Isn't there a non-lethal way to do research?
- Thread starter DavidPT40
- Start date
Please register or login
Welcome to ScubaBoard, the world's largest scuba diving community. Registration is not required to read the forums, but we encourage you to join. Joining has its benefits and enables you to participate in the discussions.
Benefits of registering include
- Ability to post and comment on topics and discussions.
- A Free photo gallery to share your dive photos with the world.
- You can make this box go away
stillhope
Contributor
drbill:
DavidPT40:
When a scientists says, "that's the only way we can blah blah ..." you know that s/he hasn't brushed up on their logic recently. There's no way to know that there are no alternatives, the best you can do is to give up thinking that you'll ever find an alternative.
Zeeman
Contributor
If you don't kill the thing you are researching, how will you find out how good it tastes?
z...
z...
stillhope:
Wow.
Saying a scientist isn't strong on logic is like saying an MD isn't strong on human anatomy, or a writer is weak on grammar. And if there is a professional discipline better suited for rigorous exploratory thinking than science, I would like to know what that discipline is.The problem, if it can be called that, is that (a few) scientists just get tired, or their emotional button gets pushed and screws up their training. Or they work in government or private sector and have their opinions overriden by dufus supervisors. Some of us (me) view government or corporate employment with an abject horror. :reaper:
Rocha
Registered
Ok, as a scientist I think that it is my duty to intervene here before this thread gets even worse. Some clarifications about the original observations that led to this post:
1) The fact that the scientists collected a lot of fish doesn't mean that they intended to do so. In fact, it came as a complete surprise. They used the usual fishing gear (nets) and luckily fished an aggregation of the species they were studying. It is not the same as going out and killing 5,000 polar bears one by one just to see what they eat. Every fisherman knows that when you throw a net or a line in the water you don't know what you will get. In this case they caught the fish as a surprise. Also, the conclusion of the study wasn't reported by the OP. Here it is: "New Hope For Commercial Fisheries? Good Catch Doesn't Necessarily Mean That Depleted Stocks Have Recovered". In other words, the scientist did not intend to haul up 5 tons of an endangered fish, as the OP suggests. Still quoting from the original article:
"In combination with previous stock assessments, fisheries biologists onboard interpreted the catch as a sampling of a discrete, small-scale aggregation of this fish species."
Please, read the complete article here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061226134654.htm
2) A few clarifications about the "destructive nature" of fisheries research:
a - Everybody has to eat.
b - Ideally we should develop sustainable extraction practices. To achieve that in fisheries we need to know some basic biological characteristics of the species we fish. These are: when they reproduce, how fast they grow and how many are there.
c - To know when and how often they reproduce (to close seasons and establish minimum size catches accordingly) we have to kill some fish to study their gonads. To see how fast they grow we need to kill some fish and count the rings in their ear bones (otoliths). To estimate how many are there we have to know how many fish are brought back in an X ammount of hours by a certain crew of fishermen (catch per effort unit).
d - Every one of the techniques above requires destructive sampling (dead fish).
3) Are there alternative less destructive techniques? Not at the moment, one of the biggest obstacles that science faces is the lack of appropriate funding (GWB decreased funding for the National Science Foundation). The development of new techniques requires lots of (not presently available) money, and the application of these new techniques requires training of personel (more money).
4) Answering to the comment: When a scientists says, "that's the only way we can blah blah ..." he usually means that's the only way he can do it with the funds he has in hands. But also remember, there are good dentists and bad dentists, good cops and bad cops, good scientists and bad scientists.
I think the comment that environmental impact of research is a "nanodrop in the bucket compared to commercial trawling intensity" is very correct. Scientists are few and underfunded, fisheries data for most commercial species is either bad or non-existent. With all the difficulties that we already face, the last thing that scientists need is environmentalists being against research, remember, we are working towards a common goal.
I am sorry for the rant, but I thought it was necessary...
Luiz
1) The fact that the scientists collected a lot of fish doesn't mean that they intended to do so. In fact, it came as a complete surprise. They used the usual fishing gear (nets) and luckily fished an aggregation of the species they were studying. It is not the same as going out and killing 5,000 polar bears one by one just to see what they eat. Every fisherman knows that when you throw a net or a line in the water you don't know what you will get. In this case they caught the fish as a surprise. Also, the conclusion of the study wasn't reported by the OP. Here it is: "New Hope For Commercial Fisheries? Good Catch Doesn't Necessarily Mean That Depleted Stocks Have Recovered". In other words, the scientist did not intend to haul up 5 tons of an endangered fish, as the OP suggests. Still quoting from the original article:
"In combination with previous stock assessments, fisheries biologists onboard interpreted the catch as a sampling of a discrete, small-scale aggregation of this fish species."
Please, read the complete article here:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/12/061226134654.htm
2) A few clarifications about the "destructive nature" of fisheries research:
a - Everybody has to eat.
b - Ideally we should develop sustainable extraction practices. To achieve that in fisheries we need to know some basic biological characteristics of the species we fish. These are: when they reproduce, how fast they grow and how many are there.
c - To know when and how often they reproduce (to close seasons and establish minimum size catches accordingly) we have to kill some fish to study their gonads. To see how fast they grow we need to kill some fish and count the rings in their ear bones (otoliths). To estimate how many are there we have to know how many fish are brought back in an X ammount of hours by a certain crew of fishermen (catch per effort unit).
d - Every one of the techniques above requires destructive sampling (dead fish).
3) Are there alternative less destructive techniques? Not at the moment, one of the biggest obstacles that science faces is the lack of appropriate funding (GWB decreased funding for the National Science Foundation). The development of new techniques requires lots of (not presently available) money, and the application of these new techniques requires training of personel (more money).
4) Answering to the comment: When a scientists says, "that's the only way we can blah blah ..." he usually means that's the only way he can do it with the funds he has in hands. But also remember, there are good dentists and bad dentists, good cops and bad cops, good scientists and bad scientists.
I think the comment that environmental impact of research is a "nanodrop in the bucket compared to commercial trawling intensity" is very correct. Scientists are few and underfunded, fisheries data for most commercial species is either bad or non-existent. With all the difficulties that we already face, the last thing that scientists need is environmentalists being against research, remember, we are working towards a common goal.
I am sorry for the rant, but I thought it was necessary...
Luiz
Rocha
Registered
DavidPT40:
That's where our opinions diverge... I do think that we can have sustainable levels of fishing for many species and this one is a good candidate. It is pelagic, has very large populations (or had in the past), reproduces fast and lays a lot of eggs, so, if we had to hand pick species to be fished successfully in a sustainable way, this would be a good one to pick. But if we fish it without any kind of control like it was done in the past, the populations are going to collapse again. So that's why I think this research is in the end going to both conserve the fish and provide a long term and sustainable source of food. I know some of the names involved in this research and they won't re-open fishing in this species unless they think it has reached a high a stable population size.
Now, the situation is very different for other species, and some are not at all viable for sustainable fishing. These include sharks, whales and others that have a long life cycle and reproduce slowly. Many reef fish are in this category, and groupers and snappers that form reproductive aggregations are especially vulnerable because the fishermen catch them when they are spawning.
DennisS
Contributor
archman:
Watching them take plugs of dolphins was interesting. They had a crossbow and the bolt/arrow had a hollow tube on it. The crossbow was fired into the dolphin and the bolt retrieved by a line with an approximate 3/8 inch x 1 inch plug of dolphin flesh. Definitely hunk of meat science.
Good information Rocha.
I'm not sure what the fishing regulations are in U.S. waters, but they can't be too strict. I'm still seeing alot of Orange Roughy at the supermarket, and I'm 600 miles inland. I believe its been known for a long time that it takes these fish 30 years to reproduce. So are Roughy populations just going to be fished until they collapse?
I'm not sure what the fishing regulations are in U.S. waters, but they can't be too strict. I'm still seeing alot of Orange Roughy at the supermarket, and I'm 600 miles inland. I believe its been known for a long time that it takes these fish 30 years to reproduce. So are Roughy populations just going to be fished until they collapse?
Similar threads
