fish 0000190.3221 Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire A program that gives commercial fishers both a short- and long-term financial stake in the health of the industry offers the promise of preserving fish populations, according to new research.

Fish stocks around the world have been decreasing for decades, primarily due to overfishing, and some scientists estimate that our seafood sources will dry up within three decades. In an effort to prevent that, researchers from the University of California, Santa Barbara, analyzed a global database of fisheries and fish catches to determine whether an incentive program known as "catch shares" could help marine ecosystems. Their findings, published today in Science, found that catch shares can stop the decline of fish populations.

"I'll be honest, I was really surprised" by the size of the effect, says lead study author Christopher Costello, a resource economist at the University of California, Santa Barbara's School of Environmental Science & Management. "This could be a very powerful tool towards overcoming the crisis in fisheries."

The catch-share system works somewhat like the stock market: individual fishers are each allowed to net a designated percentage of the total amount of a fish species set aside for fishing annually. The total cap on each fish type is adjusted yearly by the government according to how the well the species is doing. If the fish population increases, the shares increase in value, too. Fishermen can also buy and sell their shares.

For example, if the total limit on a certain population of, say, cod is 100 tons for the year and an angler has been allotted a 2 percent share, then he or she can catch as many as two tons (1.8 metric tons) of cod. Let's say that the cod population increases the next year and the government raises the cap on them to 200 tons (180 metric tons). Now the 2 percent share entitles the same cod haul to be four tons. The bottom line: catch shares give fishermen a financial motive to treat the ocean with care, because they are literally invested in the future of their quarry.

Costello compares the differences between traditional fishing licenses (which expire yearly) and catch shares with the difference between renting and buying a house. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de "When you own a house you have a strong incentive to invest in it," he says. "The fishermen have an incentive to grow the fish stock" by fishing responsibly. http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

Costello and his colleagues based their conclusions on an analysis of more than 11,000 fisheries and catch statistics over a 50-year period. They found that fisheries that used catch shares were about half as likely as those that did not to collapse. They also discovered that when fisheries switched to catch shares, fish populations stopped declining and, according to some analyses, may have reversed course. http://www.bebo.com/LouisS205

"We need to use the methods that are working, and catch shares is one of them," says Ray Hilborn, a fisheries scientist at the University of Washington School of Aquatic & Fishery Sciences in Seattle.

Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, whose Science paper two years ago predicted the collapse of seafood by 2048, praised the study but says that catch shares will work better when combined with other tools, such as banning fishing in sensitive areas.

"What I’m afraid of is there's going to be a giant power struggle when it first happens," says Geoff Bettencourt, a fourth-generation commercial fisherman from Half Moon Bay, Calif. The Pacific Fishery Management Council in Portland, Ore., is considering switching the west coast's groundfish (bottom fish) fishery, which includes more than 80 species, to a catch-share system. "All of a sudden, you could get a big company buying up all the fish and running the whole show—that's scary." But he also says that it could be "a really good thing" if implemented properly. "To have something that we know is sustainable is the best way to invest in our future and making a living," he says.

Even Worm thinks that there is hope for the oceans. Despite worldwide problems with enforcing regulations and the relative lawlessness of the high seas, he says that he is encouraged by the new findings. "I do think we can turn this is around. We have some of the tools. We have the knowledge," he says, "It's a difficult, difficult road ahead, and I think we absolutely can do it." http://Louis-J-Sheehan.de

phenomena 0000128 Louis J. Sheehan

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire

Two new reports challenge the idea, which has been promoted in a series of high-profile studies, that elderly people suffering from serious physical illnesses can prolong their lives just long enough to experience a personally meaningful event, such as a birthday or a religious holiday. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blog.ca

An analysis of California death records from 1985 through 2000, conducted by economist Gary Smith of Pomona College in Claremont, Calif., indicates that elderly Asian immigrants don't put off dying until the week after the Harvest Moon Festival, a major annual event for them. That result counters a 1990 study, based on California data from 1960 through 1984. The earlier investigation found that mortality rates of Chinese women at least 75 years of age dipped in the week before the Harvest Moon Festival and rose in the week after.

Smith's data analysis reveals no sign of death postponement before the Harvest Moon Festival for Chinese-, Korean-, and Vietnamese-Americans. This result held, regardless of whether he defined elderly as being a minimum of 65 years old or 75 years old. It also made no difference whether deaths on the day of the festival were classified as occurring before or after the event.

Moreover, Smith found that the original data from 1960 to 1984 exhibit a death-postponement pattern only if deaths on the festival day are classified as having occurred after the festival. That statistical partition makes no sense, he argues, because the festival's central ritual—a family meal—takes place at midnight at the end of the holiday.

Other prior investigations of this alleged delayed-death effect are also suspect, contend Judith A. Skala and Kenneth E. Freedland, both of Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. They reviewed 18 such studies published between 1973 and 2001. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blog.ca

For example, a 1987 report found a 20 percent rise in deaths shortly after Christmas in Ohio but no corresponding decline in deaths before Christmas. Reanalysis of the data indicated that the surge in deaths actually began 5 days before the holiday and peaked on Christmas Day, the researchers say.

"Research . . . has failed to provide convincing evidence that psychological phenomena such as 'giving up' or 'holding on' can influence the timing of death," Skala and Freedland conclude.

Smith's findings and those of Skala and Freeland appear in the May/June Psychosomatic Medicine.

In a commentary published with the new reports, Ellen L. Idler and Stanislav Kasl, both of Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J., argue that there is still reason to suspect that deaths occur less frequently before major religious holidays than after them. In a 1992 study of elderly residents of New Haven, Conn., Idler and Kasl reported a death-postponement pattern for observant Jews around Yom Kippur and Passover and for observant Christians around Christmas and Easter. http://louis2j2sheehan2esquire.blog.ca

Louis J. Sheehan, Esquire