Focus 580; Fish Conservation

In this part of focus as I said before the news will be talking with a researcher who's done a lot of work generally speaking in the area of Fish Conservation But of course more broadly in trying to understand the health of aquatic ecosystems and what it is that sometimes we do either to make them healthy or to put them at risk. Looking at a lot of different areas including government policy there are pressures that commercial fishing can put on fish stocks the kinds of pressures that sport fishing can put on the the fish stocks. And our guest for the program in this first hour is David Philips. He is a principal scientist in the center for aquatic ecology and conservation at the Illinois natural history survey which is based here on the campus of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. In addition he is an adjunct professor in the departments of animal biology and natural resources and environmental sciences here at the U of I'm. He serves on the board of directors of the fisheries Conservation Foundation. And also the independent scientific advisory board for the Fish and Wildlife Management folks who are concerned about the Columbia River those issues right there. He has his very

specific interest is in one fish in particular and that is the black bass and has coauthored a book which probably tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the black bass which is untitled black bass ecology conservation and management. And it is a book the kind of book that you know perhaps might appeal just to specialise but if that's the kind of thing that interest you you can go and take a look at it and the people who are listening this morning have questions. I know that he will do his best to give me an answer. The number here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. And also we have toll free line that much good anywhere that you can hear us and that is 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Well thanks very much for being here. Thank you David. Thanks for giving the opportunity to talk about something I feel rather passionately about. Sure. Well to start let's talk on a on a very general level what sort of what sort of issues concern you. OK well I'd say that you could categorize issues

associated with fisheries conservation into you know four different types and we often refer to those as the four H's habitat harvest the hydro systems and hatcheries. Some of these like hatcheries are maybe more important Freshwater the Marine System marine systems but others like habitat loss are pretty important everywhere and it's really just in the last little bit of time that we're truly getting an understanding of how all these different issues interact to determine the future of fish populations. And in fact I believe that in the past certainly a really to a great extent today many fisheries management agencies have made a fundamental mistake in how they have chosen their management strategies. Because they've taken really an agricultural approach rather than an approach set in an evolutionary context. So for example on the farm we really we target single species we control the environment that is we control the food they get. We

control their habitat very closely. We even control their reproduction. We eliminate competitors we eliminate predators. In fact in many circumstances we line breed for specific characteristic characteristics that we desire for those animals to possess on the farm. But our fish populations live in the wild not on the farm. And as such the individuals are members of naturally reproducing populations that exist within communities of a whole lot of different other species different organisms there is competition there is predation both upon them and by them etc.. And so individuals in these different species interact with each other and with their environment in very complex ways as part of a very complex ecosystem not as a monoculture on a farm. These are row crops. They aren't Holsteins. These are wild fish populations. That's the bottom line is fish populations evolve in response to natural selection no matter how badly we'd wish them to

do otherwise. That's what they do. So many fisheries management agencies I think have failed to grasp this and so they haven't had a real good track record in the over the past several decades. Happily for Illinois the Illinois DNR Zz division of fisheries is really an exception to this and has had a very enlightened approach they've worked with us and other researchers for many many decades and so have had quite a good success rate. So are we talking about primarily agencies that are managing the resource as a commercial resource or for sport fishing or both. Well certainly most inland states have predominantly recreational fishery interests although Great Lakes states and. Coastal states have have much better commercial fisheries as well. Yeah well I tell you what we have a caller here so we can get in D.C. She's a little bit more depth but rated rather than make this person wait. You're going to go ahead and see what their question is

and bring him into the conversation. And I'm not sure if I gave the phone number. I'll do that 3 3 3 9 4 5 5 here in Champaign Urbana toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 Those are the numbers to call if you have questions. Here's call or e in their ban and this would be line number one. Hello good morning. Thinking about farm farming prompts me to ask what is been the result of farming. What has been result of distant waters for farming. Again other economic activities first. Clients would be thousands and thousands of miles away from the water and with the worst of it water environment and that at first would seem to be unconnected but if you study finally does have a distant connection.

Most definitely make sense. Oh yes though I understand the question well and listen it's a very broad area and I just want to know what your take was on it. OK well thanks for the go. The effect is not good. Both logging and row crops and livestock farming certainly has negative impacts on the watersheds the streams through silt ation which certainly hinders the reproduction of fish and all all sorts of other aquatic. Organisms but also it transports toxic chemicals downstream. For example there from much of the agriculture that's done throughout the middle part of the U.S. there is a lot of toxic chemicals that have gone all the way through down through the Mississippi River and now there is a an an ox sick and kind of a dead zone in that off the coast of the Mississippi Delta that extends for many many miles in which essentially all living organisms are predominantly

been extirpated. So that is a that is a serious concern and one that's being dealt with by all of the states in the Mississippi River. It's a it's a it's called non-point source pollution and that's and that is clearly a big problem. Logging of course not only has it increased patient but it's also reduced the shade effect and so the right Parian zone once it's once it's been harvested and Sun is enters the equation. It has raised the temperature of the headland stream for a variety of a variety of locations and that has made them. Incapable of supporting reproduction. It's particularly bad out in the West where those the headwater streams of the site for reproduction of many of the cell monitors that is the trout in the salmon which need cool water and then the temperatures reach extremes that are that are too high for fish and so yes the logging and farming can have

catastrophic effects on aquatic communities. Certainly I know that there is some controversy about that a lot of scientists do really believe that agricultural runoff and not just from agriculture but it also can be from stuff that people put on their lawns would be put on golf courses and all of that has definitely had ended up going into the Mississippi and then helping to create this problem that we have in the Gulf of Mexico. It's also true that some of the country's biggest metropolitan areas are located on the coasts and that we do have significant problems on the coastal areas and that's maybe not not doesn't have so much to do with agriculture although there are some places I think there are a large can animal confinement operations that do play a role but if you're looking at places like New York City for example or other places around along the East Coast we also have a significant problem there with coastal waters because we have these large concentrations of people and and waste of one kind and another that's produced by these large groups of people. It also ends up in the water and that's a problem too.

Oh sure I know agriculture is not the only culprit. Most of the culprits could be brought back to our single species however But you know and so certainly certainly high densities of humans create a problem as well and that's that's goes all up and down the Mississippi River as well there's all sorts of runoffs and industrial waste and all sorts of things it's not just it's not just diet cultures let's up with someone else a caller in Belgium over by Danville wine for Hello. Good morning sir. First question comes to mind is this invasive species. The most recent of which is a few you know like Asians make it carp that have the name quite right and they're not quite there are Asian carp and then there are snake heads they're both both from Asia some are carbs and some are snake ads and they're both exotic Yes. All right and then of course there were in the Great Lakes there was a deal the cards a great deal problem years ago. I don't know how it's been resolved but it seemed to PCC. I really have no way of stopping them now. We may have them to

do some with our activities or maybe they've just shown up on their own time. I'm not knowledgeable enough to speak on that but how do we solve this problem. I want to resolve this problem. We're trying to solve this problem. It takes regulations and it is a huge issue that they have come in for a variety of ways that the ill you refer to is probably the sea lamprey which came up from from the Atlantic Ocean years and years ago when the St. Lawrence Seaway and the Welland Canal were constructed so what we did through transportation construction etc. was open a natural waterway so that they could come in they are still a huge problem. We're dealing with them by having massive a massive campaign where we poison the small larvae in various streams that serve as a brood stock to keep that numbers down. Those numbers we will probably never eradicate them from the Great Lakes the snakehead is

the fish that came in through the pet aquarium trade and releases from individuals mostly out east. And that is just a burgeoning problem right now is just blossoming out there because there has been a few that have been released and have naturally reproduced but the extent of which is not really well known. The Asian carp is a different story that was brought in intentionally by aquaculture us to produce either food or for in the case of like black carp to control mollusks. In other commercial aquaculture ventures all of which are going to be more and more of a problem in our in our histories and waterways. Make some progress. Oh yes very much so and there's a huge con controversy right now over the state of Maryland that wants to bring in an Asian oyster to re introduce into the Chesapeake Bay because the habitat and water quality in the Chesapeake Bay has proven to not be sustainable for keeping the native more oysters going and it was a

huge commercial fishery for native oysters and they just can't get them re-established. So the idea for there from the governor of Maryland was to bring in an Asian oyster and see if that would do better because it supposedly does better under more adverse conditions. Of course his neighbors in the around the Chesapeake Bay are adamantly opposed to it that is one of the problems that shows one of the problems that we do have in that bringing in decisions to bring in non-native species is really a state by state decision. And there is really no federal legislation that can kind of control this so in fact one state can do what they want and usually one fish can do what he or she wants. None of your company like the big banks probably have very. Very interesting topic for probably a whole hour show in that it's had so many problems and they used a blue crab was a very very valuable species there which is been decimated a great deal in the oyster population there.

And also when you were talking earlier about the farm activities the Eastern Shore of Maryland has a lot of chicken farms and pig farms that have caused a great deal of problems with not only mankind but with with the habitat also it's a whole microcosm of exactly what problems you've been talking about. Oh yes most definitely. And the fisheries have been in danger and have collapsed and sort of rebounded with moratoria on takes and harvest etc. but some of the fish that some of the fisheries like the blue crab in the oyster are on the verge of total extirpation and also that the pollution that came from the industrialization and Baltimore and Philadelphia and places like that is just my cause. And the same sort of area to have a real severe problem in a beautiful way that that was used by people and animals both. Oh yes and that's not an uncommon problem in bays around the world one of the one of the bad situations is even though we know what the problem was and we can correct an

awful lot of the point source pollution it's heritage last for a long time and can create long lasting toxic issues once we've in the sediment and slow release etc.. It's it's not an easy process to just turn right around and get a pristine clear water again and it is very amazing to see Washington DC is essentially located on the prairie and it's not the Potomac obviously headliners. To the bay. But they're still close to the tip. They seemed to look right over it. Thank you very much. You know I think certainly their questions are welcome our guest with us our focus 580 is David Filipinas principal scientist in the center for aquatic ecology and conservation at the Illinois natural history survey here DO YOU HAVE A He's also adjunct professor in the departments of animal biology and natural resources and environmental sciences and we're talking about Fish Conservation if you have questions you can call us at 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5.

We're going back to the topic that you just touched on at close to the beginning about your feeling that we have a problem here with fishery management agencies who approach these complex ecosystems that are natural where the species are wild where we have a number of them where they all interact and apparently what they have done is targeted particular species that they're interested in and I suppose it could Basque might be one of them. Salmon might be one of them. One of those such things where they said well we know that people are interested in this it could be for commercial fishing could be sport fishing. So we want to make sure that we have plenty of these fish for people and so we concentrated on that so why is that a problem. Well OK let let me give you an example with black basket because that is a that's the species that I deal with do most of my research and and can call a spade a spade essentially and. Most people are from when I mention black bass it's a group of species most people are familiar with the most common two species which are large mouth bass and small mouth bass but there are actually

nine different species of large mouth bass is probably the most sought after and popular sport fish in all of North America. Certainly numbers of anglers that target it and definitely the amount of money that spent on angling for black bass exceeds all others. Historically Black Bass the historic ranges say 100 years ago were was predominately the eastern half of the United States. Some up into Canada some down into Mexico. But since the turn of the last century States further west the did not have black bass imported them. In fact countries all over the world have imported them maybe up to 120 different countries have imported black bass mostly large mouth bass and in most cases they have been a real problem because they eat many of the native fishes and extirpated whole complexes in a variety of places and many of the local biologists now are trying to get rid of them and that's not an easy process. But let me give you one example in California

just around the turn of the 20th century. They introduced large mouth bass the California Department of Fish and Game. And to do this what they did is they is they train loaded a group of bass actually from the state of Illinois out to Southern California. Eight survived. They put those in a pond. They did reproduce. We don't know how many actually reproduced it could have been one male and one female we don't even know how many were males and females but presumably some of those eight are reproduced and those offspring were then raised and uses brood stock for the entire state for the next 50 to 60 years so it conceivably the entire state of California could have been seeded from originally brothers and sisters matings. Any way that they established a variety of populations that were not particularly well grown you know they didn't grow very well they didn't reach very large sizes they weren't a very fit population for fisheries and so. Back in the

early 60s one of the biologists suggested that in fact they bring in a different bass one from Florida because and the rationale was the bass in Florida grew so much bigger than they did in Illinois that fish from there would hopefully get bigger. And in reality if you were to look at the environments of California and Florida they would certainly be closer together than California and Illinois so that might have made sense originally if someone felt the need to introduce large mouth bass but they were brought in and intermingled with the fish that were already there. And lo and behold about eight or ten years later all of a sudden there were some really large fish coming out a few really trophy sized fish which attracted a lot of attention nationwide. And it was proclaimed that this was due to the Florida bass talking that these were Florida bass coming out. Well in reality that was probably not the case they probably weren't pure Florida bass to begin with and they hybridized with the fish that were already there which were inbred and now we produced what was what we call an F-1 or first generation hybrid.

And if you look at what we do in corn plants oftentimes those hybrids have tremendous hybrid vigor but their fitness actually is quite low you never plant the kernels from a hybrid corn. And the way that those trophy bass. Back that an awful lot of attention and states all over the country didn't want to be out done by California so they started importing Florida bass and stocking them on top of native populations of the large mouth bass that were already there. Originally these fish were described as a different subspecies we've recently done some pretty high on molecular work and clearly show that these are two quite different species so what has happened is that all of the states basically south of the Mason-Dixon line from Maryland through Oklahoma have stocked huge numbers of this species Florida bass on top of the native large mouth bass and many if not the majority of the native populations throughout the probably the southern half of the range of this most important species. It has been compromised by the introduction of these fish. Now it's

those those stocking programs have done a lot for bass fishing because it's been a lot of hype and there there are trophy fish that are coming out. Records have been broken. It's all been given the credit for the stocking program. But when you look back in fact lots of things have changed since 1970. We have electronic fish finders we have all sorts of new fishing gear. And when you look at the records on these states that have stocked Florida bass in fact yes 70 plus percent of them did break state records. But when you look at the states that did not stock Florida bass 70 plus percent of them broke state records too so the the the fact that these large fish are due to the stocking is not entirely clear at all. And so what we did is we there was a lot of pressure brought on the Illinois Department of Conservation back then the division of fisheries to talk Florida bass as was every state all the way up to Minnesota trying to be pressured by anglers to stock those. So we entered in a to a research program instead

of going willy nilly ahead in Illinois and did some research on this and it was in collaboration with Texas and Florida in Minnesota. So we took fish from each of these raised them in Illinois stuck them out. They were genetically tagged. We followed their their success. And in fact showed that in each case it was the native stock of fish that survived the best grew the fastest and reproduce the best. So in fact bringing fish from Florida to Illinois had a negative. Result in in reality they all hybridized and the resulting populations were in fact had had half the fitness of the native population. So by introducing these fish not only did you decrease the growth rate you decrease the survival you decrease the reproductive success and you ended up with a population that now wasn't the same and could not be recovered because it would have been irreparably compromised genetically. And that's also occurred in Texas and etc. So that was a little bit hard for a lot of the states to swallow and

then they still find lots of ways to why not to believe that however we have gone into I've been collaborating with Dr. Tony Goldberg over in the vet college to look at the mechanisms of this outbreeding depression the loss of fitness with these groups hybridize. And what we've shown is that when these fish are hybridized fish are exposed to disease agents like us large mouth bass virus that we've been working on their susceptibility is hugely increased compared to the native stocks that weren't hybridize so that what it what it appears is that in this mixing of of genomes across fish populations it's good. Reason for this what we see is the outer depression is there loss of ability to fight off diseases and that has huge ramifications because now these fish have been with fish or been moved around all over the place and still native populations can really be suffering from this kind of insidious and hidden loss of fitness. It's a really interesting story of course among other things one of the big bottom lines obviously people I would think even if you're

not geneticists would take away is the basic idea is that when you when you jumble up genetics you never know what you're going to get and never know you never know. And the chance of coming out a winner is pretty darn slim. And so and has this kind of has that kind of story been repeated with other species of fish. I mean can you can you can you maybe find examples where they have tried to do the same sort of thing with some other fish with a similar kind of result or maybe maybe the thing is that maybe not a similar result but what an unintended result. Certainly that the story of mixing stocks has has occurred in all populations as well. And for example. Rainbow trout were introduced into the Yellowstone River which had native cutthroat trout population and now they have hybridized with the native cutthroat trout to produce this rainbow cutthroat hybrid which has very different properties than the native cutthroat

trout. It's there's a huge amount of effort throughout the West to resurrect native stocks of trout realize too that you know there have been outbreaks of new diseases like whirling disease and how this mix mixed his history of mixed stocking has impacted the ability of populations that once were resistant to disease now to have outbreaks is unclear but it there's a there's a good chance for a parallel to our large mouth bass virus study where the outbreeding depression that we see is due to a mixing up of the maids a major histocompatibility index or the complex of these gene complexes that design antibody response et cetera. We are a little bit past mid-point here. I have several callers will get them into the conversation here just a moment but I do want again to introduce our guests an occasion might have just tuned in the last few minutes. David Philip is principal scientist in the center for aquatic ecology and conservation at the Illinois natural history survey which is based here at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. He's also

adjunct professor in the departments of animal biology and natural resources and environmental sciences He serves on the board of directors of the fisheries Conservation Foundation and also serves on the independent scientific advisory board for the fish and wildlife management of the Columbia River and his particular very specific area of interest and research is the black bass and is the coeditor of a book titled Black Bass ecology conservation and management published by the American fisheries society. Questions are certainly welcome and we have some people here ready to go 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. That's for champagne Urbana and toll free 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5. We have some champagne folks here ready and waiting in line one will go there first. Hello. Yes hi. I want me to come in. I love to kiss them and eat them. I'm 69 years old. I'm a nurse by profession. But my question is I catch native trout and best

Hollo do we how do we make the native fish. How do we know that docking is not the way to go. How do we make the native fish more prevalent. And then I haven't read your book I watch. But if you want me to say I will and if you don't I'll hang up. Well you're welcome to stay on. Yeah well I think it's an excellent question obviously because we've been talking here about how maybe it is not the way to do it but as you know as the caller would say I'm sure a lot of people would not understand and a lot of places their fish stocks are a great resource. They want to protect maintain. Grow them if they can because people will come there and they will fish and they will spend their money. What's that. What's a better way to do it then. Then what we have talked about in the examples that you've given I think the first thing we have to do is to get rid of what I call the great myth and that is what anglers have been fed and now believe and that is many of them that

the reason there are fish out there that we fish for is because. Man put them there. And even in pretty remote places where I do a lot of research up in Canada and there is a lake that we do extensive behavioral work on and there was an angler out fishing on top of some of our bass spawning areas before the season started illegally and we had a discussion and he was he was joking that in fact that we should spend a lot less money on this research and a lot more money just on increasing the number of bass that were stocked in the lake. I had informed him and said actually there had never been bass docked of that lake and I doubt there ever would be because I was a huge healthy population there and he just couldn't believe it he goes what how how how could they. Where did these bats come from I said well they came when the glaciers receded you know several thousand years ago and I've been here ever since and these fish were born here. Like most fishes all of the fishes in this lake. And that was just too difficult for him to believe that he was just under the assumption that that fish that are that anglers fish for are put in the lakes grown they're

put in lakes by. Fishery management a disease produced in hatcheries grown in the lakes. And that's what we do with them. Well that's just not the case and so one of the things we do have to realize is that that most of the fish in the United States were born right there. Now there are a number of fisheries that are constructed soley from hatchery fish for example many pop many lakes now can't sustain walleye populations. They are grown and have trees put in and basically put grow and take fishery which is to be honest a pretty expensive operation. But you know it's not. And I don't want to bash hatcheries totally by saying that they're all not good they do for they do for a purpose. There are environments that are incapable right now of sustaining populations we can run them through a hatchery and produce fish that go back out from those native environments and kind of help these populations limp along until hopefully we've solved the habitat problems or

whatever is that whatever is the process. What it really comes down to is that we have to realize that. For a given species all of the populations in that species aren't the same some are evolved like for large mouth bass. Some are evolved to make it through the cold winters up in northern Minnesota others through the hot winters down in Alabama and so hot summers in Alabama Fish then having to adapt to different life history trajectories different ways of doing that and so they have evolved for those environments when we start moving them around treating a bass from anywhere as an equal. Then we've got problems and so we have to realize that populations or or species are actually mosaics of individually divergent populations and we have to stop mixing those stocks across the boundaries that's where we get breeding depression. For example the fish from Florida going to Minnesota died under the ice because they hadn't put enough weight on

it so they didn't have the facts to make it through winter. They didn't die because it got so cold they died because they ran out of gas under the ice because they weren't evolved to do that. On the other hand fish from Minnesota down in Florida. Awaited the winter by put it loaded on fat didn't grow in the Florida Fish grew all throughout that winter and then ate the smaller Minnesota fish that were that had made the wrong life history choice. So we need to stop mixing fish and help by having more regulations designed to conserve the populations rather than to try to maximize fishing opportunities this early. I have one of the questions. Some people do not like fish to eat them fish make them sick. I think they're very healthy myself. Do you have any. I know that they are do you have any success. Maybe your book is just as the science of this question.

The book probably doesn't it's really a compendium of pretty hard hard science research. But you know certainly some most all fish are probably in my mind to taste good I go fishing a lot and I eat fish a lot. Now some individuals just with their genetic make up don't do well with fish because they're probably allergic to certain parts I know of a good friend that's very large deficient so he can't get even come close to them without breaking out into hives and losing some respiratory functions. I don't know that we can help them with any with that cysts situation other fishes of course are. Difficult to deal with because they can. They come from areas where they can accumulate toxins and so there there's always the need to look for local local warnings or whatever that is to to make sure that you're not eating too much of a good thing and therefore overdosing with various toxins that you don't want to be

ingesting. Yeah well I think the caller for her questions and comments we have some others Let's go to our next caller. Also in Champaign line number two right here. Hello. Yes one of my own song Heroes NSA Quezon is the Andean Fish and Wildlife Service in upper Wisconsin Michigan and first part of the state. Do some of the remarks that you've made about the transferring and the variation that would you make some comment on Indian Fish and Wildlife Service and what they have to do with this. Big. Hang Up and Listen thank you. OK I'm not actually sure what the Indian Fish and Wildlife Service is but they are tribal. There are tribal biologists and there are tribal jurisdictions and they interact with the federal U.S. Fish Wildlife Service and the state agencies in various ways determined by treaty law etc. and it's on a state by state

tribe by tribe basis. They are certainly strong components are proponents of various conservation measures. They oftentimes are also strong proponents of hatcheries because of mitigation efforts for example out in the Columbia River where where salmon are so depleted these days there are 137 different hatcheries that are producing salmon for a variety of reasons many of which are specifically done in mitigation for construction of the various big hydroelectric dams that are out there many of them are constructed on tribal lands and for the for the purpose for tribal harvest etc. they. The tribes are very strong proponents for habitat restoration for a variety of what I consider very positive

attributes towards to move fisheries management the right direction. They not they may not necessarily take the evolutionary approach that I would like to when it comes down to actually production etc. because I think it clearly in there's quite a debate going on out in the Pacific Northwest right now on the relationship between hatchery fish and wild fish and it are hatcheries the answer. You know and after 50 years of 100 plus hatcheries and we're still have have seriously depleted populations there. They're they can't be the the end all answer at all and in fact I think a mismanaged hatchery can be as detrimental as no hatchery at all. More so actually so that I think it the bottom line is that the conservation record for tribes is very good in many instances and not all that perfect in other instances.

OK. Let's talk with someone in Charleston this callers on our toll free line line for. Hello. Yes I'm looking at this conversation through a social landscape. Human humans seem to have no ultimate predator. We are the ultimate predator and everything we do is unchecked. Our social organization permits a sort of survivalist paradigm and I guess my question is since we are organized in the manner we are camp can we do enough soon enough. Because that 6 billion people. I don't think they sure all sorts of food including fish. I think about that about the Japanese fishers who take everything sweep the ocean and grind it all up. We're turning to food and half the human population

growth was quicker than our source of food diminishes. What are we going to do. Oh isn't it so frustrating. Yes yes. That brings up lots of issues. You know they're there or they're in the fish are really the last wild set of wild organisms that we harvest commercially for food value in any large extent. And we haven't learned how to do that sustainably. We go from one fishery to the next we fish down certainly the big commercial fisheries in the in the oceans have been a litany of disasters where we fish basically fish a species down to UN fishable levels and we move on to the next and keep going through this cycle. And that is a huge problem. And I think the caller brought up an interesting. Sight of you know of big commercial fishing taking these huge

nets and taking everything. And I think if if if the public the general public knew how some of or many of the fish were actually harvested with trawlers that go along the bottom and essentially scrape a half mile wide swath through along the bottom taking everything in existence including all of the coral all of the structure and totally destroying it until it regenerates in five 10 20 years. OK. If they saw how we harvested those fish they wouldn't order them in restaurants if they saw the waste of a long line fishery that takes less than 20 percent of the fish that are killed. That to go to market the rest being bycatch that they cannot legally harvest and they throw that overboard that bycatch being. Marine mammals turtles like log are heads endangered turtles sea birds etc.. They wouldn't eat those fish as well. I mean so one of the problems is that the public doesn't know really what's going on in

commercial fishing. It's in a lot of the aquatic habitat The problem is it's a it's a hidden crisis because it's below the surface of the water when everything is nice and clear and you can't see it. It's almost all be OK. But many of these populations are seriously in trouble and we just don't see it because we would say we don't look there and be if we did we couldn't see below the surface. So and there's a huge problem with that as fisheries scientists many of us have been very frustrated with the inability of decision makers to take the relevant data and use it for the right to make the right decisions or any decisions actually they make decisions based on interesting data sources not any of which are oftentimes the right ones. In response to that as David mentioned I was on the I'm on the board of directors for the fisheries Conservation Foundation that's that's an offshoot of the American fisheries society which is our

professional society. And it is an offshoot that has become necessary due to our frustration. We are not able to get the message of fisheries conservation fisheries needs to not only decision makers but to the general public. And so this foundation is basically an effort by scientists to partner with the private sector to use private funding to help deliver the message to the public. And interestingly for fisheries conservation historically the anglers the private anglers have really shouldered the bulk of the expense for conservation aquatic conservation through licenses and through excise taxes that they pay on fishing equipment boat usage all that it's a huge thing that generates. Tens if not hundreds of million dollars a year that is paid for directly by anglers and usage fees. Many of the wealthy investment bankers are corporate owners are avid anglers and they are frustrated as

well by not seeing the resource go in the right direction. They are willing to commit personal funds we're trying to harness that opportunity their willingness to to back this horse and to work closely with them partner private money with scientists that want to get this message out to the public because until that happens things won't change. You know when people I think more and more in recent years we've heard about the problem of overfishing and the kind of scenario that you outlined with a very heavy commercial fishing exhausting one particular stock and then saying well we finished all those and let's go and fish for something else. And we've heard about the collapse of the cod fishery was one of the examples and there are others. Is that is that a problem more for national waters where nations are saying OK these waters are ours and we're going to side we're going to do with them and anybody else wants to tell us what to do. You know you can sail off someplace else. Or is it more of a problem in international waters where theoretically it's a common resource and you know there is

supposed to be some kind of international body determining how that resource is used and protected. Oh it's definitely the international waters suffer from the tragedy of the commons much more so than single or dual jurisdiction we have great we have great relationships with Canada so we have lots of treaties but it gets touchy like Pacific salmon and their harvest back to their back to their native rivers to spawn which is when they're harvested and mostly out in the ocean and as they enter estuaries they make a big they make a big circle down you know past Alaska Alaskan fishermen get their shot first then down through B.C. in Vancouver and then to Washington Oregon and California and they get their fisheries there get their option or shot at those fish last. And so there's quite a treaty network to make sure each gets a representative sample but out in the middle of the ocean out off the St. George's banks et cetera where where huge multi-national corporations can fish these fish down to almost extirpation.

That's they're going to do. You know the empathy is the impetus not to do it by saying we think that's a bad situation only allows another comp another country in another company to come in and do it anyway. That's the tragedy. And clearly the problem comes in because it's the basic belief belief is well we can fish it down that will come back in 20 years and it will have rebounded we'll fish it again like cutting trees or tender. Well in reality it's a complex ecosystem. When you take that top predator away other fish move in other fish fill that niche and those that the cod will not rebound like they like they will not return to the population that they have that they that was there 100 years ago. In fact now there are new species in there at much at unprecedented levels to compete with them so that this whole the whole community the whole ecosystem is changed forever. We have some of the callers let's talk with someone in the stele. Why number three. Hello hello.

Yes this is such a happy issue. You've just been discussing it just seems like we the political will to interfere with the Almighty capital gain there. But my question had to do with in your opinion Professor. Is there an issue with the fish populations where the wide distribution now of genetically engineered row crops which are going to affect everything eventually I believe from what I understand I mean they will infiltrate into the environment. I mean there wouldn't be a direct connection unless you're talking about farmed fish which are created row crop. Well in reality we don't have to worry as much about the row crops because the fish themselves have been genetically modified. There are there are Atlanta salmon that have specific anti Gene antifreeze genes engineered into them they have growth hormone you know alternative growth hormone

genes introduced into them etc. to try to develop a domesticated stock for aquaculture to get them in much in much better much faster condition. So there are already genetically modified organisms genetically modified fish that have been produced from a variety of different species there. Their regulation has been pretty tight so far. However there are fish that are capable of escaping into the wild that are genetically modified. You know this this and that's what we know of from Canada and the U.S. there are there are a lot of Asian countries that we may not know what actually is happening. And the latest tsunami not only did it destroy a lot of the coastal villages it cetera and all of their native fisheries. It destroyed lots of aqua culture. Establishments across the whole Indian Ocean and those fish are now told have been released all over everywhere. Well thank you for your opinion.

I don't want to thanks for the call and they're just the bottom line there is we really don't know whether that potentially is a problem or not or. Well we don't we don't know how you know the ecological response if those if if genes alternative genes and alternative growth hormones and growth patterns and life histories that have been manufactured escape into the wild and are introduced into these fishes what that ramification will have for those populations is unknown. I mean how a fish that grows at a much higher rate requiring a much higher food intake how that would do in the wild is unclear. My expectation is it would create terribly unfit populations because the food base isn't there to support that level of growth. Well I'm going to go back to that example that you gave and near the beginning of the program of the when they did that they took the bass that from Florida that they thought well these Bassa really big. That's that's great we want big fish because

fishermen like to get big fish. And they took them and they they put them in other places and as you said there was. There was a number of unforeseen consequences. We ended up with something actually was different from what you started out with. I had an impact on the native species that were there and that you never you know that the last night took away from it was when you do something like that you never really know what's going to happen so here we've we've got an uncontrolled experiment going on. If that's if that in indeed happens you really don't know what happens if these fish that have been engineered have these characteristics and have these gene lines go out and get out into the environment and start to breed with the wild fish. You know I just don't know because I want you know and even if you know it goes not only Beyond that here's another great example that will drive some of the listeners wild that there was a huge interest in starting salmon culture and salmon cage culture on the Pacific Northwest. The decision the ultimate decision by the B.C. government.

Through their Norwegian advisors was not to use Pacific salmon but to bring in Atlantic salmon and so Atlantic salmon have been caged cultured all up and down the Pacific Northwest. Of course everybody was promised that that would be there would be no downside to this fish wouldn't get loose because it would be profitable not profitable. No diseases well that the bottom line is a million fish have got loose they've been established at a number of reserve rivers. There are diseases now in Pacific salmon that have never been outside of the Atlantic salmon. So you know it's the same story time and time again where some person gave you know hoodwink people for their own economic gain. Well there are so much more we talk about. We've used our time will have to stop right now maybe another day we'll we'll talk some will certainly thank you very much well appreciate your coming coming by our guest David Philip. He is principal scientists in the center for aquatic ecology and conservation at the Illinois natural history survey here at the Obama where he is also adjunct professor in the departments of

animal biology and natural resources and environmental sciences.