Mola talk

[dniss]

Found this interesting TED talk on molas. Learned a few things I didn't know anyway.
http://www.ted.com/talks/tierney_thy...t_sunfish.html

[JeffB]

Yeah defiantly full of info. Cool, thanks for sharing!

[blitzburgh]

Sorry, I could'nt make it past the part where she is blaming fishermen for the destruction of the ocean. Pretty sure she was on the "other" team when it came to trying to wipe us off the ocean.

[PapaDave]

I watched the video and did not hear or see her blaming fisherman at all, except maybe in south east asia area where they eat them. She did mention that the California Sealion was killing a lot of them though in the Monteray area. Hmmmm, seems to me we have a common foe there.

[blitzburgh]

She mentions it right at the begining (:48 mark). I guess I am just jaded when I read or hear these people speak.

[deepdvr]

I'm with Bliztburgh. As soon as I watched that video I had this horrible flashback to an MLPA meeting. All I could I think of was Meg spewing more B.S. I didn't make it past the first minute.

[Chuck D]

Cool Video, not sure about the whole anti-fishermen movement propaganda. They are showing irresponsible netting and dynamite fishing in the background. I am not a proponent of this type of fishing either and I do not support the MLPA.

[William Novotny]

:::.Disclaimer::: I don't really dynamite fish and no fish were injured in the making of this android game.

[Yakin]

What really upset me was that the d-mite fisher was in a kayak after that I shut everything off!

[addicted2sp33d]

Really... Mola Mola on the grill?

It might just be the Asian in me, but I'm kinda curious now.

Are we allowed to take those? Anyone try it before?

[dniss]

Well, I guess she at least obliquely blames overfishing for part of the difficulty in the ocean maintaining a diversity of predatory fish, though I seriously doubt she blames us kayak anglers for that. Purse seiners, bottom trawlers, dynamiting reef fish, that's another story. And though I appreciate the fact that some hard working folks make a living from fishing, my perspective is colored by my old days working in construction here in SD with a bunch of folks who used to make their living working the tuna fleet that used to sail out of here. More than one told me that purse seining was the beginning of the end of our local fleet. They just plain took too much, to hear them tell it. Not like in the old days when they jigged them up over the rail one at a time. I'm an avid fisherman and oppose the MLPA's restrictions on kayak anglers, and resent that I can't surf fish the sloughs anymore, but I'm not so sure limiting the take on sandies and calicos in certain areas is such a bad thing, given the frankly outrageous counts you sometimes see posted week after week during a spawn event (and those only count the bagged fish, I've heard). I'm sure I'll piss off some lurking sportboat captains and crews, but that's not my intent. I can't imagine anyone on this site who really thinks dynamite fishing is cool, all joking aside. Frankly, I didn't really key on her mention of fishing as an attack on us. While none of us have individually made much of a dent (OK, maybe a few), and recreational and subsistence angling aren't the real culprits (IMHO), anyone who denies that overfishing some species in some areas has negatively impacted some fisheries is sticking his head in the sand. Atlantic cod, the unfortuate patagonian toothfish (read:chilean seabass) and other species have crashed due to overfishing. But neither of those two examples were endangered (or even targeted) by recreational anglers, as far as I know. She struck me as a marine biologist fascinated by molas, impressed by their survival tactics and success, and frankly as a scientist with a sense of humor who probably isn't looking to keep us from what we enjoy, though who knows? She may be a rabid MLPA supporter.