Isn't there a non-lethal way to do research?

[DavidPT40]

A research vessel studying the depleted stocks of marbled atlantic cod managed to haul up five tons of the rare fish. The fish were feeding on krill, and thusly shoaled tightly.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061226134654.htm

So theres three different factors I see here. Research-legislation-conservation.

Research alone does not save animals. Research is just information. Scientists can present the information to a government, which may pass legislation to slow or stop fishing for a certain species. But thats where the real factor comes in to play, conservation.

I don't know if I could ethically support a research team that hauled up an entire shoal of threatened cod.

 

[RoyN]

Well, if you want to do something about it, then the word action would be perfect for this situation.

 

[Zingtea]

Wow, that sounds just like Japanese whaling.

 

[DennisS]

A lot of fisheries research is doing the same thing over and over. Same boat, same time of year, same area, same length of trawl, same equipment. Over the years they establish a data base that they can use to manage the fishery. Fisheries research involves catching fish. That's how they get their data. If they get the same thing next year it will be a trend, if not, its an anomaly

 

[stillhope]

Observational interference is a consideration when designing an experiment in any science. In some cases, like observing the demographics of museum visitors or angular momentum of whatevers, the interference has no lasting consequences other than polluting the results. But in some cases (examples exist in anthropology, planetary geophysics, biology, ...) the interference can create substantial changes in the observed subjects and the experiments cease to be meaningful.

Repeating the same mistake over and over isn't science, it's stubborn egoism.

 

[archman]

Give us research trawlers a break. Sometimes we catch a lot of junk in our nets. It's still a drop (more like a nanodrop) in the bucket compared to commercial trawling intensity. :water:

 

[DavidPT40]

Marine biology and limnology may be a bit harsher than I would like. For instance, one biologist at my university was telling about how he sampled fish in a local lake. A cove would be sectioned off with heavy plastic sheets, and poison dumped in. Whatever dead fish floated up were examined and counted.

 

[drbill]

When I was teaching high school marine biology (1969 to 1979), I never required my students to do a dissection. I felt biology was the study of living things. Instead I had them focus on aspects like behavior and ecology.

One of my classic assignments was to ask students to "fully describe" a species (as the first lab exercise... and later as the last). I expected them to go into the other aspects of each critter. One student had been studying the striped shore crab (Pachygrapsus crassipes). During the last week of the class, he came to me and asked if he "had" to dissect "Henry." I told him of course not, but he decided that to fully describe it, he should.

Now teaching is different from research. My research focuses on giant kelp. I don't collect it (just dive through it), but study it using satellite images (remote sensing) and GIS. It was an intentional choice... to conduct "non-destructive" research.

However, I'm fully aware that many other areas of research involve the taking of specimens, occasionally in "large" numbers (population studies for example). I just chose not to do that kind of research, but it is essential for a better understanding of taxonomy, evolution, population biology and ecology.

 

[archman]

Aw, stuff like that's humdrum. For REAL gore and mayhem, visit any run of the mill physiology or animal genetics lab. Odds are there's something being injected with diseases, getting its innards rearranged, or being bred for ultimate vivisection. In just my own department at Texas A&M, we've got bats, pigeons, zebrafish, swordtails and an endless string of invertebrates all getting the shaft.

The SHAFT... of SCIENCE!!!:coffin:

All the wussy girlymen go into natural resource management.

 

[DavidPT40]

I don't know if I could ethically participate in large 'samplings' of fish or other organisms. After all, I got into biology because I value animals and I enjoy studying them. Animals have an intrinsic value to me by just being alive. They're just hunks of meat when they're dead.

But it probably does further science, even if it requires pulling up entire schools of threatened cod. But its not something I'm willing to do.