(Disclaimer: I don’t eat tuna, and in fact nothing that lived in the water with the exception of rice – I hate the taste, and at least to me all that water life does have a common taste (or more probably smell).)

As to the iron bands thing, I didn’t manage more than the first paragraph or two; I really dislike talk about stuff like man being reunited with the past – sounds more like religion to me than like science. But as I haven’t read the rest, I can’t really say anything more about it than that this, too, won’t make it into my feeds list.

As for Phil, well, while the Hubble thing certainly wasn’t bad, I’d probably have chosen something else had it been up to me – I don’t think it’s exactly his best. But then, that’s just me. And I think it’s already clear that my ideas about what’s good differ from those that decided on the ranking.

After all this, you won’t be surprised to hear that I really didn’t manage to scare up any interest in looking at the 3Q site …

Marine life caught per 10 million small tunas caught

CJA @ #13, are you sure it’s 570K dolphins? Please confirm.

Marine life caught per ten thousand sets of purse seine nets

*Not really sure what the difference between “purse seine nets around immature tuna” and “purse seine nets around mature yellowfin” is. Maybe WhySharksMatter could clarify.

Hope the table helps.

Just a query…but is publication of donations always necessary? I know it kinda highlights the need for donations for particular charities, projects that need support (and that’s great), but annoucement of donations made, and by whom, has never been a favoured practice for this observer. I would have preferred them just saying that “a contribution was made”, or that “the charity/project is open for contributions”.

If one gives something for free, helps someone for the sake of helping, then it should just be that — no recognition, and no payback is always necessary. The givee and acceptee both benefit!

Congrats again
John

CJA’s comment nicely demonstrates that the only thing worse than being rude is being rude and wrong.

I think I’ll get back to my dolphin sandwich now. Uh … I mean tuna – yeah, that’s it – tuna. The turtle does add to the gastronomic delight though, and I’ll forgive the stench of the shark because the shark oil is alleged to be healthy.

By the way, while we’re having tuna with this post, I’ve always wondered how the schemes to catch only mature fish are meant to work. Doesn’t that decimate the egg-laying population?

Isn’t Quark also a kind of cheese?

Uh, oh.. making this a ‘cheesy’ blog?

J/P=?

“CJA”, I noticed your post on my blog and will comment on it there. Calling someone foolish for congratulating a fellow winner just because you disagree with something that fellow winner wrote is more than a little rude and inappropriate.

I won’t fill the comments of an astronomy blog with bycatch calculations, but if anyone is curious as to why “CJA” is completely incorrect, in addition to being rude and inappropriate, you are welcome to read my response on my blog.

http://southernfriedscience.com/2009/02/16/the-ecological-disaster-that-is-dolphin-safe-tuna/#comment-2700

“CJA”, I noticed your post on my blog and will comment on it there. Calling someone foolish for congratulating a fellow winner just because you disagree with something that fellow winner wrote is more than a little rude and inappropriate.

This is nowhere close to a fair analysis. Parts of it are true, but it’s just not the right comparison. I assume that the purpose of tuna fishing is to catch x number of tuna, not to throw x number of nets into the water. The real comparison we need to make is how many dolphins/other sea animals are killed in the effort to catch x number of tuna, not how many dolphins are killed in the effort to throw x number of nets into the water.

Look at the facts cited. Using the dolphin method, 10,000 sets of nets only catches 70,000 small tunna. Using the floating debris method, 130,000,000 small tuna are caught (1,857 times more tuna per set of nets). So you really need to multiply the entire dolphin method dat set by 1,857.

I’ve scaled the result to show animals caught per every 10 million small tuna caught, you also catch:

Floater (dolphin safe) method:
2 dolphins
39,528 mahi mahi
10,737 sharks
9,128 wahoo
2,312 rainbow runners
975 other small fish
496 billfish
229 yellowtail
15 other large fish
78 sea turtles
4 triggerfish

Dolphin method:
570,000 dolphins
14,000 mahi mahi
0-57 sharks
0-57 wahoo
57 rainbow runners
429 other small fish
74,286 billfish
57 yellowtail
4,286 other large fish
14,286 sea turtles
0-57 triggerfish

So the real economic impact on the ecosystem is drastically different. The reduction in caught dolphins is drastically larger than you make it look with your comparison—570k vs. 2. So basically, we have can completely eliminate catching dolphins while tuna fishing and still catch the same amount of tuna each year. The increase in how many other animals we catch is also drastically smaller.

Using the dolphin safe method, we do catch drastically more sharks, mahi mahi, wahoo, rainbow runners, other small fish, and a bit more yellowtail. However, we actually catch drastically less sea turtles and bill fish, contrary to your analysis.

Also, the real reason we are concerned with catching dolphin is that we don’t eat them. At one point, we were just catching 500,000 dolphin a year and leaving them to rot. The fact that we catch more yellowtail or mahi mahi using the dolphin safe method is not really a problem, as we will still eat those fish (and thereby reduce the need to catch them using other means).

That leaves the fact that we catch a lot more sharks with the dolphin safe method as the only potential ecological problem with the method. We catch 15,000 more sharks per every 10 million tuna caught. I’m not sure if there is enough consumption of sharks in the world to really make use of 15,000 sharks. I frankly have no idea, but let’s assume there is not. Then it is a negative tradeoff. And that’s unfortunate.

However, it is not even close to offsetting the fact that we catch 14,000 less sea turtles and 70,000 less billfish using the dolphin safe method (on the assumption that like dolphins, people don’t want to consume the sea turtles or billfish, catching less of them is a very nice externality). That’s not even to mention the >500,000 reduction in how many dolphins we catch—which trumps the increase in caught sharks any day of the weak.

J/P=?

BTW, I hear the theory that earned the Bottom Quark prize has developed a huge crack.

Not a good format, though – too many entries. Too easy for people to just vote for the guy they know and then leave it at that.

Glad to see that a proper selection made to the final, though.

(And that is a good post.)

OT: where is the post about the bad science in last nights showing of Impact?

or is your brain still oozing out your ears like mine is?

i tried counting the bad science events, but ran out of whole numbers to use.

I noticed the strange coincidence that you won the prize whose logo is the only one of the three with a heavenly body in the logo!

Congratulations, and thanks for participating. I’ll be publicising the James Randi Foundation at 3QD as well.

Good on ya’ mate!

Yrs,

Abbas