Jeezz you almost sound defensive. It wasn't like anyone was accusing you of
eating all the fish...

A number of news agencies have recently begun reporting that populations of
large fish such as tuna, mackarel, cod are at one percent (1%) of the levels
from 50 years ago. These news agencies include CNN, Fox Cable News, and
MSNBC. I did not write the articles, nor am I one of the scientists who
participated or tabulated the data in these studies. I'm glad that the fish
in Alaska are safe to eat, and alive and well. But the Alaskan coast
represents a small portion of the world. And this study is talking about
WORLD fish populations. Other countries do not take the care and restraint
neccessary to converse and cultivate thier fish populations in order to
preserve them. We are also talking about "wild" fish roaming the open ocean
in vast schools, not fisheries. The world-wide population of people has
tripled in the past 50 years. Advances in refrigeration, packing,
preservation, and harvesting has allowed more fish to be caught, sold, and
consumed by these higher concentrations of people. This and the increased
belief by "land-lubbers" that seafood is health food has increased
world-wide fish consumption exponentially...

And for the record I'm from Baltimore, MD. This is on the Chesapeake Bay,
which has been fished long before Europeans people even discovered Alaska.
The crustecean populations there are nearly decimated, though Chesapeake Bay
crabs are renowed. The crabs and clams also have been found with toxic
levels of mercury, lead, and arsenic. Fish from many areas of the Bay and
the connecting rivers are considered unsafe to eat due to pollutants in the
water. Much of the East Coast of the US was or is industrialized, and
continue even with EPA standards to dump harmful substances in the water. In
the past they dumped industrial wastes into the waters unabated. As I said I
am glad that Alaska is doing fine, but never having been heavily
industrialized, its easy to see why the waters in your area would continue
to be safe and thriving. Unfortunately the rest of the states are not
neccesarily in such good shape. And this isn't even taking into account
other industrialized and/or developing nations that may or may not have any
enviromental standards in place to protect thier waters, or conservation
standards to protect thier fish populations...

"Jan Flora" wrote in message
...
In article , "Mike
Stevenson" wrote:

Fishes have faces...ask any 5 year old. I think that vegans BTW don't
eat
ANY animal or animal based product. No milk, no cheese, no gelatin (if
you
don't know you don't want to). I've also heard of so called
micro-biotics
that wont eat the above but also retrict themselves to seaweeds and the
like. Unfortunately due to man's dumping activities its argueable
whether
seafood is really all that safe to eat anymore. And recently a number of
articles detailing how most of the big fish populations are all but
wiped
out. It doesn't look promising...

You've never looked an Irish Lord in the face! =:-O

The feds just did a survey on 600 pregnant Alaska Native women.
They took hair samples and tested for Hg. (mercury) All of the
women (who live in the bush and eat mostly fish) tested way below
EPA levels for Hg.

Our mercury levels in Alaskan wild fish is .65 ppm. The EPA safe food
level is 4 parts per million (ppm).

To start with: wild fish populations in Alaska are healthy. I don't know
where you are, but our salmon (5 kinds), halibut, crab (4 kinds),
scallops,
clams (4 kinds), pollack, cod (3 kinds), oysters, mussles, and shrimp
populations are doing fine. Just because you guys fished out your
fisheries,
we haven't. God knows that the canneries from Seattle tried, but Alaska
got statehood in 1959 and got control of the fisheries before they
succeded.

The by-catch (unwanted fish) that factory trawlers off coastal Alaska
throw away every year could *feed the entire world* for one day. (Read
that sentence again and think about it. Then write to your congressman.)

Factory trawlers need to be run off our seas. Tyson (Chicken) owns loads
of those trawlers. They do mile-long trawls that clear-cut the ocean
bottom.
It's like clear-cutting the forest. Nothing survives, but the shareholders
smile.

(A "trawl" is a weighted net that sinks to the ocean floor and catches
everything there. A trawl net creates a kill-zone on the ocean floor.)

I live in a commercial fishing town. Most of my friends and neighbors
are comemercial fishermen. I catch most of the fish I eat. What's your
connection with the sea, Mike? Do you read stuff in the newpaper and
believe it, or do you have a direct connection with the sea and your food?

Jan
Homer, Alaska


"Jan Flora" wrote in message
...
In article , Pat Meadows
wrote:

On Sun, 03 Aug 2003 02:09:15 -0800, (Jan
Flora) wrote:



One of the ranchers in our cattlemans association is married to a
vegetarian. It's NBD. When we have to go to convention banquets,
he gets her prime rib and she gets his king crab legs : )

She's not a vegetarian then, she's someone who doesn't eat
meat, but does eat fish.

Vegetarian, by definition, means someone who doesn't eat red
meat, doesn't eat poultry, and doesn't eat seafood - in
short, a vegetarian doesn't eat any dead animals.

What's 'NBD'? I can't figure that out.

Pat

The veggies I've talked to say that there are lots of kinds. Vegans
won't eat eggs, they drink soy milk, and don't eat any flesh. Around
here, there are lots of folks who won't eat "anything with a face."
They'll eat seafood though. I say eat whatever you want and be happy.

NBD = no big deal.

Jan