GREENIE WATCH [https://antigreen.blogspot.com/?m=1] had an article a couple of days ago about the stupidity of Biden’s attack on oil leases in the Gulf of Mexico. They showed a bunch of greenies the truth of what commercial fishermen have been telling everyone. The oil rigs & platforms have attracted huge schools of fish, not seen before to their areas. Natural coral reefs & artificial reefs attract some fish, but the oil rigs are covered in coral, & the fish life swarms around them.

This of course confirms what every water person, particularly fishermen have known for centuries. Man made structures are the preferred habitat for fish.

When I was running tourist boats in the Whitsundays we were living on my yacht, moored in Shute harbor, then the access port for the tourist boats, & the resort islands. My lady who likes fish, wanted to do some fishing, & was very disappointed with the results fishing off the yacht. I showed her that fishing from the dingy, right beside one of the small islands would be better, but if you seriously wanted to catch fish, fishing off the commercial wharf was a much better prospect, even with continual marine traffic.

When the Hook underwater observatory went in some were worried the chosen spot while great for sighting the building, it was a naturally barren spot. They need not have worried. Once in, even before the display wings were stacked with coral, the fish had moved in in schools.

There were so many that they were eating the coral polyps at a much greater rate than anticipated, requiring constant replacement. It is such a pity that greenies are so wedded to their faulty ideology, that they have trouble seeing the truth.

Hi Hasbeen,

What an interesting topic.

Thank You.

The oil platforms according to scientific magazines off
the California coast are the most productive fish
habitats anywhere in the world including mangrove and
coral reefs.

Than Gov. of California Arnold Schwarzenegger apparently
signed a law enabling California to consider taking over
old platforms as artificial reefs.

That was then. Today the issue remains far from settled.
Experts say it depends on the rig.

Apparently companies are exempt if there is an
environmental benefit to leaving the rigs as reef.
Some experts say it is a win-win situation. The fish
get to live and the companies will donate some of their
significant savings to marine conservation.

We're told that the reasons for the abundance of fish life
is due to a number of factors:

1) There's less fishing around the oil riggs (basically
they're like a marine protected area).

2) There's also an abundance of invertebrates living
on the platform area. The steel is teeming with
creatures like mussels, corals, oysters, crabs, and
shrimps. All that life squeezed onto the steel beams makes
the structure slower to rust, adding to its longevity.

I guess this issue will continue to remain far from
settled. There's pros and cons on both sides to sort out.

There's a very simple explanation for structures of any kind being frequented by lots of marine life. Trawlers don't get near them to tear up habitats !

And oil riggers love fish.

And one day oil riggers will be able to marry fish without fear of prejudice.

And they will have little fish-riggers who will hope to grow up to be just like Hasbeen.

What a wonderful world we live in when fish and man can become one.

And we owe it to people like Hasbeen. A man of insight and vision. Just like your local LNP politician, just to mention a few obvious deviants.

Dear Hasbeen,

This was indeed one of Trump's signature policies. However the very right wing Republican governor of Florida Rick Stewart managed to get an exemption. And it was granted by Trump, which isn't that extraordinary given Mar a Lago is a coastal resort and needed to be protected from the view of oil rigs. What a corrupt jerk.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2020/09/08/trump-backs-moratorium-offshore-drilling-but-touts-elsewhere/5746926002/

Was that really a comet on this topic, or simply a bit of garbage as usual SR?

Not so individual, go read the article.

The rigs have attracted very large numbers of fish not previously seen in the gulf. In most instances oil rigs are in flat sediment ares which are effectively under water deserts, virtually uninhabited by fish.

Hasbeen,
Yes, of course any structure that offers protection is instantly occupied in flat bottom country.
But, even the flat areas harbour marine life but unfortunately, trawling has altered the ecology under water as much as mining & grazing does on land.
This only happens because suburbia wants food at their fingertips at any given time & in large quantities.
Cut the human population & much of the raping of the Planet will cease.
Re SteeleRedux's remark on building a resort to hide the oil rigs, I can only shake my ugly head in disbelief !

individual,

What do you think of my idea to evolve a fish-human population around oil rigs that looks like Hasbeen?

That is not the case in a mooring area such as Shute harbor individual. Anyone silly enough to drag a net through a mooring area would not be fishing for long.

Haven't you done some diving individual? If so you should understand the problem with location & orientation under water. Fish like orientation also, & vertical structures offer the best opportunity for such orientation. Jetty piles & oil rig legs are perfect for this.

When the yacht sat in Shute harbor for periods of a couple of weeks, or a month, the longer it sat in the one place the larger the schools of small fish that would gather under it, using it for orientation. My wife used to feed them, mostly bread scraps, & they became so schooled in this, that after a week or so they would see the bread in the air, dash out & be under it as it landed in the water. She could even recognise some of them by their colouring or scars.

Then we had a bad storm. For a few days after we had little clumps of sea weed torn off their rocks drifting past in the tidal flow, most with a couple or more very small fish using them for orientation & cover. My wife was horrified when "her" fish would dash out & eat these smaller fish. She could not hold them in the same affection again.

Anyone silly enough to drag a net through a mooring area would not be fishing for long.
Hasbeen,
yes, that's why the fish are there, no trawlers !

Hasbeen & individual,

I guess you two are looking at celebrating your 120th birthdays over the coming months.

It's certainly sounds like it!

These issues go back at least 25 years. Back in the mid-1990s Shell wanted to decommission one of its rigs in the North Sea by sinking it as an artificial reef. It was to be an experiment as to the efficacy of deep sea artificial reefs. They too had noticed increased sea life around the rigs.

Of course, Greenpeace, always on the lookout for more fund raisers, launched a campaign to oppose the plan, making all sorts of claims about pollutants on the rigs that would end up in the sea.

Shell and the various governments finally caved, as they usually do, and the reef was instead decommissioned and dismantled. Obviously the Greenpeace claims about all the pollutants on the rig were shown to be rubbish and they indeed apologised for getting it wrong.

Even worse, it was shown that some endangered corals were growing on the legs of the rig. They didn't survive the decommissioning. Greenpeace were suitably embarrassed by their hand in killing off endangered coral. But that lasted about 30 seconds and then the usual suspects moved to hide bury the truth

"the very right wing Republican governor of Florida Rick Stewart managed to get an exemption. "

Which is pretty amazing given that there's never been a governor Rick Stewart in Florida!!

Indeed, my apologies to all. I meant to write Rick Scott.

Dear mhaze,

Geez mate you do write some crap don't you.

Shell was not looking to dump Brent Spar as an artificial reef. They were looking to drop in into the Rockwell Trough which was 2,000 metres deep and well below the depth of even cold water coral to survive.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brent_Spar

Greenpeace did indeed get the crude oil figures wrong quoting 5,500 instead of 50 tonnes which they immediately corrected when they found out and apologised for. They went on to successfully sue the BBC over an interview with a Tory MP who accused Greenpeace of lying.

You asserted “Even worse, it was shown that some endangered corals were growing on the legs of the rig” Well there was one species.

You also asserted “They didn't survive the decommissioning.” Nor would they have survived Shell's disposal method as the species don't grow below 1,000 metres.

There is no record that “Greenpeace were suitably embarrassed by their hand in killing off endangered coral.” Why would they have been?

Why do you do this? You beat these things up until they are unrecognisably from the true record. It does you cause nor your tattered credibility any good at all.

There's just simply too much fishing going on !

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcJFSl_YJHk
This link provides insight into trawling side-effects, just imagine how bad it would have been decades ago when boards simply scraped along the bottom, tearing apart everything in its way !
it's easy to see why marine life favours solid structures.

Green Peace appear to have found a way to give trawling a bit of a challenge.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-56201231

Judging by the lack of comment on the topic I take it most people are indifferent to raping the environment to keep the supermarket shelves stacked with frivolous product !

individual,

I'm concerned but at the moment I'm more interested in talking about how LNP deviants are running amok raping women, masturbating on office desks and calling women 'lying cows'.

They're are disgusting bunch aren't they?

We should lock them up and throw the keys away.

Mr Opinion,
The LNP are plagued by some idiots & the Left are a plague of idiots.
Morrison will sort that mess, will Labor sort the plague ?