RSA Representation

[Jaffa]

OK, mate, North Sea, Irish Sea and Channel COD stocks in grave danger?

Mixed year classes of cod have all but disappeared inshore (which is where RSAs would like to see them).

Now it's 'boom and bust' as 35cm codling are massacred as soon as a good breeding year emerges. A female cod lays 30 - 50 million eggs, so don't tell me there must be healthy biomass of cod nearby, 'cos there ain't!

 

HERRINGS nearly wiped out (certainly economically wiped out) by overfishing culminating in the complete closure of the fishery in the N Sea in the 70s.

Not only that, but the entire demand for a market for this nutritious fish completely destroyed by the greedy fleet itself!

 

Amazingly the Thames herring fleet, which is re-emerging, talks sensibly (NOW!) of 'SUSTAINABILITY' ... who would have believed that after the carnage of the 60s and 70s???

 

Hi H.A, , so i take it you found no evidence that overfishing did in the sandeels then? Does that mean you will continue to assume they did anyway? or maybe consider that something else is going on in the North Sea.

 

"Grave danger", sorry but like "benthic damage" that you used in another thread, it seems like the usual emotive spin to me and gives the reader little actual information at all; other than you clearly see it as a bad thing So what do you mean by that term?

 

I was involved in the policing of the herring fishery after the ban was lifted so do have some experience of those events. Im inclined to believe like you , and certainly did at the time, that it was the invention of the purse seine/ the capitalisation of the fleet, etc etc wot done it, but im increasingly uncertain now. Many " textbook " fishery collapses of pelagic stocks (remember these are short food chains) are starting to look very iffy in the face of understanding just how tightly coupled they are to oceanographic conditions.

 

I have to question your slur on the Thames herring fishers and their attempts to market a sustainable fishery. All the big pelagic boats are Scottish, so even if your take on the collapse of the herring fishery is correct, its hard to see what blame could possibly be applied to the diddy Thames boats?! It seems amazing to me that someone finds a way to deride what seems a very good thing just to make a cheap political point.. Or do you just not understand the differences between different fleets, areas, and histories?

 

 

 

Chris

Edited September 24, 2007 by Jaffa

[H.A.]

Amazingly the Thames herring fleet, which is re-emerging, talks sensibly (NOW!) of 'SUSTAINABILITY' ... who would have believed that after the carnage of the 60s and 70s???

That's not a slur .... that's surprise coupled with admiration!

 

http://eng.msc.org/html/content_577.htm

 

Your problem my dear chap is that you are looking only at getting the 'industry' off the hook with regard to sandeels.

 

The evidence for the disappearance of a layer in the food chain in the N Sea (sandeels) is irrefutable. The fact that the Danes, amongst others, have held their hands up and stopped their slaughter of sand eels is not exactly the same as blaming global warming, is it????

Whatever is happening to populations of sandeels, this cannot be tolerated:

 

Daily Telegraph -

 

Sandeels have also been the basis of the "industrial" fishery in the North Sea which took about 750 million tons of sand eels each year and pulped them for oil and meal used in salmon farms. Surveys for the European Union and Norway show that sand eel numbers are half the 300 billion individual fish that the European Commission says are needed for the fishery to continue.

The commission's scientific advisers are recommending the immediate closure of the fishery this year to protect the spawning stock.

 

[wurzel]

The evidence for the disappearance of a layer in the food chain in the N Sea (sandeels) is irrefutable. The fact that the Danes, amongst others, have held their hands up and stopped their slaughter of sand eels is not exactly the same as blaming global warming, is it????

Whatever is happening to populations of sandeels, this cannot be tolerated:

 

Daily Telegraph -

 

 

QUOTE

Sandeels have also been the basis of the "industrial" fishery in the North Sea which took about 750 million tons of sand eels each year and pulped them for oil and meal used in salmon farms. Surveys for the European Union and Norway show that sand eel numbers are half the 300 billion individual fish that the European Commission says are needed for the fishery to continue.

The commission's scientific advisers are recommending the immediate closure of the fishery this year to protect the spawning stock.

 

 

 

You are right HA such gross misinformation should not be tolerated especially when it's has any thing to do with Charles bloody Clover! 750 million tons indeed???!!

[H.A.]

Yep, lucky for us there are always a few sharp-eyed commercial lads around to put Defra, CEFAS, EU Commission/Fisheries, scientists and environmentalists right about their figures, eh?

 

[H.A.]

Since, as I suspected, this thread has been completely 'threadnapped', I make no apology for recommending this as light reading.

 

Guess there's one or two who won't enjoy it; but at least it isn't Charles Clover this time, eh?

 

http://society.guardian.co.uk/societyguard...2162131,00.html

 

[Jaffa]

Yep, lucky for us there are always a few sharp-eyed commercial lads around to put Defra, CEFAS, EU Commission/Fisheries, scientists and environmentalists right about their figures, eh?

 

 

If your suggesting im a "sharp eyed commercial lad" ( and as far as i know im the first to point out that Clovers figure was nonsense ) then i hate to disillusion you but most of my involvement with commercials has either been on the enforcement side or clearing props and the like. All of that was many years ago and i have little connection with them now.; theres hardly any left to speak of here anyway.

 

I just don't like spin and lies and think we are being fed a lot of it these days ; imho the nonsense link you come up with in your next post just about says it all about the level of debate RSA appear to be engaged in atm..

 

The sandeel question interests me because as long as i see people spinning and flogging it, in the face of an absence of evidence, then it seems worth looking at.

 

Have you ever looked at information on whats happening to the plankton communities in the north sea ? their effect on stocks like sandeel and herring? Might perhaps be a better use of your time than perpetuating 20 yr old urban myths about fish stocks IMHO

Chris

Edited September 24, 2007 by Jaffa

[Jaffa]

That's not a slur .... that's surprise coupled with admiration!

 

http://eng.msc.org/html/content_577.htm

 

Your problem my dear chap is that you are looking only at getting the 'industry' off the hook with regard to sandeels.

 

The evidence for the disappearance of a layer in the food chain in the N Sea (sandeels) is irrefutable. The fact that the Danes, amongst others, have held their hands up and stopped their slaughter of sand eels is not exactly the same as blaming global warming, is it????

Whatever is happening to populations of sandeels, this cannot be tolerated:

 

Daily Telegraph -

 

Certainly read like a slur to me . Glad to see you have clarified things though.

 

I have zero interest in getting anyone "off the hook" for anything. Just very curious about the mismatch between all the media hype and any evidence i've ever seen.

 

So the sandeel numbers have crashed and you say that is the "disappearance of a layer in the food chain in the N Sea" and that makes sense to me. Where you lose me is in not asking the obvious questions like ; has the layer underneath collapsed?, the one under that?

 

Where you really lose me is with

 

Whatever is happening to populations of sandeels, this cannot be tolerated:

 

Would be a few old pelagic skippers chuckling over their rums and half pints if thy saw that .

 

Fantastic stuff HA, keep it up

[H.A.]

Hopefully the 'old pelagic skippers' are comfortably retired!

 

So the sandeel numbers have crashed and you say that is the "disappearance of a layer in the food chain in the N Sea" and that makes sense to me. Where you lose me is in not asking the obvious questions like ; has the layer underneath collapsed?, the one under that?

 

How is it that having dismissed the scientific evidence so easily, you suddenly want an O-level biology course?????

 

For some reason you want me to ask "Has the layer underneath collapsed?, the one under that?".

 

So, are you happy now?

 

[Jaffa]

Hopefully the 'old pelagic skippers' are comfortably retired!

How is it that having dismissed the scientific evidence so easily, you suddenly want an O-level biology course?????

 

For some reason you want me to ask "Has the layer underneath collapsed?, the one under that?".

 

So, are you happy now?

 

 

Which scientfic evidence did i dismiss so easily? and yes i do indeed want you to ask if the foodchain underneath has changed

 

Not sure what o level biology has to do with it, but perhaps you rate that highly?

Chris

Edited September 25, 2007 by Jaffa