Controversial Haida Gwaii ocean fertilizing experiment pitched to Chile
- Thread starter agentaqua
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Cuba Libre
Well-Known Member
Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha........... go ahead-- send it south....
I wonder why McNamee is called "former" director and operations officer of the Haida Salmon Restoration Corporation? Where is Russ George? Well, we know that he was released from his responsibilities from the HSRC. I guess pouring thousands (maybe millions) of dollars of band members money into this speculative venture with no scientific evidence or benefits of carbon credits raining down like gold coins from the sky had something to do with it.
"The research is clear. If you put the right sort of iron in the right place at the right time that you will stimulate a plankton bloom. And if you do it in the right place at the right time you may stimulate fisheries." - Jason McNamee
Clarification: His and George's research so far has been proprietary and not available for scientific review by the broader science community, so their research is not "so clear". Where is his research from the previous "experiment" which supports this? Where is the baseline work before the iron fertilization work was done off Haida Gwaii? The answer is that the baseline work on the nutrient content in the water was not done. Scientific rigorous work? Non-existent so far.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Jason. Apply plenty of sun screen while in Chile and be sure to have an exit strategy (like a plane fueled and ready to evacuate you at a moments notice if you are irresponsible spending other people's money again).
"The research is clear. If you put the right sort of iron in the right place at the right time that you will stimulate a plankton bloom. And if you do it in the right place at the right time you may stimulate fisheries." - Jason McNamee
Clarification: His and George's research so far has been proprietary and not available for scientific review by the broader science community, so their research is not "so clear". Where is his research from the previous "experiment" which supports this? Where is the baseline work before the iron fertilization work was done off Haida Gwaii? The answer is that the baseline work on the nutrient content in the water was not done. Scientific rigorous work? Non-existent so far.
Don't let the door hit you on the way out, Jason. Apply plenty of sun screen while in Chile and be sure to have an exit strategy (like a plane fueled and ready to evacuate you at a moments notice if you are irresponsible spending other people's money again).
Uhmm, while no expert by any measure, the timing of the Haida experiment and the following record numbers of salmon returning to the Columbia, Fraser and other systems seems to match up with the runs themselves. Not only record numbers but size increase as well.
Not to say there aren't other reasons, but the timing is interesting and quite unexpected by the regular fishery guys that ignore that it happened at all. There have been no explanation from mainstream scientists at all.
Not to say there aren't other reasons, but the timing is interesting and quite unexpected by the regular fishery guys that ignore that it happened at all. There have been no explanation from mainstream scientists at all.
Well that's because they have no data to go on. IF the people in the "experiment" had of wanted to prove/disprove effects - they could have done that. Instead the ignored the obvious need to check for effects. There was quite a lengthy thread on this Forum before they changed the software. Since then it seems to have vanished.
Well it's hard for mainstream scientists to comment on something that they are not privy to examine. Maybe this iron fertilization did have an measureable impact on salmon stocks, but it's hard to determine if there was no baseline work done on nutrient concentrations before the experiment for one thing. If they don't know what was there to begin with then how can they say with confidence that what they did actually had an impact? The timing could very well be a great stand alone achievement or just a coincidence with other factors playing a role making iron fertilization look better than it was. It is also unclear if the release of this iron coincided with phytoplankton and zooplankton in the area and subsequent timing of salmon juveniles in the area. Creating an algal bloom should not be seen as a great achievement. Just creating an algal bloom does not equate to great benefit. In some circumstances, it can be very harmful. In addition, creating an algal bloom does not necessarily mean that there are salmon juvenile there to reap the rewards. Again, there is no data shown so far that provides any insight to this. Where is the data that shows that it was put in the right place at the right time?
Record numbers of salmon returning to the Columbia and Fraser should also be balanced with high variability in numbers in many other areas, especially the Fraser. As I mentioned before there were many Fraser Sockeye CUs that did poorly in 2015, but there were others that did very well (they are overshadowed by the numerically dominate CUs). It is even hard to attribute low numbers to the warm water blob because of this variability amongst stocks. Going into 2015, the blob was thought to be this horrible thing, but scientists cannot say with certainty what degree of responsibility the blob did have because of this variability. Some of it can very well be attributed to the freshwater environment for some CUs. For instance, in August 2010, the Meager Creek slide deposited millions of cubic metres of rock and debris into the Lillooet River and into Lillooet Lake. Although it is speculative, it is thought that slide may have had impacted subsequent returns to the Harrison-Lillooet system, specifically the Birkenhead area. It is hard to say if one thing is the cause of an increase or a decline because it is not so clear-cut when you bring in multiple pieces of evidence.
The one major thing that was noted were the incredibly large algae blooms, so big they could be noted by satellite. There is still some of the effect happening, but getting more spread out.
Evidently it was supposed to help the green house gas stuff as well as the algae absorbs more carbon.
As far as each run's increase, that might just have to do with where the fish migrate during their trip in the ocean.
Evidently it was supposed to help the green house gas stuff as well as the algae absorbs more carbon.
As far as each run's increase, that might just have to do with where the fish migrate during their trip in the ocean.
GLG
Well-Known Member
Shuswap. The DFO presentation last month, that I attended, said that we had cooler waters along the coast and the salmon may have done better because of it. We might not be so lucky if we have another Blob and it comes to shore.
Nature has a way of running Ocean Fertilization experiments when a volcano blows it's top up in the Aleutian Islands. I recall a science paper that the 2010 Fraser River Sockeye run could be explained by an eruption of a volcano there. I don't have a link to that paper but here is a PDF that does mention it.
http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/resources/1291745499.pdf
I have looked into ocean fertilization projects and other geoengineering projects. My conclusion is that we cant scale it up large enough to be a solution for CC. It maybe a solution to increase salmon production. I do think we need to continue the science as it could have merit if we could get a handle on the unintended consequences. Here is a link that may be of interest to those that want to read more about this subject and what the current thoughts are going forward. Check out the links on the right hand side of the website.
http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/LCLP/EmergingIssues/geoengineering/Pages/default.aspx
There does seem to be a correlation of increased biomass (fish) that are associated with these ocean fertilization projects. For that one reason I think we should be looking at this very seriously.
Nature has a way of running Ocean Fertilization experiments when a volcano blows it's top up in the Aleutian Islands. I recall a science paper that the 2010 Fraser River Sockeye run could be explained by an eruption of a volcano there. I don't have a link to that paper but here is a PDF that does mention it.
http://www.sfu.ca/cstudies/science/resources/1291745499.pdf
I have looked into ocean fertilization projects and other geoengineering projects. My conclusion is that we cant scale it up large enough to be a solution for CC. It maybe a solution to increase salmon production. I do think we need to continue the science as it could have merit if we could get a handle on the unintended consequences. Here is a link that may be of interest to those that want to read more about this subject and what the current thoughts are going forward. Check out the links on the right hand side of the website.
http://www.imo.org/en/OurWork/Environment/LCLP/EmergingIssues/geoengineering/Pages/default.aspx
There does seem to be a correlation of increased biomass (fish) that are associated with these ocean fertilization projects. For that one reason I think we should be looking at this very seriously.
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Are you talking about the State of the Ocean series? The blob has broken up closer to the surface but still remains intact at greater depths. Implications on upwelling of nutrients could be a possibility. The thing I took home from the "blob talk" is that it does not explain why many stocks did poorly in 2015 because others did very well or close to average. Obviously, there is more going on than what we currently know.
I am not necessarily against these experiments, but Russ George, Jason McNamee, etc...didn't do a very good job in providing the data required (or being transparent about it in the first place).
There were some large blooms last year along the North American coast, especially south of the 49th parallel, but not the good algae.
Where salmon migrate during their ocean trip is an area of scientific research, as well as timing of juveniles into the Strait of Georgia, length of residency and departure. All though Fraser Sockeye share similarities, the CUs can show diversity in life history strategies and migration and timing is one of them. Were some avoiding the blob while others were not able to? Does timing into the Strait of Georgia and length of stay there greatly impact marine survival? Tagging studies can probably provide some insight but as I said before this assumes that tagged fish behave like untagged fish. If behaviour is altered then all bets are off.
agreed on all of the above Shuswap. I believe that enough tagging studies have proven that tagged fish do behave as untagged - however - hatchery and wild are often quite different wrt migration timing and rates - and subsequently - what nearshore marine areas they utilize and for how long.
the threads I was trying to find using the search function were:
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum...lly-dumped-iron-pacific-salmon-catches.59627/
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/index.php?threads/iron-sulfate-dumped-off-b-c-coast.51191/
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum...lly-dumped-iron-pacific-salmon-catches.59627/
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/index.php?threads/iron-sulfate-dumped-off-b-c-coast.51191/
What studies are you referring to that prove that tagged fish behave as untagged fish? What types of tags are you referring to, what species and what life history stage? For instance, if you are talking Peterson disc tags during adult mark-recapture studies tagged fish do not necessarily behave like untagged fish if tagged fish are recovered at a higher rate than untagged fish, especially if the days out (from the time the fish is tagged to the date it is recovered) is less than a few days. Or if your tag incidence is unusually low it could indicate that tagged fish behaviour is different from untagged fish (leaving the system and becoming unrecoverable as a result). Although these studies attempt to account for these in the study design and bias testing these things can happen. Possible reasons can vary, but they could be the result of environmental conditions at the time of tagging, tagging fish that are already in poor or compromised condition, holding time in the net, length of time in the tag box, unable to avoid predators if too compromised following tagging, tagging fish too close to where they will eventually be spawning, or even poor tag placement by staff. If you are talking telemetry tags, especially with adults, I would disagree with you because there has been circumstances where telemetry tagging has suggested that enroute mortality was much higher than it actually was. When you compare Mission counts, creel surveys, spawning ground surveys (including ROV work) combined with environmental data/river conditions it does not add up to what tagging suggests.
Before this season with the use of V5 tags, juvenile Sockeye being surgically implanted with acoustic tags had to be a certain fork length (at least 120mm I believe). For places where the average size of out-migrating smolts is under 90mm it cannot be assumed that those larger tagged fish necessarily represent the smaller majority that were untagged or that they behave the same way. They can be a different age class (one that overwinters one year in freshwater while the other overwinters two years). When you surgically implant a couple of hundred juvenile salmon with acoustic tags and a large number of them drop out before they reach the Strait of Georgia does that indicate that they met their fate by some sinister act of environmental catastrophe or were the tags impacting their behaviour to the extent that they were more susceptible to predation or did they died from delayed effects from the surgery? Maybe the out-migrating smolts that were implanted with acoustic tags were already compromised with a pathogen which could mean that they were more prone to predation as they left their natal area? These are not necessarily hypothetical examples.
I am not against tagging or suggest that it is useless because it definitely is not. We get a lot of useful information from these studies, but one needs to keep an open mind when digesting the data from them and consider other information/data collected which may provide some further insight into those results. Tagging work is just one piece of information - it is not the final word. Tagging studies have certain assumptions and if they are not met or accounted for then all bets are off. The researchers that do this work do their utmost to unsure that tagged fish will behave the same as untagged fish, but it is not perfect. I have seen a lot of this tagging first hand - from juveniles to adults.
Thanks for your reply, Shuswap. Generally agree with your statements.
Well, since we were talking about the iron dumping project - tagging smolts on the ocean - was what I was referring to. That rules out many adult tags you mention. Since salt water attenuates radio signals so much and the sides and bottom (where one would place radio receivers) are generally so far away - radio tagging fish in the ocean is generally ineffective. That leaves the smallest tags and acoustic tags. These methodologies have been used for some time and in quite a few places to: Yes - prove that generally tagged fish respond like untagged fish (with the differences between hatchery and wild fish as I previously described). Yes - you also have to be careful in using/attaching/inserting these tags, and have a recovery tank utilized for individuals. None of that - by itself - invalidates the statement I made. David Welch - whose research was mentioned in http://vancouversun.com/news/local-...estions-about-salmon-migration-and-fish-farms - is one who has made a larger dataset on the Pacific Canadian Coast wrt numbers, locations, and years of data.
Well, your statement was that it was proven that tagged fish behave like untagged fish. Well, that isn't entirely accurate. That in itself is a pretty broad statement to make when there are so many variables to consider. The devil is in the details as you will notice further along in my post. That's why I asked why you what studies you were referring to, what type of tags you were referring to, what species, and what stage during life history. This was illustrated when I talked about mark-recapture projects where tagging related impacts to fish behaviour are a real concern. Now that I know you are talking about tagging juvenile salmon we can proceed from there.
Well, before even talking about radio signals in the ocean, radio tagging smolts in the ocean would not be as effective and efficient as tagging them from their natal areas in freshwater. First, by not tagging them in their natal freshwater areas one would not be able to assess any survival rates from the freshwater during their outmigration. That would be kind of meaningless in my opinion, especially if you can lose half of your tagged fish before they reach the ocean which raises the possibility of tagging induced mortality. Second, stock identification would be kind of important and identification using DNA is not perfect (there are range of probabilities that a particular fish is a from a particular CU). If one were to capture in the ocean how can they be certain that they are not placing most of their tags into a few salmon stocks or spreading them out too thinly over many stocks. Finally, you would also have to be able to capture enough of them and ensure they are large enough to be tagged as these very large smolts are not easy to come by in the wild (which leads into the next sentence). Before the advent of these smaller V5 tags, smolts had to be very large in order to carry these acoustic tags. The smolts in Dr. Welch's work were at least 140mm in fork length. In order to get to that size these fish had to be raised in a hatchery as they are definitely not the norm as compared to the majority of out-migrating smolts in the wild. In Chilko, one-year olds smolts dominate (~95% to 98% on most years) and they are generally less than 90mm in fork length. As the majority of out-migrating smolts are not these large, moby smolts any inference from this work needs to be balanced with other information. These new, smaller tags are an attempt to better represent this majority that has not been represent so far, but with any study like this it may answer some questions as well as generate some. With emphasis on Sockeye here, this research is ongoing with many questions to be answered such as the role of predators, survival difference between 1 and 2 year olds and if size of tag influence survival.
Salmon smolts find safety in numbers
Media Release | May 9, 2016
Researchers use implanted electronic tags to track journey of juvenile salmon
http://news.ubc.ca/2016/05/09/salmon-smolts-find-safety-in-numbers/
Media Release | May 9, 2016
Researchers use implanted electronic tags to track journey of juvenile salmon
http://news.ubc.ca/2016/05/09/salmon-smolts-find-safety-in-numbers/
Nature | News
Iron-dumping ocean experiment sparks controversy
Canadian foundation says its field research could boost fisheries in Chile, but researchers doubt its motives.
Jeff Tollefson
23 May 2017
http://www.nature.com/news/iron-dumping-ocean-experiment-sparks-controversy-1.22031
Iron-dumping ocean experiment sparks controversy
Canadian foundation says its field research could boost fisheries in Chile, but researchers doubt its motives.
Jeff Tollefson
23 May 2017
http://www.nature.com/news/iron-dumping-ocean-experiment-sparks-controversy-1.22031
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