Okay folks, get a cup of coffee and buckle up for some fishy fish science.

Last week, a labmate alerted me to a paper examining the length-weight relationships of some coral reef fishes in the West Philippine Sea. Here's the link: http://researcherslinks.com/current-issues/Length-Weight-Relationship-Parameters-Sea/20/3/2712/html (1/n)

Species-specific length-weight relationships (LWR) are estimated from (you guessed it) the length and weight of a certain number of individuals using growth functions. For example, the von Bertalanffy equation is widely used for fish. (Image from https://www.researchgate.net/publication/273139086_New_Fisheries-related_data_from_the_Mediterranean_Sea_April_2015/figures?lo=1) (2/9)

The locality of LWR is crucial because these local/region-specific parameters are IMO more informative than those taken from a different area because fish experience different fishing pressures across regions and thus "grow" differently, influencing biomass estimates. (3/9)

Now back to the paper. The article provides LWR estimates for 9 species caught in the South China Sea in 2018, with methods suggesting these were caught for the study and not taken from market surveys. One of their sites was a certain "Meiji Reef" (9°54′ N, 115°32′ E). (4/9)

What happens if you plot these coordinates in Google Earth? You get this (left). Zooming out reveals that this atoll is part of Spratly Islands, a contested region in the West Philippine Sea (WPS) that is part of the Philippine EEZ. (5/9)

Under the Hague ruling (Philippines v. China, summary: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippines_v._China), the nine-dash claim by China was invalidated and established that the islands in question do in fact rightfully belong to our EEZ.

We can then obtain 2 things from Zhang et al.'s paper: (6/9)

1) They collected samples from localities clearly w/in the jurisdiction of another country.

Fishing by foreign entities in PH waters is unlawful under Sec. 91 of Amended Phil. Fisheries Code of 1998. https://www.lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra2015/ra_10654_2015.html (7/9)

2) #1 is aggravated by the fact that no collection permits were obtained from the PH government prior to collecting & transporting the specimens in localities w/in PH territory. Collection permits are necessary and often required in several fields of biology. (8/9)

Conducting research in foreign territories without the knowledge & support of their governments is highly unethical & frowned upon in the community. This practice does not provide benefit to local researchers and communities and should not be continued.

Let's do better. (9/9)

Addendum: only 2 out of the 4 sites mentioned are within Philippine EEZ (Yongshu and Meiji Reef)