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As Fish Stocks Collapse, Overpopulated Lobsters Resort to Cannibalism
The Maine lobster population is booming, but it turns out that's bad news if you're a little lobster: "'We've got the lobsters feeding back on themselves just because they're so abundant,' said Richard Wahle, a marine sciences professor at the University of Maine, who is supervising the research. 'It's never been observed just out in the open like this,' he said."
Abundance caused by populations of their predators collapsing.
Soylent Red is lobsters!!!!
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...is getting pinched.
If you want to order lobster in a restaurant they will still charge "Market Price."
I'm willing to help by eating some of those lobsters. Where do I sign up?
I knew it would start somewhere.
It's a worrisome development and means that overfishing is collapsing the local ecosystem.
It's no joke, and it's happening all over the world, the scenario is converging for a catastrophic decline in fish populations.
Mad lobster disease.
Look back up at my post, now look back down, you're on the Internet. Now look back up. I'm a signature.
Why is Lobster still so expensive?
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If she finds out about this she will demand that we dine out at the local lobster restaurant until the fish/lobster balance is restored.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
no wonder it's called "wild" lobster. the boors.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Lobster fed lobster sounds delicious.
FTA: "allows him to observe a juvenile lobster tethered with a rope to a spot on the ocean floor."
He wants to study cannibalism, huh? Just wait until PETA reads that juicy little line! They'll eat him alive.
No wait. Hedge fund managers would eat their own young. Without salt.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
We go to the market and see the fish case always stocked. But the thing to realize, that as species are being fished out, they fill the case with other species. And prices on some species are skyrocketing.
Farming isn't very viable in many cases because they feed the farmed fish wild caught fish and the cages pollute the ecosystem so badly that the wild fish start to die out. Trout and Talpia are the only ones IIRC that are farmed sustainably - definitely not salmon.
And the thing that kills me, the next time you look at the fish case in the super market, bare in mind that at least half of what's in there will be thrown away.
We are so wasteful that it's just disgusting.
I hope this leaves enough cave lobster for my Dwarves!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Agricultural and fishing subsidies are bad for everyone and everything except the people whose livelihoods being subsidized.
Everyone pays. We pay taxes to save people who don't want to submit to market discipline and find it easier to lobby lawmakers than switch away from failing business models. We pay below-the-odds for shit food that's bad for us (we eat WAY too much meat and corn syrup) and makes us fat; we pay more for medicine to treat people as a consequence. We pay for the negative externalities for the environmental destruction of the forests and oceans.
And we're shelling out for these fat pigs, while government budgets are under pressure everywhere. Killing subsidies is an easy fix.
We pay, pay, pay in every way, while a bunch of fat cat fishermen and agri-businessmen make out like bandits. Somebody needs to find the balls to put an end to this colossal scam, and have the courage to END all primary production subsidies everywhere, once and for all.
Why is this bad? It sounds to me like the population will control itself and there is built in limitations to the growth rate...who gives a shit what a little lobster does? They don't feel anything anyways!
...welcome our new overpopulated cannibalistic lobster overlords.
lobster fed lobster stuffed with lobster.
Why the fuck are lobsters expensive and considered luxury food? Supply obviously is far greater than demand.
The problem is due to shortages in butter, especially drawn butter.
There needs to be some sort of government subsidy to increase butter production, before it's too late!
I think we're approaching a fishcal cliff...
How much more do you have to pay to get a lobster that has only eaten lobster!
Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
Why don't we reduce the population of lobsters proportionally by eating them? Seems like a logical solution
Send them my way. I'll eat as many as you can ship one person.
"No wonder those humans are always trying to eat us...we're delicious!"
"When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
This is what the last "great" deed of humanity will be once we decimate the food chain and our food sources wither away... I, for one, give the lobster species a honorary status of Nostradamus with pincers.
Whoever first ate lobster.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The article I read stated that conservation has a hand in it. Kind of like the wildfires getting worse because of burn laws reducing smaller fire occurrence. Honestly, I am waiting for Mayor Quimby to take over at this point.
Lobster stuff lobster.
Saying your "phone ran out of batteries" is like saying your "car ran out of gas tanks".
If you ask me, I'd take lobster over tuna any day.
Maybe you're too young to remember, or you can't find it easily on the Internets, but back in the 60s when I was a kid, my family used to own French House Island off Jonesport in Maine, and we'd be up there every summer.
It had been observed then.
Now, that said, there's nothing better than Maine Lobster. We used to make blueberry pancakes from the blueberries on the island, and eat fresh lobster in butter, as well as clams we dug up and mussels.
But just because you can't find it observed this century doesn't mean it's "never been observed".
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Real foodies only eat wild raised lobsters fed on bison that eat nut grass.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
incompetence seems to abound at slashdot.
Of course we choose the obvious solution of harvesting more lobsters instead of restoring the natural balance and trying to increase their natural predators.
Wouldn't you?
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Lobsters do this anyway.
Source: my degree in Marine Biology.
- Zav - Imagine a Beowulf cluster of insensitive clods...
Who had the thought of going up to Maine and haggling for pounds and pounds of delicious lobster?
Lobster-fed lobster. Droooool.
I think that may be even better than my long desired Panda Burger.
People think you're joking, but that's how prion born diseases start.
Without butter sauce.
Please wake up out there. Now we have an over abundance of lobsters but the price at the super market won't reflect that at all, ever. The dogma of capitalism rests upon faulty notions such as free enterprise and supply and demand. But with devices such as futures contracts supply and demand really no longer exist. The right wing might want to get a clue about this. The other blatant example are ranchers shooting cattle to keep the price of beef high.
Going past that just why are we allowing fishing in the N. Atlantic at all? Fish need three things to be useful to humanity. One is clean water, the next is breeding grounds and the next is food. When we allow commercial fishing and even most sport fishing we destroy there ability to feed. Our cities destroy the oceans with toxins and worst of all the salt marsh areas are so highly valued for real estate that the breeding grounds have vanished.
Solutions : Disallow water pollution. Remove all buildings and land fill from coastal swamps and brackish waters, Ban all commercial fishing and limit sports fishing. Do this for thirty years and watch the oceans return to health. And if we are really lucky the number of severe storms may also be reduced as well as ocean warming. Or we could simply keep making excuses until we exterminate all life on this planet.
Take a look at rivers and lakes where the states ask people not to eat fish or at least to rarely eat fish. Now think about where the crops and livestock you eat get their water and feed. We are is serious trouble.
all the vegetarians out there... They should eat more meat.
Too late.........
http://www.hulu.com/watch/274815
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
there really isn't a good way to make melted butter available underwater
The main predators of lobsters are moray ells and the Wolffish, both of which are adapted to feed on crustaceans and have the jaws to crack lobster shells. The type of fish mentioned in the article couldn't eat a lobster to save their lives. The inference that greater lobster populations are the result of lower cod and halibut populations is as as silly as the inference that it is all because of global warming.
This is happening because the oceans are warming:
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/science/121203/lobster-cannibals-caused-warm-seasons
"'We've got the lobsters feeding back on themselves just because they're so abundant,' said Richard Wahle, a marine sciences professor at the University of Maine, who is supervising the research. 'It's never been observed just out in the open like this,' he said." Abundance caused by populations of their predators collapsing.
owing to the increased temperature in the oceans... owing to global warming.
This is what happens when you inadvertently screw with the predator-prey relationships which have worked themselves out over millions of years.
Just wait 30 years and the FTFY will be :
"'We've got the people feeding back on themselves just because there's so little food' "It's never been observed just out in the open like this,' " We have overpopulation relative to collapsing food supply caused in turn by the collapse of the ecosystem, starting 30 years ago in the oceans..."
Everyone must be clamoring to sell Fish now. A smart investor buys low and sells high. A wise investor has a sandwich-heavy portfolio to protect against market crashes.