Comments on: Myself, I like a black seabass. Grilled.

Myself, I like a black seabass. Grilled.

Miko — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 19:54:01 -0800

During the heady days of the late 19th century, in response to a perceived decline in coastal finfish stocks, Spencer Baird and his clutch of young naturalists at the Smithsonian set out to find the answer. In 1871, Baird founded the U.S. Fish Commission. The Comission set up operations in Woods Hole, MA, where it continues its work today as the Northeast Fisheries Science Center (a branch of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service). The Fish Census of 1880 established the fist benchmark on fish populations in coastal waters; crews of Gloucester schooners competed to see who could bring the most bizarre fish finds up from the platueaus of the Grand Banks, and America’s first research vessel, the Albatross, was purpose-built for the project. Baird's protege (and later successor) George Brown Goode compiled the data into the first comprehensive reference work on American fisheries. Known to students of salt water as “Goode’s Fisheries”, the report (beautifully illustrated) remains invaluable to researchers today, as today's fish populations dip into an even more drastic decline.

By: longsleeves

longsleeves — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:04:01 -0800

Wow in advance.

By: Dr. Wu

Dr. Wu — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 20:24:29 -0800

Fishtastic! Hi, Miko!

By: TwelveTwo

TwelveTwo — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 21:19:00 -0800

This makes my link to a video of people running around jumping, seem so unprofessional.

By: madamjujujive

madamjujujive — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 22:53:00 -0800

Fantastic post, thanks Miko!

By: JParker

JParker — Wed, 30 Nov 2005 23:58:45 -0800

So... how many? Or is this another one of those bait and switch FPPs?

By: Plutor

Plutor — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 03:53:08 -0800

Awesome, Miko. (But, yeah, what's the answer? A thousand?)

By: OmieWise

OmieWise — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:19:28 -0800

Such a great post! The illustrations alone are worth the price of admission, but wait, right now you can also get all the history and fishy goodness you can stand for no extra charge. Thanks.

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:26:32 -0800

Well, I guess it was a rhetorical question, but I'll have a go. Exact numbers aren't readily to hand, even in these links. The 1880 Fish Census gathered "about 260 species, with over 50 species new to science." That survey concentrated on mid- to North Atlantic waters. The last link above is related to this present-day fish census, an ongoing project that will count species and also estimate populations. As to numbers of individuals, biologists and fishermen still argue as to how to estimate population size. Mostly, scientists use mathematical models to project populations from limited sampling. A new strategy is to extrapolate from historical data. One of my friends worked on part of it at UNH (the New Hampshire UNH), where it's called HMAP. It was a really cool project where they used dockside records from the late 1800s to estimate cod populations using modern modeling techniques. They found bad news. The maritime historians and marine scientists I've worked with seem to think we are basically living in a time of an aquatic holocaust -- today's data indicates a loss of species diversity, lowest numbers of individuals, and smallest range of distribution.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 06:35:24 -0800

The males, however, have specially adapted biting teeth and when they find a female they bite into her body forming what becomes a permanent attachment. The body of the attached male parasite modifies to the point of being practically non-functional, except in terms of sperm production More Rent Boys.

By: beautifulatrocities

beautifulatrocities — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 12:04:00 -0800

The fish decline is a an example of the tragedy of the commons. Individual countries grab what they what with no concern for the supply, & it's hard to regulate as fish schools migrate from territory to territory

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 14:42:12 -0800

True, beautiful atrocities, that is one big reason. But people are also looking at others, such as: habitat destruction caused by dragging heavy otter trawls for miles across the sea floor, ripping up the ocean bed; changes in currents and ocean temperatures due to global warming, which affects food supply; and disruption of the equilibrium of species caused by humans selectively removing big predators and finfish while leaving less commercially valuable species to overpopulate, spike, and crash.

By: nomad

nomad — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:18:09 -0800

My jaw is in the dropped position. Also, I laughed out loud at JParker's comment

By: Miko

Miko — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 18:50:51 -0800

Your turn, nomad!