Quota the catch or quota the effort

[sorseress]

http://www.stripgenerator.com/viewEng.php?id=141764

Oh, that's good!

 

[main_board]

I guess I didn't mean to focus on the difficulties in species identification for the observers, cause I know that its not an easy job. I just wanted to clarify what their current role was on boats. I still think that they'd be able to take accurate notes on how many, when, and how long trawls were made, but myopsida has a good point about fisher-people adapting with larger nets. If they started trawling longer, the observers would be able to note that but I'm not sure how much control they would have over net size.

Out of curiousity, how many countries have an observer-type program?

Maybe more effort needs to be put into working with the fisher-people to help them understand how to fish sustainably. Though I still think this is only worth while in other fisheries, as trawling is just too destructive and should be banned out right.

Is the Falkland Fishery more successful? or is anything know yet on the impact effort quotas has on the stocks compared to regular management?

Cheers!

 

[cthulhu77]

I think the main problem here is that for some odd reason, people still think that there is something as imaginable as a "sustainable fishery"...there isn't
We have overfished the livestock of this planet, to the point where there is little chance that our children will ever be able to eat fish...the mercury content of most predatory fish is unsafe by any standard, the bulk of the bottom dwellers are nearing extinction.
Game over, set and match point.

greg

 

[Steve O'Shea]

Interesting; stuff I'd not considered.

Obviously you would have to refine the definition of effort. Perhaps it could become a measure of bottom-contactable area, rather than unit effort (measured in duration or number of tows).

 

[Cephkid]

In another thread:


A very good point (although I disagree with harvesting whales). The word that catches my eye however is 'sustainable'. This brings me to an alternative way of 'sustainably harvesting' fisheries resources.

People hail the Quota Management System [QMS] as the best way to sustainably manage fish stocks, assuming you have an accurate way to assess those fish stocks, and know the fundamental biological data about species life histories and interconnectedness with their environment. Sadly we know too little about their life histories, and almost nothing about trophic interconnectedeness.

I would like to see an alternative 'QMS' developed. We know that it is the effort (trawls, dredges, frequency) that damages the environment (sea bed and water column), and removes from the system (ecosystem) huge numbers of bycatch species that are of no commercial value and are discarded. As we pillage the environment, increasing effort to catch fewer fish, we end up doing more damage to it ('Catch Per Unit Effort' [CPUE] decreases, Total Catch may remain the same, but environmental damage increases).

Why don't we quota the effort?

Example: "The fishing industry is allowed to conduct 'x' trawls within a given area any given year, regardless of CPUE"

Comments?

How could a system like this be developed?

Myopsida?

It would never work- too convienent and reasonable (also makes too much sense). My example: in the US, people used to have clean, good, healthy water flowing to their houses. Then the cities decided "let's not clean the water so much, we'll save money; and with that money, we can go to the supermarket- and buy water..."
People seem to have something against smart ideas...

 

[Cephkid]

It makes sense to have observers do this sort of work, but the problem lies in the diversity of species retained in these trawls/dredges. For instance, here are a few pics of typical bycatch (invertebrate) from a scampi trawl. Very(!!!) few scientists can identify this stuff, so the expectation that an observer without formal scientific training could do it would be a bit much. If you asked me to identify the finfish bycatch then I'd struggle (my expertise is with invertebrates only). Finding someone with skills in both invertebrate and fish identification would be a major challenge!

Anyone want to have a guess as to what these animals are? They're not the most charismatic of beasts, but they are important nevertheless.

Uhhh...Ophioderma spp(?) and Asterina or Fromia spp(?)
Fromia spp(?) a Sea Apple or Sponge (Medusa coral?) and Crabs.
Crabs. (Arrow, or Blue?)

Hey, he offered a chance to guess, I took it.

 

[Cephkid]

http://www.stripgenerator.com/viewEng.php?id=141764

Good one!

 

[chrono_war01]

We have over fished almost everything that's edible in the ocean for the pass like what? 50 years? The ocean can only absorb the loss of a few more entire ecosystems before the whole thing collapses like a pile of bricks right on our heads. There is no sustainable fishery, we have gone to far down the road of destroying our planet to have anything that can be salvaged and be restored to even what would be a shadow of its former self.

But to heck with it! We all love our favourite diarrhea fish which were caught by obliterating said fish's habitat. After all, global warming is just a myth, just like the myth and nonsense about the "harms of bottom trawling" Pfff..everyone knows that bottom trawling is done on clear sandy beds without harming the environment! If we've done in for years, why not continue, it'd be one heck of a way to go, engineering the destruction of the entire human race by trawling some place that nobody would probably see. HOOOYA!


/depression.

 

[Cephkid]

We have over fished almost everything that's edible in the ocean for the pass like what? 50 years? The ocean can only absorb the loss of a few more entire ecosystems before the whole thing collapses like a pile of bricks right on our heads. There is no sustainable fishery, we have gone to far down the road of destroying our planet to have anything that can be salvaged and be restored to even what would be a shadow of its former self.

But to heck with it! We all love our favourite diarrhea fish which were caught by obliterating said fish's habitat. After all, global warming is just a myth, just like the myth and nonsense about the "harms of bottom trawling" Pfff..everyone knows that bottom trawling is done on clear sandy beds without harming the environment! If we've done in for years, why not continue, it'd be one heck of a way to go, engineering the destruction of the entire human race by trawling some place that nobody would probably see. HOOOYA!


/depression.

I'm with stupid. (Agreements all around).

 

[Steve O'Shea]

... before the whole thing collapses like a pile of bricks...

Heavens; there's a leak, a spy ... someone has been reading my mail! There's a forthcoming Greenpeace release (July) wherein we refer to this as the 'Jenga principle'.

 

[sorseress]

What is so blinkin' frustrating is how few people seem to be paying attention! It's not just the oceans either....entire ecosystems in tropical rainforests are being clear cut or slashed and burned out of existence. We're losing species we didn't even know were there. ARRRGGGGhhhhh!

 

[myopsida]

What is so blinkin' frustrating is how few people seem to be paying attention! It's not just the oceans either....entire ecosystems in tropical rainforests are being clear cut or slashed and burned out of existence. We're losing species we didn't even know were there. ARRRGGGGhhhhh!

um, er, is anybody paying attention??? Its not just tropical rainforests or seamounts: here's a small news item from 2002 . . . . .

REUTERS: USA: July 26, 2002

NEW YORK - A new species of poisonous predator - a tiny centipede that may well be the world's smallest - has been discovered in Central Park, the heart of the nation's largest city, scientists said this week.
The Central Park centipede, which lives in the leaves and sticks littering the park, is so unusual that scientists have classified it as the only species in a completely new genus.

If we havn't identified what lives in Central Park, how can there be any chance of identifying the deepsea critters?

 

[sorseress]

True, but it absolutely hurts to think that we are causing such destruction on such a massive scale all across the globe. Sure, we pay attention, and lots of other people do too, but the majority not only don't know what's going on, they don't seem to care. I wish.....well, there are a lot of things I wish, but if the media would spend half as much time on science and environmental stories as they do on celebrity drivel maybe a few more people would start to care.

 

[cthulhu77]

Don't know if I agree with that...there is a plethora (and not a plethora of pinatas) of scientific programming on tv today...the base is that people typically care about their personal surroundings, and the immediate effects of those surroundings, rather than taking the long view.
What we need is rather a change in human mentality.

greg

 

[Cephkid]

Don't know if I agree with that...there is a plethora (and not a plethora of pinatas) of scientific programming on tv today...the base is that people typically care about their personal surroundings, and the immediate effects of those surroundings, rather than taking the long view.
What we need is rather a change in human mentality.

greg

Amen.