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Coastal Power Plant Records Reveal Decline in Key Southern California Fishes
http://ucsdnews.ucsd.edu/pressrelease/coastal_power_plant_records_reveal_decline_in_key_southern_california_fishe[font face=Serif]July 09, 2013 | By Mario Aguilera
[font size=5]Coastal Power Plant Records Reveal Decline in Key Southern California Fishes[/font]
[font size=4]Downturn across five regions points to broad oceanographic shift[/font]
[font size=3]Recent research documents a dramatic, 40-year drop in a number of key fish species and a change in their community structure, according to a new study led by Eric Miller of MBC Applied Environmental Sciences (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and John McGowan of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
As described in the July 20, 2013, issue of the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, the researchers tapped into a vast, yet nontraditional source of information to formulate their conclusions: An expansive catalog of fish captured and recorded in cooling water systems at five California coastal power plants.
The unique data set is derived from the tens of millions of cubic meters of water filtered at each power plant several times per year. Each fish caught by the cooling systems since 1972 was identified and counted.
…
The bulk average of fish from the early power plant recordings (1972-1983) declined by 78 percent compared with more recent years (1990-2010). The findings, according to the scientists, tend to absolve overfishing as the main culprit in the decline of these fishes because both commercial fish species as well as non-commercial fishes suffered similar population drops.
…[/font][/font]
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2013.04.014[font size=5]Coastal Power Plant Records Reveal Decline in Key Southern California Fishes[/font]
[font size=4]Downturn across five regions points to broad oceanographic shift[/font]
[font size=3]Recent research documents a dramatic, 40-year drop in a number of key fish species and a change in their community structure, according to a new study led by Eric Miller of MBC Applied Environmental Sciences (Costa Mesa, Calif.) and John McGowan of Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
As described in the July 20, 2013, issue of the journal Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science, the researchers tapped into a vast, yet nontraditional source of information to formulate their conclusions: An expansive catalog of fish captured and recorded in cooling water systems at five California coastal power plants.
The unique data set is derived from the tens of millions of cubic meters of water filtered at each power plant several times per year. Each fish caught by the cooling systems since 1972 was identified and counted.
…
The bulk average of fish from the early power plant recordings (1972-1983) declined by 78 percent compared with more recent years (1990-2010). The findings, according to the scientists, tend to absolve overfishing as the main culprit in the decline of these fishes because both commercial fish species as well as non-commercial fishes suffered similar population drops.
…[/font][/font]
