Prawns aren’t just good to eat. They’re a complex species: two years into their four-year life span, prawns begin to switch gender, transitioning from males to become mature females that at age three can produce and carry eggs.
Decades of scientific research have gone into uncovering the life cycle of prawns, which has shed at least a little knowledge about how to protect or at least help sustain the species in a time when prawns, like other invertebrates, are under pressure from fishing, climate change, ocean acidification and other environmental influences.
Scientists know it’s important to get informed and share that information if they want to help the planet.
Shannon Obradovich, stock assessment program head for marine invertebrates research division at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, develops mathematical models, based on available information about species populations and known environmental influences that affect them, to help other scientists conduct better research and recommendations about how to protect a species through regulations, such as harvesting limits or even fisheries closures.
“My models are built of math and they’re looking at how a population of species is growing or functioning – and they could be very simple if we don’t have a lot of information, or they can be very complex,” Obradovich said. “There’s an entire group here – the quantitative assessment modelling group – that’s what they do is develop new tools.”
Better research tools have led to a new regulation for recreational prawn fishers. As of April 1, all female prawns carrying eggs must be released when caught to help ensure prawn populations continue to thrive.
“One of the things, thinking about Earth Day, that you can do, in thinking that these regulations are in place for an actual purpose and it’s not just to have more regulations,” Obradovich said.
She also says people can make sustainable choices when they go shopping or dine out. Several programs, including the Marine Stewardship Council at www.msc.org/, Vancouver Aquarium’s Oceanwise at http://seafood.ocean.org/, and Sea Choice, a conservation organizations partnership that includes the David Suzuki Foundation at http://www.seachoice.org/, offer advice about choosing sustainable fish and invertebrates and all of them have mobile apps.
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