Gulf Oil Spill Disaster — Spawn of the Living Dead

grrlscientist writes "A recently published study, intended to provide data to commercial fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico so they maximize their catch of Yellowfin Tuna, Thunnus albacares, whilst avoiding bycatch of critically endangered Atlantic (Northern) Bluefin Tuna, Thunnus thynnus, suggests that the Deepwater Horizon oil leak may devastate the endangered Atlantic bluefin population, causing it to completely collapse or possibly go extinct."

Comments

"Businesses can regulate themselves" my ass.

[unity100]

before any of you free market lunatics blurt out anything, BP vouched for the viability of the oil well operation by a PRIVATE report they prepared, and government has approved. perfectly 'private sector' style, 'free market'ish.

just like how PRIVATE companies which were doing business with wall street, vouched for and 'regulated' wall street.

this makes two, just in the span of 1.5 years. if there are still morons who can say 'free market regulates itself', it means they need to be 'regulated' with a thick stick.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[ColdWetDog]

The problem is that, in their guilt trip, biologists have blamed man for the state of pretty much every endangered species on the planet. Can you name a single endangered species (or even variety of species) that man is *not* blamed for right now? I doubt there is even one. So that means that we are supposed to preserve every single species that happens to exist at this particular moment in our planet's history, like some weird zoo where we've effectively stopped natural selection?

Wow, slow down! Try the decaf. Some of us are biologists and not every card carrying biologist is a member of PETA. You do have a point as the environmentalist movement tends to hammer hard on every potential species or ecosystem lost and it's usually, as you mention, the result of evil, nasty, smell 'mankind' (as opposed to 'humankind'). Unfortunately, we really don't know why a lot of extinctions take place. Some of the best studied ones do seem to be human caused. Even early humans may have been responsible for numerous large animal extinctions (go look it up). So we have a long track record in this regard. We also seem to be in the midst of another mass extinction and one that is at least partially human caused.

Will 'nature' deal with this 'problem'. Sure will. Come back in a couple of million years and you may find very little sign of homo industrialis. Many people aren't comfortable with that sort of time frame and so they complain, come up with hyperbolic arguments, get elected to Congress and all manner of silly things.

Truth is, it's hard to separate us from them. We are part of natural selection.

Re:Rectifying interference with more interference?

[NeutronCowboy]

Ask me if I care that the ecosystem rebounds in a few million years. Really, do ask me. Or ask the people whose livelihood depends on a healthy ecosystem.

Can we stop with this idiotic argument that the universe will survive just fine without humans? No shit, Sherlock. Way to state the obvious, Capt'n Obvious. In the meantime, I'd like to make sure that my life is nice and cushy, and that of my kids as well. Unfortunately, that requires a stable ecosystem. And a hallmark of a stable ecosystem is a diverse ecosystem.