The ocean is broken
10-24-2013, 06:23 PM
#1
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The ocean is broken
http://news.yahoo.com/the-ocean-is-b...133327474.html
It's surprising but not really news. There have been warnings about this for awhile.
It's surprising but not really news. There have been warnings about this for awhile.
It was the silence that made this voyage different from all of those before it.
Not the absence of sound, exactly.
The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.
And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.
What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.
The birds were missing because the fish were missing.
Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.
"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.
But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.
No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
Not the absence of sound, exactly.
The wind still whipped the sails and whistled in the rigging. The waves still sloshed against the fibreglass hull.
And there were plenty of other noises: muffled thuds and bumps and scrapes as the boat knocked against pieces of debris.
What was missing was the cries of the seabirds which, on all previous similar voyages, had surrounded the boat.
The birds were missing because the fish were missing.
Exactly 10 years before, when Newcastle yachtsman Ivan Macfadyen had sailed exactly the same course from Melbourne to Osaka, all he'd had to do to catch a fish from the ocean between Brisbane and Japan was throw out a baited line.
"There was not one of the 28 days on that portion of the trip when we didn't catch a good-sized fish to cook up and eat with some rice," Macfadyen recalled.
But this time, on that whole long leg of sea journey, the total catch was two.
No fish. No birds. Hardly a sign of life at all.
10-24-2013, 10:01 PM
#2
Super Moderator
Cliffs:
Fail. Hardly surprising from Yahoo, but fail.
- Guy goes sailing in an active fishing ground, is surprised to find fish hard to catch in the vicinity of a commercial fishing vessel,
- Guy is shocked fishermen don't catch-and-release all the by-catch.
- He cruises around some industrial area or old fishing ground and is surprisd that old fishing equipment is in the water.
- Asks governments to help, is told the ships burning all the fuel required to sail around doing clean-up would be worse for the environment.
- Gets Yahoo "News" to write a pointless story to make you think the ocean is broken.
Fail. Hardly surprising from Yahoo, but fail.