Estimates of Marine Mammals Killed by Fishing Nets

thomasmd writes "Yahoo has an article describing the results of a new study by American and Scottish researchers that looked at the number of deaths by drowning of cetaceans (fishlike sea mammals) caught in fishing nets. Their alarming estimate was that more than 1000 cetaceans die every day from net entanglement."

Comments

Do we need them?

[eggstasy]

I'm not a biologist, but I've always believed that humans are very hypocritical with environmental issues. Sure, diversity is good and all, but are we saving the whales because they're cute or because they're actually a useful part of the ecosystem?
It seems that everyone wories about cute little pandas and dolphins while exterminating valuable insects en masse just because they're ugly.

Re:Do we need them?

[MobyDisk]

You are right that humans favor things that meet their requirements for beauty. You insect example is right on. We need to use logic in these matters, not emotion.

But you imply something quite scary: Do humans have the right to determine which species ar contributing to the ecosystem, and exterminate the rest? Are we capable of doing this? qualified? What if we make a mistake?

I believe that it is a better solution to identify the areas we are having the most impact, minimize it, and let nature run its course. Let's not second guess nature. It's done a good job of maintaining things long before we were around... :-)

Re:Do we need them?

[tha_mink]

"But you imply something quite scary: Do humans have the right to determine which species ar contributing to the ecosystem, and exterminate the rest?"

Yes, I think we do. In the same manor that a beaver does when it dams up a river with no regard for what happens to the rest of the system. It is, after all, survival of the fittest. We are not casting net in order to kill off any species, we are just trying to survive another day. (and eat sushi while we do)

Furthur more, if we are nieve enough to think that we can understand all the factors that go into species proliferation, then, we deserve what we get.

Re:Do we need them?

[Christopher Thomas]

But you imply something quite scary: Do humans have the right to determine which species ar contributing to the ecosystem, and exterminate the rest? Are we capable of doing this? qualified? What if we make a mistake?

Why would we not have the right to mold the world as we see fit? If we don't, who does, and on what authority are we forbidden from making changes?

I agree that large-scale mucking about may be dangerous for us - we're near the top of the ecosystem, and so in a relatively fragile position - but abstaining from making changes on that basis is a question of prudence, not of "rights".

I believe that it is a better solution to identify the areas we are having the most impact, minimize it, and let nature run its course. Let's not second guess nature. It's done a good job of maintaining things long before we were around... :-)

Nature has no grand plan, though. It's literally a random process, and most definitely doesn't have our welfare in its best interest - it _has_ no interests. If anything, we should expect life to become more difficult for us if we leave it to nature's ebb and flow (we multiplied because there was a favourable environment, but environments change).

In summary, I do not see why nature running unhindered would work towards any human-oriented goal.

On the other hand, this entire debate is rather silly without a set of goals everyone agrees on :). I'm just trying to throw thought-provoking questions at you.

Re:Do we need them?

[ctr2sprt]

There is no morality to nature. There is no thinking to nature. Nature doesn't maintain things. Evolution is just so slow, compared to the human lifespan, that we don't usually see it happening.

It bugs me to see people blaming humans for this imbalance in nature. Do you think humans sprang fully-formed from the earth? Of course not. We're the product of millions of years of evolution. If you insist on anthropomorphizing nature, well, Nature shot herself in the foot when she made us, and she's got nobody to blame but herself. We're only doing what evolution commands us to (screw like rabbits and kill anything that looks at us cockeyed). Nature has absolutely no understanding of foresight or planning: that's what we do. We are improving on nature by recognizing the dangers in eliminating other species.

How Many Die

[MBCook]

How many die each day of:

• Natural causes
• Getting hit by boats
• Being eaten by preditors
• etc

Without that kind of information, it's hard to tell just how serious this is. Sure 1000 sounds like alot, but what if 5000 are hit by boats ever day? Then that would be more important. I seriously doubt that that happens anywhere near that frequency, but you get the idea. Numbers don't mean much without perspective.

Interesting Headlines

[GigsVT]

I guess if the story was titled "Save the Whales", no one would take it seriously anymore.

At least they admit they pulled the statistics out of their ass:

To reach the worldwide estimates, the researchers resorted to multiplying the U.S. statistics.

More information

[MobyDisk]

This article says similar things with more detailed information.
Our Dying Seas?"

Lots of these surveys draw conclusions about extinction and talk about percentages, but I have never seen an actual estimate of the cetacean population on the Earth. Do we have ANY FRIGGIN CLUE how many there are?

Re:More information

[zenyu]

Do we have ANY FRIGGIN CLUE how many there are?

I think we have some good numbers on whales, in some species they all have names. But dolphins we don't really know, we know we're seeing much fewer than we used to but they may just be avoiding us. With some species we actually know there are much fewer, like "pink dolphins" or river dolphins, there you can actually just go out and count how many cross your path in a clear part of the river. I had a marine biologist roommate one summer and she would talk about so and so whale being missing this year.

The populations are probably falling more do to the lack of food than our actually catching the ocean mammals. We're pretty much killing our oceans with overfishing. Some countries, like Iceland have done well with resellable quotas (so you don't end up with a quota that lets you fish one day of the year with your super efficient new boat.) But that doesn't help migrating species that just get devistated somewhere else. We really need international agreement on fishing quotas, but that's not going to happen until more coutries try to manage their own fisheries. The New England cod economy completely collapsed yet the US hasn't even tried to save the still economic west coast fisheries. Totally irresponsible. Then there are the Japanese and Russians that go out and completely destroy whole swaths of ocean in international waters, destroying the market value of their catch with the rought treatment as well. They scrape up the ocean bottom so it takes decades for fish to return to the area in fishable numbers.

Sometimes one factory can devastate a whole country's ocean front. Peru has a single fish meal factory near Pisco that in the last decade has consumed so many anchovies that not only are they having problems getting anchovies, but all the regular fish are gone since there aren't enough anchovies for them to eat. They've now put some quotas on anchovy fishing, but it's not at a level that will let the population grow back. That would lose current jobs and most of the fishing jobs are already long gone... Here the problem is that if you target the bottom of the food chain for overexploitation you're just screewed.

We're really seeing this tragedy of the commons in the oceans because most countries haven't had the political incentive to put real quotas on there own fishermen when the fishermen rightly say the neighbors will just catch them instead, and no one seems to have any interest in a global solution. That is seen as an environmental thing and most governments have a knee jerk reaction against that. Economically it's just stupid to treat fish as a non-renewable resource to be consumed before your competitors do, they restore their populations pretty darn quickly if you just let them.