Just because we can, doesn’t necessarily mean we should

It is well known that global pelagic and coastal fish stocks have plummeted since the development of more efficient fishing techniques, and the advance of larger vessels fishing for longer periods. Examples of this decline can be seen in the crash of the cod and herring fisheries, along with many others despite the "Management" methodolgy adopted to sustain and save these stocks. With this in mind, should we be looking to enlarge the global deep sea trawling industry?

There are several arguments for and against such a controversial issue; factors in favour of these techniques include the availability of new stocks, allowing potential relief of pressures on existing pelagic stocks, permitting many fishermen to maintain a livelihood and also allowing a continued provision of protein to millions of people. There are, however, two sides to each story. There has not been enough assessment of deep sea fish stocks to allow educated decisions to be made in an effort to utilise this resource sustainably. We also lack data on the recruitment and growth period of these deep sea stocks, but it is a general trend that deep sea organisms have slower growth periods due to the low supply of organic matter. This would suggest that deep sea stocks would have to be given longer recovery periods than other stock areas. How would this be controlled? How can we manage an environment we know so little about? Would it be economically viable to exploit these species if the vessels had to sit in port unable to trawl for months at a time?

As with any fishery there would be direct and indirect effects upon the ecosystem in question. Direct physical damage as a result of trawlers could include the impact on the benthos and possible sensitive species (e.g. lophelia corals), the effect upon the target stock as well as damage to other stocks through by-catch are all first level effects. Indirect effects include damage to the deep sea trophic structure with the removal of higher level organisms..

Considering all of this, is deep sea fishing a viable option? Certainly there should be more research conducted prior to any further movement towards this sector to ascertain whether it is sustainable and whether any inroads into this area of the fishing industry should be continued.

The question exists, just because we possess the technology to fish deeper, is it a practice we should pursue?

Disturbance of shore birds by people and their dogs

What do you think, when told to think of wildlife on a beach? It probably isn’t crowds of people with their dogs running wild, but this does never the less need to be thought of and the impacts that this has, especially on the wading birds and other shore feeding animals. There are issues with otters, seals and the birds being disturbed continuously from their feeding and also with the disturbance and destruction of the nests of many species of shore bird. It is true that recreation has become accepted as a necessary commodity, but should it be at the expense of the diversity of the life on the shore? Dog owners understand the need to keep their dogs under control in parks or fields, but seem to feel no need to do so on a beach. This means the dogs are free to chase birds and destroy the nests and eggs of birds along the shoreline. There are very few beaches where dogs are not allowed or must be kept on a lead.

It needs to be considered the there is the possibilities that if a bird is disturbed once or twice it will return and continue in the same area to feed, but if the bird is constantly chased from feeding it will stop returning to that area to feed. The same goes for nesting, it is highly likely that if a bird is disturbed from its nest it will possibly abandon it, and if its nest is destroyed the birds will go else where to nest. This poses a permanent threat to the sea shore ecosystem not just for one season, but for every year after, even if the disturbance on the beach is reduced it may take years for the birds to return to the area. This occurrence of birds when regularly disturbed taking longer to return has been known for a while and was observed in a paper by Burger et al. in 2004

(http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract;jsessionid=AE5478D5FA0D60F232947C7BF443B620.tomcat1?fromPage=online&aid=293144)

The shore birds play an important role in the ecosystem. This role includes predation on species that would otherwise become over-populated, having a negative impact on their food source. Due to increased species diversity at a higher trophic level, lower trophic levels may be put under too much pressure to sustain themselves.

These issues are becoming more common as the amount of people that frequent the shores increases and as more and more shores are becoming accessible to the public, and dogs have been observed to cause more disturbance than people alone would in several places and has been commented on in many cases and blogs world wide, (http://www.sfdogblog.blogspot.com/2009/03/blog-post.html).