Extinction, whaling and the Sea

[midnightfox]

I read a while back in the newspaper that most things in the Yangtze river in China will die in five years if they don't stop polluting it.
And there are only 13 Yangtze river dolphins left. Bye to another species.
While around the oriental area I have to mention the Japanese 'scientific' whaling and the fact they are going to try to change the no whaling rule.
Also it had deeply saddened me to hear on the news that it has suddenly struck the people of Ireland 'they haven't developed the potential (shouldn't that be we haven’t exploited)of the sea for food and power on the West coast yet'(where I stayed on my first week in Ireland). I also learnt, when watching a program in Ireland, we kill 100 million sharks a year! They kill about 10 people. I wonder which species you would call the 'dangerous predator' there, man or sharks?
One more: Big Russian trawlers are going out to the Hebrides and caching thousands upon thousands of fish every day, thus the fish levels have gone down and the people of the Hebrides(not all of them- I assume it’s the fishermen) are complaining. Refusing to see what is right before there eyes they are pressing the government to allow them to have a seal massacre around the Hebrides so the ‘ fish stocks can recover’
How stupid can you get, seals have lived with fish for tens of thousands, if not millions of years!
I better calm down now- don't want to get too angry...

[nightshade]

I wonder if they have access to the same sources of information as you,
does anyone have Hedridian connections ?

[midnightfox]

Originally Posted by nightshade

I wonder if they have access to the same sources of information as you,
does anyone have Hedridian connections ?

What? What do you mean?
If you mean what I think you mean, I don't know any Hebridians, we were told this by a lady from scotland we met in Ireland. Of course it may not be true...

[midnightfox]

ahem ignore that last post I misread your post
Hmm you could be right, and therefore they would have to come to some sort of conclusion

[MalcolmX]

"we kill 100 million sharks " this seems a vast amount what provence was produced for this claim ,as an angler i find some of the claims of destruction very wide of the mark . are these harvested for food or what ,

[Mark43]

Originally Posted by MALCOLMX

"we kill 100 million sharks " this seems a vast amount what provence was produced for this claim ,as an angler i find some of the claims of destruction very wide of the mark . are these harvested for food or what ,

I have read this figure myself somewhere recently but can't remember where abouts or how we manage to kill that many or for what reasons.

[midnightfox]

Originally Posted by MALCOLMX

"we kill 100 million sharks " this seems a vast amount what provence was produced for this claim ,as an angler i find some of the claims of destruction very wide of the mark . are these harvested for food or what ,

Same as Mark43, I do't know how or why they are killed, it just mentioned it near the end of a shark program after discussing them being killed for shark fin soup- I'm certain however shark fin soup isn't the sole reason we kill 100 million sharks! Don't worry I don't randomly make up numbers, if I write a 'fact' it is from something I've watched, read etc. Of course whether it is true or not has nothing to do with me, I am just presenting things I've learned.

On an unrelated subject...

...still no one has welcomed me back from Ireland!

[eeyore]

Welcome back from Ireland midnight Fox !

[midnightfox]

Yeah! Thanks eeyore
I was beginning to wonder if anyone remembered I'd gone to Ireland!

[eeyore]

The full article from the independent online on this http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/f...rticle1444.ece

says estimated 100 million sharks killed per year, or 270,000 each day - which actually comes to 98,550,000 if we want to be picky - but its still a hell of a lot of sharks. The figures apparently come from fin counts so it should be pretty accurate.