Romantic Cod and Fish Populations?

[Jaffa]

Well its a start Leon. Good stuff.

 

Rockhoppers, like the triplex winch, Seine net drum and gill net were not small innovations though, but massive leaps in technology catching wise.

 

I don't know but would suspect goverment money went into their development too

 

That new gear I put a link to the other week ; that was being tested in goverment (not ours) flume tanks, justified no doubt with the notion it will do less damage to the ground. The fact that it has all sorts of other implications once out in the real world of fishing seems to be ignored.

[Guest jay_con]

What type of damage did these rock hoppers do to the sea bed? Ive been told by some charter skippers here that reefs and rocky areas that used to show up on fish finders have been flattened by the pair trawlers and have either changed significantly or even dissapeared - could this be true?

[Guest jay_con]

Big cod. Has the number of charter boats in whitby gone up or down in recent years? What about in the ports of scarborough, filey and brid?

 

Has the commercial industry effected these types of business?

[big_cod]

winter they done untold damage quite beyond conprention flattened the bottom is whats happened its s well known factthis has happened

[Guest jay_con]

Killed everything that once existed there then- Tiny corals,shell fish, millions of other forms of sea life, and possibly creatures we didnt even know existed. Surely that in itself is bad enough without adding in the fact that they have driven a species to extinction whilst claiming it wasnt us it was global warming.

 

If it was global warming why is Iceland experiencing its current problems with cod stocks (surely the waters there arent too warm yet?) why is there a population of cod in the warm waters of the channel that are holding there own ?

[Guest jay_con]

Jaffa - The next leap forward in technology wont make any difference as the last one already wrote of the contents of the sea.

[Jaffa]

@winter@ im under no illusions about what rockhopper gear has done and don't believe it should ever have been allowed. But whats done is done and its important we don't get caught out like that again.

 

Not only did it lead to tremendous damage to areas that had previously been untouched by trawlers, for various reasons it also fuelled a drive to yet more powerful boats.

 

They say there used to be a mark off Arbroath called the pinacles which apparently no longer exists. Commercial fishermen told me that but i have no way of knowing if its true; I tend to believe it though.

 

But IMO you can't jump from that to;

 

"Killed everything that once existed there then- Tiny corals,shell fish, millions of other forms of sea life, and possibly creatures we didnt even know existed. Surely that in itself is bad enough without adding in the fact that they have driven a species to extinction whilst claiming it wasnt us it was global warming."

 

No species that we know of has been driven to extinction by the rockhopper; change, often extremely violent is normal in the seas. I once dived under huge seacliffs in Shetland and saw boulders so big it honestly almost gave me a kind of vertigo looking at them, huge , and these things had been moved around ; the power of the sea is something we don't really grasp I think. That was in 100ft of water if i remember.

 

Nothing stays the same except maybe in the deep ocean and even there they are discovering it is a lot more dynamic than we used to understand. The effect its going to have had will vary from place to place. I have seen nothing to suggest our inshore grounds will not "recover" given the chance.

Remove man from a farm and leave it a few years and eventually it will end up a forest again.

 

Consider this idea ; Greenpeace want to make the dogger bank a marine reserve. Maybe a good idea , maybe not; not something i've seen much information about either way. I do know it was created by a glacier though,only what 10k years ago; ? Its now been heavily trawled for over 100 years and the one thing you can be certain of is that its wildlife reflects that fact.

 

Fishing has been going on for so long its unwise to think of any north sea environment as in some kind of natural pristine state. Would anyone seriously wish to lose all the diversity of the Southern downs (created by sheep grazing and chalk), the Scottish glens (sheep and grouse).

 

We are a huge part of the ecosystem and always have been. You don't need a supertrawler to change the environment; our ancient ancestors did just fine with spears. It always changes though. What effect did that tsuami have on the marine life of the Indian ocean I wonder? , a big mudslide on our contiental shelf will do what ?

 

Dundee extended some land for housing, now the sea erodes the land where I live, constant change and flux.

 

Sorry, rambling.

 

As i understand it the Icelandic cod are in trouble both through climate change and because they got the stock assesment wrong (its an imperfect science) and overfished it. Course Icelanders must have a very clear idea of how temporary everything is I'd lay more money on them getting it right than the EU though. Faroe realised their management was wrong and changed it within a year. How long for the EU to react to a problem i wonder?

 

SW cod; well the CEFAS paper Leon links to earlier was about a computer model in which they were going to test one idea; that the cod are thriving because of all the dead bottom life caused by other fisheries. Also its not the effect of warming on the cod themselves that matters, they can cope with a wide range, its how it affects eggs hatching and the type and timing of the plankton on which the cod larvae feed. That can result in things that don't make common sense at first glance.

 

Gets back to the thing that started this whole thread; when to fish for cod. The spawning grounds does seem the time even though it goes against our "common sense".

 

Sorry for the rant m8, Leon has got me thinking about all this far to much for my own good

 

[ 18. February 2005, 06:07 PM: Message edited by: Jaffa ]

[Jaffa]

BTW do you know which of our fish really is close to extinction? It might surprise you.

[syrphus]

Greed/stupidity and more, how can you complain about it when what we are facing is what we allways have faced - human nature. Mind you if 90% of the money in England is posessed by 10% of the population then pressing the right people should do the trick mmm, just a stray thought.

Another little thought is i seem to remember there were 5 power stations burning sand eels in the uk - does anyone know anything about them, are they still going?

Another little thing has anyone seen the film SOLYENT GREEN, interesting speculation about the sea being completely dead. Rather like the idea of eating the most readily available protein as a sort of "told you so".

Cheers (with a grin)

[Jaffa]

Aye human nature is a funny thing and we have written things down for long enough to have a damn good grasp of what its about: Shakespeare does matter , A lot! Should be in the fishery models.

 

Soylent Green? loved that film and it showed a damn good understanding of human beings IMO

 

"Dead" seas though. Hard to imagine how we will still be here if they do. We are fragile too.