Fish logistics

[Passing Time]

So the UK government dictates what the Manx fleet can and can't catch?

[Jarndyce]

1 hour ago, De nada said:

Marillion?

Actually, “Fish Logistics” would be a good band name…

[mollag]

The gulls like to nest near the food souce if possible,  around the tips and farms there were few if any cliff like nest sites, they were places to forage and return to the cliffs,

Towns though, have good cliff like sites so they nest and scavenge, Strand street is like shopping in a gull colony these days.

[finlo]

A mate of mine used to salt the Herring in those blue barrels in the early eighties.

It was only five or six weeks work but he didn't need to work for the rest of the year!

[Expat.]

41 minutes ago, Gladys said:

Do you know, that is an interesting observation.  I do not remember gulls being an issue at that time at all, despite all that fish being landed.  Perhaps they got what they needed at sea, but we created huge rubbish dumps which encouraged them further inland for easy pickings.  Then they became used to scavenging on land rather than at sea. 

As an aside, was in the UK a few days ago, and right in the very centre of the midlands there were gulls miles from the sea. 

You're right. Up until the 1940's gulls were heavily persecuted and kept away from built up areas, but the real boom in urban gull populations started in the 1950s. I'll bet your grandmother was like mine, the only thing she ever put in the dust bin was just that, dust. More exactly ash from the grate, wrapped in newspaper. She never threw anything away, and didn't need to because she reused every bottle, jar, can and in the unlikely event that she had food waste it went for pigswill. After her generation went society really geared up with rubbish dumps and after the clean air act of 1956 we stopped burning organic waste at tips. A huge new supply of food was all a clever opportunistic omnivore like gulls needed. And they moved into towns because they are warmer and light up at night and there are no ;predators.

[TheTeapot]

Excited for a real manx kipper.

[cheesypeas]

Loads of small fish swimming around the Villiers steps at high tide today. Baby herring ? Never really noticed fish in Douglas before, except mullet. I remember someone with a go pro in Douglas bay a couple of years ago showing millions of small herring ( allegedly). Something else I haven’t noticed much this summer either, garnets diving into the sea. 

[mollag]

When the Herring get to the IOM in their migration they are in great nick, fat with oil and full of melts, as they rise at night to feed near the surface, the oil they exude [no swim bladders] to rise, flattens the water, in moonlight a sign of good fishing. Some of the old herring boats used a weighted rod pushed down into the water, seems you could feel the herring bumping into it. 

Now that's a kipper for your breakfast.

Edited July 5, 2023 by mollag

[Roger Mexico]

3 hours ago, Gladys said:

Do you know, that is an interesting observation.  I do not remember gulls being an issue at that time at all, despite all that fish being landed.  Perhaps they got what they needed at sea, but we created huge rubbish dumps which encouraged them further inland for easy pickings.  Then they became used to scavenging on land rather than at sea. 

Even more of a factor must have been that if over-fishing meant that there wasn't enough left for the fishermen, there wouldn't be enough for the gulls either.  The open tips may have provided some respite, but their closure seems to have led to a collapse in the population over the last two decades.

[finlo]

3 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Even more of a factor must have been that if over-fishing meant that there wasn't enough left for the fishermen, there wouldn't be enough for the gulls either.  The open tips may have provided some respite, but their closure seems to have led to a collapse in the population over the last two decades.

Humans removed all their source of food then complain that they look elsewhere!

[Barlow]

Yep, that's about it. We let them inland, bit by bit by bit. 

I would say nothing - NOTHING - supposedly to do with us nasty humans taking their natural food from the sea. That is utter bollocks. It is far easier for gulls to pick up off the street, the bins, and the tip than to look for their food as they have done for millennia.

And yet we are told that the gull population is down. 

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/fall-in-seagull-population-links-to-increase-in-food-theft/

50 years ago there was little if any food at the tip. Everything was eaten, there was very little food waste. Now a big proportion of our bins is food waste.

The gulls lived mainly at sea and on the cliffs.

Spot the gull:

 

 

 

[mollag]

Gulls dont fish, they scavenge, they are sea going carrion birds, a cormorant or gannet dives and catches fish, a gull feeds off of floating sewage and dead things. Folk try to big the gulls up as noble birds up with the Perigrine, fact is, they are winged longtails with an uncanny ability to hit cars with shite. IMHO we are overpopulated with gulls they have increased in number as the food source became available, that source is now dimishing so they should fall back in number to their original population. That is natures way.

Gulls are problematic

http://douglas.gov.im/index.php/news/council-news/item/2408-feeding-of-animals-and-birds-council-clarifies-amended-byelaw-proposal

[The Phantom]

11 hours ago, cheesypeas said:

Loads of small fish swimming around the Villiers steps at high tide today. Baby herring ? Never really noticed fish in Douglas before, except mullet. I remember someone with a go pro in Douglas bay a couple of years ago showing millions of small herring ( allegedly). Something else I haven’t noticed much this summer either, garnets diving into the sea. 

The last few years have definitely seen an increase in whales and dolphins (at the same time as a decrease in Basking Sharks).  Also the sightings last year of both swordfish and tuna in our waters.  Ignoring any sea temperature issues, this is more than likely to do with the recovery of fish stocks including Herring, that historically were massively overfished.  Just look at ye olde photos of 100s of fishing boats in Douglas or Peel, then wonder why it all collapsed. 

So basically no one has really fished the stock for the last 20 or so years and they've eventually restocked themselves. 

I'd be interested to know how they picked the 100 ton figure for the allowance and assume this has been deemed to be sustainable.  To be honest, it doesn't seem like that much.  Hopefully it's not the tip of the iceberg.  I'd take whales, dolphins, swordfish and tuna in our waters over kippers on my plate. 

 

 

Edited July 6, 2023 by The Phantom

[GreyWolf]

Well it’s a start but 100 tons will keep maybe 2 boats going for 2/3 weeks that’s it, the two big multi million pound Irish boats (that own nearly all the herring quota) can take out many hundreds of tons in a couple of hours of fishing, I think there just to big and efficient to fish in the Irish Sea pond.

Really looking forward though to a real Manx kipper if the herring are decent grades. 

[Andy Onchan]

38 minutes ago, The Phantom said:

The last few years have definitely seen an increase in whales and dolphins (at the same time as a decrease in Basking Sharks).  Also the sightings last year of both swordfish and tuna in our waters.  Ignoring any sea temperature issues, this is more than likely to do with the recovery of fish stocks including Herring, that historically were massively overfished.  Just look at ye olde photos of 100s of fishing boats in Douglas or Peel, then wonder why it all collapsed. 

So basically no one has really fished the stock for the last 20 or so years and they've eventually restocked themselves. 

I'd be interested to know how they picked the 100 ton figure for the allowance and assume this has been deemed to be sustainable.  To be honest, it doesn't seem like that much.  Hopefully it's not the tip of the iceberg.  I'd take whales, dolphins, swordfish and tuna in our waters over kippers on my plate. 

 

 

A very good proportion of the herring stock is literally hoovered up and landed on floating factory ships before it gets anywhere near the Irish Sea. The small 100's of boats that you refer to were not responsible for the massive reduction in stocks.