Field guides out in the field need not be illustrated

My experience offshore has enlightened me about field guides. Drawn pictures are no substitute to actual photographs. I use several guides in my work offshore when something comes up that I am not familiar with. And many times, I have been misled by drawings that are simply not accurate. While I applaud the artistic eye of the illustrators, the drawings simply are not detailed enough to be used in a scientific field.

Drawn field guides are good for an average recreational fisherman or diver but when accuracy in identification counts, nothing beats a photographic field guide.

Japan: My mind, body and soul weeps with you

Such a tragedy! The earthquake, tsunami and nuclear reactor in the process of meltdown. Despite all this, the reports I am getting tell me that Japan as a nation is still acting supremely civilized. Keep your head up, as I know you will.

Aquaponics, not gonna feed the world

Aquaponics is an old idea that has been creeping its way into the food system all over the world. It is a blending of aquaculture, the raising of aquatic animals, and hydroponics, the growth of terrestrial plants in a liquid. The elegance of the system is the symbiosis of the animals, plants and bacteria to maximize the utilization of resources. The idea is that one feeds the other and so on to minimize inputs.

A summery of the process goes as follows: the fish in the system are feed by the farmer. In response, the fish poop, which is full of under utilized nutrients. Natural and ubiquitous bacteria grow and feed on the waste to produce other byproducts. Plants uptake this waste via their roots, which is really liquid fertilizer, utilizing the byproducts from the fish and the bacteria to grow and produce food for the farmer. The filtered water is then return to the fish cleaner and relatively free of waste produces.

Anyone familiar with recirculating aquarium system, i.e. any home aquarium, know that a biofilter is used to filter out wastes produced by the fish. These filters have to be cleaned and replaced periodically. In an aquaponics system, the hydroponic bed containing the plants act as the biofilter that produces a useful byproduct. Taken to the extreme that byproduct could ideally turn a profit.

I just came back from an aquaponics course at the University of the Virgin Islands in St. Croix. Dr. James Rakocy had been perfecting this system to the point of commercial viability for the past 30 years. He partially came out retirement to help teach the class. The university has patronized this course the past couple of years and will continue to do so in the coming years if anyone is interested.

I am no stranger to aquaculture or aquaponics. I used to work at the University of Miami's Experimental Hatchery and have been running a small aquaponic system at my house for a little over a year now. However, the things I learned help to fill in the gaps. Small systems practically run themselves, if you know anything about fish and/or plants. But, the finer details concerning water quality, design of larger systems and the business aspects have alluded me, until now.

Some people claim that aquaponics is new and it will feed the world. Both claims are false. For thousands of years, people in Asia have been doing this as they grew fish in their flooded rice patties. The fish would feed on insects and algae in the water while fertilizing the rice. The Aztecs built rafts out of lashed together wood and floated plants over lakes to produce food. No doubt that if one were to go back through history, other examples could be found; humans can be creative devils. Aquaponics has great potential, but it will be limited to supplementing the food supply for now. The world runs on carbohydrates and all the present models of aquaponics is used to grow fruits and vegetables in addition to protein from the fish. Unless the rice patty model or a large system to grow wheat or other grains can be used, not too many carbs come out of the system.

In the U.S., don't expect a large scale system to pop up next to you in the near future either. The up front costs to a commercial scale production system is prohibitive. It simply cannot compete with cheaper soil based production. The use of aquaponics will remain in niche markets for now. Small systems will be used in schools to teach and in homes to supplement food supply. The developing nations are where potential really exists for the millionaire/billionaire investors to actually built a large system.

My home system in the beginning

My home system used things I could recycle when possible. The bottom tank holding the fish is an old sink from my landlord's remodeling episode. And the upper tank for the plants is a five gallon water bottle cut in half. I cheated and bought a fountain pump and tubing from Home Depot to circulate the water.

Lettuce, bamboo and mangroves are now growing

My system was not optimized for any type of growth as prescribed by UVI. When I first built it, I knew little to nothing about the factors involved, but now I could step up to a garage or greenhouse size. My little system taught me about water quality and nutrients needed for success.

Reading list to get you in the mood

During the course of a deployment on a fishing vessel, particularly on longer voyages, I can find plenty of time to read. My natural inclination is to read about the ocean; whether it be fact or fiction. Here is some of the book I suggest:

• "In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex" by Nathaniel Philbrick. This is the true story of a Nantucket whaleship rammed and sunk by a whale 3,000 miles off the coast of Chile and the subsequent survival at sea by the crew. The story was the inspiration for Moby Dick. Gritty story of at sea survival in the 1800's complete with cannibalism.
• "Moby Dick" by Herman Meville. A classic every person who appreciates literature and/or the ocean should read.
• "Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea" by Steven Callahan. Another survival story about a man traveling solo across the Atlantic and his boat is struck by a whale. He had to abandon ship and float across the ocean in a rubber raft ending up in the Caribbean. Steven shows how resourceful he is by using everything at his disposal to survive.
• "South: The Story of Shackleton's 1914-1917 Expedition" by Sir Ernest Shackleton. The amazing story of survival in the Antarctic by a failed expedition to reach the south pole. The most amazing part is that no one died.
• "The Empty Ocean" by Richard Ellis. Bare bones facts about the depletion of marine species by man's unquenchable thirst for resources. A superbly researched book with lots of great facts but the writing was a little dry.
• "The Secret Life of Lobsters: How Fishermen and Scientists are Unraveling the Mysteries of Our Favorite Crustacean" by Trevor Corson. This is an entertaining non-fiction book that delves into the world of lobster fishing in the Northeastern U.S. And the sex life of the lobster is examined with detail and humor.
• "Four Fish: The Future of the Last Wild Food" by Paul Greenburg. This book examines the events that lead to the current state of wild and farmed fish. He leans more towards a farmed future. The take away message is that suitable species need to be found to farm instead of popular ones on the market.
• "South Seas Tales" by Jack London. A series of short stories set in the South Pacific. A entertaining mix full of colorful characters from every walk of life.
• "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. A fictional at sea survival story where a young boy shares his boat and food with a tiger whom he has a deep connection with.
• "Life on the Mississippi" by Mark Twain. One of Clemens' less well known books. It is a somewhat true story of his time on the Mississippi as a riverboat pilot and travels later in life. These experiences served as a basis for The Adventures of Huckleberry Fin.
• "Cannery Row" by John Steinbeck. Great short story about Doc, a marine biology, set in Monterrey, CA during the 1930's. Funny things happen when a group of homeless guys try to throw a party in honor of Doc.

I am currently reading: "Thousand-Mile Song: Whale Music in a Sea of Sound" by David Rothenberg. So far, it is a good book written by a musician/ philosopher as he tries to understand whale vocalizations from a purely musical stand point. He attempts jam sessions with various kinds of whales. The book comes with an audio CD of his sessions.

Commerical Fishing is not a job, it is a lifestyle

Working so closely with commercial fishermen, I have developed something of an understanding of them. It is a look into the depths of the human psyche, because not only does it define a lifestyle but one of the oldest lifestyles of our civilization. Fishing dates back to, well, most likely before humans really organized into large collective units like towns and cities. The need to fill our bellies and the desire to gaze into the unfathomable drew a following and has kept some coming back for more since who-knows when.

A slight disclaimer, I am most familiar to fishermen of the Gulf of Mexico which is not a complete slice of fishing as a whole applied to the world. Nonetheless, I do believe some of it is universal to the industry based upon talking to fishermen who have traveled and my own reading of experiences world-wide.

Fishing is very primal; it is a vestigial hunter-gather instinct to find sustenance to survive. Only it is changed from finding food for yourself, family or community to trying to feed the growing population of the world.

A small irony of fishing is that in developing countries fishing is used by the less fortunate who don't have other occupations and little money to buy food. So, it is subsistence fishing with maybe a small profit made selling a really good days catch. In more wealthy nations, commercial fishing is huge business operated for profit. Large vessels, now days owned by a corporation, go out, spend tremendous amounts of money on consumables, to catch highly valued marine life. Workers that operate some of the boats don't get paid enough to buy what they are catching in the open market.

I digress from the original intent of this post. Due to the nature of commercial fishing; hard, dangerous, long times at sea; it has a tendency to attract certain types of people. Ex-convicts, drug abusers, loners and thrill seekers are the mos common. Usually the fishermen are a mix of a few or all. As a result, it is hard for these people to find other jobs. They either don't like society or can't get another job making the same amount of money. To add to this, many have been fishermen since they were young, may have even dropped out of school to go fishing and are so involved and specialized that they would have a hard time finding another occupation.

While, I hate the devastating effects that commercial fishing has had on the marine environment. And the guys who plunder and disrespect the ocean deserve to go out of business, I have come to understand some of the motivation behind it. I understand it down to my bones because I have experienced it firsthand with my own eyes and hands.

Difficulties with IFQs

Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQs) are now being implemented in all fisheries under the management of National Marine Fisheries Service in the United States. IFQs are a system where fishery managers set a total allowable catch (TAC) for a specific marine species and then allocates catch shares of the TAC to individual permit holders. The quota in which permit holders receive are a percentage of the TAC set for a year. The percentage is based upon the landings made under the permit for a given number of years before the IFQs were established. Under this system quotas can be sold and leased by the permit holders.


IFQs are seen as a sustainable alternative to the traditional fishery management plans. The idea is that a quota would give the permit holder a stake in fishery itself so they had some interest in maintaining the stocks and keeping them productive from year to year. Provided the TAC is not set too high a fishery would never be overfished because the quotas would not allow it.


However, the reality of the matter is much different. Such a system in which the quotas can be bought or sold is beneficial to big corporations and puts smaller owner operators at a disadvantage. IFQs open up a market where the quotas can be sold or leased allowing anyone with enough money to control part of a fishery.


I was talking to a boat captain about IFQs, and he told me he knew a bookie that saw an opportunity to buy a bunch of quotas and lease them out to make a profit without having to do much. Buying the quotas at market value and leasing them out for a large fraction of the price allowed the guy to make back his money in a few months without ever leaving dry land.


I went out on a fishing boat with said captain for 23 days on a bottom longline trip. We fished for Golden Tilefish and Yellowedge Grouper in 1300 to 800 feet of water off Texas and Louisiana, because of the deadly effects of bringing a fish up to the surface from such depths there is no size limit. The captain had a quota of Tilefish to fill and I do not pretend to understand him, but he caught a considerable amount of Tilefish early on the trip. Mid trip he dumped a few hundred pounds of the Tilefish because he found a better size class, which he thought were more marketable. Therein lies a huge problem with the quota system. The captain wasted all those fish because the fish he caught more recently were larger and would look better for his reputation.


This type of culling is common in fisheries and existed before IFQs, however, because now captains can only land so much they have incentive to throw over some fish in favor of more marketable fish.