Estimates of Marine Mammals Killed by Fishing Nets 39
thomasmd writes "Yahoo has an article describing the results of a new study by American and Scottish researchers that looked at the number of deaths by drowning of cetaceans (fishlike sea mammals) caught in fishing nets. Their alarming estimate was that more than 1000 cetaceans die every day from net entanglement."
Do we need them? (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems that everyone wories about cute little pandas and dolphins while exterminating valuable insects en masse just because they're ugly.
Re:Do we need them? (Score:4, Insightful)
But you imply something quite scary: Do humans have the right to determine which species ar contributing to the ecosystem, and exterminate the rest? Are we capable of doing this? qualified? What if we make a mistake?
I believe that it is a better solution to identify the areas we are having the most impact, minimize it, and let nature run its course. Let's not second guess nature. It's done a good job of maintaining things long before we were around...
Re:Do we need them? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes, I think we do. In the same manor that a beaver does when it dams up a river with no regard for what happens to the rest of the system. It is, after all, survival of the fittest. We are not casting net in order to kill off any species, we are just trying to survive another day. (and eat sushi while we do)
Furthur more, if we are nieve enough to thi
Re:Do we need them? (Score:1)
Re:Do we need them? (Score:1)
Re:Do we need them? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would we not have the right to mold the world as we see fit? If we don't, who does, and on what authority are we forbidden from making changes?
I agree that large-scale mucking about may be dangerous for us - we're near the top of the ecosystem, and so in a relatively fragile position - but abstaining from making changes on that basis is a question of prudence, not of "rights".
I believe that it is a better solution to identify the areas we are having the most impact, minimize it, and let nature run its course. Let's not second guess nature. It's done a good job of maintaining things long before we were around...
Nature has no grand plan, though. It's literally a random process, and most definitely doesn't have our welfare in its best interest - it _has_ no interests. If anything, we should expect life to become more difficult for us if we leave it to nature's ebb and flow (we multiplied because there was a favourable environment, but environments change).
In summary, I do not see why nature running unhindered would work towards any human-oriented goal.
On the other hand, this entire debate is rather silly without a set of goals everyone agrees on
Re:Do we need them? (Score:3, Insightful)
It bugs me to see people blaming humans for this imbalance in nature. Do you think humans sprang fully-formed from the earth? Of course not. We're the product of millions of years of evolution. If you insist on anthropomorphizing nature, well, Nature shot herself in the foot when she made us, and she's got n
Re:Do we need them? (Score:1)
Has anyone ever tasted whale meat, by the way? I have, and it tastes like shit. Still, whales provide a lot of food per sentient bei
Re:Left-wing governments (Score:1)
If you look at just economics, with state-markets on the far left and free-markets on the far right, then the worst regimes of recent times have been on the far left (Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot) or at the very least left of center (Hitler).
But many people equate rightwing with authoritarian, so they say that Hitler, and the BNP, are right wing
Either way, right/left isn't a very good way of defining ones political beliefs.
Re:Definition of fascism (Score:1)
Re:Do we need them? (Score:1)
Re:Do we need them? (Score:2)
"Save the whales" with particularly gruesome pictures was always lovely. I've lived a small farm, and seen various animals slaughtered, so it just didn't have the same effect on me as it does to high school "I have to change the world today" kids..
High school kids are great. They're inspired to make a change, and can be manipulated to work for or ag
How Many Die (Score:5, Insightful)
Without that kind of information, it's hard to tell just how serious this is. Sure 1000 sounds like alot, but what if 5000 are hit by boats ever day? Then that would be more important. I seriously doubt that that happens anywhere near that frequency, but you get the idea. Numbers don't mean much without perspective.
Interesting Headlines (Score:4, Insightful)
At least they admit they pulled the statistics out of their ass:
To reach the worldwide estimates, the researchers resorted to multiplying the U.S. statistics.
Re:Interesting Headlines (Score:2)
On the other hand, this probably does produce a reasonably conservative estimate. Precisely because there is a fondness in the United States for cute sea creatures, U.S. fishers are probably more careful about the harm they do to marine mammals. (Not because they're necessarily nicer people, but because their corporate masters fear crucifixion in
Re:Interesting Headlines (Score:2)
More information (Score:4, Informative)
Our Dying Seas?" [wildlifetrusts.org]
Lots of these surveys draw conclusions about extinction and talk about percentages, but I have never seen an actual estimate of the cetacean population on the Earth. Do we have ANY FRIGGIN CLUE how many there are?
Re:More information (Score:4, Insightful)
I think we have some good numbers on whales, in some species they all have names. But dolphins we don't really know, we know we're seeing much fewer than we used to but they may just be avoiding us. With some species we actually know there are much fewer, like "pink dolphins" or river dolphins, there you can actually just go out and count how many cross your path in a clear part of the river. I had a marine biologist roommate one summer and she would talk about so and so whale being missing this year.
The populations are probably falling more do to the lack of food than our actually catching the ocean mammals. We're pretty much killing our oceans with overfishing. Some countries, like Iceland have done well with resellable quotas (so you don't end up with a quota that lets you fish one day of the year with your super efficient new boat.) But that doesn't help migrating species that just get devistated somewhere else. We really need international agreement on fishing quotas, but that's not going to happen until more coutries try to manage their own fisheries. The New England cod economy completely collapsed yet the US hasn't even tried to save the still economic west coast fisheries. Totally irresponsible. Then there are the Japanese and Russians that go out and completely destroy whole swaths of ocean in international waters, destroying the market value of their catch with the rought treatment as well. They scrape up the ocean bottom so it takes decades for fish to return to the area in fishable numbers.
Sometimes one factory can devastate a whole country's ocean front. Peru has a single fish meal factory near Pisco that in the last decade has consumed so many anchovies that not only are they having problems getting anchovies, but all the regular fish are gone since there aren't enough anchovies for them to eat. They've now put some quotas on anchovy fishing, but it's not at a level that will let the population grow back. That would lose current jobs and most of the fishing jobs are already long gone... Here the problem is that if you target the bottom of the food chain for overexploitation you're just screewed.
We're really seeing this tragedy of the commons in the oceans because most countries haven't had the political incentive to put real quotas on there own fishermen when the fishermen rightly say the neighbors will just catch them instead, and no one seems to have any interest in a global solution. That is seen as an environmental thing and most governments have a knee jerk reaction against that. Economically it's just stupid to treat fish as a non-renewable resource to be consumed before your competitors do, they restore their populations pretty darn quickly if you just let them.
Who Cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
Who gives a shit about ceta-whats? There are more than enough human problems to dedicate time and energy to, why do people concern themselves with this?
Re:Who Cares? (Score:1)
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2)
Eventually we'll be able to just scoop up the whole mass and make CHON food. Or better yet make it from intersteller matter.
Re: Charles Sheffield "The Compleat McAndrew"
Re:Who Cares? (Score:2)
Plenty of reasons. First, ecology is way over our heads, and we don't realize what we're doing when we pull a thread out of the tapestry... maybe the whole thing will fall apart, maybe it will just be less interesting. But the precautionary principle should apply, since we don't understand the risks.
Second, cetaceans are also way over our heads. They may have language; dolphins can carry on something like a two-way simultaneous conversation, where two of them i
Last chance for European cod (Score:1)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99
it's time to get much more serious about restrictions on fishing.
utterly useless comment. (Score:1)
Sustainable fishing (Score:1)
Here's an idea. (Score:1)
Re:Here's an idea. (Score:1)
Re:Here's an idea. (Score:1)