Shifting Baselines

[khteets]

Shifting baselines as Greenberg describes, is a constant shift in the expectations of what normal is for nature. “One generation has one baseline for abundance while the next has a reduced version and the next even more,” as Greenberg put it and I totally agree with him. As we monitor the populations from generation to generation, the expectations of population number keeps going down as the numbers keep dropping. I think it doesn’t help the population at all since the expectation of the normal or natural number for the population keep going down which lets the numbers keep falling cause it’s not properly keeping track of the population. The numbers that keep shifting and dropping lets the actual numbers drop cause if the expectations are low and the fish meet or come close to meeting the expectations then we don’t notice anything cause that’s what the normal or natural expectation for the population is.
A few things that we could do to keep shifting baselines from happening is keeping track of the previous generations numbers and baselines. We could use it to compare numbers and help where it’s needed and if need be start farming the fish in the areas needed or give the fish a break from fishing season for a year or two.

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