Tanada wrote:Newfie wrote:Plant,
I get your point.
HOWEVER, the reality may even be worse.
Research has postulated….
Cod stocks WERE renewable, but they were depleted to such a degree that they actually changed the dynamics of the eco system. Cod would feed on shrimp and crab, reducing their biomass. But cod were so depleted that shrimp and crab populations exploded and they are now feeding in cod young, thus cod can not make a come back.
In other words, we made a renewable resource NONrenewable.
Sweet eh?
I consider myself to be an environmentally minded person and I somehow missed this bit of info about COD not recovering once fishing was effectively reduced. Do you have any links to papers on how this dynamic is working? Admittedly I live off the coast of Lake Erie not the Atlantic so the fish stocks I am most familiar with are Yellow Perch and Walleye, not sea living fish like Cod or Halibut.
Most ecowebs are vastly more resilient than we give them credit for and simply withdrawing human over harvesting often allows them to rebound fully to a state very similar to what they were over a generational timescale. COD are one of the fish species that take a long time to reach maturity so a generational time scale is more like two decades compared to say white tale deer with a generational scale on the close order of three years.
The original problem may not have been overfishing. We are having a similar problem in the Southern Puget Sound with Dungeness Crab. So far, none of the Marine Biologist I have spoken with are sure what happened here. I have a Hypothesis, and unfortunately it seems to be playing out in other parts of the State.
My Hypothesis is: the Dungeness Crabs were severely stressed by some other environmental factor. This stress lead to a huge increase in new off spring, to the point of a massive die-off due to lack of food. I know it sounds strange, but hear me out.
About four years ago Crabbing in the lower Puget sound was abruptly halted. This area is all Puget Sound Waters south of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge(s).
It was weird because the previous two years, the state raised the limits for Dungeness and even added another season due, to a high population count. I caught a lot in those two years, but a lot were returned because they were less than legal size. That didn't really matter, with a couple of pots, you had no problem getting your daily limit, especially if you are "retired."
. We were basically self sufficient in crab for a $65.00 License. We even used our sailboat to put the pots out.
Today we get a lot of Rock Crab (also delicious) molted shells on the beach but very few Dungee's. Our Geo Duck diver says there are a lot of crab down there, but mostly small.
Lots of species, including Humans, speed up procreation when under stress. You can tell a couple of years in advance when a Cedar will die, it spends most of its remaining energy producing cones, and amazing amount of cones. The same with most conifers.
This year, the kids went up the Straights to Crab, while we watched the grandkids.
They came back with a crazy amount of crab, along with Halibut. Ling Cod, and Salmon. When you add Geo Duck, oysters, and steamer clams from our beach. We are doing fine this year in the seafood department.
But I'm thinking the crab population up there may be in it's final phase. The kids said you had to pull up the pots every 20 minutes, and they were only in 20 feet of water. Very unusual.
The animals especially predator's is shifting dramatically around here, plus record high tides, and extreme weather has made 2022 exceptional. But that's another, if still connected, story.
Peace