EDIT: Federal Fisheries Regulators Halt West Coast Sardine Season

[arcane1]

Last edited Fri May 1, 2015, 05:56 PM - Edit history (2)

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Federal regulators on Wednesday approved an early closure of commercial sardine fishing off Oregon, Washington and California to prevent overfishing.

The decision was aimed at saving the West Coast sardine fishery from the kind of collapse that led to the demise of Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck's novel of the same name set in Monterey, California.

Meeting outside Santa Rosa, California, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to direct NOAA Fisheries Service to halt the current season as early as possible, affecting about 100 fishing boats with sardine permits, though far fewer are actively fishing at the moment. The season normally would end June 30.

Frank Lockhart of NOAA Fisheries Service estimated it would take one to two weeks to notify fishermen and bring sardine fishing to a close.

Earlier this week, the council shut down the next sardine season, which was set to begin July 1.

-snip-


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/15/us/ap-us-sardine-collapse.html


Edited to incorporate a less-loony source

[daleanime]

1. kick, kick, kick....

[Gregorian]

2. Too...many...humans. Doing too many things.

Does it take a visionary to see that? I thought it was already obv in the early 70's. Now it's going to get ugly.

[BrotherIvan]

5. Yup

Can we talk about it yet?

[dixiegrrrrl]

7. It WAS predicted in the 70's....

I was there, I remember The Population Bomb and Earth Day and all the related discussions.
But money talks, politicians walked away, media covered things that were good optics at 6 pm.

My 2 sons, born in late 60's, they listened, and have grown up environmentally conscious, one worked in Fisheries.
They both decided not to have children.

We need more like them.

[arcane1]

9. Childless and born in 1967 here!

Doing my part by having sex only for recreational purposes

[Warren DeMontague]

46. Part of it is, the "population problem" isn't really one, in 1st world countries with birth control.

We have environmental problems and resource utilization problems, but it's facile to blame it on "too many people having babies". In countries with decent economic standards, high degrees of reproductive and intellectual (i.e. not religously dogmatic) freedom, the so-called "population problem" takes care of itself.

Right now the US fertility rate hovers at or below replacement levels. If people choose not to have kids, that's great, because certainly only people who want children should have them. But framing that as inherently morally superior (with the implication that people who DO choose to have kids are morally deficient in some way) is bs. Not supported by reality in any way.



And yes, I know that "people in 1st world countries use more resources"--- to which no one ever seems to want to follow their logical solution, which doesn't make any sense: The 1st world isn't going away. So the problem is a resource utilization one, not a population one.

But I realize it's like learning that "pluto is a planet", back in the day. If you heard a particular set of facts repeated over and over long enough ("population problem&quot .... very little is likely to dissuade you.

[KittyWampus]

21. There aren't too many humans. The problem is the humans that are in charge

make crappy decisions that benefit their little, tiny circle to the detriment to the rest of the planet.

[Gregorian]

44. So you're saying a small number of people are responsible for acidification of oceans,

deforestation, depletion of fisheries, melting ice caps, etc?

They must really be working overtime while we all sleep.

So some homework, and look around the MAHB at Stanford university. That's the center of where the biologists are discussing this issue, and the 1% is not part of the problem. It's the billions and BILLIONS of humans.

Sure, some high level decisions prevented us from having better reproductive services, battery research, and lots of serious things that do contribute to global warming (like the military), but it's WE who are eating all of the fish, and putting nitrogen into our soils to supercharge them to feed way too many humans.

[Warren DeMontague]

47. So I take it you are delivering this message to the countries

where the fertility rate is around 7, and the phrase "population problem" actually means something?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_and_dependent_territories_by_fertility_rate

[Gregorian]

71. There are no borders. It's a matter of total numbers.

We can get specific, but that's another discussion.

[Warren DeMontague]

74. No, it isn't. That's another completely ludicrous assertion, that global population is somehow

totally fungible.

Another inane trope that comes up like clockwork, every time this conversation gets going.

The fertility rate in the US is already below replacement levels- what population growth there is, in the US, is due to immigration- these are facts. So is the argument that somehow we could just depopulate the North American Continent entirely, that would solve the fact that Niger or Mali has a Fertility Rate of 7, 8?

If you want to "address" the "population problem", you need to talk about where population actually IS a problem.

If "there are no borders", why is there such a glaring difference between the places with a rate of 1.5, and the places with a rate of 8? Seems to me those numbers think there ARE borders.

[Gregorian]

75. Obviously one goes where they can make the biggest impact. That's academic.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say here. I'm on the side of trying to make this a better planet, through a variety of means.

I have a personal email from Paul Ehrlich sitting in my inbox as I type. I've spent many decades on this subject. I'm still just flabbergasted at how we seem to be making zero progress though. Dr. Ehrlich is also very frustrated, which is why he started a special forum (MAHB) to find ways to get this subject into the mainstream of discussion.

[Warren DeMontague]

77. Okay, making this a better planet, yes. But if you are talking about 1st world countries with access

to reproductive freedom, contraception, etc, the "population problem" isn't one.

I'm not sure what you mean, when you talk "zero progress". Like I said, the fertility rate in the US has declined, is currently at its lowest level in ... well, ever:

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/databriefs/db175.pdf

"The U.S. general fertility
rate was at an all-time low in 2013"

On what planet would that NOT be considered "progress"?

Like I said, give people freedom and tools and a decent standard of living, and they manage their population growth on their own. Pretending that any people who have children in the US are somehow morally deficient, is just agenda-based axe grinding with no actual basis in reality. If the argument is that the 1st world uses more resources, that's a resource utilization problem, because the 1st world isn't going away.

And if the argument actually IS that the 1st world should go away, then at least try to make that one honestly. Because it's not about the so-called "population problem"

[jwirr]

79. i agree with you because this problem with more than one issue needs to be addressed differently

in different areas.

The country/area with all the big families needs birth control.

But the countries that have the resource utilization problems need to deal with that - maybe more simple living.

I also think that the environmental issue crosses all barriers and must be dealt with world wide.

And then there is some crossover between all three issues. But we need to focus on the reality of each country/area if we are going to deal with this.

[Warren DeMontague]

88. You will get no argument from me, on any of that.

[Dont call me Shirley]

58. If the economic royalists were selling a better way, we would buy it

[840high]

66. OK Shirley....

I'm so sorry - the devil made me type this.

[Dont call me Shirley]

68. Forgiven...

[Warren DeMontague]

28. Well the article in the OP seems to blame Fukushima.

[arcane1]

31. I definitely picked the wrong link to post on this topic :)

[questionseverything]

80. so which part is not true?

Or, as one contributor at ENEnews.com suggested, the answer to why this is happening should be obvious:
We have three cores melted out of their reactor buildings, lost in the mudrock and sandstone, which we have failed to locate and mitigate.

We have an underground river running under the ruins, which we have failed to divert around the reactors.

We have three empty reactors, containing nothing but corium splatter left when they blew up and melted out.

We have the Pacific Ocean Ecosystem, which we have stressed beyond endurance, through ocean dumping, over fishing, agricultural runoff, and now unrestricted radiation.

We have the sudden collapse of the Pacific Ocean Ecosystem, with a threatened collapse of the biosphere.

We continue to allow corporate and governmental inaction.

What in hell did you think was going to happen?

[ErikJ]

3. uh oh. Pickled sardine prices will skyrocket

My favorite treat especially in cream.

[GoneFishin]

4. Collectively as a species, we are morons.

[sufrommich]

6. There's no mystery to boom and bust sardine populations.

Nor are scientists "mystified":



The environment is a very strong driver of stock productivity. If ocean conditions are not favorable, there may be successful spawning, but fewer young fish survive to actually join the population,” Hill said. “Small pelagic fish like sardine and anchovy undergo large natural fluctuations even in the absence of fishing. You can have the best harvest controls in the world but you’re not going to prevent the population from declining when ocean conditions change in an unfavorable way.”

The current decline adds to a series of ups and downs that illustrate the boom-and-bust nature of sardine populations. The sardine biomass rose from about 300,000 metric tons in 2004 to a high point of more than 1 million in 2008 and is predicted to decrease to an estimated 97,000 metric tons by this coming July.

Because of these swings in sardine populations, the Council’s management framework for sardines includes built-in mitigation measures and safeguards to exponentially reduce fishing pressure as the stock declines. One of these Council measures is a cessation in directed fishing on sardines when the biomass falls below 150,000 metric tons. “The fishing cutoff point is included in the guidelines adopted by the Council and is designed to maintain a stable core population of sardines that can jump-start a new cycle of population growth when oceanic conditions turn around,” Hill said.

In the course of reviewing the 2015 updated assessment, it became evident that the final model used in the 2014 assessment did not correspond to the best fit to the data. The data were reanalyzed and a better fit to the 2014 model was achieved. This re-examination resulted in a lower 2014 biomass estimate of 275,705 metric tons, down from the previous estimate of 369,506 metric tons, which is still above the fishing cutoff value of 150,000 metric tons.

https://swfsc.noaa.gov/news.aspx?ParentMenuId=39&id=20263

[B2G]

17. Does this mean we're all not gonna die?

Great post BTW. Very informative.

[sufrommich]

18. No, we're still all gonna die.

[B2G]

20. Damn. Back to smoking.

[arcane1]

33. .

[Salviati]

37. You only say that because everyone had died so far...

But past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results...

[KittyWampus]

22. Right, and climate change is natural. The ocean's problems go a lot further

than some cyclical differences in sardines.

If you want to look at one, atomized piece of information, you can make the case there is no other problem involved.

But a holistic view would consider that not all fluctuations are just naturally occurring and might be linked to human activities.

Overfishing:
http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-overfishing/

Death of Coral Reefs:
http://www.csmonitor.com/From-the-news-wires/2010/0326/Death-of-coral-reefs-could-devastate-nations

Agricultural Runoff & Algal Blooms:

http://news.stanford.edu/pr/2004/agugulf-0112.html

Jellyfish Taking Over:

http://qz.com/133251/jellyfish-are-taking-over-the-seas-and-it-might-be-too-late-to-stop-them/

[sufrommich]

26. I'm not making the claim that climate change is natural

at all. I'm making the claim that scientists know why the sardine population is down. Please don't label me a science denier,nothing could e farther from the truth.

[KittyWampus]

35. I linked to an LATimes article just below. Scientists aren't certain what part overfishing plays

and I used the example of a heavy smoker not being able to live through pneumonia due to lungs/heart in bad shape.

Human activity has caused such enormous problems that the ocean many not be able to recover in a "natural cycle".

[Warren DeMontague]

41. I also think that the ocean, being a system, may not be subject to either/or black/white dichotomies

like "recover/die".

If a smoker's body stops functioning due to pneumonia, the smoker dies.

The ocean's food chain and biological interplay may be more like a cactus, than a human being. That's not to say we aren't impacting these systems, in big ways that we (and other species, to be sure) may find detrimental.

But on one end of the spectrum you have total denial that human activity can impact ecosystems, on the other you have the view that we are going to "kill the planet". We're not going to kill the planet. The planet will adapt and survive. Whether it is in ways we particularly want, that's a different story.

[KittyWampus]

70. Very well said!

[Warren DeMontague]

27. Sorry, i stopped with the article when they tried to blame it on Fukushima.

I'll go with sufrommich's explamation instead of the woo train site.

[KittyWampus]

34. Well, here's an article from the LATimes that has no mention of "woo-Fukushima":

And here's the thing that climate change deniers ignore which applies here-

The capacity for Nature to bounce back after a dry spell/sardine crash is severely undermined by human activity.

Like a healthy person can survive and bounce back after pneumonia but a heavy smoker might succumb to it because their lungs and heart in such bad condition.


http://articles.latimes.com/2014/jan/05/local/la-me-sardine-crash-20140106


The reason for the drop is unclear. Sardine populations are famously volatile, but the decline is the steepest since the collapse of the sardine fishery in the mid-20th century. And their numbers are projected to keep sliding.

One factor is a naturally occurring climate cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, which in recent years has brought cold, nutrient-rich water to the West Coast. While those conditions have brought a boom in some species, such as market squid, they have repelled sardines.
snip
Since the 1940s scientists have debated how much of the collapse was caused by ocean conditions and how much by overfishing. Now, researchers are posing the same question.

"It's a terribly difficult scientific problem," said Russ Vetter, director of the Fisheries Resources Division at NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center.

snip

[Warren DeMontague]

39. Not being a "climate change denier", I wouldn't know.

Humans are definitely having a big impact on the biosphere, no argument from me.

[PowerToThePeople]

23. If ocean conditions are not favourable

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=pacific+garbage+patch

[KittyWampus]

30. Is this the Gyre? It's like a gigantic plastic tarp thrown over miles of ocean.

[pinto]

52. +1

[procon]

8. More species will follow as the collapse spreads up the foodchain.

Sardines feed bigger fish on up the chain and at some point that will impact the human foodchain. Commercial as well as subsistence fisherman are already finding it harder to find the fish their livelihood depends on. As food becomes scarcer and unaffordable, just like we've seen in Africa, populations start to migrate in search of food.

[truedelphi]

10. The decline in both sardine and herring fisheries in Pacific Ocean is killing

Off seal pups. Many pups that are pulling through are only doing so due to human intervention.

The mother seals cannot eat enough fish to get help for their pups.

[arcane1]

11. It was my earlier post about the pups that got me digging deeper into this

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026603819

[truedelphi]

73. It was good to see your article about the fisheries.

And I brought up the seal pups because often people will be like, "I only eat sardines twice every ten years, at some fancy pants wedding or anniversary banquet, so who the hell cares?"

The environment gets help most easily when people associate an ecological calamity with a critter with big brown eyes, imploring us humans for help. Not an ideal situation, but a true one.

[liberal_at_heart]

12. I was wondering what was going on with the seals. This is terrible.

Our global mass extinction could take a horrific exponential turn. We have ignored and turned a blind eye to the mass extinction that has been going on for decades. We will not be able to ignore it forever.

[Chakaconcarne]

45. Which is why many large, western coastal streams/major tribs are.....

seeing seals moving far up river after salmon and smelt...

10 years ago there were ~200 seals residing at the mouth of the Columbia, today there are 2300... They are everywhere and they are decimating the salmon runs by tens of thousands.

http://www.opb.org/news/article/hungry-sea-lions-pile-into-the-columbia-river/

[truedelphi]

72. That is very important information to add to the discussion. n/t

[LeftyMom]

13. Sardine populations crash periodically. Hasn't anybody been to Monterey?

There's a reason Cannery Row's buildings aren't canneries anymore: they shut down after the sardine crash in the 40s. Monterey Bay Research Institute has a lot of articles on this: basically they think there are big upswings in either sardines or anchovies, depending on Pacific temperatures. http://www.mbari.org/news/news_releases/2003/nr01-chavez.html

[arcane1]

14. Unfortunately, the sea lions are suffering from this too

[sufrommich]

24. There is most likely a correlation,but that is not proof

of mass extinctions.

[LeftyMom]

36. It's at least as likely that the cause of the sea lion problem is warm water due to the drought.

Cold snow melt isn't flowing to the sea in anything like the usual volume, coastal temperatures are up. Algae thrive*, and algal blooms are a known cause of significant die-offs in the sea lion population in California: it happened in the 90s and was well documented.

On the other hand we also know (because scientists dig through sea lion scats looking for ear bones of various fish species to track their diets) what happens to sea lions' diets when they lose one source of food: they eat others. They eat a lot of different kinds of fish, squid, crustaceans, even other marine mammals in rare cases. In periods of relatively high populations or in climatic events that shift their food supply, they eat less preferred food sources.

*I don't have any data about the algae situation, but I can tell you I was in Mission Bay two weeks ago and the water STANK from blocks away, in a way that it normally doesn't until much later in the summer.

[sufrommich]

15. The guy who wrote the article referenced in the OP is this guy:

http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/texas-ranger-drops-jade-helm-bombshell-there-are-trains-with-shackles-on-them_04292015

[arcane1]

25. Here's the link to the original AP story about the Fed closure:

Federal Fisheries Regulators Halt West Coast Sardine Season

GRANTS PASS, Ore. — Federal regulators on Wednesday approved an early closure of commercial sardine fishing off Oregon, Washington and California to prevent overfishing.

The decision was aimed at saving the West Coast sardine fishery from the kind of collapse that led to the demise of Cannery Row, made famous by John Steinbeck's novel of the same name set in Monterey, California.

Meeting outside Santa Rosa, California, the Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to direct NOAA Fisheries Service to halt the current season as early as possible, affecting about 100 fishing boats with sardine permits, though far fewer are actively fishing at the moment. The season normally would end June 30.

Frank Lockhart of NOAA Fisheries Service estimated it would take one to two weeks to notify fishermen and bring sardine fishing to a close.

Earlier this week, the council shut down the next sardine season, which was set to begin July 1.

-snip-


http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/04/15/us/ap-us-sardine-collapse.html

[zappaman]

16. Obviously Fukushima is to blame.

This sucks.
Sometimes I am glad I will not be around to see what this planet looks like in 100 years.

[KittyWampus]

19. And this is why the Live Earth Festival should have been vegan.

For ONE day, people couldn't be exposed to delicious non-meat edibles?

[Warren DeMontague]

29. Starfish are melting, too!

DAMN YOU, FIENDISH CLENIS

[arcane1]

32. Edited

Must remember to read the whole thing next time. I blame the adorable sea lion pups

[Warren DeMontague]

38. Fair 'nuff.

You understand why my skepticism flag went up. Not that Fuku isn't a clusterfuck, but there has been more than the fair share of hyperbole around it, too.

[arcane1]

40. I do! If I had bothered to, you know, READ the entire thing, it would've never been posted.

I am sufficiently and appropriately embarrassed, because I should know better

[Warren DeMontague]

42. No worries.

You acknowledged a mistake and fixed it, which is way better than 99% of the people here, including me at times.

[arcane1]

43. 'Twasn't my first time, and surely not my last.

[RobertEarl]

48. Good thing it's not radiation

Thank you for the evidence that radiation in the Pacific is not the cause of the sardines dieing. Because if radiation was killing the sardines and sea stars ad sea lions and whales and all that, it would mean we are really screwed.

But Warren has determined that Fukushima is woo, and radiation is woo, and woo, woo, woo!! WOO!

But, the real hyperbole, you must admit, are the former claims that nukes are safe and there is no way a first world nation could have a nuclear plant blow sky-high.

Now...... just recently the Japanese released a sobering statement to the effect that it may be decades before the tech is developed that can make cleaning up Fukushima possible.

So........ good thing radiation is not deadly to the sea life in the N. Pacific. Cuz if it is..........

[Warren DeMontague]

49. So--if one rejects ANY piece of overblown Fukushima hyperbolic bullshit, one must love fission power

and be completely oblivious to the actual dangers and problems?

....remember this thing?



It very effectively explains why we are all dead, right now.

[RobertEarl]

50. No it's all woo

Except for the BOOM and the radiation running off into the ocean. That's real, eh?

Thank gawd you proved it's all woo, because otherwise....

O... I don't do pics.

[Warren DeMontague]

51. Straw man.

It's not all woo.

Some of it is, though.

I dont think the sardines have dick to do with fukushima.

[RobertEarl]

54. is radiation good for sardines? Or bad?

Sardines breed well in warmer waters, so there is that.

so rads - good, or bad? And what about the toxins from Fuku? Are those ok for sardines?

These are serious matters. What could be construed as woo, would be woo that claims rads and Fuku toxins are just fine and dandy, no worries!

[Warren DeMontague]

55. Fukushima is a real problem for the local area.

The entire Pacific ocean in general, not so much.

I dont think they are "fine and dandy" but I think the size of the ocean dilutes them enough to preclude them from being a system-wide issue, as some assert.

[RobertEarl]

56. You think?

Did you know that the US got/is being dosed, and they have found cesium 137, and cesium 134 from Fukushima, in the Pacific off the coast of North America?

The idea that it is just local is what's woo.

[Warren DeMontague]

57. Yes, of course they have. They can detect absolutely infinitesimal amounts.

Same way they can sample the air and know if anyone has tested a nuclear weapon.

That doesnt mean they are in amounts anywhere near strong enough to have real effects. They are diluted much the way the ingredients in a homeopathic "cure" are. Down to a single atom per x volume of water.

Speaking of nuclear tests, those put a lot more shit into the pacific than fukushima has.

[RobertEarl]

60. That may, may not be true

It seems the found rads from Fukushima are as high, maybe higher than those found after nuclear weapon testing. Indeed, some of those rads are still around, and will be for as much a 300 years. So what Fukushima has done is add to that amount.

As for you statement that the amounts have no effect, well, that's not founded on science.

But I see you are learning a few things here, so that's good. There is much to know. Like this:

*****************
All it takes is one stem cell to be altered for the effects of radiation to be felt. The human body is very good at culling damaged normal cells, but it's almost helpless at culling stem cells. Your concept of biology is not exactly in line with the medical knowledge of today.

This is why children are so much more sensitive to radiation than adults, because their ratio of stem cells to normal cells is so much higher. It doesn't take a lot of radiation to alter a stem cell, just a lucky hit.

Thinking in terms that x amount of radiation is not harmful while y amount is harmful doesn't reflect the reality of the issue. If you think in terms of black and white like you seem to do, you don't understand radiation at all. It may take a billion releases to affect you adversely, it may take only one.

from dosdos on ENEnews.com

[Warren DeMontague]

67. Fukushima is a clusterfuck.

But ENEnews is an outlier, to say the least, in terms of the scientific opinion about the thing. Not what I would call a real legit source.

Yes "no amount of radiation is harmless", however, I have not seen any real reliable evidence that the actual amounts hitting the West Coast are anything to be concerned about. Levels and amounts do matter.

[Dont call me Shirley]

61. Hey, we could try this guys idea...

On nuclear waste: "All we need do with nuclear waste is dilute it to a low radiation level and sprinkle it over the ocean—or even over America after hormesis is better understood and verified with respect to more diseases." And: "If we could use it to enhance our own drinking water here in Oregon, where background radiation is low, it would hormetically enhance our resistance to degenerative diseases. Alas, this would be against the law."


http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/08/oregon-gop-art-robinson-nuclear-waste-airplanes

Smart guy, nuclear material is safe....

[RobertEarl]

62. We have, inadvertently

Damned stupid republicans are gonna kill us all.

[Dont call me Shirley]

63. Damn billionaires and warmakers raping and destroying the earth, then they blame it on us.

[RobertEarl]

64. Yeah, they made a huge mess of it

This one little blue ball spinning in space. Billions of years to get this way, and now, for the want of a just a few humanoids... the changes are like this planet has never seen before.

Thanks, not shirley

[Dont call me Shirley]

65. Fucking HUGE!

[Major Nikon]

76. No more swallows in the winter, either

[Warren DeMontague]

78. ...

[RobertEarl]

81. Heh, this is where that comes from

a la izquierda (8,903 posts)
23. They must all live in my neighborhood...
in Morgantown, WV.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026563744#post23
*******************
And my question was:

RobertEarl (9,238 posts)
25. Did you see any over the winter?

Last edited Sun Apr 26, 2015, 01:36 PM - Edit history (2)
I didn't see any swallows at all this winter.

On edit: This of course was a trick question to see if la poster knew the difference between a swallow and a sparrow.

On second edit: Following this post are several repiles from posters I have on ignore, so that's that.

****************

Of course major that is all you have to say because you probably don't know enough to say anything else... so jst snark, eh?

[RobertEarl]

82. A bit about the sea stars

MARINe researchers were also involved in collecting sea star tissue samples for pathology work aiming to identify the cause of the syndrome. The recently published paper by Hewson et al. “Densovirus associated with sea-star wasting disease and mass mortality” provides evidence for a link between a densovirus (SSaDV) and sea star wasting syndrome. This is an important piece of the SSWS puzzle, but we want to stress that there is still much work to be done before this mysterious disease is fully understood. Importantly, Hewson’s testing of sea star tissue collected from as far back as 1942 indicates that the SSaDV has been around for a long time, yet has never resulted in mass mortality on the geographic or temporal scale we are currently witnessing. Thus, while a culprit may have been identified, we still don’t fully understand the cause. The complete story is likely a complex interaction of multiple factors, and may involve different factors in different regions. For example, the emergence of SSWS in some areas appears to be correlated with increased water temperature, but this does not apply generally across the entire west coast. Finally, the discovery that the SSaDV is present in other echinoderms which are not currently experiencing mass mortality, suggests that these species could serve as “reservoirs” for the virus that could continue to infect sea stars for many years to come. Disease symptoms and mortality have also been observed recently in other echinoderms such as sea urchins, though it is unknown whether the cause is related.

http://oceanspaces.org/blog/update-sea-star-wasting-disease

[Major Nikon]

83. Trick question. Yeah, that's it.

[RobertEarl]

84. Poster said they all lived in WV

So I asked a simple question.

Of course I won that thread and this one too, so I guess I should expect such replies as yours.

[Major Nikon]

85. ...

[RobertEarl]

86. See?

All you have is off topic, personal type responses.

Winner again, as usual. Can't even get an honest debate. Actually hardly ever did get one when it comes to Fukushima and rads. But then the first arguments were:

""Nukes are safe. A first world nation would never have a reactor blow. There were no meltdowns.""

Anti-nukes win!! Problem is: the whole world loses.

You can have the last word... make it a major one, eh?

[Major Nikon]

87. OK

[pinto]

53. Thanks for the edit.

[arcane1]

59. Thanks! Haste does indeed make waste :)

[treestar]

69. Thanks Obama

I bet the corporatists are mad about this.