Tuesday, November 13, 2012

Well, I spent most of today working on my thesis. And I submitted it to Brad! It felt so so amazing to have that draft done! I also helped out my friend in picking up some equipment from his dive hut. We took snowmobiles out to get his stuff. It was a beautiful day with no wind, super sunny and the temp was +10 F! Here we are at his dive site with our snowmobiles. It was a beautiful day out!

And then, the coolest thing of the entire season happened! One of the science groups down here is fishing for the Antarctic Toothfish, Dissostichus mawsoni, and they caught one!!! The Toothfish is also know as Chilean Sea Bass on menus and in grocery stores around the world. Please, if you ever sea that on a menu or at the store, NEVER ORDER IT. These fish are incredible and are a huge part of the ecosystem in the Ross Sea. As adults they grow larger than 6 feet in length and can be over 200 pounds. In the past, the science teams fishing for them were able to catch up to 500 fish in a season. All are tagged and returned to the ocean. In the mid 1990's, commercial fishing boats started coming to the Ross Sea to fish for the Antarctic Toothfish. They have been taking millions of tons of fish out of the sea every year and it has destroyed the Toothfish population. Last year, the science group working on the Toothfish only caught one fish. ONE! And it wasn't even an adult, it was a small juvenile. In about 15 years, commercial fishing in the Ross Sea has all but eliminated the Antarctic Toothfish from these waters. Now, I know that people probably wondering if the fishery is regulated, and it is. However, it is not regulated using scientific facts. CCAMLR is the company that regulates the the fishery and they decided early on that they would take 3000 tons of fish every year. However, no one knows how many fish are here, when they spawn, how often they reproduce etc. We know that it takes them about two years to mature to an adult, but we don't know when they start reproducing or even if they reproduce every year. Hundreds of the most world renowned Antarctic scientists have tried to get CCAMLR to stop fishing for the Toothfish until we can gain more knowledge, but they have refused. They plan to reduce the population of the Toothfish in the Ross Sea by 50% in the next few years, yet they have no idea what the actual population number is. Lots of research has been done on these fish and we do know that some of these fish can get as old as 40 years old and these are some of the fish they are taking out of the ocean. I know that some people might say that we should be fishing there because we can make money there. However, the Toothfish is also prey to the Weddell seals and to a specific type of Orca (killer whale). The Weddell seals only live here and these Orcas come here in the Antarctic summer to feed on Toothfish as well. If the Toothfish disappears, we may very well lose the Weddell seals and the Orcas as well. I know that was a very long piece and that I normally try to keep it to just a paragraph or two, but people need to know what is going on down here. Here are some pictures of this amazing fish. I think that it looks prehistoric...and incredible!