What is Digg?102 Comments
- Kumah, on 05/02/2008, -6/+25I live in Astoria, Oregon and it is a HUGE fishing community. Many of the people living here make a living by catching and selling fish (the best catches are Salmon).
The Salmon population is plummeting for two reasons. 1. Overfishing, this has been solved though as there has finally been a limit placed on how much they're allowed to catch per year. 2. Sea Lions. God damn sea lions. They eat 2.5 times their weight in fish every day and their favourite fish is Salmon. They don't eat the whole thing either sometimes they just eat the juicy bits and leave a spasming head attached to a spine and tail. We used to be allowed to hunt sea lions but because of the marine mammal protection act we can't do a thing about it. We're not even allowed to shoo them off our docks!
For once the natural balance has been upset not because humans are killing something, but because we're not allowed to kill something that we've been hunting for millions of years. We've removed ourselves from being a sea lion's most feared predator and now they are free to eat, *****, and sleep all they want.
Save a fish, kill a seal. - sockpuppets, on 05/02/2008, -1/+13I'll digg you up just for the halibut.
- Wacer, on 05/02/2008, -0/+10This happened last year and the scientists said that people would start blaming the sea lion first. The sea lions are not the problem. The most likely culprit is the fish farms that are in operation and the fish in those farms are spreading major disease problems to the wild salmon. People don't want to blame the farms because its a money maker so they would rather slaughter the sea lions, when they aren't the ones who created the mess.
- Jem7vwh, on 05/02/2008, -2/+10Well maybe they should stop building every damn place they can so the animals can have a place to go.
But you people must have your million dollar mansions on the water! - inactive, on 05/02/2008, -0/+8Overfishing is problematic for several reasons. It's not simply the quantity removed, but the type. We tend to harvest the largest, i.e. the healthiest individuals. This effectively removes them from the gene pool and helps ensure that weaker specimens will constitute a disproportionate share of the population. This causes more salmon to be born with weak genes, causing the overall health of the stock to decline.
This problem is exacerbated when farmed salmon escape into the wild. There is virtually no natural selection at work in salmon farms, so the ones that escape are often inferiors that should not be allowed to breed in the wild. - aguita, on 05/02/2008, -0/+8I agree. The fish & game dep't of Alaska is top notch. Unfortunately, they can not contain the Japanese Trollers that decimate entire seasons in one catch.
- rjn17960, on 05/02/2008, -2/+10Business as usual for the Bush administration. They've been playing politics for years with the Oregon water supply to pander to agriculture.
From truthout.org:
In January 2002, at a retreat in West Virginia, Karl Rove gave a PowerPoint presentation to at least 50 managers at the Department of the Interior to discuss polling data, and emphasized the importance of getting Oregon Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican, reelected that year. [...]
From blueoregon.com:
In March 2002, in a sudden reversal of a long standing policy, then Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton and Senator Smith held a joint press conference in Klamath Falls and opened up the irrigation system releasing thousands of gallons of water to 220,000 acres of farmland. The policy shift left the Klamath River basin with unusually low river flows that summer and ended up killing more than 30,000 endangered Coho salmon - the largest fish kill in the history of the West. [...] - geobay, on 05/02/2008, -0/+8Oh my cod, you're so immature...
- Wacer, on 05/02/2008, -0/+7When the young salmon swim down river to go to the ocean, they pass by fish farms that breed parasites and disease that gets into the water. The young salmon end up in the ocean but instead of growing into adults, they are are being eaten alive by those parasites that attached onto them in the river. They die.
Industry created fish farms because of over fishing and in the end all they did was bring death to the wild salmon and some of the farmed ones.
Sea lions or global warming are not the ones to blame here. - hotspot102, on 05/02/2008, -1/+7This is alarming and only reminiscent of what happened to the east coast cod fishery. I know because my father was a part of it. The demand for fish has simply outpaced the supply. Prices have been artificially low for years, and even though both canadian and Amiercans have catch quotas. That type of protection is quickly subverted by the large foreign vessels who fish just outside of North America waters with little to no regulation. My father told me a story of how large deep see trollers, off the grand banks would hall up a huge load of Cod then only to flush out the fish that were to small and worth very little. Leaving km long trails of dead young floating cod. Allthough im making an assumption its likely similar things happen with the west coast salmon fishery.
- heystoopid, on 05/02/2008, -0/+5The decline is from the biggest predator you failed to list , the others are just a poor excuse for basic stupidity of the predator in question who saw it coming some thirty years ago !
- highlyhigh, on 05/02/2008, -1/+6time to start killing all the other fishes to make up for that missing sushi piece.
- Danby123, on 05/02/2008, -0/+5I've been to the Oregon coast many times and the fishing towns were suffering already, with the salmon population decreasing. A complete cutoff will really be bad for these towns.
- Wyattx17, on 05/02/2008, -1/+6Yeah it is a sad thing to hear this as I am one to be affected by this. I used to go out salmon fishing in the Sacramento River as long as I can remember and now it's closed. They could just limit the numbers or something or make the season shorter. The limit in the Sacramento River was been 2 Salmon per person, so it would add up quickly when they were biting good. Sad times for some.
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -9/+14let's start eating sea lions. Then the salmon population can grow.
- sockpuppets, on 05/02/2008, -5/+10Sounds fishy to me.
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -5/+10Save lots of fish, kill a fisherman
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -2/+6I never eat seafood imported from China. No one filths up their waterways worse than the filthy chinamen.
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -0/+4"Save a fish, kill a seal."
Hear, hear. Death to sea lions. - Buddhaismybuddy, on 05/02/2008, -4/+8***** the timber industry.
Legalize Hemp - ArchieAndrews, on 05/02/2008, -3/+7= boom year for Canada's west coast salmon charter business.
- warriorscot, on 05/02/2008, -1/+4Food is generally considered more essential than lumber.
- drake77, on 05/02/2008, -1/+4FTA: "West Coast salmon populations have declined sharply in the last few years, with experts citing a variety of reasons including climate change and hungry sea lions."
I know this isn't politically correct, but would a cull of the sea lion population help to resolve the dire situation that is going on right now?
From Wikipedia: "Outside of the breeding season they will often gather at marinas and wharves and may even be seen on navigational buoys. These man-made environments provide safety from their natural predators, orcas and white sharks." - heystoopid, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3Only because the Alaskan fishing boats catch most of their fish from Canadian waters , and find it cheaper to pay the fines although if the Canadians Fisheries instigate seize the boat and jail the crew policy for two to five years they might have quite a few vacant fishing licenses for sale in a very short order !
- CJUNIT, on 05/02/2008, -0/+3What an eelectrifying topic.
- xero69, on 05/02/2008, -2/+4LOL poor people eat McDonalds, ramen, and canned meats. Find me one poor person who can afford salmon and I'll prove that person is not truly poor.
- xero69, on 05/02/2008, -1/+3Cheap real estate for retired people who just want to gaze at the ocean and relax. Maybe the locals should try to start a fish farm on land?
- XZanatos, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Salmon going extinct from these areas would also be really bad.
- prometheanspark, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2The number of bears and mountain lions along the coast are much lower than they were before 1850, they probably preyed on seals and sea lions quite a bit - as did native americans who were pretty common along the coast historically.
I think we could perhaps come up with a solution everyone could be happy with if we allowed native american tribes to hunt seals and sea lions with few restrictions. They depend on salmon for their livelihoods too (netting and selling them), so given free reign to control the pinneped population they'd balance things out. - inactive, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2shhh, the public is swallowing the fish farms are good.
- inactive, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2But it snowed in Baghdad, and Al Gore flies in jet planes!
- azpat, on 05/02/2008, -1/+3spoken like an investor.
- ArchieAndrews, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Nope, just making an observation.
- WNW3, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2I grew up in Astoria. The fishing industry was dying then and still a huge chunk of the guys in my class went out to become fishermen because that's what their dads and granddads and great-granddads and great-great-granddads did. Most of them live in poverty now. It's important to have a job that makes a difference, boys. That's why I manually masturbate caged animals for artificial insemination.
- heystoopid, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Over fishing by all commercial users sucks absolutely !
- jabelar, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2I don't think we've been hunting significant numbers of sea lions "for millions of years", especially off the Oregon Coast. The balance of sea lions to salmon will sort itself out naturally. Only humans have the ability to really ruin the salmon population.
- besottedpenguin, on 05/02/2008, -2/+4Crap. I just bought an ocean boat specifically to go salmon fishing this year. SOB!
- heystoopid, on 05/02/2008, -1/+3You did once and almost drove the entire population to extinction level back in the days of old , or how soon we forget the follies of the past !
- xero69, on 05/02/2008, -2/+4This is a good thing as it will allow the natural populations of salmon to recover from rampant overfishing. Probably cheaper and easier to raise them on a fish farm anyways. Might be climate change, might simply be that we have taken out too many fish over the years non-stop.
- fatdog789, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2They closed salmon fishing *BECAUSE* they reached the numbers for the year. They announced limits on the total yearly catch earlier, in Feb or March.
- prometheanspark, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2No. Plenty of salmon left the river to the ocean, they just never came back. We don't know what happened to them, it's a big ocean, but it was almost certainly something to do with ocean conditions - which have relatively little human influence.
- heystoopid, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Lol cheap land and clean water , just what one needs to start fresh water trout fish breeding farms with none of the impact of over fishing deep sea style , whose wankers within blame everyone else for their own stupidity but themselves !
"Idiocracy" rocks ! - NelsonR, on 05/02/2008, -0/+2Do you only look at one small article and make conclusions. Now if you were a polar bear or Eskimo and observed the receding polar ice cap and other obvious signs your small minds would accept a known fact. You will not, you are like the ostrich with his head in the sand while mulling over your next conquest, sexual or monetarily.
- Wacer, on 05/02/2008, -2/+4The only salmon I can get at my grocery store is frozen and it is imported from China. Has been that way for years.
- onedeep, on 05/03/2008, -0/+2Actually, it is a bit more complicated than that.
Knocking down the tree canopies along the water's edge has increased overall temperatures of the water itself, making less hospitable to redd and fry.
Runoff from development puts contaminants in the water, killing a lot of those who do make it through the higher temperatures.
Overfishing gets those who make it to the ocean.
Sea lions only really become obnoxious and decimate populations at fish ladders. Salmon have to concentrate along a certain path (as opposed to spreading out across the entire width of the river, making it easy for the lions to destroy the fish returning to spawn - Wacer, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1I don't eat it either. I just frown at the horrible selection every time I walk by it.
- raintheory, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1haha, thought it said "doses" instead of "closes"... been reading too much about albert hoffman
- orph3us, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1I agree about switching to pure fishing farms. I wonder why they don't do that? Too expensive? Laws against it?
- Kenzan, on 05/02/2008, -0/+1Why not? People need to eat fish, and certainly there can be technology which reduces impacts on local wild populations, such as sustainable fish farming.
- Wacer, on 05/03/2008, -0/+1The salmon from your river and the other rivers do mingle at sea.
-
Show 51 - 100 of 103 discussions
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is