Only remotely related to climate change, but perhaps related to politics polluting universities, this essay floats ideas concerning our nations fisheries, and fishes for feedback from WUWT readers.
Guest essay by Caleb Shaw
When I was just a small child in the 1950’s the United States stubbornly clung to having a mere three-mile-limit, and Russian fishermen could come quite close to our shores with boats loaded with spying equipment. They also overfished the Grand Banks and our other offshore waters with deep, bottom-churning dragnets to such a degree the codfish population crashed. Even when the three-mile-limit was pushed far off shore, the codfish never came back.
The fishermen have taken a lot of heat for the failure of the codfish to return, and university biologists have worked hand in hand with paper-shuffling bureaucrats in Washington, far from the briny swells and crying gulls, and these lubbers tell sea-going men, men who know the sea like the back of their hands, what to do about the sea.
The fishermen have no choice but obey the bosses in high places, and their fishing has been cut back more and more. It has not made a lick of difference. In fact, if you wanted to use absurd logic, you could say the situation proves that the less you fish the less fish there are. Either that or you could say that whenever Washington gets involved, things get screwed up.
In actual fact there are three main reasons the codfish population hasn’t come back, despite the fact a single mother codfish lays over a million eggs.
The first reason is that the Atlantic goes through a cycle, roughly sixty years long, called the AMO, (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation,) and in a simplistic way this suggests that the best breeding conditions for a codfish only comes around every sixty years. Right now we are back to the conditions of 1953, the year I was born.
In actual fact the shifting positions of warm water and cold water created by the AMO mean that there are different places in the North Atlantic, which, every year, may be having their peak year for breeding codfish.
You will please notice that fishermen have no control over the AMO. Even if there was a population explosion of cod, there is another harvester of cod besides fishermen: Seals.
Seals happen to be very cute, and they started being protected when their soulful eyes touched people back in the 1970’s. Recently their population explosion has gotten out of hand. For example, in 1994 on Muskeget Island there were 19 grey seals, and by 2011 it was difficult to count them all; there were between 3500 and 3800. The population of Grey Seals in Massachusetts alone has passed 15,000, and the population of Harbor Seals in New England has passed 100,000. (Read More: http://www.talkingfish.org/newengland-fisheries/booming-new-england-seal-population-creates-a-management-challenge
Even if there were only 100,000 seals in New England, if they each ate five codfish a day, that would a million codfish every two days. That adds up pretty quickly. We are talking a sizable catch of 182.5 million codfish per year.
The seals will not obey the environmentalists who tell the fishermen to fish less, even though they owe their lives to environmentalists, for rather than fish less, the seals fish more and more. What is especially annoying to fishermen, who are not allowed to shoot seals, is that the seals like to follow boats and steal fish right out of the nets.
Is this a return to natural conditions? Not really, because for thousands of years, long before the “white man” came, the natural predator of seals was Native Americans. Native Americans had really neat sea-going canoes; dugouts made of the trunks of huge white pines, and hunted for not only seals, but also whales (though likely the baby whales were preferred.)
Even the most ancient of known mound-building Native American people, the Red Paint People, who lived north of New England, had swordfish bills in their graves, and, because swordfish lack swim-bladders and sink to the bottom rather than floating to the shore, this is taken as indirect evidence that, even as long ago a ten thousand years ago, (before Stonehenge in England,) seagoing humans hunted our shores. In other words, this may be the first time in ten thousand years seals are not hunted.
What other natural predator may have existed, ten thousand years ago, which hunted seals? Evidence is scant, however a subspecies of polar bear may have roamed this far south, as the seas rose after the last ice age, and covered the ancient shorelines.
The only predator we are sure of is the Great White Shark. And now that seal populations are booming, such scary sharks are becoming more common off Cape Cod. For the first time since 1936 a swimmer was attacked, last summer.
That single attack made people think more about culling the population of seals than the suffering of hundreds of fishermen. Likely this occurred because people are greedy, and tourism brings in money, and news of swimmers being eaten by Great White Sharks is bad for business. Unfortunately, besides the tourists brought in by whale watching, there are tourists brought in by seal watching, and, because seals are cute while sharks are downright ugly, some think the Great White Sharks are the ones who ought be culled.
Perhaps we ought bring in a population of polar bears. They are cute, and eat seals, and people feel all warm and cozy when the polar bear population goes up, and, if a few swimming tourists got eaten, well; you can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs.
You’ll notice nobody talks much about 182.5 million codfish getting devoured. Why not? The answer is obvious. Ever look a codfish in the face? They are most definitely not cute. (Nor are most of the fishermen, whose livelihoods depend on codfish.)
I hate to sound cynical, but it seems to me a lot of the university biologists, rather than basing their conclusions on science, are basing conclusions, (which usually conclude fishermen should make less money by fishing less,) on a sort of political correctness founded upon money, votes, and, damn it all, cuteness.
If university biologists were true scientists they would ignore all the nonsense of the non-scientific idiots ruling Washington, and study a third and likely most significant reason for the decline in codfish populations. This involves the fact that, when a mother codfish lays a million eggs, they are very tiny eggs. In fact, for the first few weeks of a codfish’s life, codfish are basically plankton. It is only after three or four weeks that they stop swirling about the surface, and sink to deeper depths and start behaving like a more ordinary minnow.
During the time they are plankton they are constantly growing. Many of the species of plankton about them do not grow. A tiny critter that devours countless codfish may need to turn tail a week later, because the cod it missed might turn around and eat it.
Consider the interesting computer modeling this might involve, for a geek at a university. How often in nature does the predator become the prey? Does a baby deer grow up to eat a mountain lion, or a baby rabbit grow up to eat foxes? However, in the world of codfish, such is the case. What an interesting “K,” (The equilibrium constant,.) to play around with!
It just might be that the reason the Codfish population isn’t recovering is because a certain species of plankton is eating them all. However, if only those million babies could be sheltered for only three weeks, and released, they would devour the very foe that has been depressing the codfish population, whereupon, without that foe devouring the smallest codfish, those smaller ones would also mature and eat the foe, until the foe became few and far between, and codfish populations would explode.
It should be noted that “white men” first came over here from Europe, perhaps as long ago as the 1300’s, for one risky but lucrative reason, and that reason was to fish for codfish. There is much argument about when the fishing first started, but European fishermen certainly were sailing here before there were any “official” colonies. They had no desire to take over or start colonies, and only briefly landed here to build fires and dry their fish, before sailing back east to Europe. Why did they go to all that trouble? Because it was lucrative. Why? Because, according to histories I’ve read, the codfish were so thick on the Grand Banks they didn’t need to use nets. They used over-sized baskets, to dip the fish from the swarming sea.
Considering such a population boom is within the realm of possibility, and considering the good such a vast source of high-protein nourishment would be to a hungry humanity, I can only wonder over the fact not a single university smarty-pants has (as far as I know,) ever proposed a codfish hatchery.
We spend millions on hatcheries for trout and salmon, but not a penny on codfish hatcheries. We spend billions on stupid wind turbines that are counter-productive, but not a penny on a single boat for the reestablishment codfish populations.
What sort of boat? It would be a boat designed to strip mother codfish of their million-plus eggs, milk father codfish of their sperm, keep the fertilized eggs and hatchling in a safe, predator-free environment until they were two, three or four weeks old, and then release them to the wild. In other words: a hatchery.
I’m sure creating such a tub would involve all sorts of problems. However isn’t that what universities are for? To use our brilliant, young minds to solve problems?
I’m sure it would cost money, however considering the trillions spent on welfare, on unproductive losers, (on thin air,) a “mere” half billion spent building three or four small, sea-going hatcheries, and staffing them, (and many students would actually like wallowing about the Grand Banks and getting sea-sick, and do it for free,) might be an acceptable risk, as an investment. Especially when there is at least a small chance that having actual hatcheries for codfish might restore populations to their former amazing levels.
I know young and naïve students would leap at the chance of supplying the hungry world with a huge stock of codfish, even if the scheme seemed a bit hare-brained to their pragmatic elders.
I also know these same students are sick to death of having to affix “Global Warming” to the final paragraph of each and every report, whether it be about the mating habits of nematodes, or about when dogs howl at the moon, simply to get a parking place at the college cafeteria.
Kids are not as stupid as we old geezers sometimes think, you know.
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Caleb,
Your question made me do a little research I should have done long ago on the shrimp fishery that replaced the cod fishery on the Grand Banks. Sadly, it turns out that shrimp are being fished using demersal otter trawls. I think that the pictures of the bottoms, if taken, would be comparing ‘after’ with ‘even more after’. I also discovered that there is minimal regulation of this fishery. It seems the DFO does not learn from experience – and of course the shrimp are now in decline.
I now understand why there are repeated calls for marine protected areas. At the very least there should be large areas protected from dragging, if not from other forms of fishing.
It seems, although it’s hard to tell, that Latitude is claiming that the damming of rivers in New England is the cause of the codfish decline.
This seems wildly far-fetched to me, for several reasons. As a result, I have left Latitude to present his case.
However, it seems some people might actually believe him … so let me point out a few things that make his claim highly unlikely.
1. While inshore nurseries, including things like mangrove swamps, wetlands, and rivers are an important source of food for nearshore fish, for offshore fish like many of the cod stocks, the coast and the rivers are too far away to do much of anything.
2. The decrease in cod started with the Northern stocks, up in Canada, in regions where there are very few inshore dams or human construction. So we can be very sure that Latitudes hypotheticals don’t apply there.
3. There have been a host of improvements in the inshore habitat in New England, including the removal of some dams. Despite this, the cod have not recovered.
4. As far as I’ve seen, Latitude has not shown that all, part, or little of the cod’s diet is food that comes from inland as he claims. As an experienced fisherman who has likely worn out more seabags than Latitude has worn out socks, I doubt it greatly. The ocean is a huge place, where even the biggest river has little weight. I would bet big money that a stock of Cod on the Grand Banks are mostly locavores … hang on, let me take a look, I’ve never researched this question.
…
…
OK, here’s the information Latitude forgot to include. See Table 2 here for the major food items on the codfishes’ plates, and Table 3 for the minor food items. The major food items for cod depend on location, but the main contestants for adult cod are herring, capelin, lance, mackerel, crabs, mollusks, invertebrates, starfish, and shrimp… curiously, the salmon and sturgeon, which I couldn’t figure why Latitude was discussing, do not occur at all on the list of food items in Table 2, or even in Table 3, the minor food items.
Please notice that as far as I can see, not one of the food items in that exhaustive list of cod foods major and minor comes from the rivers. Perhaps there’s one on the list I didn’t see, but by and large, the cod are NOT eating salmon, shad, sturgeon, or alewives, the major fish that live in the New England or other rivers and return to the oceans.
So I call BS on the idea that the inshore habitat is what caused the decline in cod. I couldn’t believe that Latitude was making that curious claim, so it’s taken me a while to respond. But if I do finally understand what Latitude is saying, his claim is not supported by the evidence of what cod actually eat.
Finally, the idea that a huge school of cod a hundred miles from the coast is critically dependent on food from inshore is a very dubious claim to any commercial fisherman. The ocean is far too big for that to happen, and there’s no UPS to deliver the tons of shad that would be required. That’s why it took so long for me to understand what Latitude’s claim actually was, because it seemed so unlikely that he could believe that the cod were limited by the bounty of the rivers.
w.
PS—I notice that after boasting about his employment giving him deep insight into these matters, saying
… despite that claim, Latitude still hasn’t revealed his profession.
You gonna put your money where your mouth is, Latitude, and explain to us how your profession qualifies you to teach these matters? Or is this just more of your bait-and-switch style?
Willis, you are starting to sound like the 97% crowd, Just saying!
Wow that is a first for Me here that I wasn’t waiting in moderation???? What’s up with that?
RE: Willis:
Interesting point about the Cod stocks dropping first up north, where the rivers weren’t polluted and there were far fewer dams. Also great use of the word “locavore.” (I am going to steal it.)
I suppose a final pettifogging detail would be to look at that the chart which shows what the codfish eat, and see whether those species are also are locavores. Also double-check how close to shore codfish move when they breed.
RE: Vigilantfish.
Sad to hear the shrimp stocks are dropping. I wonder if they can be fished without dragging along the bottom. It would be hard to line-fish shrimp. (:
I knew some guys who switched from cod to shrimp. Also some who switched to bringing tourists out to fish. They were not people who wanted to work on land. I think if they knew dragging might force them all to work ashore, they might demand all dragging stop.
RE: Me
Ouch! However, if we were the 97% crowd, and this was Real Climate, Latitude (and you) would be snipped, and I’d still be going on about building floating hatcheries. Instead we have all grown at least a little, I think. Thanks a third time to all who contributed their thoughts.
WRT the impact of seals: I have visited Cape Cod every summer of my (not short) life. Seals were simply killed by fishermen in the past, and now that is a felony. The beaches where seals haul out by the thousands are stinking cesspits…. yet walking your dog on the beach is prohibited many places; too much chance the dog might relieve itself! Seals eat most any species of fish they can. They follow boats that are fishing hook and line, and take whatever is caught before it can be boated. People often give up and go home after losing several fish (plus gear) in a row to seals. They are very cute, but don’t pay much attention to maximum take limits or minimum fish sizes…
Seals are a serious problem that political correctness prohibits from being addressed. The only practical solution is a deep cull and limiting numbers to a reasonable level (10-20% of today?) thereafter, but it seems the chance of this ever happening is near zero, no matter how many people end up being maimed or killed by Great Whites, and no matter how much ecological, commercial, and recreational damage the seals do. It is Alice-in-Wonderland on Cape Cod.
Me says:
June 15, 2013 at 2:58 am
And you, on the other hand, sound like a nasty anonymous internet popop, someone only interested in slimy personal attacks without any foundation or evidence to back them up. If you were serious about your objection, you would QUOTE MY WORDS that you think make me sound like the 97% crowd.
Instead, all you present is a handwaving attack, throwing mud in random directions in the hope that it will stick to me, and in the process ending up only muddying yourself …
Go away. Don’t go away mad. Just go away. Jerkwagons like you are all too common around here already. I’m bored to tears with brain-dead folks like you attacking me without saying why or providing anything but your big mouth and even bigger ego to back it up . You don’t seem to know how to play well with others, so my advice?
You should go back to playing with yourself.
w.
I want to open a new restaurant specializing in seal sandwiches and charbroiled seal burgers. Will offer deep fried potatoes cooked in seal oil. Baby seal steaks will be seared to seal in the seal flavors. You will get a picture of a baby seal to show what you have eaten with every order.
For only $19.95 per month you can help support baby seals that have been abandoned by their mothers at less than one year of age as is common in the seal community. You will get a picture of this young orphan and the opportunity to eat it the next time you dine. Show your compassion and relieve a seal from being forced to live in extremely cold and icy climates and avoid being mauled by polar bears and great white sharks. Please be humane and dine on a seal. It is entirely sustainable. You will be given one carbon credit for your own personal contribution to sustainability.
You will be offered the pleasure to dine in our plush banquet room with sealskin chairs and have an opportunity to purchase a sealskin purse, wallet, gloves, coat, or underware. Soon we will offer travel luggage as well. Novelties will include stuffed baby seals with antelope horns mounted on its head and will be called sealalopes.
“They also overfished the Grand Banks and our other offshore waters with deep, bottom-churning dragnets to such a degree the codfish population crashed. Even when the three-mile-limit was pushed far off shore, the codfish never came back.”
Where did you get this information??? The cod fishery off Newfoundland was very lucrative until the late 1980’s.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 15, 2013 at 8:58 am
Me says:
June 15, 2013 at 2:58 am
Willis, you are starting to sound like the 97% crowd, Just saying!
And you, on the other hand, sound like a nasty anonymous internet popop……..
======================================
😀 Gavin, is that you?
Well played. You showed him by…… well, presenting a demeanor exactly as he was implying.
It’s been fun reading the backs and forths, but, when it comes to attempting to compare sizes, and appeals to authority, and obsessing on the minutia, we know the conversation is probably no longer fruitful. And, when it degenerates into that same such mean-spirited condescension we’ve seen all too often at other places, we really know it’s ended.
My best to all.
James
Your codfish hatchery … http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~melbaker/nielsen.htm
Haute cuisine de viande de phoque:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/dining/01seal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
David Riser says:
June 12, 2013 at 11:34 pm
Fisheries is serious stuff, you need to keep your facts straight. Codfish are born and grow in about 200meters of water to start with followed by heading to the seabed where they stay.
??? Get your facts right! The depth at whch Atlantic cod spawn varies according to the stock (110m – 180m). The resultant eggs are buoyant … they float towards the surface and hatch to become part of the plankton!
James Sexton says:
June 15, 2013 at 12:10 pm
James, the problem is that neither you nor I know what demeanor the anonymous poster was implying, because he didn’t quote, reference, or in any way indicate what he thought I was doing wrong.
You are correct, I have grown weary and intolerant of people who do that, just toss out a random accusation without anything to indicate what they are talking about, or anything to back it up, or anything at all.
I’m willing to learn from any man. And if the anonymous poster with the cutesy screen name “Me” thinks I’ve done wrong, well, perhaps I have. It’s happened more than I care to admit.
But for him to accuse me of being like the 97% without a word of explanation?
That’s just plain nastiness in my book.
Now I see that you don’t like my response, claiming that somehow it’s like Gavin. Nothing of the sort. Gavin is much more politically correct, and much less direct and straightforward, than I am, and meanwhile he ruthlessly and invisibly censors everything that displeases him. If you can’t tell the difference, I feel sorry for you.
But I have no problem when you quote exactly what I said, and then accuse me of being like Gavin. I can defend myself against that. You’ve made your objection clear. I have something to respond to.
But when the anonymous poster “Me” or another of his ilk starts slinging mud without any details, I cannot defend against it. And as a result, I simply won’t tolerate it.
I see that my method of not tolerating it upsets you, and I don’t like that, but despite some years of experimentation with how to handle folks like “Me”, I don’t happen to have a better plan. I’d like to be able to push the magic button that would educate them that their behavior is not acceptable in some way that was guaranteed to be effective … but I fear I don’t have such a magic button.
So in lieu of that, I quote what they say and try to make evident my displeasure at those types of underhanded, mud-slinging attacks.
And no, I don’t mince words when I do it. And if that truly upsets you, then I cordially invite you to go read Gavin’s blog, where this kind of thing never happens, and everything is calm and serene …
Or if not, James, then let me cordially invite you to just ignore the skirmishing on the sidelines and enjoy the thread. I’m going to continue in my useless attempt to stamp out unreferenced handwaving attacks, and I’m sorry that upsets you, but so what? Skip over what bugs you, these random anonymous popups are attacking me, not you, and there’s plenty of good value in the comments whether or not you read what I write.
All the best,
w.
milodonharlani says:
June 15, 2013 at 12:22 pm
Haute cuisine de viande de phoque:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/01/dining/01seal.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
==================
That article you linked to seals the deal. I’ll have to pass on the seaweed offering but the loin chops sounds delicious.
One must be careful what one writes here on WUWT as there will be many eyes on you! (eyebrows raised)
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 15, 2013 at 4:39 pm
James Sexton says:
June 15, 2013 at 12:10 pm
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 15, 2013 at 8:58 am
Me says:
June 15, 2013 at 2:58 am
Willis, you are starting to sound like the 97% crowd, Just saying!
And you, on the other hand, sound like a nasty anonymous internet popop……..
======================================
😀 Gavin, is that you?
Well played. You showed him by…… well, presenting a demeanor exactly as he was implying.
James, the problem is that neither you nor I know what demeanor the anonymous poster was implying, because he didn’t quote, reference, or in any way indicate what he thought I was doing wrong……
===================================
Willis, you’re hilarious. The problem is you’re oblivious to the commenters. Sure, you pay special attention to the ones who critique, but, once you do, you move on and forget. YOU DON’T LEARN!!!
You think I don’t know what “Me” was saying? That’s laughable. “Me” has commented on WUWT for years. And, not just WUWT. I know exactly what he was saying, because I take the time to note. I don’t discard criticism. I take the time to try and understand where it comes from and why. But, that’s what any normal rational person would do. But, you don’t do that. You never have…. at least, not at WUWT.
Man, I love your writing, I love your mind. But, you’re wrong more often than you’re right, because you refuse to learn, any more. You’d rather win an argument than be correct. And, I’m not sure you understand the difference. But, there is a difference. “Me” understands the difference. I know he does because I remember what he wrote in the past. Just like I know Latitude knows what he’s talking about. Pay attention for a second. If your Alzheimer’s doesn’t allow for this, well, I’m sorry, but you were probably an idiot before it set in.
My sincere sympathies,
James Sexton
James Sexton says:
June 15, 2013 at 9:30 pm
I don’t know if you know what Me was saying, nor did I claim you did, although I doubt it greatly unless you’ve had private communication with him. There’s not enough information in his post for anyone to tell what he was referring to … but that’s not what I said.
I said I didn’t know what Me was saying. I didn’t comment on your knowledge at all.
So he has. Here’s a typical post of his addressed to me, in its entirety:
A charming fellow indeed, your friend “Me” … and you think the problem is that I DON’T LEARN from dickheads like that? Exactly what lesson did I miss in his brilliant, witty exposition on my lack of knowledge?
Here’s the exact and full post from Me that you claim you can interpret perfectly:
So … since you know “exactly what he was saying”, perhaps you can enlighten me. Just exactly which one of my evil habits was Me talking about? Was it that I’m krool and heartless? Or that I “don’t know the basics of what I post on”? Or perhaps was it my tendency to ridicule people like Me who specialize in handwaving attacks?
Or maybe it was that it was that I don’t suffer fools like you very gladly? Which one do you claim Me meant … and upon what possible evidence are you basing your claim?
So pick one of these, or if it’s none of these that Me is talking about, then please, break out your Magic 8-Ball, give it a spin, and tell us exactly what he does mean. You claim to know exactly what it is, so please tell us. What was it about what I said that is like the “97% crowd”?
While you’re at it, could you tell us what the “97% crowd” is like? I was unaware that there actually was a “97% crowd”, I thought that was just more consensus nonsense.
But obviously, you and “Me”, whoever s/he is, know not only that the 97% is real, but you know what they are like, and just exactly how I’m like them.
Personally, I think you’re full of unadulterated BS on this question, and that you are talking out your fundamental orifice. There’s no way anyone could know what “Me” meant by that post, whether you’d read every single previous post of his or not. Your claim that you know is a pathetic joke.
But heck, give us your cockamamie idea about exactly what “Me” meant, demonstrate your mind-reading talents, let us in on the secrets encoded in “Me”‘s post. Reveal all, tell us exactly which of my ways is like exactly what about the 97%. I haven’t had a good belly laugh all evening, so break out your theory … I await your explanation of what you know about his meaning, and just how you deduce it from his post …
w.
A brief summary of cod fishing in the NW Atlantic: http://www.heritage.nf.ca/society/moratorium.html
It doesn`t mention the thousands of tonnes of marketable fish that were dumped in the late 1980`s in order to maximize landings of steak cod – this fish never came off the quotas. It doesn`t mention the effect on cod recruitment of unusually cold water off eastern Newfoundland in the late 80`s and early 90`s. It doesn`t mention the effect of an estimated 5 million harp seals on cod populations and that the importance of seal predation is probably underestimated as they are know to bite out the lipid rich liver from the fish leaving the head (and otoliths) etc. behind.
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 16, 2013 at 2:28 am
I said I didn’t know what Me was saying. I didn’t comment on your knowledge at all…….
=================================
Willis Eschenbach says:
June 15, 2013 at 4:39 pm
….. James, the problem is that neither you nor I know what demeanor the anonymous poster was implying, because he didn’t quote,………
========================================
Apparently, Willis, quoting you has no relevence to your responses. Willis, you’re still hilarious. While I’d love to continue this wonderful dialogue, I find impossible to adequatly exchange thoughts and ideas with people who reject and deny what they’ve written in their prior comments.
How is it you expect people to adequately respond to you, and your criticizing them for not quoting you, but, when you are quoted you deny writing such things?
Take your meds. Krool? Naw, boorish, is more like it. Willis, I’m sorry I upset you. It was an effort to increase your ability to engage with other people who may communicate differently than you do. And, to get you to focus on relevent things in a discussion instead of obsessing on the minutia and harmless observations towards your demeanor. I see I’ve utterly failed in that effort.
I do get a little defensive of people when I see needless responses. If you didn’t know what he was referring to when he mentioned the “97%” you could have just asked as opposed to writing a rant. But, I don’t believe you’re that dense. Alternatively, if you did understand the reference, you could have either accepted the criticism and moved on, or ignored it.
I’ve neither the time nor the inclination to resond to demands from a fellow who will simply wave off what he stated prior when I do respond, as your most recent comment just did. Again, this thread has devolved into limited utility. I’ll let you have the last rant. I’m already tired of responding to your insanity.
Best wishes,
James
Well, I can’t let things end on such a sour note.
I had no idea idea that “Me” had any sort of history or harassing Willis. Now that I do, I think his last name may be Squeeter.
The problem with mosquitoes is that it doesn’t do much good to reason with them.
When I was a teenager a member of my gang had the nickname, “Pest.” He was a really good guy around 95% of the time, but 5% of the time I don’t know what the devil got into him, but it earned him his nickname.
For example, you might be out hiking on a beautiful day, with everything lovely, and he would pluck a long stem of grass. The stem was the sort that, rather than having a seed-head like wheat, had a seed head sort of like a round, green, fuzzy Caterpillar. In a most innocent manner Pest would stick it in your hair and twirl it left and right. It took him all of three seconds, but snarled itself so hideously into your hair it took around five minutes to pick it to pieces and remove it. It took me longer, because I was always in a rush in those days and had to do it while walking. Sometimes even before I had the first stem remove he’d innocently pluck another…
I tried to reason with Pest, but it was absolutely no use. He might nod, but even as he nodded he’d mischievously pick another stem. The ability to annoy the heck out of everyone (because guys had long hair in those days,) gave him a odd power: Merely by plucking and waving a stem of grass he could have everyone flinching and backing away, avoiding him as if it was a gun. Also he found it funny. Every time he annoyed someone he’d laugh until tears came out of his eyes, and we discovered it is hard to give someone a thump, if they are rolling around helpless with laughter.
Some of the other guys just got fed up, lost it, and gave him a thump anyway, but I pretty much decided Pest was just put together in an annoying way by God, and I resigned myself to the fact Pest would always be a pest. As soon as I did that, I was much less fun to torment, and he took to pestering others more than he pestered me.
That taught me a sort of lesson about respecting people for what they are, even if they are a pest.
I tend to be respectful, even when I get only half as much respect as Rodney Dangerfield in return. (I suppose it is due to having a small gang of older siblings. They tended to demand respect without being very respectful about it.) This actually prepared me for life, because if I cared a hoot for respect I never would have been able to go the places I’ve gone, because I often had to sleep in my car and take bottom-rung jobs, like cleaning toilets.
Sometimes too much self-respect can keep one at home, living with mother, because one fears it might be beneath them to clean toilets. However not enough self-respect, and people think they can exploit you and walk all over you. When things got that bad I tended to simply depart, and move on to the next situation. I wasn’t disrespectful to my former boss; I just politely bid him adieu. None of the “respectful” things, such as promotions, raises, pensions, insurance plans, had any hold on me. For that reason I’ve done things and been places in my life that respectable people haven’t dared do or go. Where they stayed stuck, I bummed my way onward.
If fate had wished it, I might have bummed my way out onto a Santa Cruz wharf and set sail on the same ship as Willis back in the 1980’s. (Stranger coincidences have happened.) However where I would likely have shipped out as Bilge Scrubber Second Class, he likely would have been the guy organizing the escapade. As such, he commands more respect. It is simply the way things work in real life, and it is especially so at sea, for otherwise things get very rotten very fast, and you either ram a reef or have a mutiny on your hands.
The blogosphere is a strange ship to sail upon, because the rules of who respects who are not very clear. I would like to think we would stick to the subject of “increasing the population of codfish,” but, as we have seen, something new and interesting appears. We get off track, and enter the world of how egos respect, or don’t-respect, other egos.
As I said earlier, I don’t need much respect. Getting my writing published by Anthony was honor enough, and I rather enjoyed the ensuing uproar. People can call me all sorts of bad things, and it is like water off a duck’s back. Mostly i placate, however at times I may gently needle right back, to keep a discussion progressing. And I confess the original essay was full of needles, to get things started.
In a manner of speaking I am ship-builder, boat-owner and captain of this thread, (Anthony owns the sea,) and if things get out of hand very fast and we ram a reef or have a mutiny on our hands, I am at least partly to blame.
Well, things did get a bit out of hand. I spent a lot of time scratching my head like a captain on his first voyage, wondering how on earth to get the crew to quit brawling and back to work. I was glad to have Willis aboard, for he actually has been a captain, and when he roared I could study how an experienced captain roars.
Latitude, “ME,” and James Sexton were like three shipmates who likely should have never boarded this ship, though at least Latitude scrubbed a deck or two by making two points that added to the discussion.(IE: “stock” is not the same as “catch”, and “coastal” stocks “might” have been depleted by the damming of rivers reducing stocks of migratory fish that codfish eat, peaking 150 years ago in 1870.)
Two points, among a great many other good points, but Latitude seemed to think he deserved a hundred spotlights for his two points, and everyone else deserved shadow. He made his points over and over and over, and called everyone deaf for not hearing him, when he had been heard. The simple fact is that his points don’t solve the problem, and people said so. He doesn’t deserve a hundred spotlights, and people said so.
However in charges James Sexton, defender of the oppressed, to save Latitude from….the other points people are making? To defend Latitude from the fact his two points are not even close to being central, and are actually at the periphery of the issue? I’m not sure, but I do see James didn’t bring any new points, (except to guess, “winds and tides probably are not important to what Latitude is saying,”) and instead said some very offensive things about others who confronted Latitude. I don’t see what telling Willis to take meds, or calling Willis senile, adds to a discussion of Codfish. All in all, James Sexton never scrubbed a deck for us, but did contribute to a mutiny.
Lastly we have “Me,” who never dared step aboard, and merely yelled something from shore which had nothing to do with what was being discussed.
All in all, these three took up a lot of space and time, and all we got out of it was two rather inconsequential points. I will remember them, if I captain another voyage
RE: Jon. Thank you for clarifying how cod can breed at depth, and the eggs then float up to the surface. In twenty-five words you added more to the discussion than others did with thousands.
RE: eyesonu Though you jest, a harvest of seals could suppy food, oil, and fur. It would be stupid to just slaughter them. 100,000 seals can have up to 50,000 pups a year, while living 20 years. The New England harvest could be sizable, and “sustainable.” Guys who hate working ashore could have jobs at sea, or at least on the shore.
RE: Some commented earlier on the history of the three-mile-limit. Although I mentioned the 1950’s, I am well aware it went on far longer. When I looked out to sea, up in Maine in the 1970’s, there was so much light out to sea it was like there was a city out there. The reason I blame Russia, (though there were others,) is because besides sending a fleet, they sent a floating factory. The politics surrounding the madness of allowing them to sail so close and over-fish so badly could be the subject for another post. Like Global warming, it is proof politicians are capable of the most dunderheaded deeds.
RE: Some people commented earlier about my brief mention, in the original essay, about people who sailed to our shores for the cod, (and one mentioned walrus,) long before the Pilgrims. I’d love to launch off on all the various views and versions and lore surrounding that subject, but that should wait until another post. The topic I was focused on this post was how to get the codfish population back up to former levels.
I think the conclusion is that the protection of the sea bottom ought receive much more attention than it does.
More study of the ecology of the fish that breed at sea is needed.
I still think the idea of floating hatcheries that release very young cod ought be explored. However if turns out to be as impractical as wind turbines, dump my idea altogether. I’d hate to be remembered for causing there to be as many useless floating hatcheries as there are useless wind turbines.
JonNL says:
June 16, 2013 at 8:29 am
Thanks for the link, Jon. Here’s a study that does consider some of those things. The conclusions of the study? Overfishing was the culprit for the decline. Let me quote from their discussion (emphasis mine):
w.
Caleb says:
June 16, 2013 at 7:11 pm
My thanks to you, Caleb, for your level-headed take on all of this. It’s true that I get impassioned about these matters, and that may not be the best response. You advise that with “Pest” when you stopped responding to his tormenting you, he stopped trying to torment you.
My problem with that is that it doesn’t seem to work on the web. They don’t get discouraged. Instead, the lack of response encourages them to multiply and support each other. I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s that they get to see their immortal prose up there on the silver screen, or they just want to tear down because they can’t build, but whatever the reason, my experience is that ignoring them doesn’t work.
I hold this opinion because I’ve been dealing with the issue of people coming in to my threads and making mud-slinging personal attacks for some years now. The only thing I’ve found to work is to step on them like the cockaroaches that they are. I have no tolerance for unfounded, uncited, unreferenced personal accusations, and I’m happy to make that clear to those that come crawling around here making such accusations.
I’m more than happy for someone to show I’m wrong. No, not more than happy, that’s not right, no one is happy to be wrong. But I know that that’s my only hope. I know that’s the path of scientific and personal progress. If people don’t tell me when I’m going off the rails, I may not notice until it’s too late, or perhaps never.
But vague assertions, like that I’m a “denier” or that I’m “like the 97%”, without a scrap of information about what I did or said that has so upset them, are something I won’t put up with. I will not allow a man to libel me in that manner and make no response. I’ve tried it, and if I say nothing, on the web these anonymous folks are only encouraged to post another nasty remark.
I think part of the reason the web is different from your experience with “Pest” is that on the web, there’s always jerkwagon number two. When some charming and usually anonymous fellow makes some unpleasant and untrue statement about me, if I say nothing, you can bet that JW#2 will notice that lack of response, and they’ll jump up and say “Yeah, Me, you’re right, and besides Willis never acknowledges his sources” or some vague libel like that, again without anything to back it up. Then I’m fighting two lies.
Someone actually said that on a thread the other day, claiming that I was plagiarizing ideas without attribution.
I can’t let that kind of lie remain unopposed and unfalsified. I called them out. I said if you can find anywhere I’ve done that, give me chapter and verse of where I’ve done it, and I’ll set it right immediately.
I didn’t hear another damn word on the subject, and the lurkers found out the truth about my accuser. It was just another attempt to attack my honesty rather than deal with my scientific claims.
So I swat people like that. I don’t want them around. I don’t care if I insult them. I hope they take their ball and go home.
I’ve found no other way to get rid of such charming folks, but if you have one, I’m all ears …
And again, my thanks for riding herd on a most interesting thread. Like a garden, a post and the resulting thread of comments require cultivation and weeding, and you’ve done a good job of it … even including how much harder I made your job.
Well done,
w.
Caleb says:
RE: eyesonu Though you jest, a harvest of seals could suppy food, oil, and fur. It would be stupid to just slaughter them. 100,000 seals can have up to 50,000 pups a year, while living 20 years. The New England harvest could be sizable, and “sustainable.” Guys who hate working ashore could have jobs at sea, or at least on the shore.
==================
I fully agree with you. There is a valuable resource that could be harvested for good cause.
I just presented it in a rather unorthodox way. To be honest, I was just amusing myself. 😉
I would certainly hope that any of our PETA friends were not offended.
RE: Willis.
“….and you’ve done a good job of it … even including how much harder I made your job.”
Thanks, and I was glad you came aboard. The graphs were especially helpful. It is OK if a job gets harder if it means you get more done. And if you hadn’t joined, the responses might have petered out after sixty or so. 174 responses is pretty good.
Willis … yes I realize that overfishing was the main culprit … but there was a lot more to it than just that … just ask the fishermen in Newfoundland. Just because it’s put in a scientific document doesn’t mean that it’s gospel 🙂 The late Ram Myers was very much a stats guy … I prefer the hands on biology myself.