What's for dinner?

What if there was an endangered species - for reasons of current habitat - that could thrive in another environment and multiply as fast as rabbits, but the only willingness to transplanted it would be if it could be farmed as a yummy food source. [Poll #1523987]

Comments are welcomed and encouraged.

(no subject)

Had a really great morning dive yesterday.  Two immersions, almost 2 hours under the surface.  It has been far too long since I've done that.  Was good to refresh my skills.  My buoyancy control was shit for the first fifteen minutes or so, both because I'm out of shape and I had forgotten how to breath gently at depth.  Dis-aiding this was the fact that this is only the 2nd day I've worn any sort of wetsuit while diving, so I was buoyant in places I don't normally expect to be.  I suspect I could have managed without, but I would not have been happy.  I am not throwning quite enough heat to cope with 60 minutes in 60 degree water - tho I used to be fine with it.  But that is ramping up, and by the second dive I was unzipping and pulling on the suit to flush in cold water.

First half was a wreck dive in 9-14m of water.  Lots of invertebrate life and a number of small fish.  The star of the show was a lone seahorse - the ones here are mostly nocturnal.  With uncurled tail, it must have been over a foot in length.  With tail curled in it was about 8".  Certainly the largest I've ever seen.  Our guide also found a live scallop, and placed it near a starfish.  It took about 2 seconds for the shellfish to react, open up and pump itself away!

The second dive was in a fish sanctuary, 12-16m, and started out with feeding blue cod.  Highlight this time went to what the guide was sure was a brittle star.  It was under a rock in a thin crack, so we only saw three arms waving.  But they were smooth and I thought most stars were.. feathery.  And the arms were surprisingly mobile for a star - ultra-thin tendrils 8"-10" in length - but too slow to be an octopus, which is the only other thing I could conceive it being.  A nice number of brightly colored fish all through the reserve - which is not usual for water this cold.

Amongst other things, I caught our dive master in making an error on the dive charts to determine our safety limits.  And I haven't bothered consulting them in decades.  I guess he usually relies on a wrist computer, or just knowing the limits on the dives (which he must run 3-5 times a week) that he hasn't used the chart in ages.  Good to know that I still recall how they work.

I failed to significantly taunt the rain with that comment in my last post.  It did spatter as I drove down from Picton post-dive, but no substantial rain.  The north and west are closing in on 20 days with no substantial precipitation, and baby kiwis are dying 'cause the ground is too hard-baked in some areas for their little bills to penetrate.

Last night while I was cooking dinner, our host brought in a baby hedgehog from the garden.  About half-sized, I think.  Cute little fella.  Couldn't take the time to play with him around the hot stove, and messy hands, and animals & food prep don't mix.  But cute little guy.  Seems he gets brought in about once a week to be shown to the guests and doesnt object.  There seems to be no adult around...  Sadly camera is not an easy fix, so no shots of the little guy.