Fish Find Home in California Oil Platforms (Califorinia 2006)

boatingchannel.com ^ | March 14, 2006 | Tim Molloy

[Jet Jaguar]

10 years? hmmm.

[Tax-chick]

The Texas State Aquarium has an oil-platform exhibit, showing the kinds of fish that live in this environment.

[al baby]

We have fished the oil derricks for decades its the heat and pilings i say dril drill drill

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

We who fish call this “structure”.

[Hi Heels]

‘Xactly what I was thinking.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Yeah, like docks and lifts and trees and rocks............

It good for the fish. Fish like stuff to hang around.

Like caribou and the pipelines in Alaska.

You get it.

I get it.

This cannot be that difficult.

Bump the FReepathon thread.

[Wiseghy]

This has been a surprise in many quarters. Any diver will tell you that wrecks are great places to dive, since they provide an artificial reef for fish. It would be ironic if old oil platforms became big time recreational diving reefs.

Much of the ocean bottom in most areas is basically the land equivalent of a desert, until you introduce a reef.

I wish they would lighten up the environmental requirements for sinking old navy vessels as reefs as well.

[Tax-chick]

So I hear. I’ve done more fishing in farm ponds, but even there, a few old stoves provide fish habitat!

[Clock King]

Marine biologist Milton Love drives a hybrid car, displays a banner of left-wing revolutionary Che Guevara on his laboratory wall - and has backing from Big Oil.

Another soft science nerd who never worked a hard day in his life and gets paid to play in the surf all day. These types of "scientists" are useless, IMHO.

[chaos_5]

"Just because fish are there doesn't mean the platform constitutes habitat," says Linda Krop, an attorney for the Santa Barbara-based Environmental Defense Center. "That's like taking a picture of birds on a telephone wire and saying it's essential habitat"

This woman is a real idiot!

[dfwddr]

We who fish call this “structure”.

And with structure, there is life.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

We call them “cribs”. The fish congregate there to feed, spawn and raise their wee’uns.

[Blood of Tyrants]

Every angler on the Louisiana and Texas coast knows that the best places to fish are near the drilling platforms.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Exactly.

[Tax-chick]

Don’t “Environmentalists” just drive you nuts? No amount of facts about successful fish populations will change their minds.

[Navy Patriot]

It's a disaster for marine life when the platforms are removed. Those that were removed per agreement were purchased by fishing industry municipalities and dropped offshore of their harbors to punch up the local catch.

Humberto Fontova has an interesting take on platform fisheries here: Helldivers

[willyd]

True that!!!

[GOPJ]

These types of "scientists" are useless, IMHO.

This guy didn't jigger the numbers to "discover" what he wanted to see - he's not some "AlGore type scientist" finding whatever backs his politics. If he can handle the truth, he's NOT useless.

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

They’re not interested in facts or the truth.

They set their agenda and that is all they care about.

[Tax-chick]

Exactly. Human intervention is great for many animal populations (coyotes on your street? I’ve got ‘em!) but try getting an “environmentalist” to acknowledge that.