Computer Lab Assignment 1

Due Tuesday, February 19th
 
 

Internet Resources and Resource Depletion

After reading Cod by Mark Kurlansky, it’s pretty clear that the northern cod, Gadus morhua is in real trouble as a commercial fish and maybe as a fish period. What about other food resouces we harvest – are there similar examples you can find?

Using the Internet do the following:

Find a species (marine or terrestrial)  harvested for food or for body parts which appears to be under stress.

1. What is the species? (common name and scientific name)
2. Briefly describe its present population parameters and recent trends.
3. What government(s)/international bodies control the harvest of this species.

What are the current regulations (brief summary)
4. What is the social organization of the harvesters:

e.g. individuals, family, extended family, cooperatives, corporation, and or multinationals?
5. What current conservation efforts are underway?

some useful urls for fisheries:

http://www.fishbase.org/search.cfm

http://www.fao.org/fi/default.asp

http://www.fisheries.ubc.ca/