Quote:
Originally Posted by Fishy
Perch populations (as most other fish populations) are depleted typically due to mismanagement. One of the biggest issues is the blind trust a sportsman puts into regulations and one who assumes it is anothers responsibility to manage the resource. Regulations allowing the harvest of any size of a species guarantees that the larger fish, which are more often than not mature breeding females and are typically in an older age class, are removed from the genetic pool of that fishery due to anglers keeping the biggest fish they are allowed to keep. Overtime, the largest fish with the best genetics, which would have allowed their predecessors to obtain a similar size, are all removed from the water and the mean size of fish within the population shrinks overtime, slowly overtime. If this occurs unchecked for a long period than the age class and genetic structure of said fishery becomes permanently altered or stunted. Now, unfortunately many people do not understand what a healthy fishery is as it is a subjective topic,let alone how to manage it, so they assume it is up to the government to make changes to the fishery and make possible the ability to catch the same trophy fish now as it was back in the day. If anglers knew that keeping every "good sized perch" was ultimately destroying their beloved fishery, they would most likely put back the big fish to spread their seed and enhance the fishery and keep the middle sized fish instead. The only way for this to occur is for the regulations in AB to be altered substantially. As for winter-kill, fisheries go through natural cycles, stocked or not, which depend on winter-kill for regrowth and regeneration, similar to a forest fires rejuvenating characteristics. No matter, the onus lies on the sportsman to educate themselves and put into practice the best of conservation practices regardless of the regulations; that is not to say disregard the regulations but when given the opportunity to keep a limit of 5 fish of any size of a species, use mindfulness, and choose wisely.
|
Quote:
Originally Posted by RavYak
Why would that argument break down?
You go to a lake and catch 2 fish, you are only able to keep 1 of them. One is a 10 inch perch and the other is a 15 inch perch. Regarding the 10 inch perch lets arbitrarily say there is a 20% chance it has really good genetics, 20% chance of it being a mature runt and 60% chance of being an average perch. In one case you obviously are removing a good genetic breeder, in the other case you only have a 20% chance of doing so and the same chance of removing a runt. It is pretty obvious which one is the better choice for the fishery.
Similarly lets use cattle as an example. You have a healthy looking cow and a skinny cow and you want to keep one for breeding and butcher the other one. It might be tempting to butcher the healthy cow and hope the skinny cow will still give you good offspring but to do so would most likely be a poor decision in the long run.
Yes there are other reasons for stunting, over population/lack of food being the most obvious one that does significantly affect perch in particular but to dismiss the effects of artificial selection(which angling pressure has to be considered as) is extremely short sighted.
|
That big fishes genetics are in the pool already. Your cattle comparison is laughable. The only way it compares is I'd those two perch you caught were the only two perch available not to mention how far inbred most cattle lines already are.
Also thinking that angling pressure on perch has a larger effect than predation does on natural size selection considering how prolific of breeders they are is also laughable. Who takes more perch. Fisherman keeping only fish 10 inches or better or cormorants, walleye, pike and all their other natural predators?
When those predators are killing perch do you think they are taking the biggest, the smallest or whichever they can fit in their mouths the easiest?
Here since no one wants to go look it up.
https://www.google.ca/url?q=https://...9RD5JrpFTyKUUQ
This next one is just interesting reading material about the natural environment of perch and their habits etc.
https://www.google.ca/url?q=http://w...-ky_GDmQhnG5og
Like I said your argument breaks down.
Also as some bonus material do some reading on the difference between feral genetic distribution and stable lines in animals or plants. I'm not saying angling pressure doesn't put some natural selection on the size of fish but the amount it contributes is negligible.