Closer Look to Striped Bass

Hi. This is Erdogan for the last time.

The subject of our final day was the striped bass. Although I am not a big fan of sea food, I have tasted striped bass before. Today I had the chance to have a closer look to it. I was close enough to see and touch its intestine, stomach and liver for the first and probably the last time. I saw that it requires careful and accurate cuts to make a striped bass eatable. And I am certainly convinced that I cannot do it. I did not have the chance to taste the filet that I took today because I have never cooked any kind of meal before.  But I think it will be a delicious dinner after I convince my friend to cook it.

Today we also learned that the striped bass is the focal point of furious debates and special regulations. According to Beth Daley of The Boston Globe [1], striped bass population which had a narrow escape from extinction in early 1980s started to give warning signals again. And The Atlantic Striped Bass Management Board came up with new regulations including limits to minimum size, commercial allocation and bag limits to address the concerns [2]. However the regulations did not make the related parties happy. Both the commercial fishermen and recreational anglers are blaming each other for the declines in striped bass population. Additionally the application of different measures in different states is another issue that is arguable. Based on my working experience in the area of regulation, I can say that each of the parties of a dispute always complains and blames the other parties. They want more and more from the regulator. And, at the end of the day, nobody loves regulators and satisfies with the final regulation. According to me, the complaints of both parties can be utilized to recognize the problem but nothing more than that. So, the economic indicators and expectations about fishery and analysis on annual striped bass population must be the basis of the related regulations…

I think I must stop here. Sorry for my boring regulation comments which will continue to be my source of income after I will (hopefully) return to my country next month.

This is the last one of my text only posts. It was nice to meet you all. Bye.

[1] Daley, B. (2010, February 7).Casting blame in striper dispute. The Boston Globe.

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2010/02/07/drop_in_striper_stocks_puts_recreational_commercial_fishermen_at_odds/

[2] ASMFC. (2011, March 24). Atlantic striped bass board initiates addendum to reduce fishing mortality. News Release

http://www.ccanh.org/pdf/ASMFC-StripedBassDraftAddendumIII.pdf

The final destination, Lovells Island

Today, our destination was Lovells Island. We started to day again at Starbucks and again very early at 8:30 a.m. We took the T-Ferry to Georges Island where we learned the boat to Lovells was cancelled. However it gave us the chance to spend some time in Georges Island which is my favorite one. Then we managed to go to Lovells Island, thanks to the Abigail and its friendly crew.

Lovells was a great island and we were not the only people who had the chance to be there. There were campers enjoying their day. We observed the beach and rocky tidal pools. We saw many species including hermit crabs, barnacles, periwinkles and mussels. The population and variety of species in Lovells were quite higher than Peddocks Island.

There were lots of barnacles on the rocks with 6 plates and grey yellow like color. I am not sure about that they were Northern Rock Barnacles or Little Grey Barnacles. We found many hermit and green crabs. Then we observed periwinkles which were different from those we found in Peddocks Island. According to a research [1] the periwinkles introduced from Europe to North America mutated and changed because of the different environmental conditions and became more variable in stature, growth, bulk, weight and color patterns.  So I think the periwinkles we found were American ones as they were certainly more bulky, lighter and more variable in colors than the Common periwinkles we saw also in Peddocks Island. To be more specific, I can say that they were rough periwinkle and smooth periwinkle.

We observed also terrestrial snail shells on a rock at the beach and found alive ones on the trees.  I think they were white lipped snails which are said to be very common in New England woods [2]. And I agree with the common idea that the snail shells were carried by a predator to the rock at the beach.

Bumpus, H.C. (1898). The variations and mutations of the introduced littorina. Zoological Bulletin, 1(5), 247-259.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/1535466.pdf?acceptTC=true

Morse, E.S. (1867).  The land snails of New England. The American Naturalist, 1(1), 5-16.

http://www.jstor.org/stable/pdfplus/2447334.pdf

The values we disregard

Today, we were in Castle Island where we saw happy families, children and older people enjoying their day in a beautiful, clean, peaceful and comfortable recreational area.  To be honest I generally do not recognize this kind of things and do not think how much we are lucky because we have a chance to enjoy our day in this kind of a place. But if the Castle Island were a dirty, sewer like, troubled place I certainly complain about this and tell my friends how bad it was. I know it does not sound good but it is the truth. And I know I am not the only person who thinks in this way. People generally do not appreciate and recognize the importance or beauty of things they already have until they lose them or they become inaccessible. The importance of clean water is a good example for this.

When I was a kid I was living in a small town of Turkey. The lack of drinkable water was not an issue to talk or even think about. All the people were drinking the tap water. I do not even remember that I have ever bought bottled water until I moved to the Ankara. So it was early 2000s when I met with the problem of undrinkable tap water and recognized that how lucky I was when I was a kid. Today the citizens in Turkey’s big cities like Istanbul, Ankara, or Izmir generally do not drink the ordinary tap water even they have no idea about whether it is clean or not. There are many businesses that sell drinkable water and establishing water treatment systems to households.

The cleanliness of the seas or oceans for swimming or for the living conditions of sea creatures is another aspect of the clean water issue.  Everybody wants to swim in clean water and wants to know it is not harmful. But from a government perspective, the issue is more economic. For instance, in Turkey, Mediterranean region is considered as the touristic area of Turkey. So the beaches and the water quality of this area is a big concern of government because the tourism is one of the biggest income items of our country. On the other hand the Bosporus is in the middle of the industry zone and a trade central. So government thinks much more about the capacity of ships and the trade volume of the Bosporus instead of the water quality and the living conditions of the species. What about people? Everybody says that he or she cares about the clean water and wild life. But in reality people, including myself; generally prefer to go Mediterranean beaches than Blacksea or the Bosporus because the Mediterranean beaches generally are expected to be much cleaner. And if they are not clean enough, people can go another beach in the same day, because Turkey has lots of beaches near three different seas. Because of this abundance people do not care about the beach they leave is dirty or bad as long as the beach they arrive is good enough for them. I do not know how long it continues but that is the case now. We probably will not change our life style and the government will not change its policy, until we start to have serious health problems or the beaches and swimmable waters become scarce and unaffordable for most of us or the tourism incomes fell down.

To sum up, we generally disregard the importance of the things we have abundantly until they become scarce. And I do not believe that, there are many people who really acts and has something more than words about sustainability of the natural resources or give greater importance to common welfare than personal gains. 

Erdogan.

Journey to Peddocks Island

We started the day very early (at least for me) in the morning at our usual meeting point. As we were boarding to ferry I was still trying to sober up and looking at the small pictures of islands in the brochure that we were given. In the picture of Peddocks, I saw a white small building and brown steppe like ground and thought that the Peddocks was the worst one among the other islands in the brochure. In a short time, we reached to Georges Island where we boarded to a smaller boat. As we were approaching to Peddocks I realized that the picture in the brochure was a bad one, not the island itself.

We had a quick look to inner part of the island after the brief guidance of a young ranger. Then we reached to the beach after a short walk. The beach was quite different than I expected. There were many small stones and not many living things. We saw the wrack lines and learned that the lightest things are pushed away from the water by the tides and the heavier things are close to water. It was like walking on broken glass as the shells of dead mussels, clams and crabs were crackling under my feet. While walking on the pebble beach we found shells of mussels, oysters, clams, razor clams, periwinkles and a dead skate fish. There was also lots of beach glass which was rounded and not sharp. To me they were trashes. But I learned that we can view them as artifacts that tell about the history of the island. As we continue to our walk, the beach started to change. The stones became bigger and bigger and we had a chance to observe more alive species.   

After lunch I had a short trip to the end of the shore where I found the signs of a familiar species, humans. It was quite ironic to see empty beer cans, bottles, old shoes, towels, litters, plates and a frying pan while we were trying to explore the wild life. The rest of the day was a hunt for crabs and periwinkles. Under the large stones, we caught Asian shore crabs which were quite speedy than I expected. We learned how to distinguish between the male and female ones. We also observed periwinkles which are said to be the main reason of rocky beaches.  

After everybody touched a crab and a periwinkle and got sunburn enough, we were ready to return to city. It was a tiring but very interesting day. And the Peddocks was certainly a spectacular island.

See you next week.

Erdogan

Creatures Observed From the Docks

Hi everybody. Yesterday I saw many creatures that were new for me. Before, I did not recognize most of them probably because I did not have a chance for a closer look or touching them. When we start our trip at the same dock located in the left side of Marriott, by looking at a duck and rockweeds and continue by observing a fish from the docks near the Chart House, I did not think that we will see many different creatures. But I understood that I was wrong after we grabbed some staff from the docks near the Boston Harbor Hotel. I took photos and notes and tried to describe what I saw with my own words. To be honest, the photos were more useful than my notes. Here are the species that I identified (or tried to identify at least) based on my observations.

1. A very thin and small, light brown animal with two yellowish antennas. Moving like a worm. I saw lots of them on seaweeds and mussels. They were like a spider at first when I saw many of them on a mussel. --- Smooth Skeleton Shrimp
2. The elastic orange stuff. It looks like a sponge. I found many of them under the docks near the Boston Harbor Hotel and also saw them near docks close to the Chart House. They were attached to the docks and on the rocks very close to surface. --- Orange Sheath Tunicate
3. A mussel with a shell colored black and a little blue and white. The interior was orange or brown like. It was attached on the dock near the Barking Crab --- Blue Mussel
4. Small creatures looking like small spiders or stars. I saw many of them attached on a mussel. They have a color something like yellow or light brown. --- Golden Star Tunicate
5. Green leaf like things. Looking like a lettuce in a plate of Salad.--- Sea Lettuce 
6. A squashy oval creature I found at the docks near the Barking Crab. Looking like a rotten orange. --- Blood Drop Tunicate  
7. White circular very small creatures with quadrangle like shapes in the middle. I saw them on the pillars. They look like small stones from far. --- Down Under Barnacle or Northern Rock Barnacle  
8. Purple, thin gluey, and leaf like creature. It was attached the docks near the Boston Harbor Hotel. Looking like melted nylon.   --- Grinnell's Pink Leaf
9. Sponge like creature with yellow or orange like color. --- Red Beard Sponge
10. And finally a creature that I could not identify. It was like a very small spider with a color between brown and orange. It caused itches on my finger after an instant small pain while I was examining the stuff I grabbed from the docks near Barking Crab.   

When I compare the picture of last year and what I saw yesterday, I do not see many differences. The reason may be the fact that we and the last year's group visited the harbor nearly at the same time of the year.

Erdogan.

Meeting with the Real Harbor

Hi everybody. This is Erdogan again.

Until today I have never seen the Boston Harbor in daytime. Last winter I used to visit the harbor at nights nearly once a week and sit the bench near the big flagpole enjoying my coffee and cigarette. It was usually quiet because not many people prefer a cold bench instead of a warm chair. However today the harbor was like a different place for me. The weather was hot, cloudy and muggy when we met in front of the Long Warf Hotel at 13:10. We learned that the shore continent of Boston was smaller before today’s buildings and facilities were built on the filled ocean. One may think that it was not a bad idea, after observing the tourists enjoying their lunch time in the most popular places of the city in this area, as we saw today.

Before boarding to the ferry, we observed the sea level and saw that the tide was low at 13:20. After boarding to the ferry the weather turned to sunny and it was nearly 90F. A couple also joined us as we grouped at the upper deck. During the journey to the Quincy we learned about Castle, Spectacle, Thompson, Deer, and Moon Islands and also saw the Hangman’s Rock which probably will not to be there in the future. Then we saw people swimming and enjoying the beach while going on to learn about how a big sewer became a place to swim. At this moment I remembered the beaches of Istanbul which are usually far more crowded than the ones I saw today. Considering the fact that the total population of Massachusetts was approximately 6.5 million in 2010 [1] while Istanbul had already a population over 10 million in 2000 [2], and the number of manufacturing plants which I did not see any today, I realized that Istanbul and Bosporus need more and more work than the great achievements that provided the beauty of today’s Boston Harbor.    

As our journey continued the number of visitors in our group increased after we stop at Quincy and Logan. I observed that there were very different people including a Harley Davidson guy, the lady with totally grey hair, families, children all of whom more or less interested in the discussion about the harbor and the islands. I think it showed us the harbor and islands has become a common concern of the public in Boston.

Our round trip was ended at 14:55 when I saw the sea level was lower than it was at 13:20. I think it was the day I saw the real Boston Harbor.  

[1] http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/

[2] http://www.ibb.gov.tr/sites/ks/en-US/0-Exploring-The-City/Location/Pages/PopulationandDemographicStructure.aspx

Introduction and experiences from the first day.

Hi my name is Erdogan Olcay. I am from Turkey. This is hopefully my last course for master’s degree before I return to my job in Turkish Telecommunications Authority. The only thing I am experienced in about sea life is swimming. I do not know much about harbors or the sea creatures. So I think this course will be interesting and useful to learn about these.

The first day of the class was a little strange for me. First I was late, and found myself taking a quiz, in front of the blackboard where I have not been since my high school years. Then we were asked to go to the ladies’ restroom to observe the direction of water in the sink. It is the craziest thing that I was asked to do in all my educational life.  

I and my three team mates observed that the water drained clockwise although I was in the “counter clockwise photo” taken before we went to the restroom. It was a quick guess because I had no idea about this. But after reading the other posts and a quick research I learned about the “Coriolis Effect”.

There are claims that the water drains clockwise in northern hemisphere and counter-clockwise in Southern hemisphere because of the Coriolis force. However some academics state that Coriolis force is not strong enough to effect the direction of the water in a sink. The surface conditions and the shape of the holes can be more effective factors in the direction of the water [1].

[1] Collins, G.P. (2009). Coriolis effect. Scientific American, 301(3), 76. Retrieved from Boston University Libraries Database.