Asia
Asia is Earth's largest and most populous continent, located in the Eastern and Northern Hemispheres. It shares the continental landmass of Eurasia with the continent of Europe and the continental landmass of Afro-Eurasia with both Europe and Africa. Asia covers an area of 44,579,000 square kilometres, about 30% of Earth's total land area and 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area. The continent, which has long been home to the majority of the human population, was the site of many of the first civilizations. Asia is notable for not only its overall large size and population, but dense and large settlements, as well as vast populated regions, its 4.5 billion people constitute 60% of the world's population. In general terms, Asia is bounded on the east by the Pacific Ocean, on the south by the Indian Ocean, on the north by the Arctic Ocean; the border of Asia with Europe is a historical and cultural construct, as there is no clear physical and geographical separation between them. It has moved since its first conception in classical antiquity.
The division of Eurasia into two continents reflects East–West cultural and ethnic differences, some of which vary on a spectrum rather than with a sharp dividing line. The most accepted boundaries place Asia to the east of the Suez Canal separating it from Africa. China and India alternated in being the largest economies in the world from 1 to 1800 CE. China was a major economic power and attracted many to the east, for many the legendary wealth and prosperity of the ancient culture of India personified Asia, attracting European commerce and colonialism; the accidental discovery of a trans-Atlantic route from Europe to America by Columbus while in search for a route to India demonstrates this deep fascination. The Silk Road became the main east–west trading route in the Asian hinterlands while the Straits of Malacca stood as a major sea route. Asia has exhibited economic dynamism as well as robust population growth during the 20th century, but overall population growth has since fallen. Asia was the birthplace of most of the world's mainstream religions including Hinduism, Judaism, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, Sikhism, as well as many other religions.
Given its size and diversity, the concept of Asia—a name dating back to classical antiquity—may have more to do with human geography than physical geography. Asia varies across and within its regions with regard to ethnic groups, environments, historical ties and government systems, it has a mix of many different climates ranging from the equatorial south via the hot desert in the Middle East, temperate areas in the east and the continental centre to vast subarctic and polar areas in Siberia. The boundary between Asia and Africa is the Red Sea, the Gulf of Suez, the Suez Canal; this makes Egypt a transcontinental country, with the Sinai peninsula in Asia and the remainder of the country in Africa. The border between Asia and Europe was defined by European academics; the Don River became unsatisfactory to northern Europeans when Peter the Great, king of the Tsardom of Russia, defeating rival claims of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to the eastern lands, armed resistance by the tribes of Siberia, synthesized a new Russian Empire extending to the Ural Mountains and beyond, founded in 1721.
The major geographical theorist of the empire was a former Swedish prisoner-of-war, taken at the Battle of Poltava in 1709 and assigned to Tobolsk, where he associated with Peter's Siberian official, Vasily Tatishchev, was allowed freedom to conduct geographical and anthropological studies in preparation for a future book. In Sweden, five years after Peter's death, in 1730 Philip Johan von Strahlenberg published a new atlas proposing the Urals as the border of Asia. Tatishchev announced; the latter had suggested the Emba River as the lower boundary. Over the next century various proposals were made until the Ural River prevailed in the mid-19th century; the border had been moved perforce from the Black Sea to the Caspian Sea into which the Ural River projects. The border between the Black Sea and the Caspian is placed along the crest of the Caucasus Mountains, although it is sometimes placed further north; the border between Asia and the region of Oceania is placed somewhere in the Malay Archipelago.
The Maluku Islands in Indonesia are considered to lie on the border of southeast Asia, with New Guinea, to the east of the islands, being wholly part of Oceania. The terms Southeast Asia and Oceania, devised in the 19th century, have had several vastly different geographic meanings since their inception; the chief factor in determining which islands of the Malay Archipelago are Asian has been the location of the colonial possessions of the various empires there. Lewis and Wigen assert, "The narrowing of'Southeast Asia' to its present boundaries was thus a gradual process." Geographical Asia is a cultural artifact of European conceptions of the world, beginning with the Ancient Greeks, being imposed onto other cultures, an imprecise concept causing endemic contention about what it means. Asia does not correspond to the cultural borders of its various types of constituents. From the time of Herodotus a minority of geographers have rejected the three-continent system on the grounds that there is no substantial physical separation between
Seafood
Seafood is any form of sea life regarded as food by humans. Seafood prominently includes shellfish. Shellfish include various species of molluscs and echinoderms. Sea mammals such as whales and dolphins have been consumed as food, though that happens to a lesser extent in modern times. Edible sea plants, such as some seaweeds and microalgae, are eaten as seafood around the world in Asia. In North America, although not in the United Kingdom, the term "seafood" is extended to fresh water organisms eaten by humans, so all edible aquatic life may be referred to as seafood. For the sake of completeness, this article includes all edible aquatic life; the harvesting of wild seafood is known as fishing or hunting, the cultivation and farming of seafood is known as aquaculture, or fish farming in the case of fish. Seafood is distinguished from meat, although it is still animal and is excluded in a vegetarian diet. Seafood is an important source of protein in many diets around the world in coastal areas.
Most of the seafood harvest is consumed by humans, but a significant proportion is used as fish food to farm other fish or rear farm animals. Some seafoods are used as food for other plants. In these ways, seafoods are indirectly used to produce further food for human consumption. Products, such as oil and spirulina tablets, are extracted from seafoods; some seafood is used to feed domestic pets, such as cats. A small proportion is used industrially for non-food purposes; the harvesting and consuming of seafoods are ancient practices with archaeological evidence dating back well into the Paleolithic. Findings in a sea cave at Pinnacle Point in South Africa indicate Homo sapiens harvested marine life as early as 165,000 years ago, while the Neanderthals, an extinct human species contemporary with early Homo sapiens, appear to have been eating seafood at sites along the Mediterranean coast beginning around the same time. Isotopic analysis of the skeletal remains of Tianyuan man, a 40,000-year-old anatomically modern human from eastern Asia, has shown that he consumed freshwater fish.
Archaeology features such as shell middens, discarded fish bones and cave paintings show that sea foods were important for survival and consumed in significant quantities. During this period, most people lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and were, of necessity on the move. However, where there are early examples of permanent settlements such as those at Lepenski Vir, they are always associated with fishing as a major source of food; the ancient river Nile was full of fish. The Egyptians had implements and methods for fishing and these are illustrated in tomb scenes and papyrus documents; some representations hint at fishing being pursued as a pastime. Fishing scenes are represented in ancient Greek culture, a reflection of the low social status of fishing. However, Oppian of Corycus, a Greek author wrote a major treatise on sea fishing, the Halieulica or Halieutika, composed between 177 and 180; this is the earliest such work. The consumption of fish varied in accordance with the location of the household.
In the Greek islands and on the coast, fresh fish and seafood were common. They were eaten locally but more transported inland. Sardines and anchovies were regular fare for the citizens of Athens, they were sometimes sold fresh, but more salted. A stele of the late 3rd century BCE from the small Boeotian city of Akraiphia, on Lake Copais, provides us with a list of fish prices; the cheapest was skaren. Common salt water fish were yellowfin tuna, red mullet, swordfish or sturgeon, a delicacy, eaten salted. Lake Copais itself was famous in all Greece for its eels, celebrated by the hero of The Acharnians. Other fresh water fish were pike-fish and the less appreciated catfish. Pictorial evidence of Roman fishing comes from mosaics. At a certain time the goatfish was considered the epitome of luxury, above all because its scales exhibit a bright red color when it dies out of water. For this reason these fish were allowed to die at the table. There was a recipe where this would take place in garo, in the sauce.
At the beginning of the Imperial era, this custom came to an end, why mullus in the feast of Trimalchio could be shown as a characteristic of the parvenu, who bores his guests with an unfashionable display of dying fish. In medieval times, seafood was less prestigious than other animal meats, seen as an alternative to meat on fast days. Still, seafood was the mainstay of many coastal populations. Kippers made from herring caught in the North Sea could be found in markets as far away as Constantinople. While large quantities of fish were eaten fresh, a large proportion was salted, and, to a lesser extent, smoked. Stockfish, cod, split down the middle, fixed to a pole and dried, was common, though preparation could be time-consuming, meant beating the dried fish with a mallet before soaking it in water. A wide range of mollusks including oysters and scallops were eaten by coastal and river-dwelling populations, freshwater crayfish were seen as a desirable alternative to meat during fish days. Compared to meat, fish was much more expensive for inland populations in Central Europe, therefo
Freshwater whitefish
The freshwater whitefish are fishes of the subfamily Coregoninae, which contains whitefishes and ciscoes, is one of three subfamilies in the salmon family Salmonidae. Apart from the subfamily Coregoninae, the family Salmonidae includes the salmon and char species of the subfamily Salmoninae, grayling species of the subfamily Thymallinae. Freshwater whitefish are distributed in cool waters throughout the northern parts of the Northern Hemisphere; the Coregoninae subfamily consists of three nominal genera: Coregonus Linnaeus, 1758 – whitefishes and ciscoes, which according to some authors number more than 60 species. There are differing opinions on the classification of some species within the genus and the overall number of species; some species in Arctic regions of Asia and North America forage in marine waters. Prosopium Jordan, 1878 – round whitefishes, which includes six species, three of which occur only in a single lake. Stenodus Richardson, 1836 – inconnus, which includes two species, sometimes considered a single species with two subspecies.
Phylogenetically, Stenodus is not distinct from Coregonus. Smoked freshwater whitefish is sold in delicatessens and eaten as part of Ashkenazi Jewish cuisine, either filleted or made into whitefish salad. "Whitefish". New International Encyclopedia. 1905
Culture of Baltimore
The city of Baltimore, has been a predominantly working-class town through much of its history with several surrounding affluent suburbs and, being found in a Mid-Atlantic state but south of the Mason-Dixon line, can lay claim to a blend of Northern and Southern American traditions. The most prominent example of Baltimore's distinctive flavor is the city's close association with blue crabs; this is a trait. The Chesapeake Bay for years was the East Coast's main source of blue crabs. Baltimore became an important hub of the crab industry. In Baltimore's tourist district, numerous restaurants serve steamed hard shell crabs, soft shell crabs, lump backfin crabcakes. Many district shops sell crab-related merchandise. Traditionally, crabs are steamed in rock salt and Old Bay Seasoning, a favored local spice mixture manufactured in Baltimore for decades. Southern State cooks, Marylanders insist, boil crabs and along with it, boil away all the true flavor; the crabs are eaten on tables spread with plain brown wrapping paper.
The meat of the crabs is extracted with the use of wooden mallets and one's hands. It is popular for cold beer to be thrown on the crabs during the steaming process, made available afterwards. A traditional Baltimore crab cake consists of steamed blue crab backfin meat, mayonnaise, Old Bay seafood seasoning, cracker crumbs, mustard, it is prepared by either frying. Baltimoreans do not use tartar sauce on their crab cakes. Soft shell crabs are blue crabs which have molted their old exoskeleton and are still soft; the entire animal can be eaten, rather than having to shell the animal to reach the meat, with the exceptions of the mouth parts, the gills and the abdomen, which must be discarded. The remaining, edible part of the crab is tossed in flour to which some combination of salt and Old Bay Seasoning have been added, before being deep fried or sauteed in butter, it is placed on toasted bread dressed with mayonnaise, sliced tomato and lettuce. Some Baltimoreans find amusement in watching visitors to the city stare in horror as they eat soft crab sandwiches with the crab legs sticking out the sides.
It is a common practice to serve sauerkraut with the Thanksgiving turkey. Baltimore was a leading gateway for German immigration during the 19th century. By 1863, the year President Abraham Lincoln declared Thanksgiving a national holiday, one in four of Baltimore's residents were transplanted Germans and spoke the tongue as their first language. Pit beef refers to open pit barbecued meat most served rare on a Kaiser roll found at small stands converted from large sheds in and around Baltimore and the outlying suburbs, it originated on Baltimore's blue collar east side and has through the years spread all over the city. Other varieties of meat, such as ham, corned beef and sausages are found on the menus at pit beef stands. Pit beef meat is grilled with charcoal and uses no rubs or sauces so it lacks the wood flavor characteristic of Texas Barbecue and the herbal aromas of Carolina barbecue. Baltimore pit beef uses top round and is shaved thin on a meat slicer for serving; the typical condiments for a pit beef sandwich is a thick slice of white onion and a sauce made from a horseradish and mayonnaise called "Tiger Sauce" made by Tulkoff Food Products and is unique in that the Baltimore version uses a much more significant portion of horseradish making the sauce hot.
Bull roasts and oyster roasts are fund-raising events held in Baltimore and neighboring counties. Tickets are discounted by the table, they are scheduled during the "R" months. The menu may consist of pit beef, turkey or oysters, the latter being variously served fried, raw or stewed with buttery milk or cream. A smorgasbord of side dishes is featured along with a fresh salad bar. Beer and wine may be purchased. In addition to the profits from tickets sales, a variety of gambling and other fundraising activities are features, such as a wheel where one bets on numbers, raffles, or auctions; the prizes might be monetary or items donated by local residents, businesses, or sports heros. "Lake trout" is fried Atlantic whiting. It is served as a sandwich with a number of condiments, such as ketchup and horseradish sauce. Lake trout is an everyday food, is served wrapped in aluminum foil in a standard paper lunch bag at small take-out establishments; the "chicken box" consists of 4–6 chicken wings, served in a fast food carry out box with some kind of French fries.
Toppings consist of salt and ketchup, although hot sauce is popular. The item is chiefly sold at independent fried chicken shops and deli/Chinese carry-outs in the city. Chicken boxes are enjoyed with "Half and Half", a drink combining iced tea and lemonade. Berger Cookies are a kind of cookie that enjoys immense popularity in Baltimore and Washington, D. C, they are made from vanilla shortbread covered in a fudge ganache. Brought from Germany to Baltimore by George and Henry Berger in 1835, they are now produced and sold by DeBau
Great Bear Lake
The Great Bear Lake is the largest lake in Canada, the fourth-largest in North America, the eighth-largest in the world. The lake is in the Northwest Territories, on the Arctic Circle between 65 and 67 degrees of northern latitude and between 118 and 123 degrees western longitude, 156 m above sea level; the name originated from the Chipewyan language word satudene, meaning "grizzly bear water people." The Sahtu Dene people are named after the lake. Grizzly Bear Mountain on the shore of the lake comes from Chipewyan, meaning, "bear large hill."The Sahoyue peninsula on the south side of the lake and the Edacho peninsula on the west side form the Saoyú-ʔehdacho National Historic Site of Canada. The lake has a surface area of 31,153 km2 and a volume of 2,236 km3, its maximum depth is 446 m and average depth 71.7 m. The shoreline is 2,719 km and the catchment area of the lake is 114,717 km2. Great Bear Lake is covered with ice from late November to July; the lake is known for its considerable clearness.
Explorer John Franklin wrote in 1828 that a white rag placed in the water did not disappear until it exceeded a depth of 15 fathoms. Arms of Great Bear Lake include the Smith Arm, the Dease Arm, the McTavish Arm, the McVicar Arm and the Keith Arm; the community of Deline is located on the Keith Arm near the outflow of the Great Bear River that flows west into the Mackenzie River at Tulita. Rivers flowing into Great Bear Lake include the Whitefish River, Big Spruce River, Haldane River, Bloody River, Sloan River, Dease River and the Johnny Hoe River. Great Bear Lake lies between two major physiographic regions: the Kazan Uplands portion of the Canadian Shield and the Interior Plains, it was part of Glacial Lake McConnell in the pre-glacial valleys reshaped by erosional ice during the Pleistocene. Since, the lake has changed from post-glacial rebound following the ice melting. Precambrian rocks of the Canadian Shield form the eastern margin of the McTavish Arm; these rocks of the Precambrian are sedimentary and metamorphic deposits supplemented by igneous intrusions forming dikes and sills.
The Deline settlement is near the headwaters of the Bear River. There is an ice crossing from Deline to the winter road on the far side of the Great Bear River. On 5 March 2016, a tank truck fell partway through the ice road just a few days after the government had increased the allowed maximum weight limit to 40,000 kg on the road; the truck, 3 km outside of Deline and close to the community's fresh water intake, as well as a major fishing area, contained 30,000 l of heating fuel and was one of 70 truck loads intended to resupply the community. The fuel was removed from the truck by 8 March. Three lodges around the lake are destinations for hunting. In 1995, a 32.8 kg lake trout was caught, the largest caught anywhere by angling. In 1930, Gilbert LaBine discovered uranium deposits in the Great Bear Lake region; the former mining area Port Radium, site of the Eldorado Mine, where pitchblende was discovered, was located on the eastern shore. Echo Bay Mines Limited leased the old camp and mill at Port Radium to recover silver and copper values from 1965 to 1981.
The Great Bear Lake is paramount in the Délı̨nę people’s identity and culture. Hence, conserving it is critical for the Délı̨nę people. Ɂehtsǝ́o Erǝ́ya, a former member of the Dene peoples, is regarded as a prophet, making over 30 prophecies which have come true. His prediction for the end of times claims that as the world dries up, the little remaining life will flock to and end on the banks of the Great Bear Lake, a lake seen as a physical beating heart to humanity; the Délı̨nę people have followed these prophecies closely. List of lakes of Canada 1867 account of the lake by William Carpenter Bompas
Overexploitation
Overexploitation called overharvesting, refers to harvesting a renewable resource to the point of diminishing returns. Continued overexploitation can lead to the destruction of the resource; the term applies to natural resources such as: wild medicinal plants, grazing pastures, game animals, fish stocks and water aquifers. In ecology, overexploitation describes one of the five main activities threatening global biodiversity. Ecologists use the term to describe populations that are harvested at a rate, unsustainable, given their natural rates of mortality and capacities for reproduction; this can result in extinction at the population level and extinction of whole species. In conservation biology the term is used in the context of human economic activity that involves the taking of biological resources, or organisms, in larger numbers than their populations can withstand; the term is used and defined somewhat differently in fisheries and natural resource management. Overexploitation can lead including extinctions.
However it is possible for overexploitation to be sustainable, as discussed below in the section on fisheries. In the context of fishing, the term overfishing can be used instead of overexploitation, as can overgrazing in stock management, overlogging in forest management, overdrafting in aquifer management, endangered species in species monitoring. Overexploitation is not an activity limited to humans. Introduced predators and herbivores, for example, can overexploit native fauna. Concern about overexploitation is recent, though overexploitation itself is not a new phenomenon, it has been observed for millennia. For example, ceremonial cloaks worn by the Hawaiian kings were made from the mamo bird; the dodo, a flightless bird from Mauritius, is another well-known example of overexploitation. As with many island species, it was naive about certain predators, allowing humans to approach and kill it with ease. From the earliest of times, hunting has been an important human activity as a means of survival.
There is a whole history of overexploitation in the form of overhunting. The overkill hypothesis explains why the megafaunal extinctions occurred within a short period of time; this can be traced with human migration. The most convincing evidence of this theory is that 80% of the North American large mammal species disappeared within 1000 years of the arrival of humans on the western hemisphere continents; the fastest recorded extinction of megafauna occurred in New Zealand, where by 1500 AD, just 200 years after settling the islands, ten species of the giant moa birds were hunted to extinction by the Māori. A second wave of extinctions occurred with European settlement. In more recent times, overexploitation has resulted in the gradual emergence of the concepts of sustainability and sustainable development, which has built on other concepts, such as sustainable yield, eco-development and deep ecology. Overexploitation doesn't lead to the destruction of the resource, nor is it unsustainable. However, depleting the numbers or amount of the resource can change its quality.
For example, footstool palm is a wild palm tree found in Southeast Asia. Its leaves are used for thatching and food wrapping, overharvesting has resulted in its leaf size becoming smaller; the tragedy of the commons refers to a dilemma described in an article by that name written by Garrett Hardin and first published in the journal Science in 1968. Central to Hardin's essay is an example, a useful parable for understanding how overexploitation can occur; this example was first sketched in an 1833 pamphlet by William Forster Lloyd, as a hypothetical and simplified situation based on medieval land tenure in Europe, of herders sharing a common on which they are each entitled to let their cows graze. In Hardin's example, it is in each herder's interest to put each succeeding cow he acquires onto the land if the carrying capacity of the common is exceeded and it is temporarily or permanently damaged for all as a result; the herder receives all of the benefits from an additional cow, while the damage to the common is shared by the entire group.
If all herders make this individually rational economic decision, the common will be overexploited or destroyed to the detriment of all. However, since all herders reach the same rational conclusion, overexploitation in the form of overgrazing occurs, with immediate losses, the pasture may be degraded to the point where it gives little return. "Therein is the tragedy. Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit—in a world, limited. Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons." In the course of his essay, Hardin develops the theme, drawing in many examples of latter day commons, such as national parks, the atmosphere, oceans and fish stocks. The example of fish stocks had led some to call this the "tragedy of the fishers". A major theme running through the essay is the growth of human populations, with the Earth's finite resources being the general common; the tragedy of the commons has intellectual roots tracing back to Aristotle, who noted that "what is common to the greatest number has the least care bestowed upon it", as well as to Hobbes and his Leviathan.
The opposite situation to a tragedy of the commons is sometimes referred to as a tragedy of the anticommons: a situation in which rational individuals, acting separately, collectively waste a given resource by underutilizing it. The tragedy of the commons can be avoided i
Hatchery
A hatchery is a facility where eggs are hatched under artificial conditions those of fish or poultry. It may be used for ex-situ conservation purposes, i.e. to breed rare or endangered species under controlled conditions. Fish hatcheries are used to breed a large number of fish in an enclosed environment. Fish farms use hatcheries to cultivate fish to sell for food, or ornamental purposes, eliminating the need to find the fish in the wild and providing some species outside their natural season, they raise the fish until they are ready to be sold to aquarium stores. Other hatcheries release the juvenile fish into a river, lake or the ocean to support commercial, tribal, or recreational fishing or to supplement the natural numbers of threatened or endangered species, a practice known as fish stocking. Researchers have raised concerns about hatchery fish breeding with wild fish. Hatchery fish may in some cases compete with wild fish. In the United States and Canada, there have been several salmon and steelhead hatchery reform projects intended to reduce the possibility of negative impacts from hatchery programs.
Most salmon and steelhead hatcheries are managed better and follow up to date management practices to ensure any risks are curtailed. Poultry hatcheries produce a majority of the birds consumed in the developed world including chickens, ducks and some other minor bird species. A few poultry hatcheries specialize in producing birds for sale to backyard poultry keepers, hobby farmers, people who are interested in competing with their birds at poultry shows; these hatcheries produce chicks of several different breeds and varieties including some heritage or endangered breeds. Larger poultry hatcheries are related to industrial poultry egg production; this is a multibillion dollar industry, with regimented production systems used to maximize bird size or egg production versus feed consumed. Large numbers are produced at one time so the resulting birds are uniform in size and can be harvested or brought into production at the same time. A large hatchery produces 15 million chicks annually. Poultry start with or artificially inseminated hens that lay eggs.
Incubators control temperature and humidity, turn the eggs until just before they hatch. Three days before the eggs are scheduled to hatch, they are moved into a hatcher unit, where they are no longer turned so the embryos have time to get properly oriented for their exit from the shell, the temperature and humidity are optimum for hatching. Once the eggs hatch and the chicks are a few days old, they are vaccinated. Endangered species Minimum viable population Inbreeding depression Oystering machinery Hatcheries and the Protection of Wild Salmon University of Washington Libraries Digital Collections -- Digital Collections -- Fish Hatcheries An ongoing digital collection of images related to fish hatcheries. - Links to hatchery reform projects
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