Jennifer Marohasy

a forum for the discussion of issues concerning the natural environment

Fishing

Ice Packs Thwart Fishing & Strand Bears

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According to Fishupdate.com:

“Fish merchants on the Humber may be throwing up their hands in frustration at the worrying decline in fish supplies from Iceland since the beginning of the year. But the underlying cause is something they would never have guessed at – a massive deep freeze around the west coast of the country.

While the rest of the world shudders at the prospect of global warming and all that it threatens to bring in the form of floods and soaring temperatures, Iceland has been bucking the trend – and it is having a dramatic effect on fishing activity around the island.

Thick packs of ice, which have not been seen for almost 40 years, have been moving into the western fjords across some of the best fishing grounds, followed by bitter winds and plummeting temperatures…

Read the article here: http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/6564/Ice_packs_(and_polar_bears)_thwart_Iceland_fishing.html

And it goes on to report that ice drifting in from Greenland has been carrying dozens of polar bears.

And Ann Novak sent me a link to a picture of a stranded bear, click here:http://www.bt.no/miljo/article337253.ece

Coral Reefs May Benefit From Global Warming

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ON Friday in Paris the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change will launch a new report, Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis, with an up-to-date assessment of likely temperature rises because of global warming. Three related reports will be released later in the year, including a report on the likely effects of the rise in temperature. The report on impacts is likely to include a chapter on Australia and a warning that corals on the Great Barrier Reef could die as a consequence of global warming.

The idea that the Great Barrier Reef may be destroyed by global warming is not new, but it is a myth. The expected rise in sea level associated with global warming may benefit coral reefs and the Great Barrier Reef is likely to extend its range further south. Global threats to the coral reefs of the world include damaging fish practices and pollution, and the UN should work harder to address these issues.

Read the complete article here: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21144521-7583,00.html

Fishers Snagged: Not Farmed, Then Not Organic

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According to an article in yesterday’s New York Times the market for organic foods continues to grow with sales reaching US$13.8 billion in 2005 compared with US$3.6 billion in 1997.

But there’s not much ‘organic seafood’ about because of problems with definitions and also what fish eat.

Now I would have thought a wild Atlantic salmon would automatically qualify as organic. But according to the US Agriculture Department to be organic you need to be farmed: read the full story here including that: “Environmentalists rightly argue that many farm-raised fish live in cramped nets in conditions that can pollute the water, and that calling them organic is a perversion of the label. Those who catch and sell wild fish say that their products should be called organic and worry that if they are not, fish farmers will gain a huge leg up.”

About Walter Starck

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Walter Starck grew up on, an island in the Florida Keys and began catching fish in salable quantities off the family dock at age five. At 6 he helped his grandfather build his first boat with which he began diving using a face mask.

Watler Starck FirstBoat.jpg

He started scuba diving in 1954 (before scuba was a word). In 1964 he completed a PhD degree at the Institute of Marine Science of the University of Miami. In the process he determined that the world of academia was not to his taste so started his own business as well as a private research foundation. In 1968 he took delivery on a purpose built 150 ton research vessel, El Torito, and spent the next two decades exploring widely from the Caribbean to the Western Pacific.

Walter STarck _ElTorito.jpg

Walter arrived in Australia in 1979 before boat people became unfashionable and established a home base on a 164 acre rainforest property on the north shore of the Daintree River.

His research interest has centered on coral reef biology and has included research grants and contracts from the National Science Foundation, Office of Naval Research and National Geographic Society as well as various private foundations and individuals.

Walter has been a research associate of the Institute of Marine Science in Miami, the Bishop Museum in Hawaii, The Australian Museum in Sydney and the Western Australia Museum in Perth.

His wide experience of reefs around the world has encompassed the full spectrum of conditions ranging from heavily impacted to untouched as well as several opportunities for decade or longer familiarity with individual reefs. His views on reef biology derived from direct observation are not always in accord with popular theories.

But the articles that Walter now writes are increasingly read by practical environmentalists. His paper ‘Threats to Great Barrier Reef’ was the most popular online publication at the IPA website last year and shortened versions where published in ‘Go Fishing’ (Aug/Sept 2005) and ‘News Weekly’ (18 June 2006).

His presentation, based on the paper ‘Marine Resources and The Growing Cost of Precaution’, was a highlight of the recent Australian Environment Foundation Conference.

You can read more on Walter Starck’s perspective at his website www.goldendolphin.com, click Eco-Issues for a list of recent environmental writings.

Walter’s favourite quote is by John Maynard Keynes:

“When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?”

Quotable Walter quotes include:

“You are never so comfortable as when doing what you’ve always done but never so alive as when doing what you’ve never done.”

“One of the most important lessons of history is that most people most of the time are wrong.”

“The eco-bureaucracy has become a sheltered workshop for those afflicted by the saviour syndrome.”

“Environmental management is characterized by the application of hypothetical solutions to imaginary problems.”

“Ecology is above all holistic. Everything we do or don’t do has consequences. We can’t save nature by locking it up.”

Walter is no fan of environmentalism and I once jotted down this comment from him:

“Environmentalism is about much more than concern for a healthy environment. You could describe it as a quasi-religious bend of new-age nature worship, junk science, left-wing political activism and anti-profit economics.”

Walter starck now.jpg

Keeping Wildlife In the Freezer

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When I worked for the sugar industry, there was a guy who lived in Ingham, in Far North Queensland, who used to regularly pull the same fish out of the freezer when there was a fish kill and get it on television as an example of poisoning from acid sulfate soils.

It seems activists also keep wildlife in their freezers in Tasmania and have no worries pulling a possum killed by a motorcar out of the freezer and parading it as an example of 1080 poisoning. At least that’s the message we get from Pier Akerman writing in The Daily Telegraph on Saturday in a piece entitled ‘Hello, wasn’t that the ex-possum again?’.

While some activists have no real interest in the truth, just a particular barrow to push, you would like to think journalists from the Australian national broadcaster, the ABC, were a bit more diligent. But it seems they don’t even have a particularly good system for keeping track of file tape/news footage… click here.

Farmed Fish are our Future: Conference in Adelaide

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Aquaculture is the fastest growing food producing sector in the world according to those promoting a fish farmer’s conference in Adelaide this week.

Farm Online have reported that there are 1,000 delegates at the conference and aquaculture is being talked-up with conference organising committee chair, Bruce Zippel, saying, “Many Australian primary producers are looking to supplement their incomes or moving into a more rewarding vocation .. and fish farming is seen as very attractive”.

Aquaculture apparenty provides about 27 percent of total world seafood supply and some experts predict that within 25 years half of the fish we eat will be farmed.