:confused: Tonight--Wed. 12-22-'04--at 10:00PM on the History Channel-----Modern Marvels;Commercial Fishing

Could be interesting.

Originally posted by STRIPER77
:confused: Tonight--Wed. 12-22-'04--at 10:00PM on the History Channel-----Modern Marvels;Commercial Fishing

Could be interesting.

Thanks for the heads up, looks like it could be a good show.


Heres a discription from historychannel.com

*Battered and fried or simply raw--seafood is a popular dish, no matter how you serve it. Americans consume more than 5-billion pounds yearly, an order that takes more than a fishing rod to fill and worries conservationists. We follow the fish, the fishermen, and the science trying to preserve fisheries for future generations--from ancient ships on the Nile to a modern technologically sophisticated factory trawler on the Bering Sea to the University of New Hampshire's open-ocean aquaculture research project. And we witness a wide variety of fishing methods--from gillnetting and longlining to lobster trapping. Hop aboard and sail through time and around the globe as we explore the harsh conditions of life at sea and experience firsthand one of history's deadliest jobs. Brace yourself and feel the ice-cold, salt spray on your face as we explore commercial fishing!

thanks guys - cannot wait to watch

It may not be every one's favorite institution, but you can't deny that comercial fishing is a modern marvel. I was wondering when the History Channel was going to do some sort of show on it, I love the Modern Marvel series. I'll be watching, sounds like it should be interesting.

Tuna' D in

I friggin missed it. had some remote - contention with the little woman last night....should have watched it on the other TV.

anyone know when it is on again.

I caught a good amount of it, and no, you can't deny it is a marvel..The one thing that amazed me, was out of like 10 million pounds of fish, (pollock) they only showed 3 by catch fish..THREE, talk about a huge pile of bull cacahhhhh....:rolleyes: I was astounded at the numbers of fish caught..that and they were tracking a "school" of pollock of approximatly 11 billion fish :eek: 35,000 sq nuatical miles...These modern supertrawlers can catch 400 tons of fish per tow.They can process 50-80 tons of surimi or fillets per day... The fact that they can process soooo many fish with so few people is terrible. The way it should be is less fish with more people..I was simply blown away by the whole thing..They also had a good section on UNH's Open Ocean Aquaculture project which was pretty informative. They showed their offshore Cod fish farm, as well as haddock,halibut, and blue mussels. They also showed a quick seg on UNH's study of lobsters in efforts to better manage New England's lobster fishery...

I recorded it last night to my computer into a MPG file so I can watch it via Windows Media Player. It was an very excellent show, I was very interested in their offshore cod fishery farm and the fact that pollock can cover 30,000 square nautical miles, wow!!!!

I watched the whole thing, and I found it to be facinating. What I found to be particularly interesting was how scientists are designing nets that use the behaviors of fish to reduce bycatch, like how a net was designed so cod would pass through the bottom of the net, and only pollock would be caught.

I cought it too and thought it was pretty good. I think my favorite part ( aside from the 30,000 sq. mile school of Pollock) were the cameras that were mounted at the mouth of the nets. Another cool thing were some of the ideas the scientists were coming up with to eliminate shorts. One was a black plastic piece of cloth that covers the "cod end"-fish end- of the net. The fish would try to escape the netting more feverously because the cloth simulates a large predators open mouth and make it through the enlarged gaps in the net.

The underwater shots were great. I just like how technology has saved millions of bycatch.

I too was facinated with the whole show. Being from Gloucester it was cool to see some of the local boats, scenes and people. They could have done a whole show on the dangers involved.
Amazing underater shots.

The whole factory ship thing bummed me out. They are employing very few peole to catch tons of fish. I think it would be better to have 200 boats out there going at it. The UNH Cod farm is a shot of the future. If we can move all commercial to farms just think how awesome the natural fishing would be.

The "right" way to do it is to have the correct number of factory trawlers out there catching the correct amount of fish the most efficient way possible. But, of course, what we have now is too many factory trawlers catching way too many fish, both of the intended species and otherwise.

Remember, we don't want to regulate inefficiency into the system, we want to regulate rationality.

When government regulation is involved, however, things rarely end up "right".

That was fantastic show and thanks for the heads up! That UNH cod farm was awesome, It left me wondering that the difference was between the water quality levels inside the pen and the differences outside the immediate pen. (I know Imma nerd) I REALLY liked how they are making the nets bigger to let small fish out etc, and the thing that spits out the TURTLES is a fantastic idea! The whole processing plant kinda bummed me out but hey them guys gotta eat and they got families to feed too, seems like they are managing the fishery well. The TUNA oh man, the TUNA I love them things!!!!

The fishery in the pacnorwest is very strictly controlled. The biologist control the industry. There limit is 15% of the aggragate population and then the season is over. Small boats could not handle the kind of fishing that the factory ship do, but small guys do most of the halibut and salmon fishery.

My point is that on the west coast the biologist control the industry. Over here the industry controls it. If the biologist did, they would regulate the Menhaden take.