John Timmer over at Ars Technica has for us this little tidbit. Apparently offshore oil rigs are, hands down, the most productive fisheries on the planet.
To measure the productivity, they relied on an annual survey performed with a remotely operated vehicle. Different sites were visited for at least five years, some as many as 15, with fish abundance and species assessed visually. Total biomass was also estimated from this data, and the change in biomass between years was then normalized to the area of seafloor covered by the survey.
The numbers were staggering. The most productive places in the scientific literature (a reef in Tahiti and an estuary in Louisiana) saw annual productivity of about 75 grams for each square meter. The lowest of the oil rigs came in at 105 grams per square meter per year, and the highest as nearly 900. The authors were even being conservative by not including any fish more than a couple of meters from the structure, which ignores the entire water column enclosed by the rig's legs.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by NoMaster on Wednesday October 15 2014, @09:16AM
... (though not a marine ecologist), this surprises me not one little bit.
Large increases in adjacent biomass is one of a variety of well-known (but not always well-understood) phenomena that occur pretty much wherever and whenever 'artificial' structures meet &/or disturb 'nature'.
Whether it's good or bad is a totally different thing, and depends on your PoV, whether the effect is short term or long term, destabilising or disruptive, the strength & resilience (or otherwise) of the original and adjacent ecosystems, etc, etc, etc.
Live free or fuck off and take your naïve Libertarian fantasies with you...
(Score: 1) by LAngeOliver on Wednesday October 15 2014, @10:44AM
I did not read the article, but could the biomass been there prior to the oil rig? Oil is made from biomass I gather...
Decode your health [biogeniq.ca]
(Score: 4, Informative) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 15 2014, @10:54AM
Possible but highly unlikely as there were rigs that showed ten times or better the biomass of the most densely populated natural places. Makes sense really when you consider they measured by square meter and rigs are quite tall compared to any naturally occurring structures.
Might be worth considering building similar structures simply for the fish but then they might be cost prohibitive unless you're pulling money back out in the form of oil.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 15 2014, @11:19AM
If they built Fish Rigs™, they could use them as fishing platforms while contributing to ocean life by providing a new habitat and place for the fish to get it on. It would be interesting to see if these platforms help increase the fish population, although if we end up using them to catch said fish, there might be the opposite effect. These rigs could be used to study our oceans as well. They require no petrol based fuel as they are not moving about like ships, and they could be solar powered.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday October 15 2014, @01:17PM
It's a nice thought. As well as the environmental benefits, there would be huge safety improvements compared to deep sea fishing, which (IIRC) claims more lives annually than almost any other industry.
Actually catching the fish would be easier too, you could have nets permanently installed, ready to lift the fish out whenever you want. Maybe put some fences around it, to keep predators out and separate your fish form the general fishy population (for disease control & inventory control) and what you've effectively invented is a fish farm.
The major drawback that I can see is that the fish you are harvesting probably won't be the varieties people are used to eating - Most people are used to eating tuna, cod, haddock, plaice and salmon, but might not be keen to try species they aren't used to. This might affect the prices you can get for your farmed fish.
(Score: 2) by paulej72 on Wednesday October 15 2014, @01:17PM
Team Leader for SN Development
(Score: 2) by MrGuy on Wednesday October 15 2014, @03:30PM
New York City's retired subway cars [fastcodesign.com] have been cleaned, detoxified, and dumped into the Atlantic for years as part of artificial reef programs along the east coast, for example. The results are overwhelming positive. I can't find a source, but I recall hearing that it's so positive that New York can actually CHARGE for retired cars, rather than just give them away.
Granted, it's not a stable above-water rig as you describe, but the idea of deliberately placing man-made structures in the sea to help the fish population is already a mainstream one.
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Wednesday October 15 2014, @10:25PM
Same has been done with old cars, with similar results. Sometimes trash really is treasure.
The reason it works, per what I've read, is that it provides anchorage for plants and shelter for the small critters, which naturally attracts the critters that eat the former, and pretty soon you've got a biosphere where before it was open ocean. Essentially it creates a bit of coastline with more than average nooks and crannies usable by all these life forms.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by ngarrang on Wednesday October 15 2014, @06:20PM
Rather than a reef, they need to compare the square meter coverage of a seamount, a structure that would equal or surpass the area being measured of an oil rig.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday October 15 2014, @09:40PM
Nah, it's a fair n valid measurement if you're looking to pack as much sea life as possible in a given area. As an avid fisherman myself, I'm pondering bringing this to the attention of and suggesting something similar but on a smaller scale to our state fish and game department. Could make for a hell of a fishing platform in the bigger lakes around here.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 15 2014, @03:23PM
> I did not read the article, but could the biomass been there prior to the oil rig? Oil is made from biomass I gather...
Not in the way you are thinking.
But I think a better question would be: Do the structures encourage the growth of more biomass, or are they just attracting living creatures that were already dispersed in the adjacent waters so that now the adjacent waters have reduced levels of fish because they've all concentrated around the structures.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday October 15 2014, @10:00AM
Build it and they will come! :)
(Score: 2, Insightful) by lentilla on Wednesday October 15 2014, @11:21AM
Isn't this just a rather expensive Fish Aggregating Device [wikipedia.org]?
(Perhaps it's simply greenwashing [wikipedia.org].)
(Score: 2) by Leebert on Wednesday October 15 2014, @04:12PM
Nope, those are just a FAD.
...
No? OK, I'll show myself out.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Wednesday October 15 2014, @04:24PM
No. I am curious if your statement about "greenwashing" based on something in TFS/A or are you assuming that the research is loaded and the oil companies are using this to build more rigs? I'm reasonably sure that no amount of increased biodiversity or population created by Big Oil would ever satisfy the Left Coast. There has to be a villain now a-days so one can flock together either in fear or recreational outrage. How else could we EVER live without that?
Ahem, back to the point...
Haven't RTFA, but I assume they work like the do in the US gulf and act basically as artificial reefs. I read an article where there was a question what to do with platforms after the drilling stopped. Many marine biologists recommended leaving them (or sinking them depending on the type) to maintain the existing or possibly create an artificial reef biome. Populations actually grow in these "reefs" so it isn't like FADs which simply relocate the existing populations. The only thing that may be different is the water temps off California - I'd assume the warmer waters off Texas would be more conducive. Nobody says these platforms are good for the environment, but there is an opportunity to turn the lemon into lemonade as they say.
Regardless, artificial reefs are effective because they provide attachment points for plants and animals that require it during their life-cycle. No surprise that populations congregate and grow around such areas. A better study would be between active rigs, inactive rigs and the various other forms of artificial reefs in the area.
(Score: 1) by lentilla on Wednesday October 15 2014, @05:11PM
I am curious if your statement about "greenwashing" based on something in TFS/A or are you assuming that the research is loaded and the oil companies are using this to build more rigs?
Perhaps I should not have been so baiting. It was nice to see something positive about oil for a change - somebody has found a small silver lining in that particular cloud.
are you assuming that the research is loaded and the oil companies are using this to build more rigs?
I have no reason to doubt the research. I assume someone thought it was interesting and did some measurements. As for oil companies building more rigs... that's going to keep happening until we manage to wean ourselves off fossil fuels, likely at the point where we find something cheaper.
recreational outrage
What a lovely turn of phrase! I'll try to remember that when the news gets too gloomy.
(Score: 2) by RaffArundel on Wednesday October 15 2014, @06:03PM
I was going for the slightly humorous (Left Coast, Big Oil) and I just noticed you could have taken the "are you assuming..." the wrong way, and you didn't, thanks. It's that stupid singular/plural "you" that makes it hard!
In fact, I really wanted to hear them try and say "our oil rigs are a boon to the ecology of marine life" similar to the way they say "our researchers are busy creating a brighter cleaner energy future" in their commercials. That is certainly greenwashing and definitely an eye-roller. I appreciate programs like the Texas State funded Artificial Reef project, http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/landwater/water/habitats/artificial_reef/overview.phtml [state.tx.us] Though some people around here would be very jaded about it. However, the companies participating definitely don't pretend they do it for the good of the gulf - it's just cheaper to turn them over than pay to decommission them.
I stole Recreational Outrage from somewhere that I forget now. I felt it summed up the tendency for people of all political leanings to jump on a cause they didn't/don't care about just so they can rant at how evil something or someone is. I see it as slacktivist reverse-trolling - if you care that much do something about it!
(Score: 1) by J.J. Dane on Wednesday October 15 2014, @03:35PM
straight out of the net. Brilliant concept!
(Score: 0) by fritsd on Wednesday October 15 2014, @09:55PM
Fish cancer is probably also denser tissue than regular fish meat, because cancer cells grow a lot faster.
Yay! More grams / cubic meter / year yield! Who cares what it tastes like.
Decades ago one of my uncles told of a friend of his who used to go fishing near an industrial area.
He caught loads of fish, because nobody else fished there. Ok, they usually had massive warts and boils, but hey, they were free, and came pre-packaged with their own preserving oil!
(Score: 1) by fritsd on Wednesday October 15 2014, @09:58PM
I just noticed the summary talks about grams per *square* meter as unit of biomass. Even plaices have a third dimension, though. What did I misunderstand???
(Score: 2) by pogostix on Wednesday October 15 2014, @10:31PM
I wonder if it's just several tons of barnacles that tipped the scales.