Television program of interest ....

[Pilar]

Thanks, Pete. PBS Rocks!

[Trick]

I wouldn't exactly say PBS rocks unless your into Barney. Every now and then they have a program worth watching and tommorow is one of them. Thanks Pete.

[Trick]

Oops. Reposted...how did that happen? graemlins/eek13.gif

[ 04-21-2002, 07:22 PM: Message edited by: Trick ]

[Pete]

In Portland, on PBS, Monday night at 10PM : Empty Oceans, Empty Nets will examine whether current ocean harvest practices may lead to a global food crisis. The premise of the show is that our oceans are rapidly being depleted of fish. An international debate concerns the nature of a complex problem and what needs to be done about it. Understanding why some fisheries are thriving, while most are in serious decline may be the key to averting a global food crisis.

Empty Ocean, Empty Nets (http://www.pbs.org/emptyoceans/)

[speyfly]

Thanks Pete!

[Pilar]

Hey Trick, ever been to or even inside the Chernobyl disaster site? How about the Weddell sea in Antartica on a sailing ship? I have because I watch PBS shows like Frontline and Nova. You only get travel opportunities like that somewhat infrequently but take them when you can.

Oh and then there was the time we went to Iraq, to a chemical weapons depot ..... Being free of and immune to the influence of Madison Ave. and
Wall street has it's advantages.

Who else even has the stones to deal with things like this? No one.

Like I said, PBS rocks ........

[Perfect Drift]

To the top

[Trick]

Pilar, I guess I'm too busy watching the National Geographic channel and Discovery to tune into Nova. Besides, those shows probally conflict with Survivor and Fear factor, which is on tonight.

So while your filling your head with all that useful information tonight I'll be watching people eat cockroaches and sheep testicals. :tongue:

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Just finished watching, very good information.

*** Clerk

[fish_on]

I'll never buy fish again.

[Matt H.]

I just finished watching this program. I wanted to say thanks to Pete for posting this info. This program was excellent and had very good information.

Matt

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Fish_on

I think that was the idea…
:grin:

[rob allen]

I agree excellent program..I think that the program portrayed the truth of whats going on and they did it i believe with ever ounce of optimisim as they could muster.

The little bit they showed about Pacific salmon showed us the importance of habitat and how effectivly habitat can restore runs if they are not overharvested. here in the northwest we have lost habitat and overharvest on some stocks. I think our biggest problem is that we allow harvest based on predictions of what the runs will be. We need to be waiting to see what the runs are like then allowing harvest if the population warrents.

[Trick]

The extreme amount of waste is what bothered me the most. Seeing all that product being shoveled dead back into the sea was a real let down. I was amazed at how many pounds of sea life was destroyed for each pound of shrimp that was caught.

The Alaska group of biologists seemed to be the only group with it's head screwed on right. Kudo's to them for keeping a world class fishery from collapsing and bringing it to a sustainable level year after year.

[Lured In]

Overall I thought it was very good, but perhaps I am a little too critical as I felt some crucial topics were not addressed.

1. IMHO I did not hear much regarding the science of fish management. What little I did hear was not revolutionary. (Perhaps that was part of their point in having commissions with conflicting interests making decisions resulted in little benefit to the fishery.)

2. The old Sesame Street saying..."one of these kids is doing there own thing, one of these is not like the other." came to mind. The cod, swordfish and tuna stories were focused on the contiued depletion of the fish, while the Salmon spot focused on the now "recovered" stocks in Alaska. No specific mention was giving to solving the problem of the other fisheries, with the exception of establishing estuaries.

3. Additionally, did you catch that the "reason" offered for the collapse of the Alaksa fisheries was due to netting the rivers vs. in the ocean or bays? Sound familiar...like maybe the Columbia?

4. Again perhaps I missed this, but they offered two reasons for the salmon recovery in AK. First was the reduction and control over the fishing fleet. Good plan and seems to be executed well. The second is completely different yet came across as they were managed in conjunction. They were flying over the watersheds doing arial fish counts and closing fisheries if escapement was low. By that point all the netters in the bays were done and what does the closure accomplish other than ending sport fishing opportunities in the watersheds themeselves? Again does this sound familiar?

Rob mentions this also, the flaw as most of understand is in allowing commercial harvest of uncertain returns of fish (forcasting). Yes in some cases they are more predictable and evidence would suggest that the fishery has become sustainable to some degree. For the Columbia we have seemingly radical variations in returns (for whatever reasons I won't go into) that are smacked IN THE RIVER, prior to validating run size.

If you saw they lowered the return of the springers anybody do a revised calculation on what percentage the netters took and how that effects impact limits? (*** do you know what, if any effect, this change makes on how the commercial allocation would have been different if the run was originally calculated at 220,000?)

I guess my point is that although they highlighted of the apparent success in AK, no mention was made that the cause for that in the first place is still going on in our backyard.

Enough ranting, I enjoyed the show and it got me thinking. Thanks for letting me know about it.