28 cases of ciguatera fish poisoning have been documented since November. Fish such as grouper, snapper, and amberjack eat toxic algae, and people who eat the contaminated fish can suffer from nausea and vomiting. In serious cases, neurological problems can last for months or years ...
... a federal judge rejected President Bush's exemption of the U.S. Navy to rules regulating sonar ...
... scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography suggested that wind may be behind the sardine and anchovy booms and busts off the California coast over the last century ...
... British supermarket chain Sainsbury's, which sells over £400 million worth of seafood every year, announced that it will attempt to source all its fish from sustainable stocks ...
... Japanese whalers resumed their annual hunt after anti-whaling activists had to return to port to refuel ...
... it was discovered that a fishery policy in Brazil hurt tucum palm tree populations. A species of fish, pacu, is fished above a certain size, but larger fish disperse tucum seeds more effectively than smaller fish, leading to a decline in the tucum palm ...
... two right whales were sighted off the eastern U.S. coast with fishing nets trailing behind them. One was nicknamed "Ruffian" because it was also covered in lacerations ...
... a young loggerhead sea turtle washed ashore in Ireland, 3,000 miles from its usual southeast America habitat. Rescuers pushed it out past the surf on a surfboard ...
... a great white shark that was accidentally caught by commercial fishermen was released into the Pacific after 137 days on exhibit at the Monterey Bay Aquarium. His handlers were concerned he was getting "a little too frisky" to stay safely contained ...
... and a humphead wrasse named Bentley disproved the theory that fish have no memory when he recalled a dinner gong that he hadn't heard for four months. He ate squid and prawns.
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caniscandida Posted 8:01 am
10 Feb 2008
It would be lovely, in principle, if there were a constitutional crisis provoked by environmentalists' concern for the well-being of cetaceans, with the US Navy caught in the middle. But that is not likely to happen. Even if the whales win this time, many on the right will come away confirmed in their belief that environmentalists are evil, America-hating people. It is not at all impossible that even now, some disciples of Karl Rove are putting together a TV ad showing dolphins and humpback whales playing joyfully in the midst of a carrier fleet.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 8:51 am
10 Feb 2008
It had not struck me how many right whales get entangled. Nor how few are the qualified and funded disentanglement teams, such as the one at the Provincetown Center for Coastal Studies.
The people at the New England Aquarium, in Boston, are doing excellent work for right whales. The name of the whale whom we have "adopted" with them is Calvin. She got a boy's (Presbyterian) name, but turned out to be a girl. Her picture is right here, between two pictures of frogs, and right above the Theotokos of Vladimir.
We should certainly hope that the conclusion of the article is accurate, that there is reason to hope that the friends of the whales and the fishers are negotiating happily toward finding a satisfactory solution soon, regarding the introduction of fishing gear and techniques not so dangerous to the whales. But my feeling is that if they were to be honest, those friends of the whales would tell you that those negotiations are going painfully slowly.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 2:57 pm
10 Feb 2008
This guy grew over a foot in length in around five months of captivity, and is still a littlish great white shark.
Nevertheless, they tend to have a good bit of stage presence. There is a documentary series, a year or two old, about great aquariums, which has aired on PBS. The show about the Monterey Bay Aquarium was made in 2005, when the first of MBA's three great white sharks was with them, and then when she was released. She was a bit larger than the just-released shark, but still not huge, nothing like "Jaws"-sized. And yet, when she at last entered the view of the visitors peering into the shark tank in the hope of glimpsing her, eventhough she was not the longest shark there, they were awestruck and dumbfounded.
"Feisty" apparently refers to the just-released shark's occasional resort to leaping out of the water. (So the safety issue had to do with the shark possibly hurting himself, not with his hurting people or other animals.) That must have been wonderful to see. There is terrifying footage of just that sort of behavior on the part of great white sharks, off the coast of South Africa, when they launch themselves up and out of the water, to stun and cripple fur seals at the surface.
As inevitably frightening as great white sharks often are, we need to learn the lesson of Rob Stewart, and his recent movie "Sharkwater," that our anti-shark prejudices are silly and destructive; all sharks are beautiful, precious, and, because of our various appetites, gravely endangered.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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Tasermons Partner Posted 3:11 pm
10 Feb 2008
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caniscandida Posted 3:23 pm
10 Feb 2008
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 4:49 pm
10 Feb 2008
There is no such thing as a "sustainable fishery." The red light / amber light / green light convention is well-known, and practical, and praise-worthy. But the green light most certainly does not mean "sustainable." All it means, at best, is, "There are plenty of these fish right now, and the way they have been caught over the past few years does not seem to have diminished their numbers much." That is not at all the same as "sustainable."
And on the right margin of the article, this sweet poll question is asked:
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Will the new Scottish voluntary cod avoidance measures help cod stocks recover?
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To which one may basically answer "Yes," "No," or "Maybe."
But that is astounding, that it should be a matter of opinion! People of many nations have been fishing for North Atlantic cod for centuries upon centuries. We ought to know by now just about everything there is to know about cod, what kills them off, and what makes them thrive. And yet we are still casting around for sentimental inclinations as our guides? This confession of befuddlement, this sense that "One mate's mind is as good as another's," should certainly weaken our faith in the current fashionable loosey-goosey uses of "sustainability" and "sustainable."
From the cosmological perspective, there is no such thing as sustainability. Well, perhaps there is a supra-universal matrix, which we may or may not wish to call "God" (I suspect Stephen Hawking would not; I would not, until I know a good bit more), which is sustainable. But even so impressive a system as the Milky Way galaxy is but an ephemeral puff-ball.
From the practical, personal perspective, that of us as consumers/customers, the product-designation "sustainable" is a fraud. There is no such thing as a "sustainable" product.
Therefore, more or less as I have recommended before, we would be much more truthful with one another were we to drop "sustainability," "sustainable" and "sustainably" from common usage.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 5:24 pm
10 Feb 2008
And when the manner in which the pacu fish eat the fruits of the tulum palm tree and disperse the seeds is described, it makes perfect evolutionary sense, which is what is so beautiful about the article. And a little bit frustrating: it seems the fish eat the fruits when the water of the river is high; but then, when the river suddenly diminishes during the dry season, some of the fish, with fruits in their bellies, are stranded on the dry banks; and with decomposition comes semination of a new tree. Or so I assume. But the article does not quite say that.
Anyway, it just goes to show: "fishery," and its place within "ecosystem," are very poorly understood; and we are fools to tromp ahead imperiously.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 6:41 pm
10 Feb 2008
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"I was walking along the beach at about 1.30 in the afternoon when I saw the turtle. It was shook looking ...
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Or was that supposed to read, "I was shook looking"? One way or the other, a lovely expression.
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... and I brought it up to the house and gave it some cans of tuna which seemed to charge her up a bit.
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Notice how he switches uneasily between "it" and "her." He might have said more about how he "brought it up." The offer of the tuna was mighty sweet, but of course the rest of us are thinking, "Oh that poor little mercury-poisoned turtle!"
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It was exciting to see one of those turtles up close because they are not the type of animal which appear on the beach every day.
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What admirable irony!
"Well yes, how many years ago was it now when the Widow Fitzgerald found that giraffe sittin' behind the ornament tree in her garden. What a time we had, gettin' it into the bus to Cork, after she caught it eyein' her cabbages!
"And then, Jamie O'Grady brought a penguin back with him from Ontario. A fine fellow, really, but he had some sorrow, of which he would never speak. Down at the pub, he was hardly through his second whiskey when the tears would start. At the end of that summer he left us to go to Hamburg, to teach English. Jamie still goes over to see him when he is on holiday."
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It looked very healthy and seemed like it wanted to get back into the sea. I saw a turtle like it years ago but it was a lot smaller and he died on the shore after getting a battering by the waves," he said.
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Very sweet indeed. The earlier turtle, Patrick somehow knows, was a "he."
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Patrick explained that the turtle's shell was 14 inches by 18 inches in diameter ...
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The Celtic Tiger roars some crazy geometry here. Or is "diameter" OK for the cross-measurements of any oblong figure?
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... and, after she was given a clean bill of health, she was brought down to Keem Bay to be released. They placed her on a surfboard and brought her past the surf before releasing her back into the Atlantic.
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This is the most mysterious bit. Who are "they"? Why did they choose to transport the turtle on a surfboard, of all things? How did they push the surfboard past the surf? How did they manage to keep the turtle from falling off the sides?
And, how do they know she will be OK now?
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Mr Lee McDaid, an official with the NPWS, told The Mayo News that ... the turtle may have got lost following jellyfish.
Loggerheads are so named because of their relatively large heads, which support powerful jaws and enable them to feed on hard-shelled prey.
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So explain to us then, Mr. McDaid: if our turtle was equipped to eat hard-shelled items off Florida, why in the world did she want to follow jellyfish, who are anything but hard-shelled?
Or, was there another reason, having nothing to do with eating? Perhaps, the last person who she knew had seen her mother and baby brother alive was a jellyfish, and it was up to her to find that one jellyfish, out of the millions of jellyfish in the ocean, and learn what it might tell her ...
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 9:41 pm
10 Feb 2008
Top o' the morning to ye! Thank you for your wonderful commentary on the turtle story. I will be chuckling all day at the image of the giraffe squeezing onto the bus to Cork, and the jaunt in its eye as it steals one last regretful look at the Widow FitzGerald's cabbages...
Meanwhile, agreeing as I do with you on so many issues, I wish we could come to some accommodation over the use of the 'S' word. While we have agreed that nothing lasts forever, I've suggested that is not what in the environmental discussion we generally understand by sustainability, but rather that something can be maintained without unacceptable (financial, social, environmental) consequences for a period of time - oh say at least a few human generations. If we were to accept that definition, there have been many sustainable fisheries in the history of the world, including ones by humans. That is not to say they are therefore ethically acceptable fisheries: I have the utmost respect for your inclusion of fishes amongst the living creatures you will not eat on moral and ethical grounds. But I feel in wishing to throw out the 'S' word you will also throw out what to me seems an entirely useful way of considering our relationship with the world and the resources we use for our continuation both individually and as a species. Sainsbury's announcement may indeed be mere PR, or it may be a genuine standard to which they expect to be held accountable by their customers and critics - only sustained outside scrutiny will tell. But they have offered us that standard, which most grocers do not: it is a higher standard than we are used to seeing among retailers for the environmental consequences of their product decisions, and I welcome it.
By the way I do entirely agree that the attempt to describe any living creatures as mere resources for our consumption is entirely unacceptable. But that is a very different issue.
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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JMG Posted 11:53 pm
10 Feb 2008
And every active sonar has a precise signature. So, yes, it would be quite easy to bring in evidence of a violation of the court order against its use, should that occur.
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Blueplanet Posted 2:09 am
11 Feb 2008
"The Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) today (11th Feb) announced that the Pelagic Freezer-trawler Association (PFA) North East Atlantic mackerel fishery has applied for assessment to the MSC standard for sustainable fishing."
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Tasermons Partner Posted 2:38 am
11 Feb 2008
And every active sonar has a precise signature. So, yes, it would be quite easy to bring in evidence of a violation of the court order against its use, should that occur.
I'm not so sure of that. First off, I'm not sure if the frequency of their sonar tests can be picked up by ordinary hydrophones. It wouldn't say much for military tech if they could, since that means just 'bout any enemy ship would be able to tell if they were usin' their sonar.
Secondly, even if it was detectable, is there any real way to prove it was the U.S. vessels who were sending 'em off? Couldn't the navy just use deniability and say it wasn't them, or that it was some other vessel from some other country? Can we prove it was their ships?
Third, the court ruling doesn't bar the sonar use altogether, just 12 or so miles off the coast and they must wait a certain period to look out for whales before use. But how do we know that they'll do that? I doubt the navy will allow eco-observers aboard to make sure procedure is followed correctly. How can we tell if the sonar came from 12, 12.5, 13, 30, or 300 miles off the coast? Or that they waited the required time and whale spotted first?
I just don't see a practical way of enforcement of the ruling here.
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caniscandida Posted 5:45 am
12 Feb 2008
I basically agree with what you write, regarding how "sustainability" can be properly used. But I am sure you appreciate that what I mean when I complain about the "loosey-goosey uses" of the "S" word, is really just a part of two problems already identified and deplored at length in Gristmill: "greenwashing," i.e. the claim by a business or other self-interested group to be doing something environmentally beneficial, which thing is (in itself, or balanced against other things that the business does) not so effective as the claim suggests; and the lulling of the minds of consumers, who are led to believe that they are saving the Earth because of their choice of products to buy, requiring little effort and less thought. That is why "sustainability" ought to be used cautiously, and with a full explanation of what it means in any context.
Your concept of "unacceptable consequences" is a valuable one. But then, it would seem that in our globalized society, with more and more people having more and more money to buy more and more stuff, with however no more appreciation of "sustainability" than we always had, the "unacceptable consequences" of just about any large-scale activity are too hard to predict, too hard to measure, and too hard to compensate for.
Is it really possible anymore to separate out one discreet system from within this undisentanglable global network of systems, and declare it "sustainable"?
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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caniscandida Posted 9:19 am
12 Feb 2008
The importance of this experiment is terrific. We really need to spend much more time than we have spent so far in studying animal sentience and intelligence. And we must not allow our natural foreignness from many taxa encourage our prejudices that members of those taxa cannot possibly enjoy anything like respectable sentience.
Chickens are our cousins! So are fish! So are other sentient animals! Let us learn to be kind.
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spaceshaper Posted 1:15 pm
12 Feb 2008
You suggest "... the "unacceptable consequences" of just about any large-scale activity are too hard to predict, too hard to measure, and too hard to compensate for."
Hard, yes. Too hard - I certainly hope not.
"Is it really possible anymore to separate out one discreet system from within this undisentanglable global network of systems, and declare it "sustainable"?"
Well of course we know that everything in this world is connected to everything else, in ways that we often only barely understand, and that nothing can ultimately be considered in isolation. However, we often find it possible to consider systems as if they were isolated from each other and obtain some very useful and practical results. A business plan. A lunar trajectory. The path of a motor vehicle along a highway. A bridge. A basketball play. Not always, but startlingly often, these projections actually work. Taken separately, they enable a particular course of action to be taken. Taken together, they become an increasingly complete picture of the world and our place in it.
I believe we can do the same with our aspirations to sustainability: by considering each part in turn, and by making continuous corrections in the course of each part, we can achieve some adequate measure of a sustainable whole. The sustainability paradigm insists that we consider, as far as we are able, the environmental consequences, the social consequences and the economic consequences of any particular proposal or practice. This is a demanding task and it is not a do-it-once kind of thing. It will take - dare I say it? - a sustained effort, for the rest of the life of our species. That "eternal vigilance" thing.
Are we ready for it? Maybe not. But don't we have to do it anyway?
The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.
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