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Monday, January 24, 2011

Child Slave of the deep sea

Child slave labor refers to the illegal employment of children below 18 years of age in hazardous occupations. Underage children are being forced to manual labor to help their families mainly due to poverty.

Child labor has many ill effects in children who are supposed to be in the environment of a classroom rather than roaming the streets and risking every chance, time and time again, to earn money. Although most do get the privilege of education, most end up being dropouts and repeaters because they are not able to focus on their studies. Because of child labor, children suffer from malnutrition, hampered growth, and improper biological development.

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Muroami : Child Exploitation and Murder

Muro-ami fishing trawlers, mostly unseaworthy, stay out at sea for up to ten months. They roam the seas and drop anchor in areas of coral reefs and atolls. The stinking, unsanitary, and cramped quarters are often packed with as many as 400 to 500 adult crew and little boys as young as 7 years old.

Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Muroami : The Destruction

The Muroami fishing technique, employed on coral reefs in Southeast Asia, uses an encircling net together with pounding devices. These devices usually comprise large stones fitted on ropes that are pounded onto the coral reefs. They can also consist of large heavy blocks of cement that are suspended above the sea by a crane fitted to the vessel. The pounding devices are repeatedly and violently lowered into the area encircled by the net, literally smashing the coral in that area into small fragments in order to scare the fish out of their coral refuges. The "crushing" effect of the pounding process on the coral heads has been described as having long lasting and practically totally destructive effects.

Muroami netting is a dangerous fishing practice that has led to extensive coral reef deterioration in the region.  In many countries that use this practice, as many as 300 young boys, 10 to 15 years old, are used to set the nets and bang on the coral. They are called Muro-Ami or Reef Hunter. This is also one of the worst forms of child labor in the illegal fishing system. The divers, who consist mostly of children, usually have to take at least few dives a day.

Muroami or Kayakas is a Japanese-inspired fishing technique that once devastated the fragile marine life of the country. The procedure comprises groups of swimmers particularly children that are harnessed to a waiting net loaded down with scarelines like coconut leaves or plastic streamers attached to it at 1 meter intervals to create the illusion of a wall and dragged across the ocean floor as it slowly traps in on the fish. It also involves sending a large group of divers to depths of 30-90 feet, without protective clothing or gear save for homemade wooden goggles. These divers plunge into the waters below armed with metal weights or large stones fitted on ropes to vigorously pound or bang on corals to drive fish out and into the waiting nets. Corals are eventually smashed in the process. 

Friday, January 7, 2011

Fish Bombing Is Stupid

During the Second World War, a number of navy personnel operating in Asia made use of grenades to catch fish. The blast from a single grenade killed many fish, large and small, and the ones that floated to the surface were easily netted in quantity. The technique of catching fish using underwater explosions quickly caught on with local fishermen as it is simple and ruthlessly efficient, at least as far as the time taken to catch the fish is concerned.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Top 5 Catfish Baits Part 5 - Crawfish

If chicken livers are the best known of all catfish baits, crawfish may be the most overlooked. All major species of catfish feed on crawfish, although most flatheads caught on craws weigh 20 pounds or less.

Crawfish rank among the best baits of all for fishing in creeks and small rivers. You can either bounce live crawdads near the bottom in the current using split shot rigs or add a little heavier weight and fish crawfish tails right on the bottom. Dead crawfish produce mostly channel catfish. Live ones -- especially big craws -- also attract modest-sized flatheads. Anglers who specifically want flatheads should put baits close to the thickest cover they can find and be ready to pull with everything they have upon setting the hook.

Monday, January 3, 2011

Top 5 Catfish Baits Part 4 - Night Crawlers

Stringing a worm on a hook is the essence of fishing simplicity. In fact, it almost seems too simple. That said, night crawlers remain some of the finest baits available for coaxing catfish into biting. They smell natural, because they are natural, and they seem to taste mighty good to catfish.

Generally speaking, the rule for night crawlers and catfish is, the bigger the better. Even small cats like big, juicy worms. It is generally a good idea to wad two or three on a hook if you only can find small or medium-sized worms. Unlike other species, catfish typically do not care how night crawlers are strung on the hook. They feed mostly by smell and taste, not by sight, so the more worm that is wrapped around and sewn onto the hook, the better your chances are of hooking cats that bite.

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