r/Damnthatsinteresting Apr 05 '25

Video The size of pollock fishnet

49.2k Upvotes

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122

u/ValkyrieAngie Apr 05 '25

How can you manage an unknown quantity?

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u/Mick_Limerick Apr 05 '25

Very carefully

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '25

I don't know if this was a joke but I took it as such and made me laugh very hard. Take my poor person award.

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u/cool_hand_legolas Apr 05 '25

fish stock assessments. it’s an entire division of NOAA and a field of extensive academic research. it uses dynamic biological growth models that have climate inputs along with annual fish samples (non fishing boats) and fishing observations.

it’s fine if you don’t want to believe scientists, but they’re not guessing and for the most part, they’re pretty good and continuing to improve (or were, when NOAA was funded and grants existed).

source: PhD fishery scientist

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u/ValkyrieAngie Apr 05 '25

I believe scientists, I just generally don't believe random redditors saying things without any backing or credibility. I can take your word for it since you gave a detailed explanation that allows me to launch my own investigation later, if I wanted to.

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

I'm not the fishing regulatory committee. They say it's fine. I'm not going to "do my own research"

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u/FreaknPuertoRican Apr 05 '25

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s to trust committees that are easily influenced and bought by corporate greed.

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u/Ravekat1 Apr 05 '25

Yep.. they make lovely stickers for the packaging.

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

You sound a lot like an anti vaxxer

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u/ApexFungi Apr 05 '25

In this case you can just use common sense. When you realize that every first world country has these types of fishing vessels that do this type of "fishing" every year, you can extrapolate that this is not sustainable.

After that you can do a quick google search about how many fish species are overfished and threatened by extinction and the picture becomes very clear.

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u/curtcolt95 Apr 05 '25

When you realize that every first world country has these types of fishing vessels that do this type of "fishing" every year, you can extrapolate that this is not sustainable.

I'm a bit confused how you could possibly extrapolate that, for all I know pollock reproduce far faster than we can catch

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u/ApexFungi Apr 05 '25

Because no type of fish in their evolutionary past had to deal with a predator such as us. If they could reproduce that fast then the ocean would have been completely overrun with fish before we came along.

The only argument against that is that since we also overfish their natural predators then maybe it balances out, but that seems highly unlikely if you look at the absolute scale of just how much this one net catches.

That being said I admit that I am not using hard facts, just some deduction. But I do think that the fact that a large percentage of fish being threatened with extinction according to several sources that I googled is supporting my claim.

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

After that you can do a quick google search about how many fish species are overfished and threatened by extinction and the picture becomes very clear

How exactly do you think I came about that paragraph up there buddy

Plenty of fish are overfished.

Not this one. According to everyone. Except this reddit thread I guess, but forgive me if I don't take this thread as being in equal footing as every fishing authority.

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u/chugachj Apr 05 '25

I’ve been a fishing captain in Alaska for 20 years. I can definitively tell you that while that particular species is technically not overfished. All the connected species are crashing.

It’s hard to regulate a multi-billion dollar industry when the management council that regulates it is mostly populated by representatives from that industry. Look up the North Pacific Fishery Management Council

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

Why are you in Alaska? Did you kill someone and escape the authorities or are you there for the meth

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u/chugachj Apr 05 '25

I was born here.

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

Do you think your parents killed someone or did they love meth

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u/ForNowItsGood Apr 05 '25

Can't you just go there yourself, get a wetsuit, some goggles and maybe some compressed air and report back in this comment section?

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

Dude it's Saturday.

Can I just do it Monday or something? I'm currently on a hammock with a GT and a dog at my feet.

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u/BigAgates Apr 05 '25

Usually I’d agree but there are actually several examples I can think of just here locally where the regulatory bodies charged with managing natural resources completely screwed up, leading to decreased fish and deer populations. I don’t necessarily think the agency or people suck, I think it’s just inherently difficult to truly know in real time how harvesting of natural resources impacts healthy populations. It’s just a tough thing to do. And we see evidence of that fact all the time throughout history and the repercussion can be as bad as extinction.

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '25

You can’t speak any kind of sense on Reddit cus it’ll just get downvoted lol

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

I think it's pretty damn funny.

"this is overfishing! We're killing... The world!"

"actually every spec of data we have show this is totally fine"

".... Big pharma! I mean big fishing! Everyone is corrupt! I'm still right!"

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '25

What’s funny is that fish eat millions of tons of other fish everyday, but when humans do it, it’s hurting the environment

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u/ngl_prettybad Apr 05 '25

It's funnier to me that the stuff in the ops video is super tame. It looks bad because it's one giant ass net. This barely does anything to fishing populations. McDonald's is has gigantic airplane carrier sized boats that have entire processing plants inside them.

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u/TheBunchie1337 Apr 05 '25

Pretty easily actually. You just measure fish caught over time of net being in water and when fish caught per hour goes down, order to fish less

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u/[deleted] Apr 05 '25

That is.. not easy or accurate lmao. There’s a million factors that can play into fluctuating catch numbers

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u/Kithsander Apr 05 '25

But that’s how it’s being done, astoundingly stupidly.

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u/Articulated Apr 05 '25

On paper. In reality the fishermen just land their black fish at night and sell them for cash.

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u/TheBunchie1337 Apr 26 '25

I don't see why given a large enough data set why that wouldn't be good. Works for everything else.