Both fishing and a lot of marine science are generally all about dropping some bait in the water and seeing what happens. Swiped from Climate Shifts by way of DSN, here's a selection of possible outcomes when you drop a baited camera in the waters off Australia.
My personal favorites: the hammerhead repeatedly smacking against the camera (I can just imagine it thinking "curse you, evolution!") and the repeated, and ultimately successful, attempts by a massive tiger shark at separating bait from camera (including the near-demise of a sea snake hanging out in the wrong place at the wrong time).
Enjoy, and go Saints.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Friday, February 5, 2010
The Trouble with Models
Today I'm going to talk about something that has proven to be both a blessing and a curse to fisheries management. I'm going to talk about modeling.
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
In Defense of the Spiny Dogfish
"Voracious beyond belief, dogfish deserve their bad reputation among many fishermen." - Bigelow and Schroeder's Fishes of the Gulf of Maine
As anyone with any kind of familiarity with Squalus acanthias will tell you, these are deeply unpopular animals. Fishermen have cursed the name "dogfish" for almost as long as commercial fishing has existed, and recent efforts at dogfish management have not made them any more sympathetic. Despite evidence of overfishing, these small sharks are still capable of turning up in massive numbers, swamping and damaging fishing gear, and devouring the catch. They lack the nobility of many of their shark cousins; you're not likely to see them making majestic leaps like great whites and makos, and they haven't earned the respect of sport fishermen like porbeagles or thresher sharks. For these reasons conservation of the spiny dogfish has been contentious at best.
So why would anyone in their right mind want to study these fish except to try and find ways of eradicating them? I make no secret that I fall on the side of conservation when it comes to this issue (though I want to see management of these sharks done right, but that's for another post). Hopefully this post will illustrate some of the reasons I think spiny dogfish deserve at least a little respect.
As anyone with any kind of familiarity with Squalus acanthias will tell you, these are deeply unpopular animals. Fishermen have cursed the name "dogfish" for almost as long as commercial fishing has existed, and recent efforts at dogfish management have not made them any more sympathetic. Despite evidence of overfishing, these small sharks are still capable of turning up in massive numbers, swamping and damaging fishing gear, and devouring the catch. They lack the nobility of many of their shark cousins; you're not likely to see them making majestic leaps like great whites and makos, and they haven't earned the respect of sport fishermen like porbeagles or thresher sharks. For these reasons conservation of the spiny dogfish has been contentious at best.
So why would anyone in their right mind want to study these fish except to try and find ways of eradicating them? I make no secret that I fall on the side of conservation when it comes to this issue (though I want to see management of these sharks done right, but that's for another post). Hopefully this post will illustrate some of the reasons I think spiny dogfish deserve at least a little respect.
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