[Ski]

thanks for the link, Gregory.

[joker]

[MtnGoat]

Wether it is a good thing or a bad thing is relative to a set of standards, and the basis for such standards is not a diversion...it's a fundamental and inherent aspect of the standards themselves. In your concluding sentence, we see the impact of the basis of the standards. I submit that if one does not see human actions as distinct from natural ones, there's no more basis to see competition between species as bad than in any other case where species contend for the same resources. Thank you for further illumination of your argument

[joker]

I think less of a "standard" here than a basic assumption. Which in this case, for me, is that maintaining some level of viable public salmon fishery is important and valuable. That anything which threatens it is bad and destroys value. From what I can tell this isn't about long term competition of species for population dominance, unlike for instance what we have with a few owl species hereabouts. It's about the threat one species, dumped by human error into the unfenced environment, which will tend to have a drag on another w/o providing any long term compensation for this potential population loss. I think rhetoric that drives a discussion to such underlying assumptions is interesting and sometimes even constructive. I generally haven't found lexical debates to provide such a drive. But in this case perhaps it did, if only in order to provide a counterpoint to a debate about whose dictionary to use.

[joker]

And though it's likely moot here due to the apparent unlikelihood that the Atlantics will establish runs here, species diversity across the globe is also valuable from the perspective of increasing likelihood of global-scale resilience with respect to evolution of pests and diseases. One species might be resistant to what decimates another. So on the basis of maintaining global fish stocks, we should do what we can to resist a decrease in species diversity.

[MtnGoat]

Aren't more species in more places an *increase* in diversity, so long as both survive ? So long as goats don't drive an extinction in the Olympics, isn't their presence an increase in diversity of the fauna present?

[joker]

If the existing species remain robust and doesn't suffer any stress caused by the invader then yes at least at a local level. But the liocal salmon species runs aren't even robust to begin with and I'm doubtful that the Atlantics pose zero stress... As for the goats, having the same species of goat that lives elsewhere also in the Olympics may offer some minor protection to the goat species if the Olympics are sufficiently an "island" that's isolated from invation by any pests, diseases, or other stressors that might befall the same species elsewhere; otherwise it does not provide much of the sort of "robustness" benefit I'm writing about. Btw you got me curious about how the dictionary defines "natural" which is based on lexicographer study of actual general usage and with various senses of the word listed in order of declining frequency of use (not to be confused with jargon as defined in specific fields of study and research):

[Ski]

[Ski]

[mike]

Back on topic...(I suggest that the broader topic of invasive species be moved to another thread) catch map

[Ski]

the topic is fish:

fresh wild Alaska Coho Salmon fillet 082917

fabulous!

[Randito]

[Ski]

^ The Hawaiian islands have been inundated with non-native species from around the globe. Some have been good, like hibiscus (the State flower) and plumeria (aka "frangipani".) Some have been disasters: rats, mongooses, and all kinds of plants, one of them a philodendron-type species that climbs up into the trees and chokes them to death (similar to what English Ivy is doing here in local parks.) (Expounding on that, the Hawaiian islands are probably not the best example to use for purposes of discussing non-native species, because originally there was a dearth of species there, the islands being at the tail end of the evolutionary process globally. There have been hundreds, if not thousands, of species of flora introduced to the islands that have been beneficial and have become part of the identify of Hawaii; the hibiscus probably being the most notable.) Simply adding another species to an ecosystem isn't always beneficial, and it certainly doesn't "add to the diversity" if the non-native species wipes out or crowds out the native species; easily seen every day along the cut-banks of Interstate 5 that are overrun with Himalaya Blackberry and Scotch Broom. But all that's just a tangential argument intended to obfuscate the issue at hand, which is a non-native fish being brought into local waters. Whether or not it interbreeds with native fish (it doesn't), or if it takes up residence in local rivers (it doesn't) isn't really the issue. The issue is that the farm-raised fish are rife with pathogens and parasites that have the potential to be passed on to native stocks; the process of sourcing the "fish pellets" that they are being fed is decimating food fish stocks in the Pacific Ocean; and the end product isn't quite as "healthy" as those selling it would like you to believe. If all of that is "natural", then by MtnGoats's definition "natural" would also apply to Soylent Green.

[Ski]

... and thanks for the catch map, mike. Looks like as of about half an hour ago (08/30/17 @ 09:26 PDT) they've got reports of 1345 fish being caught out of the estimated 4000-5000 fish that escaped. (26% - 33% of the estimated total over six days.)

[MtnGoat]