biojournalism.com

Perhaps this is an odd topic for a post, but it was asking to be written about.

Middle school is not the best time for students to learn about biology.

Middle school students are right at the pre-adolescent stage. Too old to be cute and forgivable, too young to be sensible or reliable.

Its a mad mad world in middle school. Even when I was a middle school student I felt sorry for my teachers. Who chooses to be a middle school teacher? How is that rewarding at all?

My 7th grade science teacher was beloved by all. He found out how to deal with the terror of middle school students. 1) tell them stories. 2) let them watch movies.

He told us what would happen if you ate the brain of the frog you were dissecting.

He told us that DNA stood for deoxyribonucleic acid…. without explaining what DNA really was.
(For those interested, DNA is a nucleic acid consisting of a phosphate group, a 5-carbon sugar, and a nitrogenous base. It is “deoxy,” because unlike RNA, which has ribose as its sugar, DNA’s 5-carbon sugar is missing an oxygen- it is deoxyribose.)

When we learned about genetics… very briefly…. and talked about the issues of cloning, it was time for a “science” movie. It wasn’t boring, and it wasn’t even Bill Nye.

We watched Star Wars: Attack of the Clones.

When we learned about Darwin, and his theory of evolution, it was time for another movie.

We watched Evolution.

If you don’t know that movie, its a comedy where rapidly-evolving alien organisms end up on earth. If you want to know how scientific it is, it has blue monkeys. Enough said.

He must have been a science fiction fan.

I would not bore my readers with the below project:

Maybe I don\'t compare with Jules Verne\'s masterpiece, but it was rather large.

However, since this was a feat of biojournalism, here are a few excerpts from the essay:

Dividing up the Fish: A Way to Sustainability and Success

“O Oysters,” said the Carpenter,
“You’ve had a pleasant run!
Shall we be trotting home again?’
But answer came there none–
And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
-Walrus and the Carpenter, Lewis Carroll

Unless we are prepared to face a world where all the fish stocks suffer the same fate as the oysters in this whimsical child’s poem, innovative fishery management programs must be implemented. On the West Coast, such a plan has already been set in motion. These plans tend to be controversial and the debate still rages on: should the Pacific Fishery Management Council implement plans to use Individual Fishing Quotas (IFQs) to manage sustainable fisheries within its jurisdiction?

The ocean is considered a public resource, and in most places so are the fish. Limited Access Privilege Programs (LAPPs) are a way of dividing up the resource and granting a share of that resource to a fisher, a company, or a community. This share, called a quota share, is essentially a piece of property. These rights-based programs, also called catch share programs, may eliminate the “tragedy of the commons,” the notion that people will overexploit a public resource because the incentive to do so is always higher than the cost of protecting the resource. As it relates to fisheries, this means the benefit of overfishing is higher than the incentive to use sustainable practices and preserve the fish stocks for the future. IFQs (also called ITQs, or Individual Transferable Quotas) are a type of catch share program that grants quota to individuals in the system, such as fishers.

These types of management programs are one of the options that might solve the fisheries crisis. As the fish stocks are depleted, the industry dependent upon them is being thrown into economic despair. Almost 60 percent of fisheries in the world have already declined or are on the brink of collapse due to overfishing (Jacques and Smith 27). Fish stocks are not just important from an ecologic viewpoint; the economic problems that occur because of this collapse are also on a massive scale worldwide. In the US, the fishing industry contributed 28 billion dollars to the gross national product in 2002. In the groundfish fishery (comprised of species like whiting, flounder and lingcod) managed by the Pacific Fishery Management Council (PFMC), seven species of groundfish are currently at extremely low levels due to overfishing.

In 1883, Thomas Huxley, a respected member of the scientific community, issued a statement stating that he believed the resources of the sea were “inexhaustible”. He believed that the productivity of an acre of fishing ground in the North Sea was so high that no man could make a significant impact on it. He was sadly mistaken. That same acre in the North Sea now has about a tenth of the productivity it had in Huxley’s day.

Much research was conducted on IFQs and still more is yet to come. Despite this, IFQ systems are rare in fisheries, which are mostly dominated by competitive-TAC based management. Many of management systems fail, causing fishers to lose faith with the councils that try to enforce them. Sometimes the failure is do to the high rate of accidental catch, or bycatch, of other species. The incentive for rushed and sloppy fishing practices that occur under many competitive TAC-based systems causes this problem. In an IFQ system, the incentives change. Fishers have a long-term share in an industry and like a share in the stock market, would like the value of it to increase. This fosters more sustainable fishing practices, and fishers take time to avoid bycatch, therefore preventing the “tragedy of the commons.” Any good management system changes the incentives so the most likely behavior that occurs is one that will benefit the system the most.

This is just one reason an IFQ system is environmentally beneficial. An IFQ system allows the TAC to be lowered without destroying the economic viability of the system. If a fisher catches more than his quota allows, the fisher will have to purchase or lease quota to cover his accidental catch. This is far superior to the wasteful dumping of fish that currently occurs in the Pacific groundfish industry. The rationalization of the fleet also reduces the number of boats that impact the ocean; thereby reducing the environmental harm the industry creates. A study done on the benefits of ITQs found that the percent of fisheries that were collapsed under a competitive TAC-based system was twice that of those under ITQs, a statistic that the authors say, “probably underestimates ITQ benefits, because most ITQ fisheries are young.” The longer ITQs are in place, the bigger the benefits are.

In the end, the implementation of IFQs in the Pacific groundfish fishery can be a model for the rest of the world. A successful IFQ program satisfies both the economic and ecological needs of the world. And yes, there will be those who argue against it, but this will happen with any revolutionary program. Unfortunately, a revolutionary program is what is needed to stop the fishing industry from permanently collapsing. As Charles Clover, author of The End of the Line says, “There is one solution that is controversial with fishermen…but it is simple and totally effective. That is preventing fish from being exposed to any kind of fishing gear at all.” Besides that option, this is the solution that will benefit the fish and the fishers the most.

If the above paragraphs don’t make as much sense, I apologize. Its hard to pick certain paragraphs out of a 20 page essay to post.

About Citations: I have a lot of sources, but they are not always cited in the usual manner. If anyone would like to see where I got any of my information, simply contact me and I will be happy to furnish you with 3 pages of annotated sources and 5 pages of work cited.

About Info Hell: Info Hell (as it is called by the professors, the GTFs, the students, the administrators and everyone, except the parents) is a rite of passage involving 10 weeks of hard labor on a single project. It is infamous for ridding the school of excess Pre-journalism majors. Type “Info Hell” into google to find the lamenting and blog posts of journalism students… as well as the FAQ page for the School of Journalism and Communication.

From a fellow blogger, and UO student’s perspective: Late Update-Hella Info

This post should really be called “Adventures in Info Hell.”

I have been working all term on a 100 page assignment on a certain topic. I have researched it thoroughly.

When it is completed, I will probably upload the entire project… although I doubt anyone will want to read it.

However, I am researching the benefits of implementing Individual Fisher Quotas to manage fisheries.

A commercial fishing vessel in Norway (Hakon Iversen via Flickr)

They are a type of catch share that allocates a certain portion of the particular fishery industry’s Total Allowable Catch to fishermen. It’s a market-based strategy. Quota can be bought and sold and acts sort of like shares on the stock market.

They are being hailed as the savior of the fisheries because they can protect the environment and provide a profitable industry as well instead of constantly making compromises that help neither the fish nor the fishermen.

Here are the environmental benefits:

-IFQs streamline the industry, making it more efficient. This mean less vessels to

-IFQs allow the Total Allowable Catch set in the industry to be lowered without affecting profits

-A fisherman with quota has a guaranteed long-term share in the industry. Something that he’ll want to protect. This means more environmentally-friendly fishing practices.

-IFQs often lengthen the season (after an IFQ system, Alaskan Halibut went from a 3 day season to a season lasting months), which means fishers can be careful about reducing bycatch. It also means fishers don’t catch as much as they can, often overfishing and also flooding the market.

-In some fisheries, if fishers caught more than allowed by the TAC on accident, they would have to dump the fish. This fish was then wasted and no money was gained. Under an IFQ system, quota must be bought to cover this extra fish. It isn’t wasted and because fishers have to pay for quota if they catch more than their quota, they have incentive to be careful.

Unfortunately, although catch share systems have been shown to protect fish stocks and allow them to rebound, there are a variety of social problems associated with IFQs, mainly the allocation of the quota. In Iceland, quotas have been in place for 30 years, but quota has become so concentrated, certain vessels hold a monopoly. The UN ruled that the system was discriminatory. A post on the Iceland Weather Report Blog explains the Iceland situation.

Currently, debates on allocation rights are going on right now as the Pacific Fishery Management Council is attempting to put the groundfish fishery on the West Coast under an IFQ system.

As for me, I will continue to research and read the hundreds of sources I have found on IFQs as I prepare this project for my class, a class lovingly called Info Hell by all parties, including the professors.

My friend was reading the news during class. I glanced over because the term ADHD caught my eye, and I read a most disturbing title.

“A.D.H.D Drugs Linked to Higher Test Scores”

I have no problem with the article or with the scientists who conducted the study the article discusses. It simply states that children with ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) who are being treated with medication are shown to have higher test scores than those who are not.

As a journalism major, my teachers have stressed the need for word choice and critical thinking. A title like that is very disturbing to me, someone who suffers from ADHD. It makes it sounds like people with ADHD who are medicated somehow have a better chance in school. In my mind it is like its implying that ADHD drugs are to students as steroids are to athletes.

As we left the theater after watching Star Trek (which, by the way, was awesome), two friends of mine got into an argument about how realistic it was for the Centurian Slug (similar to the eel parasite from Ceti Alpha 5) to secrete a toxin that would affect the brain of Captain Christopher Pike and make him give up Starfleet secrets.

The blood-brain barrier does restrict many substances from reaching the brain and microscopic materials, such as bacteria. In general, most things cannot pass through it and must be changed in order to pass through the barrier.

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