Striped Bass & Fish Dinner!!

The Striped Bass Fish

- Some backround (Source: Notes from Proffesor berman class):
The stripped bass fish lives in fresh water-costal fish that moves form N. carolina to maine every year- They are in the coastal water of the Atlantic States. Theres is a plan to protect this species from extinction, that has been put into place since the 1970's in all of the Atlantic States.

What they did to help this fish basically was:

1. Stop fishing for this fish completely. No commercial or recreational.

This came after a lot of consensus between all the interested parties, all cooperated together and decide to take the loos together, because in the long run once the striped bass became a sustainable species it would be a gain for every state and the comercial and recreational side of it.

Once the species became sustainable, fishing was allowed again with some restrictions in pounds measure by a quota that was assigned to each state and each state can allocate the quota as they felt is better for each state needs. What matters? The pounds of fish and the number of fish taken.

Even though the fish is sustainable at this time, there is a problem with this specias: they eat a lot and scientisdt think that theres not enough food for this fish to eat in the sea, but so far teh quata system for each states is working pretty good and rarely the states meet their fish quota.

-Some interesting financial data in regards to Striped Bass fishing:

1. 30% of fishing trips are for striped bass fish.

2.It has direct recreational sales (2.5 billion dollars and it generates 63,000 full time jobs)

3. Its comercial sales are 500 million dollars. (which is not a lot in comparison to the recrational sales they bring). The retail sales are 55.9 greater than those produce by commercial fishes (more than 50%).

- Commerical Fisherman in RI:

As a commercial fisherman i would be in favor of allowing fishing in federal waters for the following reasons: 1st. because is my main source of income and a very lucrative bussines, that families can live on. 2nd. Because it created jobs for the people in my state in restaurants, markets, fishing supply companies,etc. 3rd. Now in RI we are allowed 93,000 pound as our quota and with opening the federal water its possible that our quota will be met. 4th. The fish itself is a good source of food that should be available to the population becuase its loaded with protein, mega 3 fatty acids which can prevent several diseases like coronary health disease, etc.. 5th. It would provide revenue for the state, for fishing licences and more.

As a side fact: I went to buy some striped bass fish to Roche Brothers today and the pound was selling for $18 dollars each, so its a very lucrative bussiness. So if the proffesor went to sale his fish he could get $360.00 dollars for it, do the math accordingly to the commercial fishing limitations in RI its a lot of $$$!!

- Personal Perspective in this matter:

I believe that it really wouldnt make a difference if the federal waters are open to fishing because the quota is going to remain the same and in RI they barely meet the already established quaota, so far they are rarely above 40,000 pounds. Based on all the reading ive done in regards to the current regulation of striped bass fishing in RI and in the rest of the Atlantic States i believe that the regulations are working pretty good: 1st because the fish is sustainable and 2nd because both commercial and recreational fihermans are getting there cut on it so they are happy with what they have and they barely even meet the quota so theres really no point to extend the federal water for fishing in the RI state. Putting a little bit of the PITA hat on me i would have to add that i would like to see some regulations in regards to the fishing methods so the fish dont suffer that much when caught. Fishes are living creatures and when they kill them they go thru a lot of pain specially when theres a deel hooking involved in the catch. According to Rudy Lukacovic DNR Fisheries Biologist studies with striped bass and other species it has shown that the mortality associated with deep-hooking is very rapid (less than 24 hours). Considering these observation, a deep hook fish will likely die and decompose before a hook rust out from an infection, this is if they leave the hook with the fish when they release it. However, "removing the deeply-lodgend hook is very traumatic, both physically and physiologically" for the fish. So, the solution for this type of cruel practice can be solved by prevention. The best way to reduce deep-hooking, especially when getting a striped bass, is to use a non-offset circle hook. According to Lukacovic studies with striped bass, these hooks will reduce overall mortality by 90 percent!! I believe this a good cause to fight for when recreational fisherman are trying to catch a fish and they are going to release it either because is too small for the minimum size or any other reason. I believe is cruel to put the fish back into the ocean hurt by the hook because he will die anyways, these goes to commercial fisherman as well.

Dinner!!

So, we went to get some extra fish for dinner and we decided to buy the sword fish (maji maji). We cooked it along with the striped bass fish with the following ingredients: paprika, salt, pepper (very simple). Then separetely we cook some mushroom, red onion, tuscan romano basil tossed with olive oil to top the fish up and as a side we made a pilanta dish. Everything tasted good, i honestly liked the bass fish better than the sword fish, it was softer and more tasteful. Very nice dinner for a change..Thanks proffesor for catching that fish for us!!

See you all tomorrow!

Spectacle Island

The treasures of Spectical Island:

I want to start this blog with some thoughts from our visit to spectacle island:

August 4, 2010.

12:15 pm We took the boat toward spectical island. The weather was very warm just as i liked it! Even though everyone was complaining about how "muggy" it was. The water didnt seem that clear to me this time, so ill have to give it a 3 in the sclae from 1-10. It took like 15 minutes to get to the island, its divided in two parts and you can get and spectacular view of the harbors. Theres two different beaches one side has a little recreational swimming and the other side is mostly sand, rocks and some little "treasures".

Spectical used to be a municipa land field before, and now is one of teh most popular destination of the boston harbor islands. The island has been lanscape, but is has been very impacted by people (as opposed to lovells islans, which is my favorite so far!). The tide was very low, it has non-subtidal pools.

Little treasures we found:

1. Sea glass -Relative abundance-Very high (majority white/transparent seaglass).
2. Moonsnail- Not so abundant, i've never seen one before but it seemed a pretty big size for a snail, i might say.
3. Periwinkle shell with holes on them .
4. Crabs shells. Not that many, color orange.
5. Rocks. A lot of rocks, every size from mini rocks to huge rocks, all different shapes and colors, the one near the water with barnicles on them, not that much barnicles as the rocks seen on lovells island!
6. Ceramics. That came from plates, bowls, etc.. A lot of colors ( blue designs seemed to be prevalent).
7. Sand. Which we learned form the forffesor it was brough in the island for tourism purposes and make the island look more like a beach.

So, the island was not as exciting as lovells island to me, mostly because it was more interesting to see living moving species in the water than dead shells, etc ..on the sand, this is probaly because i didn not got deep in the water like at did at lovells island. I did like the different colors of the seaglass and im sure if i was able to find all the parts of some of those ceramic plates i would definetely like to keep some them. - Here is some info i gathered form the visitor center at the island: The island its 86-acres, it provides a ample healthy habitat for birds and other animals (like ducks, which i saw). Most of the species you see at spectacle island today were intentionally planted as part of the environmental restauration and surface protection of the island.

August 1st. 2010.

Hello,

8:00AM- The day started ealy today, as always the boston harbor was so quiet and peaceful in the morning, it was such a beautiful day in every aspect (speacially the weather).
9:00 AM- People started to gather to buy the tickets to get the ferry to the islands.
9:30 AM- Our ferry started to board, there was a lot of people. While waiting in line i got the chance to observed some plants around the wood wharf underneath of where we were standing. i saw a lot of rockweed and some lettuceseaweed in the water. I also noticed a lot of barnacles all over the wood and in the rocks, it looks like a very invasive animal. I took us around 10-15 minutes to get to the first island we visited (Lovells island). A very nice ride in the ferry, everything went very smothly no big waves, the water seemed very quiet. The ferry drivers told us that the movie shutter island (a very good movie) was made in this island, which it was interesting to me to know.
10:00 AM- We landed on the island, my first impression was very good! I like to feel the soft beach sand on my feet, large stones all over the tide of the island and a very pretty view of boston. I also spotted some rockweed around the dock. Some nice rangers welcome us to the island and explain some rules, pretty simple to follow i may say. In our little conversation with the ranger we learned about the tidal pools which as he said they are wet all the time and if they dry out eveything in them dies. The lovells Island is a natural park and everything in it has to stay there, we are not allow to take any specimens home with us, they take very good care of this parks (which is awesome). There places for camping and each of them was numbered. the rangers have their own camping site, very interesting. The habitat of the island: Lots of bird activity, surrounded by trees (a very green environment), surrounded by sand, 9 feet tide, large stones. Island Size:62 acres (source: wikipedia), i could smell the salty water all over the place and i also tasted the water and it did tasted salty. The water clarity in a scale from 1-10 i will give it a 4. The weather was very nice, probably 80's.
While walking to a different part of the island we spotted some fruits (blackberries) in our way, a very sweet walk , i also spotted some fruit that i thought it was "chile pimiento" but it turned out to be a totally different thing that was dangerous to eat as well (Source: Proffesor Berman).
10:30/10:45 AM- We separeted in groups of two in a mission to find some specimens in the water, we were looking for Asian shore crabs as a project. So far was the best experience for me in this course!

Lovell's Specimen Identification:
- Rough Periwinkle (small shells, mostly brown/beige spiral strips, found inside the water), -Hermit Crab (Couldnt really see it because it was inside a seashell and even thou we sang to them it didnt came out), -Green Crab (A small crab greenish/transparetn color with some black spots on his shell, it had 4 legs in each side and two claws) and Asian Shore Crab (Orange color, square-shaped shell, size medium,with brown spots, 3 legs in each side and 2 claws), Lobster (American lobster,” from the genus homarus/Source: http://maine-lobster.com/lobster-types/cold-water-lobster, this lobster was found behind a rock, it was a small babylobster, had legs but no claws and two antenas, the color was like black/browinsh), -Barnicles (Seen in abundance all over the rocks at the tide pool at the island, small , white and very sharp and hard to the touch), -Tunicate-Sea squirt (Shape cilindrical with a big head, color black/white, consistency soft, you can squeeze it and water will come out for it) -Rockweed (Mostly black, branchlike weed found againt the rocks underneath the water or the tide), -Blue mussels (Black/Bluish, with white stains on them, majority of mussles found were closed, didnt had the change to see the mussel itself just the closed shell, hard to the touch), Clams (Mostly white small shells in the shore line, the majority of clams that i spotted were dead probably dried out), Fish (small, white/gray)
The difference i noticed between the specimens at the island and the ones from the barking crab is that the on the island there were more sea animals than at the barking crab dock i examined with my group. The barking crab docks mostly had seaweed and some mussels as a majority, and mini worms inside the mussles.
My hypothesis: In regards to this difference is the deepness of the tide at each sites and how some of the animals found at the island usually hide behind rocks and need a low tide to survive and at the barking crab the tide is very high and there were no big rocks for the animals to hide. Basically, the difference relies on the tide levels at each place.
Snails: There were two different kinds of snails -seasnails and the landsnails- I only observed one type of marine snail. They were small, color brown, mostly found at the end of the tide pool, at a very low tide level, on the sand or in the rocks. The land snails i saw were founf mostly on the trees of the island or in the leaves of the trees, they were small and i found two kinds of land snails one brown/beige and one yellow/brown, both have four anthenas two small ones and two big ones. The difference i noticed between the two was mostly the color of the land snails is lighter than the color of the marine snails and the marine snails never came out the shell while the land snails did and as the land snails walk it leaves a slime trail behind. I also got the chance to observed that the land snails liked to eat the leaves of the trees. The marine snails quantity was much bigger than the land snails. The land snails were very diffivult to catch while the marine snails were all over the tide pool.
-Hypothesis on the relationship between the snails: There both snails, just different types, one lives on the water and one on the trees/land. Both feed off plants, the marine snails feed off seaweed and the landsnails feed off leaves. They are molluscs species.

Types of snails:

1. White lipped banded snail (landsnail)
2. Brown/Black lipped snail (landsnail)
3. Rough Periwinckle (Water snail)
- How those five land snail shells got on the beach near that big rock? I noticed how fast the snails walk because i brought a couple home with me, so my hypothesis is that they walk to the beach and when the tide got high they got wet and since the water is salty it killed them.