no ****, really) that introduced me to the Stellar's Sea Cow. Long story, not worth recounting . . .

Yeah, the old timers (or so it seems now) valued colorful language more than we do.

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@rosborne979,

John SMith also talked of cod so thick off what we now call Cape Charles as "So thicke theye could be walked upon" Now that was , of course bullshit because we know that cod are benthic so they would have been one or two hundred feet down (hard walking)

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One of the "problems" which John Winthrop faced was the fishermen who came out to Massachusetts to literally make their fortunes. In Winthrop's Massachusetts, you couldn't participate in government unless you were a member in good standing in a recognized congregation. But the fishermen didn't give a rat's ass, because they were there for the fish, and the fish only. The Basques, the Portuguese and the French would sail across the Atlantic in season, make a big catch, land to smoke it or salt it, and then sail home. But when the Puritans started going out to Massachusetts, the English fishermen realized they could set up a permanent operation on shore. They fished all year 'round, and their wives and children salted or smoked the fish, with ships coming out to pick up the catch and take it back to England several times a year.

The Puritans constantly complained about their morals and often the fact that they were unchurched, but could not do anything about them because that would have attracted unwanted royal attention. During the civil wars, they desparately needed the foreign exchange that the Massachusetts fishermen provided. The Portuguese went to Massachusetts in large numbers (there had been a "special relationship" between Portugal and England since the 14th century) and have been a significant part of the population ever since.

I really think that there would not have been very much attention paid to northern North America by European governments had it not been for the Grand Banks.

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@Setanta,

I've gone deep sea fishing before and caught cod right off the coast of Plymouth, MA. That is about as fresh and wild as you get.

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@Linkat,

So, at the fish fry, your portion was your cod piece?

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@farmerman,

farmerman wrote:

John SMith also talked of cod so thick off what we now call Cape Charles as "So thicke theye could be walked upon" Now that was , of course bullshit because we know that cod are benthic so they would have been one or two hundred feet down (hard walking)

I can forgive them for a little embellishment. Makes for a better story. But I would like to have seen what they saw. Smile

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@Setanta,

I don't fry my fish....

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@rosborne979,

Quote:

But I would like to have seen what they saw.

So would I. I reacall reading some books by a guy named Ewell Gibbons when I was a kid and he talked about oyster bars in the tidal creeks of the Chesapeake bay where you could reach down and scoop up a bushel of "arsters" at a clip. Oysters loved to be in the shallows.

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@Linkat,

Missed the joke, huh?

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@farmerman,

All of this is rather reminiscent of the reports of herds of tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands of bison, elk, pronghorn, etc., reported by the Lewis and Clark expedition. I cannot recommend too highly Lewis and Clark: Pioneering Naturalists, Paul Russell Cugtright, University of Illinois Press, Urbana-Champaign, 1969.

1 Reply

Where do you Stand on EATING Wild Seafood?

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