Aquatic farming - yes or no?

The state of Alaska does not allow fish farming within its waters, but the federal government is advocating fish farming as a possible answer to future food insecurity.  There are different types of fish farming (i.e. not all methods are created equal).  There is the type where you build holding facilities on land and cultivate your critters on shore (tilapia or catfish are two examples), and then there is the method used in the waters of British Columbia and Chile, where they rear salmonids in net pens.  I don't know very much about the on shore methods, but I do know that the offshore rearing has several problems.  First, the fish are so close to each other all the time, that they have to give them lots of antibiotics so that they don't all get sick and cause a mass die off.  Second, salmon are not vegetarians, so they have to be fed other fish to survive.  The amount of fish killed to make a salmon is nearly twice the weight of the actual salmon produced by farming.  Third, all the fish waste and antibiotics get dumped on the bottom right below the net pens, and the pens have to be moved periodically to keep the ocean bottom from becoming unusable.

In warmer climes than here, much bigger fish like tuna are farmed.  This practice is common in Australia, and Japan is also producing thousands of tiny tuna fry in laboratories.  Hawaii has also gotten into the tuna farming business.  In some places they catch wild tuna when they are small, then keep them in pens for a certain amount of time so they can get bigger and more valuable.  I imagine they have the same problem with crowding and die-offs as you would have in salmon pens, but if you only have a quota to catch 10 tons of tuna, but you are able to increase the weight of the surviving fish by 25% while they are in the pens, you can see how valuable this practice might be (especially since certain species of tuna are in dire straits right now).

Back closer to home, Alaska does allow shellfish farming, and there are several enterprises farming oysters that are fairly profitable.  They have to send samples of their product off to labs in Anchorage once a week to ensure that it is not contaminated with Paralytic Shellfish Poisoning (PSP) before they are allowed to sell their oysters.  I know that many people think that oysters are just scary snot creatures, and shouldn't be eaten, but I find them delicious (though not in stuffing).

When I was stationed in New Jersey in the mid 1990s, they had these facilities called depuration plants.  When "wild clams" (that's a good name for a band!) were harvested and landed in NJ, they had to spend 3 days in the depuration plant before they could be sold.  That's because bivalves are filter feeders, and they tend to grow REALLY big when they are located near sewage outflow pipes.  They had a nice 3 day spa visit at the depuration plant after they were landed to help flush any nasty stuff out of their systems.

If you are starting to think that Clams Casino isn't so tempting any more, let me try to allay your fears.  If you are not a vegetarian, most of the animals which you consume probably eat something that would make your stomach turn.  I love bacon, but pigs are not the cleanest/healthiest of eaters (probably why they taste so good).  Lots of sea creatures are scavengers (lobsters, crabs and striped bass being among the tastiest that I love to eat).  And I know not too many Americans of my generation have enjoyed the delicacy of turtle soup, but we have two of those funny reptiles that live with us, and if you could see what I do when I observe their eating rituals, you would never want to eat one again.

The tofurky by comparison, has lead a clean life, but I cannot imagine it is as tasty as a Dolly Varden that you have caught yourself and pan fried in a skillet with some rosemary and olive oil.   MMMMmmmmmmmmm.........

Letter to Santa

S

Dear Santa's Helper (a.k.a. Elf Dude),


I decided to write directly to the elf helper here in Juneau,  because I know that Santa is quite busy this time of year, and I don't want to contribute to his Info glut.  I hope that he has a good relational database to see him thru the Christmas season. 

He may also want to think about using caribou rather than just plain old reindeer, since they seem to be bigger and stronger.  Here are some good candidates: 

This last one is from Canada, and looks like he has a bad attitude (like my Towson Catholic sister in law), but the first two are probably nice cooperative Alaskan caribou. 

I realize that spousal unit and I may have to give up our fish when we move, or risk having them perish during the journey.  This is going to be a difficult decision, as it was when we moved to Alaska from Massachusetts.  

However, I would still like to have one of these critters join our little saltwater community for six months.  The fellow in the picture at the top of the blog/letter is probably a pajama cardinalfish, but the spotted ones are nearly as beautiful.  You can find out what their general characteristics are by pasting the link below into your browser (as long as you are not using internet explorer, which will probably explode when you enter this:  tee hee hee 

http://www.liveaquaria.com/product/prod_display.cfm?c=15+26+85&pcatid=85 

From all reports, they play well with others, and we know a couple right across the pond who might want to adopt our creatures if we are worried that they might not make it safely back to the east coast of the U.S. (or wherever we might end up). 

Ah, here is a pair of a spotted variety called Benggai Cardinalfish.  The ones at the wee fishie shoppe in town just seem to hover in one place.   The first time I became attracted to this species was when I went to see the Jelly exhibit at the Boston Aquarium several years ago.  They had this one aquarium with upside down jellies, who basically sit on the bell shaped part of their body, upside down, and grow algae on their tentacles, which they then eat!  How cool is that?!?  But I digress.  In amongst the self eating farmer jellies were several dozen pajama cardinalfish hiding between the mangrove roots.  If you didn't look at the exhibit for more than 30 seconds, you wouldn't see the fish, because they barely moved at all.  Since their stripes were in the same orientation as the mangrove roots, it was almost like they were hiding in plain sight.

Please let me know if I can be of any assistance in this endeavor.

Your able elfling, 

aquagal

P.S.  I would also be willing to make the dreaded peanut butter cookies if that makes the difference between coal and fish.  Please don't put the fish in my stocking.....

No more Native American code talking

Native American code talkers have been used in foreign wars since the early part of the 20th century to help the armed forces of the United States confound enemy forces from decoding tactical messages. The picture to the left is of Chocktaw code talkers who contributed to the Allied victory in WWI. Navajo code talkers are commonly known to have fulfilled the same role in WWII.

We had a Native American pot luck last week at work, and I wanted to make my favorite Italian American dish, sausage and peppers. I knew this wasn't very Native American, so I asked a Tlingit lady at work if she could translate the name of the dish for me. She didn't speak Tlingit, but she knew someone down at the Bureau of Indian Affairs who might be able to help me. I went down to the 3rd floor of my building and found this woman, who didn't speak Tlingit, but she thought she knew several other people who did. After another 10 minutes of traveling around in cubicle land and asking her co-workers if they could translate something for me, we found one man who could speak Tlingit, but couldn't write it.

Later that day as I drove home, I thought about how the important role which the code talkers had played in past wars would now not be possible. Not simply because the skills weren't available, but because the internet has made information so accessible in the early part of the 21st century, that the valuable skills of the code talkers have become obsolete in less than a century.

I did find some on-line dictionaries for some other Native Alaskan languages, but nothing to help me out with my sausage and pepper translations. Made me think that I should learn one of the languages in my heritage. I think Italian is the one that I will choose. It sounds so beautiful, and it may not be as useful as German, but being a latin language, it will be easier for me than Norwegian.

Ciao!