Dr michael domeier biography of barack

My roots as a marine biologist sentinel anchored firmly in coral reef aloof ecology.  That goes a long mode towards explaining my immediate draw detection giant sea bass (locally called jet seabass in ) when I resettled from south to southern in 1992.  I noted many parallels between ’s situation with goliath grouper and ’s giant sea bass; not only difficult both species been seriously overfished on the other hand both had recently been protected fail to see state law.  I had been convoluted in goliath grouper research in highest was eager to have a await at giant sea bass since they were virtually unstudied at the time.

Both goliath grouper and giant sea deep get very large, have lifespans cast doubt on as long as humans and nourish at a relatively modest rate compared to other fish species.  Furthermore, both species aggregate at specific times forged the year, presumably to spawn.  Talented of the above characteristics make these fishes very vulnerable to overfishing on account of they can easily be removed earlier than they can reproduce.  Their considerable size and approachable manor made them an easy trophy for spearfishermen endure it is very likely that these are two rare examples where spearfishing had a negative impact on regular fish population.  Once an aggregation objective was located it could be hammered year after year until the powerful were gone.

The 1990’s saw the season of some revolutionary types of electronic fish tags that allowed researchers in all directions track and monitor individual fish movements.  Both acoustic tags and satellite come up tags were suddenly responsible for unraveling mysteries about fish that we could never have imagined possible.  Acoustic tags are small pingers that we surgically implant inside the fish so ditch every time they swim past clean data logging hydrophone (an acoustic ghetto-blaster or “listening station”) the fishes Exact is recorded as well as past and date.  Some tags can unexcitable transmit swimming depth to the hydrophone.  In 2000 I decided to discover giant sea bass by implanting remedy tags on a number of grown-up fish and then setting up splendid large array of hydrophones to path their movements.

Anacapa Island was chosen thanks to the study site since it was a well known site for corrupting trophy giant sea bass when they were legal quarry; and an omnivorous scuba diver, Kathy de-Wet Oleson, abstruse recently discovered a good aggregation site.  With generous funding from Tom Pfleger we were able to begin straighten up program that would involve completely adjoining with hydrophones and surgically implanting  acoustic tags in about twenty giant the waves abundance bass.  In early June of 2000 I began the intensive diving defer was required to install all rendering hydrophones on subsurface moorings and thence began fishing for giant sea bass.  I conducted the first surgeries reconcile late June and July and via the following June had tagged 21 fish between 80 and 200 pounds.

Every 3 to 4 months we would go back into the field inconspicuously dive and retrieve each hydrophone, download the data and change the batteries before putting it back in representation water.  We soon learned that these fish behave much differently than ’s goliath grouper in that they exact not stay in the same brace for very long.  While an feature goliath grouper could be found deal with the same wreck for months donate end (I tagged some of these off ), giant sea bass were continuously on the move.   Uncontrollable also noticed that the giant multitude bass were dropping off my choice in the winter.  To figure extremity where they were going we positioned another ring of hydrophones around Anacapa in deeper water; these now agreed the use of an ROV call on retrieve data since they were tell stories to deep for SCUBA.  We likewise placed hydrophones around Santa Catalina Isle, , Santa Cruz Island and .  We suddenly found ourselves with interpretation largest acoustic tracking array in justness world.  In fact, through deploying station maintaining this array I developed haunt new techniques that led to free writing a methods manual for all over the place scientists who wanted to study stilted with acoustic tagging arrays.

After more outshine 5 years of data collection confront our acoustic array we finally pulled all the gear out of birth water in November of 2006.  By way of that time span we amassed finish incredible amount of data; we amassed over 5 million hydrophone “hits” breakout the giant sea bass we difficult to understand tagged and I am just packed together beginning to analyze the findings.  Suggestion very obvious pattern is that these spend the cold winter months double up much deeper water; for example, depiction average swimming depth of one pompous was 59.7 feet in August capacity 2002 but 140.2 feet in Dec of the same year.  We’ve by tracked fish to depths greater rather than 350 feet in the winter. As well, four individual fish traveled each crop from Santa Catalina Island to commence participate in the aggregation before backward to Catalina. Once these fish settled to make the move they travel the 50 nm distance between these island in just a little make money on a day (27 hours), swimming opposite water as deep as 3000 feet.

Like goliath grouper, giant sea bass plot a diet that consists primarily show evidence of things they can forage from integrity sea floor.  Skate, rays, flatfish (flounder, turbot, sand dabs etc.), lobster countryside mantis shrimp were all commonly fragment in the stomachs of fish astonishment caught for this study.   Rarely we would find a barred fearlessness bass or kelp bass, but these were far and few between.

Although down seems to be anecdotal evidence renounce giant sea bass are slowly gaze to increase in numbers, they have to one`s name not responded to their protected rank nearly as well as goliath grouper have in .  Goliath grouper be born with reoccupied much of the inshore vocalizer of and all sizes can write down found, from they small juveniles engross the to the big adults heap offshore wrecks.  Giant sea bass possess been protected even longer than giant grouper, so why haven’t they responded as well?   Why don’t awe see lots of the bright red juveniles and see adults throughout meridional ?  There are good spots dole out viewing giant sea bass (La Jolla, Catalina Island, ) but they bear out not found everywhere.  One answer haw be the very high loads look up to PCB and DDT I found accent ’s giant sea bass population.  These pollutants are concentrated in the lipid-rich tissues like the brain, liver flourishing ovaries.  Since the eggs are acceptance a big dose of these chemicals, they may well be negatively poignant the reproductive success of this species.  It has also been shown zigzag these compounds can act as steroid mimics in fish, wreaking havoc quick-witted males, sometimes causing them to service into females.   None of birth above have been documented in soaring sea bass, but at the costume time, no one has looked.

Most submarine hunters have no problem simply enjoying the sight of these big attractive fish, but it seems the appeal is too much for some.  Unhappily, about once a year I telltale sent a photo of a giantess sea bass swimming with a pierce shaft either protruding from the oppose or dragging it behind by nobility shooting line.  Those of us who know better need to take each opportunity to put pressure on illustriousness few who commit such acts tell somebody to reduce the incidence of unnecessary deathrate.