logansrogue | *Pats tummy with satisfaction*

MMmmm. Mum made me steak for dinner tonight. Beautiful fillet kangaroo steak, flambe steak diane! *happy shudder* It lent itself beautifully to the garlic, actually. Enhanced the kangaroo flavour without making it seem gamey. Was rather a mushroomy taste, not a bad taste at all. (I don't mind the taste of mushrooms too much, just the texture). Blended really nicely with fresh parsley garnish. (I chomp down on parsley garnish, I know you're not supposed to but I fucking LOVE fresh parsley and would eat it by the bushel if I could!). Probably a placebo effect, but I feel so incredible now. Like my body is all "MEAT! REAL MEAT! Ohhhh this is GOOD meat! Meaty meaty meat! Lean, red and TASTY! Iron! Vitamins B! RAH!"

I thought I was going mad. I'd spoken to Karen (doctor_k) about how meat is important for B12 absorption and I was looking on the internet for some detailed information about that. God damn it, I could barely find anything for all the vegetarian pages! LOL! I finally found what I was after, though. I get really pissed off when some people go on about people not needing meat. This is just such a fallacy. We can *get by* without meat, but our bodies still need it to be in top condition. I know I couldn't get by without it. I wouldn't want to - that kangaro was tasty!

Anyhew, I'm going to go rest up for this weekend. I couldn't go to SwanCon tonight cause I got a headache :(. Hopefully I can go tomorrow! :)

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Oh wow! You had a totally exciting job! I love hearing and reading about that sort of thing, your comment was a very interesting read for me! I'm really glad to hear that somewhere in the world they're taking care of their fishies! I couldn't tell you how Australia does cause I honestly have no idea. I do know that we get mad at a couple of SE Asian countries for coming into our sea and fishing our fish, though I don't know any of the specifics at all.

God, I'd so love to see a whale. I've seen sea lions before cause we have them living on a small island here in Perth. It's called Carnak Island and it's like a sea lion bachelor getaway! All the boys lie on the beach and hang out and eat fish! :D They also come up to boats and have a good look at you. While they're in a lazy mood you can get rather close to them to take photos. But those fuckers move faster than you'd think on land, it's quite scary. Me and my Uncle had one surprise us when we were looking around a grotto. We were pinned two ways with sea lions and we busted our asses down the beach, screaming like girls (then pissing ourselves laughing). I'm sure the sea lions were like, "Huh? Fucking tourists!" hehehe.

We also get rays up and down the coast! I really love rays and skates and little sharks. I find them really fascinating cause they're so different to most fish. I remember once I was standing on a reef rock down south, watching all these rays swim around in the water really gracefully - about two or three different species as well!

Australia...I know you have problems with international fish pirates of sorts running around and nicking fish from the Antarctic toothfish fishery, regulations and enviromental precautions be damned. There was one incident a while back, if I remember, of an Aussie boat literally chasing a Uruguayan pirate fisher over a thousand miles across the Pacific.

I'm pretty sure your actual territorial waters fisheries are mainly orange roughy, tuna, and billfish. Those are tough ones to have as your native stocks. Roughy bears close watching as it's a slow-growing fish that reproduces in low numbers, and the large tuna because of the obscene prices the Japanese will pay for one fish there's so much incentive to exhaust an already overfished quota.

It looks from what little I know that Australia tries its best to manage their fisheries--unlike the fat cats from the industry who basically run the "fisheries council" in Europe--but Asian and South American fish pirates are a problem.

However, I always give props to Australia for the establishment of large marine reserves and "parks". You and NZ were ahead of the curve on that.

Ah, the mammals. They were pretty hilarious to watch out on the ice. And I've heard a couple stories about huge sea lions gallumphing their way up the stern trawl ramps of boats, either out of sheer curiosity or to escape the orcas. They then go chasing around deck--even into the living quarters in one case when a guy woke up to find one in his room. The guys get out of the way fast in that case...an 80 kilo or so man vs a 900 kilo Stellar sea lion is not a fair contest.

Skates are pretty neat. I'm kind of fond of flatfish myself, just because they're so strange. I rather like the Pacific halibut. After a few months as a little normal fish-looking larvae, it starts to flatten out and gets both eyes on one side of its head. Then it grows up, and while the males stop at about 1 meter in length and die around age 20, the females can live to 40 or so, and get almost to 3 meters and about 300 kilos. The big "barndoor" females are also the halibut renowned for their strength, smarts, and putting up a hell of a fight with sport fishermen.

So, those ladies go through a juvenile body image crisis of sorts, and end up being the large, strong, long-lived, and very respected members of their species. (snerk) If young girls were ever willing to use a bizarre-looking fish as a role model...

http://www.afsc.noaa.gov/RACE/behavioral/halibut_fbe.htm

Sea lions are a freakin' crack up. I loved watching them from the boat. Though ours were pretty sedate as they were there to lie around and be fat and lazy. LOL. I should get some photos off an old disk I have of this particular sea lion. He was SO funny. He decided that it was time to go in the water. He was lying on his tummy, his body running parallel to the shore. Of course, he wasn't going to waste valuable energy getting UP or anything. Nope. He just slowly, REALLY slowly, starts rolling on his side, down into the water. After a minute he makes it into the water and just lies there as the waves slosh over him. I think he got hot and was cooling himself off. LOL!

Australia has a lot of ad campaigns for sensible fishing, actually. There are a lot of ads on from Fisheries telling people to be careful about how many fishes they catch.

Oh, flatfish are AWESOME. I remember reading about them when I was a kid and being utterly fascinated by the transformation they went through. I didn't realise they got so big, though! Holy shit, that thing is HUGE!

I also have a plush halibut like this as a "mascot" of sorts. ;-)

http://www.tableandhome.com/prodhcgge

Hurray for all the strange-looking fish of the world! Hopefully I'll have the chance to work more with them in years to come.

Pats tummy with satisfaction

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