Romantic Cod and Fish Populations?

[Jaffa]

Thanks for the links Leon;

 

http://www.perc.org/publications/policyser...s/community.php did a better job of describing my thoughts on fisheries controls than all my rantings here

 

I see the Shetland Fishermens association and John Goodlad get a mention. I spent a decade up there and it affected a lot of my thinking (used to be a paid up member of Greenpeace and the Marine Conservation Society! , left when i started to see how barking a lot of their ideas are IMO of course ).

 

I firmly believe that all control of the waters around Shetland should be handed over to the fishermen and Local council; they have a damn good record of looking after their environment and fisheries. They should be left to get on with it as they see fit. Get the goverment out of the whole thing. Look at the way the Shetlanders handled the big oil companies over Sullom Voe.

 

I found John Goodlad an interesting bloke with a hell of a knowledge of the marine environment. Heres an article from the 1996 Shetland times, some of which refers to old stuff now, still a lot of good points in it imo, in particular about single species industrial fisheries and the environmentalist politcal agenda. greenpeace were good enough to archive it

 

http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/cbio/shet1.html

 

Might cause a few fireworks with some folks but ......

 

The CEFAS technical document is interesting in the sheer amount of factors they are trying to model but I suspect the results when, they come in a couple of years, will still fail to tell us much. Interesting nonetheless.

 

Leon do you have any links to the meterologist whose computer model kicked off chaos theory? (That model had very few variables but no two outcomes were the same with even the slightest change in start point.) If not maybe be able to find one later....

 

 

Ken, my main point is that you can't lump them all in as one thing. Fishermen and the problems faced vary from place to place. Any fixes will need to work around that. You might be aware of the difference between the trawler companies and whats come since but a lot of anglers don't seem too m8.

 

Cheers, Chris

[Jaffa]

Never mind Leon, found one

 

http://pear.math.pitt.edu/mathzilla/Exampl...elAnderson.html

 

Wish I understood more about maths. This headache is getting bad

[Guest jay_con]

I think the point made by Leon is that noone has a god given right to make a living from whatever means they choose. Ie fishermen have no right to take fish just because its there. I dont think he means drug dealers/takers and fishermen are in anyways alike.

 

Newt - I never killed a bison in my life. never even saw one to be honest (perhaps once at Flamingo land but I didnt kill it).

[thurso angler]

OK winter,

but the fishermen have legally bought a quota and liceance? they dont just turn up on a patch of sea with a boat and say "hello im a fisherman, i want to catch fish" they have paid for the right to do it, and now with the quota getting less to allow other nations in our waters they have been restricted by knew rules taking away quota they have paid for.

 

If you or me bought a fishing boat and then bought a liceance we would then loose around 20% of that liceance just for tranferring it onto our new boat, just another way to try and discourage anyone from building newer boats in the uk, yet ireland last year spent around £80 million last year on new boat builds a lot of which was subsidised by local grants yet the uk fleet decomishioned around 150? all are fishing the same if not very close grounds but while one takes out the other puts in??

 

Winter you argue that the point about they have no right to make a living from whatever they choose but i say, what right have you to stop them from makeing a living? there not asking for any money from you or i to do so?

 

and yes i understand that in certain opinions it is not a sustainable industry, but i urge you to look at the bigger picture and see that given the chance it could be, and perhaps its down to the decision makers to stand up and be counted.

 

We all harp on about the netters we all see landing whitefish, but what about the other issues we dont see? like the 50 or so danishishing boats working right now catching hundereds of tonnes of sand eel and caplin for pig food, salmon food etc? i think the whitefish fishermen are perhaps an easier target as we come into contact with them in daily lives?

[Guest jay_con]

I am against anyone of any nationalaty taking from an unsustainable source.

However I do beleive Our fishing industry points it's finger at all these other countries to create a smoke screen so that it can continue unchallenged. There is no doubt in my mind that persuing cod to the point of extinction by the brittish fleet is no lesser crime than persuing sandeal to the same ends by the Danish.

 

The fishermen are not asking for any money from me (that may be true, it may not - we all buy fish). What is true is that the sea is no more thiers than mine, yours or anyonelses - So no they have no right to beleive they can continue to take take take untill there is nothing left for all the other shareholders of the north sea. If the owners of the large trawling companies say - Right were gonna take less, were gonna leave some for the longliners and rod fisherman who have used this resource for much longer than us. Then they might begin to get some sympathy. Whilst they continue with there greed and driving smaller boat owners out of business, and ruin all the other business' dependent on fish stocks they will never get any sympathy from me no matter how many mercadies benz the debt collectors have to reposses from thier driveways.

[Leon Roskilly]

Jaffa:

Never mind Leon, found one

Well try this one

 

 

http://www.fishingnj.org/artchaos.htm

 

(AArghhh! me 'ead 'urts more!!)

 

 

The trick is to realise when a system is chaotic, and when it is not.

 

Some 'systems' are amazingly complex, but even when starting parameters are changed, will always produce a similar result. These are non-chaotic, or a system that is in a non-chaotic state.

 

Look at cloud patterns in the sky. An impossibly complex mix of humidity, temperature, wind shear, reflection, particles - but all clouds over a large area still end up looking much the same, although the range of cloud possible shapes is amazing.

 

Other systems are very simple, but are chaotic, or in a chaotic state.

 

A ball on pendulum swung over two magnets illustrates that well. The path taken by the ball as it swings, and is pulled this way and that by interaction with the two constant magnetic fields, is always different, no matter how close the starting position is on each 'run'.

 

With weather systems they can be in either a chaotic or a non chaotic state.

 

Sometimes you can load up all the starting parameters, run the model, then do it again with changed parameters, and run after run will show little divergence, maybe as many as 10 days into the future. That shows that the forcasters that they are dealing with a non-chaotic weather system and makes them very happy (though bored)!

 

Other times each run of the model starts diverging, sometimes very quickly. The system is in a chaotic state and the forcasters don't have a hope in hell of pleasing anyone, no matter how vague they try to make their predictions, or how annoying their caveats.

 

So, don't be too afraid of chaos theory interfering with the results from models of very complex systems.

 

Remember that most ecological systems are 'self-healing'. Massive amounts of eggs are produced in the expectation that few will make it through to adulthood. Most are doomed to die, one way or another, long before they come to maturity.

 

So, if there is a sudden mass death caused by (say) exceptionally hot weather at the wrong time of year, the remaining fry will have far more food, and be predated upon less (no huge gatherings to attract predators etc) etc, so at the end of the day you still end up with 10 survivors out of 10 million.

 

Such systems tend to be non-chaotic.

 

Far more frightening is catastrophe theory.

 

In essence this says that a steadily increased force does not always result in a increasing result in the same ratio as the force applied.

 

ie when bending a soft steel bar

 

but rather a time of increasing result that becomes critical, without warning.

 

ie when bending a bar of glass. Initially it behaves like the soft still bar, distorting as the pressure increases, in much the same way, but then suddenly shatters.

 

(actually it gets a little more complicated, and the maths produces pretty patterns populated with dangerous cusps, but that will do for this discussion!)

 

This is what seems to happen to fish stocks.

 

Warning after warning gets ignored. Fishing effort continues as the fish become fewer and the price per kilo creeps up.

 

Everyone becomes complacent as each warning is ignored, and the fishing continues, and nothing really bad happens.

 

Then one day it's all gone, and gone with outstanding rapidity, and even draconian measures cannot produce a 'bounce-back' because the capacity of the system to 'self-heal' has also gone.

 

Without warning.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 16. February 2005, 05:01 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[thurso angler]

Winter, you started off quite well there!, but then the old winter came gunning through to spoil it all.

 

You do have points on some issues but you are so off the mark on others, just because you have spoken to someone who knows someone whos brothers uncle used to have a mate that worked on a boat, an informed judge on a industry im sorry you are not.

[Leon Roskilly]

thurso angler:

 

but the fishermen have legally bought a quota and liceance?

Let's be clear.

 

No fisherman ever paid a penny into the public purse for a licence, or the quota that goes with it.

 

All licences were given to fishermen by the government, free of charge.

 

No new licenses have ever been issued, but existing licences can be transferred, or 'aggregated'

 

This makes those licences valuable.

 

Fishermen who still retain their original licences have never paid a penny for what is now a valuable possession.

 

Fishermen who have 'bought' a licence have paid for a licence to be transferred from another fisherman to themselves.

 

They have not paid anything into the public purse for a licence that allows them to exploit a publicly owned resource without charge!

 

A lorry owner has to have a tachograph costing hundreds of pounds fitted to his vehicle, at his own cost, so that an official eye can be kept upon him/her.

 

A fisherman (with a large boat) has to have a satellite system fitted provided free by the taxpayer, so that an official eye can be kept upon him/her.

 

Tight Lines - leon

 

[ 16. February 2005, 05:12 PM: Message edited by: Leon Roskilly ]

[Guest jay_con]

I may no be an informed judge on an industry - But then again neither are you. You cannot be objective as you are part of that industry.

But lets hope that informed independent judeges do make the final decisions.

[Guest jay_con]

I dont consider it spoilt Thurso, I just put in my point of view in the only way I know how. Those are my feelings and I stick by every word of them. It is my feeling that dancing around an issue with polite words and pleasant discussion brings no change whatsoever. Just because I lowered my tone a little within this forum so as not to offend some of the good folk here doesnt mean my feeling toward the idiot's in the commercial sector changed at all. When thier greed subsides so will my anger.