Fishery closures based on computer models,…Those BCS people are behind this aren’t they?
“Modern day Robin Hoodism-Steal from the sucessful and give to the poorly motivated.”
yes, the only “knob” you can turn is fishing pressure. You cannot change natural mortality rates (although you can investigate different levels in the model). As humans, we can only change our behavior. We can’t make the environment change at our bidding.
Why would you want a model where you can lower natural mortality to allow for more fishing mortality? That’s not good science.
quote:
Originally posted by smoothdogyes, the only “knob” you can turn is fishing pressure. You cannot change natural mortality rates (although you can investigate different levels in the model). As humans, we can only change our behavior. We can’t make the environment change at our bidding.
Why would you want a model where you can lower natural mortality to allow for more fishing mortality? That’s not good science.
First of all, thanks for participating. Hopefully you don’t interpret this as flaming when it’s nothing more than a difference of opinion. In general, it’s probably good that people hear as many sides to the story as they can and can decide for themselves!
Now, onto the topic…
I’m not sure who decided what constitutes “good science” and “bad science”, but I don’t really care about either. I will take “great engineering” over “good science” any day.
As far as making the “environment change at our bidding”, I hate to be the one to point this out to you, but humans have been doing this for thousands of years. Agriculture has been around for over 10,000 years. The clothes on your back, the genetically modified food you eat, the chemically treated water you drink, heck even the air conditioner in your home is a changing the environment around you, and when it’s dark outside, you flip on the lightswitch to change the environment around you again from dark to light… Speaking of houses, there is a good chance that they cut down a bunch of trees and pushed around a lot of dirt to build your house. And that car you drive, well, let’s not even get into the materials it’s made of or the carbon emissions… In reality, there would not be 6.5 BILLION people on this Earth if it weren’t for the modification of the environment to suit our bidding. Humans have modified their environmen
Another thought…
Let’s assume that we rebuild red snapper stocks to “virgin levels” one day and find the absolute perfect sweet spot for bag limit which is 1 per person per day… What happens the next time the population of fishermen is doubled (20 years)? Do we go to 0.5 fish per person?
Great article from the former Commissioner of Marine Resources for the State of Maine. Doesn’t solve any disagreements in this thread, but more basic information as was originally requested:
http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/green/report/2012/09/27/39347/counting-fish-101/
What kills me is the fact they want to restore fisheries “historical populations”. What about deer and turkey…?? That would be immposible.