Fishing Culture
jjacquet | March 27, 2008Call them Pavlov's fish: Scientists are testing a plan to train fish to catch themselves by swimming into a net when they hear a tone that signals feeding time. If it works, the system could eventually allow black sea bass to be released into the open ocean, where they would grow to market size, then swim into an underwater cage to be harvested when they hear the signal.
Check out the full story at the CBC.
This particular experiment might seem harmless fun setting fish out to pasture, in the big picture, does evoke the rapid, large-scale domestication of marine species that has occurred…
josh donlan | March 26, 2008The Pew Environment Group and the Conserve Our Ocean Legacy Campaign just launched the new online game Ocean Survivor. It is designed to draw attention to the perils of overfishing and provide people with an opportunity to sign a petition to make a difference.
jjacquet | February 22, 2008This week, the L.A. Times ran an interesting profile of a sea urchin/sea cucumber fisherman from California. Though the author pushes us to feel sympathy for the aging diver and a declining fishery, any fisherman who was able to send his two sons to "13 years of prep school in Palos Verdes, and then sent them to two of the top liberal arts schools in the nation" cannot have been doing too badly. No, he doesn't have a 401(k) and he might continue to work his whole life, but isn't this simply the modern manifestation of the American Dream?
jjacquet | February 7, 2008The whale hunt is proceeding as planned and there is now photographic evidence to prove it. The BBC published some gruesome photos today. I'm not going to post any here because I don't want to get depressed every time I open my computer...
jjacquet | December 30, 2007The Domesday Book of Giant Salmon (~$75), a story book of the biggest Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) caught since the 18th century, is an unexpected best-seller this year. A special edition of the book priced at $1311 sold out before it was even ready to be shipped. Good thing the Atlantic salmon has been immortalized. A WWF study a few years ago found that:
Atlantic salmon have been completely eliminated from no fewer than 300 out of over 2,000 river systems in their original range, and stocks hang by a thread in many others. In Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Belgium, the Czech…
jjacquet | August 31, 2007The Houston Chronicle ran a nice story about a shrimp boat captain who had to deliver a baby onboard while 30 miles offshore. Though she wasn't due until September, Cindy Preisel's water broke Wednesday. What was a shimp boat captain to do? Some highlights from the article:
[The mother] showed off the piece of green shrimp net twine boat captain Edward Kiesel used to tie off [the baby's] umbilical cord .
The baby's first bottle was an emptied and boiled soy sauce bottle with a nipple made from the finger of a rubber shrimper's glove. He was swaddled in paper and cloth towels.
The baby is…
jjacquet | August 19, 2007Small fish can cause a big stink. A New York Times article reports that fishermen in France and Spain are fighting about fishing for anchovies in the Bay of Biscay. Because the bay was overfished, the European Union implemented a total ban on fishing for anchovies until 2008. But fishermen in both Spain and France are afraid that saving the fish might mean losing part of their identity and, of course, economy.
The article also reports:
...Fishermen here had begun to fish for anchovies in the last 20 years or so. Before that, sardines were their stock in trade. Virtually all the anchovies…
jjacquet | July 3, 2007Not to overdo the jellyfish theme but... Jellyfish may have gained their Independence this July 4 with a new discovery that can turn their gelatinous bodies into something for cosmetics, food, and drugs. Yes, Science magazine ran an article this week, Making the Best of a Slimy Catch (echos of Jeremy Jackson's "Rise of Slime"), detailing potential new uses for jellyfish.
Efforts to find a use for them have so far resulted in a baking powder for cookies and crunchy snacks made of dried and salted pieces of jellyfish. But there may be another destination for their slimy bodies. Researchers…
jjacquet | June 18, 2007After Oceans Week 2007 concluded, the National Fisheries Institute did what any group committed to fishing would do: ran a PR campaign. An article titled NFI Reaffirms Support for Sustainable Seafood was published that included the following:
In reality, the seafood industry is largely sustainable because of international regulatory systems for wild capture as well as aquaculture, which is part of the solution to growing global demand for healthy fish.
Huh? Sorry, how can the seafood industry be largely sustainable (recall Daniel Pauly's definitition of sustainable: things stay the same),…
jjacquet | May 17, 2007Let's call him Marco. Marco came from outside the moutainous city of Quito to work on a boat as a 'pepinero' (a sea cucumber fisherman) back in 2003 (though it is illegal to hire outsiders as fishermen). He had never been diving before, but the other fishermen gave him a crash course. He stuck the regulator in his mouth and went underwater for a number of hours (some fishermen dive more than 8 hours in one day) searching for Stichopus fuscus. Marco made fast ascents (more than twice as fast as the recommended rate), stayed underwater way too long, and got really cold. He also suffered…