Fisheries Ecosystems: Any Images of Biodiversity in the Water?

Do you have any images which demonstrate biodiversity. Who are the fisherman, nature observers and divers who can share their images?

Biodiversity does seem like some "P.C." liberal, "tree huggers" term. Actually our lives depend on it! This one term needs to be understood, loved and fought for.

Not only does it make for pretty pictures but it allows each species to have a diverse DNA bank to facilitate robust new generations.

Also many many different species are needed because each is part of a complex balance that allows the sea to work as a shopping cart for other larger fish that we eat and as the cleaners and energy supplies to get the whole shebang to work!

Otherwise, we get just a blook of red, green or purple algae and the fungus and bacteria that can feed on them. A very more replacement for abundanr fish that we can eat!


This coral reef lies in a Marine Protected Area off the coast of Papua New Guinea. Protection of areas which are high in biodiversity, and which fish use as nurseries, would be a priority for safeguarding fish stocks. (Image: ARC COE for Coral Reef Studies/Marine Photobank)


A major international study, pulling together major research from around the world has come up with frightening conclusions about the rate of collapse of wild fish polulations. The evidence appears solid and the conclusions important,

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6108414.stm

We get pictures of terrestial wildlife. Now let's have the creatures of the rivers, seas and oceans!

Asher

How about this young elk fording the Madison River in Yellowstone last week?


Nill
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www.toulme.net

Ask and ye shall receive.

Pygmy Seahorse, Canon EOS 10D, Subal C10 Housing, Tamron SP90mm Macro



Underwater Sunrise, Tubbataha Reef National Marine Park, Philippines
Canon EOS 5D, EF15mm Fisheye





Stewart

Three-year-old grizzly fording the Firehole River, same day:


DISCLAIMER: I am not a nature photographer, but I aspire to become one. These are really just snapshots.

Nill
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www.toulme.net

pc - or cowards?




This image is on the wall of a building in the small town in which I grew up. The folk depicted are long gone, but 40 years ago, there were on this river, about 20 licenced salmon fishing boats, rowing boats as shown here. They used seine nets, probably half a mile or so long, heavy manual work for a team of three or four men per boat. They may have caught up to six or seven salmon per tide per boat, often they would catch none, but on average it gave a good living to probably 30 families. The fishermen could be selective as to which salmon they killed.

Then, factory ships and trawlers, from Russia, and elsewhere, arrived off the coast. A few years later, there were hardly any salmon in the river. The last time I enquired, there was one licence issued to a part timer, who was just trying to keep alive the tradition.

At about the same time, the UK was sending gun ships to protect our fishing fleets fishing inside the then recently extended Icelandic territorial waters - 'the cod wars'. Now, we have no fishing fleet worth counting, the eu regulations mean that the Spanish and others are based in our traditional fishing ports, but that will not be for much longer.

Its pretty obvious to anyone involved in the business as to why the fish stocks have dwindled.

The wild salmon have been replaced by cage bred substitutes in Scotland, fed on dyed food to give the pink colour, poisoning the sea bed beneath the cages with their concentrated droppings.

It is just large corporation greed. The bbc can not tell the truth, never has for a long time. The individual scientists will slant their opinions, to line up with whoever pays their bills. Talk to the people who got their living from the sea, the small guys who lived close to what they did. They said the same as this report 30 years ago.

(image url is http://www.broadwayhouse.com/photos/DCP00434.JPG - lifted for educational purposes

Today on CNN: Report: Seafood faces collapse by 2048

Nill
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www.toulme.net

Rocky Shore Camouflage

This was chosen for species variety. The shot is documentary rather than artistic as I have yet to get the hang of artistically capturing well camouflaged critters. I suspect I will need more complex lighting to do that.


This shot illustrates the coming together of intertidal special on a rocky shore in the mid-intertidal zone.

I have many more shots isolating species than showing them together.

enjoy,

Sean

Sean DeMerchant said:

... The shot is documentary rather than artistic as I have yet to get the hang of artistically capturing well camouflaged critters. ...

Click to expand...

I'd say you did pretty darn well in that one. I think that's a lovely shot as well as an extremely interesting one.

Nill
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www.toulme.net

Thanks all you guys for the wonderful images. I'm so thrilled to see all this great work. Make it a commitment to put before us more of this beauty so the camera serves to show us the wonders you see and a glimpse of the great truth.

I was a bit worried that no one would respond. Let me go through some points:


Steve, that pygmy seahorse is stunning. What is behind? Is it coral?

Nill, the bears depends on the fat in the salmon to survive the winter. No hibernating safely without that. Bears can eat a lot of things, but sallmon is important.

Now, in some places, 90% of the male salmon coming up the river to spawn, are actually genetically female masculinized by chemicals! These fish are in decline and that's sad.

Now the salmon remains are eaten by specific bird populations that rely on the selectively devoured carcuses of salmon left by the bears.

Other creatures need this food sources too.

Ray,

What town was the picture from? I'd like to see it on a map. The people bring some sense of human tragedy to the story. I'd love to know more. Are there images of the early life in this area of fishermen?

Did they repair their nets as a family venture like in Cem's picture from Turkey?

Ron,

Sea creatures seem to have been designed for you and Steven! Beautiful work. Could you add the details of how and why you set up the shots in a particular way?

Sean,

As ever you are learned and skilled too. That you can name the creatures is great. Again, the photographic details and casing? What is the location and depth of the creatures you are shooting. Do you ever use flash to get the dark guys?

What is a tidepool Sculpin related too? Also what are those long striated strands in front of it?

Asher

fiddler crabs...showing a thriving return in some places near me...

Nill Toulme said:

I'd say you did pretty darn well in that one. I think that's a lovely shot as well as an extremely interesting one.

Click to expand...

Thanks Nil. The issue is more of what I envision versus what I capture. I am confortable with the technical aspect, but these models simply ignore me and cannot take stage direction if their life depended upon it. <smile> Truth be told, their life depends more on hiding from larger creatures than pleasing me.

I do think some experimentation with more directional light may help. The Autumn nighttime low tides are soon and I will go out with flash and a headlamp and see what I can do.

enjoy,

Sean

Marian,

What's the story about these fiddler crabs? Were they scarse and what factors if known influenced these population changes? Sometimes there are new water treatment plants or controls on some effluents or else a protected zone. Or is it just chance?

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

Sean,

As ever you are learned and skilled too. That you can name the creatures is great. Again, the photographic details and casing? What is the location and depth of the creatures you are shooting. Do you ever use flash to get the dark guys?

What is a tidepool Sculpin related too? Also what are those long striated strands in front of it?

Click to expand...

Hi Asher,

Thanks. <smile> Naming the creatures is what leaves my website so far behind my shooting as it is an extra layer of work (I print many things long before anyone sees them on the net).

The photographic details are 100/2.8 macro and straight 550 EX on the body on a cloudy day. This is a portrait format crop from a landscape composition limiting prints to about 8x12 or 11x14 before getting too fuzzy. I am not patient enough to wait and hope a creature which hides from my motion will appear in my chosen composition when I can get off a 100 or more shots of many more specimens and species in the same time frame. Especially since many shots are ruined by bubbles on the surface of the water. Add in the dreadful skylight reflections off water on a cloudy day and the exceedingly long exposures that will not stop motion a polarizer creates and anything but flash is untenable excepting direct sunshine (it was cloudy and almost raining that day). I do not use casings as I keep my camera out of the water. But I also live a 10 minute drive (followed by a 20 minute rapid hike) from some excellent tidepools and I know the beach fairly well and where exactly to go for what species.

In shorter terms, anyone with a close focussing lens could capture this type of thing by getting their feet wet when the tides are right in the right locale.

Flash is also important because many intertidal species are nocturnal (there is way more out at night than by dya) and there simply is no way to shoot them with a tripod at all as even the slowest moving is likely to be severely blurred by wind rippling the water during a 10 minute full moon exposure. Albeit, light painting might be fun to try sometime.

For the shot, the setup is wet feet often out of water and carefully placed on small barnacles on the rocks that are less likely to be shattered by my weight and the fish in 5-30 cm of water, typically less than 15 cm in depth. I probably saw roughly 50 tidepool sculpin specimens during 2 hours. These tidepool sculpins are often 6-12 cm long.

Sadly, due to the flash being too far from the lens axis one cannot get closer than about 1:2.5 magnification as much closer than that and reflection of the light source of the water becomes a major issue. With a ring flash or other macro flash it may be less troublesome. I have yet to experiment using wireless at the late night low tides.

As to sculpins, I know little. They are an Order, Family, or Tribe of fishes and can vary in size and coloration. They are purportedly not good to eat and have a spiny character. Many species of sculpin (if not all) lack scales. Sadly, while my book (the bible to many local beachcombers) is great for IDs, it is lacking in depth detail (lots of breadth though).

The strands at upper right are coralline algae which retains large amounts of calcium chloride during its life leaving behind strange skeletal structures.

This example shows a sculpin swimmming over a frame filled with the texture of a coralline algae.

This photo-illustration (heavy cloning out of OoF bubbles) shows a more artistic example of a sculpin. Below is a detail from that shot.


The following detail illustrates the camouflaged character a sculpin against the rocks. Please note 25 miles to the south on sandy shores these fish have completely different coloration that matches the lighter coloring of the sand. Their adaptation to their environment is amazing over such a short distance.

I'm so impressed that one can get such clear pictures throught the water. Why is the water so clear?

I guess that these pools have enough isolation from the tides to let all the particulates settle. Even then, I'd have expected some cloudiness!

Asher

Asher Kelman said:

I'm so impressed that one can get such clear pictures throught the water. Why is the water so clear?

I guess that these pools have enough isolation from the tides to let all the particulates settle. Even then, I'd have expected some cloudiness!

Click to expand...

This specific set of shots was shot in tidepools on a near windless day so that deals with most of the surface issues excepting bubbles. But I think the real issue here is that this water is regularly exchanged at a global level as the tides are on a major influx of water from the Pacific Ocean (the Straight of Juan de Fuca between Vancouver Island and the Olympic Peninsula) so the water changes regularly with cold ocean water avoiding the worst algal blooms most of the time (bad red tide/paralytic shellfish poison this year due to the high temps). Another result is the water is cold year round with the exception of certain intertidal zones where insolation has a significant effect.

Add in that these shots are in shallow water so even though it is a deep blue when 2 m (6 feet) deep, there is not enough depth to accumulate enough color to be notable. The sea is not a lake with obvious algae everywhere at 6 inches depth. Also, the shores here still have moderate (not good) health and lots of filter feeders which clean it.

There is also a low population density locally which reduces pollution even 30 miles NNW of Seattle. Albeit, on the opposite side of the island from where I live the beach is closed due to fecal coliform bacteria (an probable indicator of e-coli).

Another factor is rocky and sandy shores are the norm here so there is not a lot of particulate sediment to be stirred up. On a sandy shore the matter churned up by the tide tends to settle fast.

Anyway, I have also been contemplating going over my archives recently and so I will likely have a few more shots with a broad interpretation of the your desired subject. i.e., herons eating, people and pets in the water, a few of species diversity, anemones feeding (okay, being fed*), and such.

enjoy,

Sean

* A major storm this last year apparently killed off a huge Christmas Tree Anemone that I had been shooting for years and feeding hermit crabs to every time I visited to shoot it eating.

Asher Kelman said:

I'm so impressed that one can get such clear pictures throught the water. Why is the water so clear?

Click to expand...

Hi Asher,

A factor I forgot to mention is wide radius sharpeing with low amounts. i.e.

Smart Sharpen using lens blur three times with:

radius, amount

30, 3%
15, 5%
7.5, 10%

This does no edge sharpening while greatly increasing local contrast. It is great for nature and landscape shots, and it is great for making people have grotesquely overdefined facial features.

enjoy,

Sean

Asher Kelman said:

Marian,

What's the story about these fiddler crabs? Were they scarse and what factors if known influenced these population changes? Sometimes there are new water treatment plants or controls on some effluents or else a protected zone. Or is it just chance?

Asher

Click to expand...

Atlantic Marsh Fiddler Crab (Uca Pugnax) live off the nutrients in the mud of the tidal marshes, so for them to survive, the marshes, wetlands, and water have to be healthy. as we work to clean up our watersheds and and our waters we see examples of resurgence like this. i spent hours as kid sitting on the dock watching these guys at low tide (ok, we used to like to startle them and watch them disappear in seconds too LOL ) but the quantities of them dropped significantly in the '70's and '80's. this particular group lives on the tidal marsh which separates a small island from the mainland. increasing population along the immediate shore and increased harbor usage threatened them but the populations seems to be strong now.

so like Sean, i too monitor the intertidal zone but instead of a rocky shore we have extensive wetlands and marshes. the health of our various intertidal zones tells us alot about the health of our environment as they get hit from both the land and the sea. sometimes our regulations and protections seem overkill, but then a simple sight like these crabs makes me smile.

I think Sean deserves a ringflash. Perhaps we should pass the hat to buy him one.

BTW, a "sculpin" is a widely used type of fly in saltwater fly fishing, so something must eat them.

Nill
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www.toulme.net

Nill Toulme said:

BTW, a "sculpin" is a widely used type of fly in saltwater fly fishing, so something must eat them.

Click to expand...

I had to add this image, to answer Nill's speculation:



This is a pie-billed grebe eating a sculpin at Ding Darling NWR, FL last March. The term "sculpin" includes a fairly wide variety of both fresh and salt-water fish species.

BTW, I think a good caption for this image (showing it coming from the sculpin) might be "What a day I'm having!!!

We don't fish for grebes. My buddy did hook a tern on a backcast in Montana this summer. Almost landed him...

Nill
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www.toulme.net

p.s. I really like that shot Don, but I think it needs to be rotated about two degrees clockwise.

Nill
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www.toulme.net

This sight needs to be normal. In schools I'd have all children visit parklands to see animals and birds, wetlands and more.

I'm starting to think that Disneyization of animals distances children and adults from real life cycles.

So I not only like your proof picture, but it can explain to kids a lot more than classes in being P.C. and "concerned" about the environment in high school" or college.

Stewert, Ron, Sean, Mariam (and even Nil and birdman Don), your love of life is a great backbone for this forum, worth more than any lens or camera. Thanks for sharing your photographs.

I was in Hawai last year snorkling over the coral with such wonderful fish around me. I wish I had a camera casing. One needed to be below the water level because the surface was moving with the wind and tide. Even then, the water was still pristine. One can't walk around because the coral is fragile. However, the colored fish swim past your face. I was mesmerized until a sting ray came too close and scared me off! Probably wouldn't have bothered me!

Asher

Hi Asher,

Glad you liked the pygmy seahorse. That critter is about 1/4" long and lives exclusively on a particular type of coral fan. Very hard to find as they're so tiny and usually turns away from the photographer...this fellow was in 60 feet of water. BTW, the Tamron is a fantastic lens but is a bit slow in AF, so I replaced it with the EF100 USM Macro.

Here's one more for you...on the other end of the size spectrum. Pacific Manta Ray, can grow to be over 20 feet across, this one is fairly small, just over 6 ft.



Stewart

Nill Toulme said:

p.s. I really like that shot Don, but I think it needs to be rotated about two degrees clockwise.

Click to expand...

Dang, Nill - you're absolutely right! I'm usually pretty compulsive about having horizons, etc. level. I don't know how that one slipped by me!

I'm just grateful for the opportunity to make a small contribution to your wonderful work. ;-)

Nill
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www.toulme.net