Living Outside The Box
The reason to do all this is about working to pioneer new methods to save the world - one ocean plankton bloom, one forest, not one discovery at a time. All at once.
This blog and my lifes work is dedicated to my 3 children and 2 grandchildren and yours too...and to mysteries of nature some discovered most not.
Ocean life taking charge!
If you know any good fish puns let minnow.
Things I now believe in, Mermaids. Things I no longer believe in, Dynamite fishing.
If you know any good fish puns let minnow. The best time to plant a tree is 40 years ago, the second best time is now.
Now that's bark that barks, we need more natural forest art like this
#8 Long Muddler, best fly ever for Western small water Rainbows and Browns.
One of our Old Massett forestry techs measuring a Sitka Spruce a few years back. This tree is now spared, along with a hundred thousand friends, from the saw forever! It only took ten years of effort .
When the salmon are in the river a few feet away and you look up WOW, but where a hat!
Imagine having to cross the river here to get to work on another forest restoration and preservation project.
Walking distance to work.
Tim Parsons
Here’s a letter from Tim who has given us a great deal of very good advice for a long time.
Tim Parsons Medal
Canada’s highest award in ocean science
If you want to win the Nobel Prize in Ocean Science in Canada you want to win The Tim Parson’s Medal!
Russ: I sent this letter to the Times Colonist in reply to their article – Tim
Subject: Iron dust trial
Judith Lavoie’s article on the Haida Gwaii’s dumping of a 100 tons of iron sulphate into the ocean fails to address the primary purpose of this experiment as far as fish habitat is concerned. While I agree that the procedure was scientifically hasty and controversial, the purpose of enhancing salmon returns by increasing plankton production has considerable justification. There are many published scientific papers showing a positive correlation between phytoplankton abundance and fish production, although this “bottom-up” control of fish production is not used by many fisheries scientists engaged only in “population dynamics” management.
In the 1960s, I organized and started a nutrient enrichment program on Great Central Lake which resulted in an approximate seven-fold increase in sockeye salmon returns to the lake, continuing for many years. The statement by Andrew Weaver that there is no proof that plankton blooms initiated by fertilization has an effect on salmon production, is not true. In the Gulf of Alaska, volcanic emissions in 1958 and 2008 both resulted in enormous sockeye salmon returns; in the latter year, this was attributable to a bloom of diatoms, caused by iron from a volcano. Diatoms are the clover of the sea, in that most of the world’s largest fisheries in upwelled areas are based on food chains initiated by diatom growth. However, in the Gulf of Alaska, iron, which is an essential nutrient for diatom growth, is generally lacking.
Thus the logic behind the Haida Gwaii’s experiment, as far as it concerns enhanced sockeye salmon production, is justifiable. Their timing and positioning of the iron dumping was meant to coincide with the migration of young fish into the ocean. Whether they achieved this precise timing and location will not be known for two years, when the 2012 adults return. Further, from the initial ocean monitoring, any potential risk of ecological damage, does not appear to have occurred.
Tim Parsons, Prof.Em. Dept.Earth Ocean.Atmos.Sci. UBC, Vancouver
His permission for us to use the letter.
Yes, please use the letter as you like. It has not appeared in the TC this morning although they have published a somewhat derogatory letter by a person unknown to me – cheers Tim
Read Tim’s paper on the volcano and the salmon miracle run of 2010.