Interesting speaker at RISAA tonight

[new jack]

Dave Bengsten is a great professor. He taught my Marine FinFish course at URI.

[Crafty Angler]

1.5 BILLION pounds of pogies reported for Omega's 2007 catch...

Combine that with the take of other forage by the herring fleet and squid boats - so is it any wonder that the inshore fishery appears to be in tough shape

[Raven]

humus levels in the soil can take a decade to create
via micro-bacterial action... but only a few years if the
earthworm population is encouraged as the excrement from worms is the fast method of producing it.

HUMUS will hold ten times its weight of water but when you
don't farm organically...and by that i mean ...your not tilling in
tons of organic matter for the worms to eat and convert to humus....

you basically have a potential "run off " situation because chemical
fertilizers do not add any organic matter to the soil at all .

part of the problem is the continued practice of monoculture
which is increasing the use of both pesticides and herbicides
that also enter the ecosystem.

[numbskull]

This idea has been around for 5-6 years I believe. Chesapeake Bay Journal: Whether a fish has a hot spawning season may depend on weather - October 2004

Whether it has held up over the last several years is unclear to me.

Eben, I think you miss Pew's focus. They understand that environmental degradation has impacted world fisheries. They, however, also understand that industrial ( and sometimes recreational) fishing is putting a toll on the remaining fish that is not sustainable. Their priority is to stop that in order to buy time to improve the environment. Makes pretty good sense if you don't have a stake in the fishing.

Another good example is the CLF. The towns on the south shore of the cape have severely polluted the salt ponds that feed Vineyard Sound. This has been known for years, and nobody has done anything because of the cost. Instead towns keep announcing "studies" and delaying the expensive fix. This fall the CLF came through and made it clear that if the fix does not start VERY soon, they will file suit. Pissed everyone off, and all kinds of moaning about how that would "not help anything", but in fact it has helped and towns are now starting to move.

There is a lesson in that for us fisherman. Clean up our act now, or have a judge do it for us. I suspect the latter is where we are headed.

[JohnnyD]

Originally Posted by numbskull

There is a lesson in that for us fisherman. Clean up our act now, or have a judge do it for us. I suspect the latter is where we are headed.

Especially as everyone plays the "it's not our fault" or "how is that fair" game.

Thanks for the post. The article was an interesting read and I didn't know much about the pollution issues in the South Cape area.

[MakoMike]

Originally Posted by numbskull

This idea has been around for 5-6 years I believe. Chesapeake Bay Journal: Whether a fish has a hot spawning season may depend on weather - October 2004

Whether it has held up over the last several years is unclear to me.

They, however, also understand that industrial ( and sometimes recreational) fishing is putting a toll on the remaining fish that is not sustainable.

There are a load of scientist out there, who haven't received PEW grant money, that would unequivocally disagree with that statement. We also have big federal and state bureaucracies, dedicated to making sure that doesn't happen. But I guess PEW knows better than everyone else?

[piemma]

Gentlemen, the point is being missed. This is not about pollution runoff. It's about freshwater vs saltwater and the ratios between the 2. The more of 1, the less fry survival there is due to less food due to the turbidity of the water.

I just don't have the facts the way the speaker presented them but I do know that there was no mention of fertilizer, pollution or their effects on the fish spawn or survival.

I now wish I had access to the good Doctors notes and PowerPoint presentation.

[JohnR]

Wish I had seen it. IIRC Some of the bad years for fry were the drought and flood years having real bad YOY indices.

Anyway, wish I had seen it.


Hey Bryan, I thought scientists were supposed to be like Joe Friday, no bias , unswappable, just the facts mam