IAMC,

I always welcome intelligent comments from the other side of the political spectrum, and I am looking forward to your first.

Yesterday on CBC Newsworld I

Yesterday on CBC Newsworld I heard and saw scientists talking about a letter of warning which had been sent by 92 scientists to Canada's prime minister.

The letter left no doubt that environmental degradation is occurring now -- not the 100 years from now, as advertised -- and that every effort must be made to protect what's left to us at this time.

The interviewees said that the warning surely ought to have caught the prime minister's attention, as it was sent over the signatures of every leading environmental authority in the country.

Doesn't seem to have worked. If it had worked, would rock-pickin' in the Fraser River trump our precious salmon runs? Would diesel oil be leaking from Queen of the North into the clam beds of Wright Sound?

At the time Toronto was established in 1792, one of the first decrees of the Lieutenant Governor dealt with protecting local salmon fisheries, and prohibiting newly-built mills from entirely blocking river channels and disrupting spawning. I think at that time Upper Canada needed mills more than we need gravel today. Of course, today there are no salmon in the Humber or the Don despite these efforts.

We've known the problem and the dangers for over 200 years. Can this really be happening? I think it's time for legislation which would impose HUGE fines for environmental damage.

These are the "wealth creating" workings of solid neoclassical, Chicago School, Fraser Institute economics taught in our universities.

Nobody dares to stand up against them, as it would hurt the feelings of "wealth creating" foreign and domestic investment. The investment of what ? Imaginary money created by some bank.

Now, on one side we have non existing investment of wealth creating imaginary capital causing irrepairable damage and colonization, and on the other a continuous string of moaning and groaning, but no daring to go after the sources of this monumental fraud enslaving and destroying Earth.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

I have a small feeder stream on my property...
The stream ends at a small waterfall on the property. I had to sign agreement to comply with fishery regulations with regard to the stream on "my" property...to protect the natural flora protecting the stream..agreement not to build any structures within 15 meters of the stream. Salmon spawn in the pool just below the waterfall. I have counted over 100 fry at times in the pool in summer. The small stream flows to the Little Sta-a-mus creek which in turn flows to the Stawamus River which then flows to the sea.
Every year Fisheries officers in waders would diligently walk the creek checking on habitat conditions and I was always glad to see them.
Recently gentrification has been happening downstream and I`ve seen areas where the stream has been terraced. I don`t know that fish can make it up now. I haven`t seen the Fisheries people do their walk for a couple of years now...I called Fisheries...the Fisheries Officer laughed..Cutbacks..they no longer have the staff to walk the streams..he said he`d mail out some info brochures...I said I`d like one to check out...I never got one..nothings happened and I now see NO FISH.
Nobody cares.

Greedy developers and the construction industry own our government. All they care about is lining their filthy pockets. Look around at the massive mega-projects of little public utility you're paying for!
To those at Eagleridge bluffs, watch out! Kevin "knuckles" falcone is going to call in truncheon weilding, skull-smashing, plexi-cops real soon!

Don't forget that big business never uses its own capital, because it is a tax deductible business expense to borrow non existing, freshly created, imaginary money to licence exploitation, expropriation and enslavement of the environment and humanity.

And people and governments lie down and beg to be run over by these, elected government licenced, crooks.

Ed Deak.

IMAC:
Are you telling us with your "science" that the Fraser river "isn't", excuse me, "wasn't" one of the most productive salmon runs in the world? Accurate numbers, at least when previous governments wanted to know these things should they ever get the notion to become stewards of these lands, do exist.

BC Mary, your post shines on the ugliness of Canada's sudden shift in federal power, coinciding with our poor environmental stance, greater involvement with the U.S.'s empirical wars against nations who nationalize their resources... capitalist push to squeeze every last drop of bitumen out of the sands business as usual, market driven neo-con agenda to turn it all into a wasteland because it makes good business sense... its becoming embarassing for us now on an international front.

I keep hoping they put minority government in bold print in international newspapers. And I hope I don't have to hold up the sign after the next federal election, "Please forgive us, world. Were not all Republicans and Cons."

Ed,

Regarding your last post, you may be interested in an article in the Guardian about a recent privatization in Britain involving the Carlyle Group which resulted in the fleecing of the British public.

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2006/02/14/a-good-model-for-a-mugging/

That Hawes guy seems like a real genius. The annual sediment load of the Fraser is 17.3 X 106 tonnes (~18million). Surely those gravel mines will reduce sediment load. And I can say that with some authority, because my campaign to empty lake Huron with a tea cup has lowered the shoreline. Yeah, this Hawes guy: not full of shit at all.

While I am generally in favour of economic activity, this is unacceptable.

Man can have a responsible economic relationship with the environment, however in many instances the environment is being abused.

Mining or drilling for oil and gas should never occur if the activity is interrupting the migration patterns of a species of animals.

We do a pretty good job of environmental sustainability in BC, however we must do better.

I wouldn't want you to change your mind mabellbc but I agree with you

Is anyone here interested in an on line question/petition on 2010 W/O"limp"ics?
As I for one will not be able to afford the price now or in the future. (Already a slip by the CO of W/O of an over run of a $110,000,000. since then a total black out!)
This money has been cut from Fisheries, Social Services (dead babies, homeless etc) blood money! Let the Corporations pay for the W/O as far as I'm concerned they should be paying for the Sea/Sky-high priced hwy
Gordo, Falcon (he must have been bullied by people like Gordo when he was a kid and still is a wimp)Carol (shoo) Taylor, etc
Time to Rise Up For REAL DEMOCRACY!
Provincially and Federally

It would be a crowning monument to BC politics if the entire olympic movement sputtered to a halt over a Vancouver 2010 disaster. I'd be proud — in the same way that New Yorkers are proud of Times Square prostitutes and dirty subways.

I love this shit! We have a real estate agent/politician who argues the merits of gravel mining in rivers with people of science? The day that that closed shop union called lawyers allows people who haven't passed the bar to become judges is the day I accept Mr. Hawes' arguments.

And I suppose Viagra is about building muscle... where do these guys come up with this crap? Self-serving pr*cks.

Thanks Chris for this story. If we continue down this road, this road which has proven again, and again that we are driving over nature as we would speed bumps, the earth won't be around a lot longer.
We are stuck in the belief that development is always progress - sometimes, it is regress, and destructive.

Spencer Herbert
Vancouver

The bc liberals are little more than a rogue's gallery of greedy, sociopathic businessmen masquerading as corrupt politicians.
They do not represent the interests of the so-called "public trust" but, in cruel irony, seek to exploit and dismantle it.
Aided by their propaganda arm of the corporate media (canwest goebbel)their numerous moral crimes are either shamelessly spun (faceless editorial "board" gives "thumbs up" to off-shore oil exploration or Panel of 60 "scientests" send letter to harper urging dismissal of Kyoto accord etc. etc.) or marginalized by relegation to the back pages.(see page A9 of Tues. April 18th province for tiny article on British PUBLIC HEALTH CARE CRISIS resulting from reforms now under consideration by gordo and private medicine puppetmasters/profiteers.
Imagine where that story would be placed if it were the NDP considering a failing socialist health care model. Can you say "FRONT PAGE HYSTERICS"
As for the cursed olympics what a legacy of greed and corruption!!

At least we know that we are getting our monies worth out of one provincial governmental agency. The huge budget increase to the spin doctoring advertisement department has the masses believing the total crap that the politicians are spewing while raping our nature and stealing our wealth. To me the real question is HOW DO WE WAKE UP THE AVERAGE CITIZEN TO MOVE TOWARDS CHANGE FOR THE FUTURE? This is what we need. The mindless rantings of the neocon contributors on these posts show just how weak they are. Why don't we discuss how to actually make an impact on the collective minds of our society? In todays world only the extreme registers on society. We need to educate through an EXTREME ACTION. I'm sure that the neocon artists will have some suggestion as to what we should do to ourselves but i'm addressing the intelligencia out there. The neocons know just how tenuous their grasp on power has become due to their blatant fleecing of society by ham fisted politicians like Gordo but, even though Campbell has been a wonderful tool in the raising of awareness of the public against neocons, how do we accelerate the cause? The public is eating up Gordo's new sham of appearing to have a conscience, thus allowing him to continue in his privastizing ideology, so what can we do?

o "limp" pic greed but no money for game wardens, real dfo people, yet they have money to buy slot machines, opening new scratch & lose, backing casinos, back room politics no open government where is the accountability With the NDP, who was involved with the big mla's 17% increase they are 1 & the same owned & cowed by organized crime big biz....
where is the media with the Basi, verk, boneman, and all the others hush, hush, B very, very quiet B-A-N-G make a noise lets get going, it's going to get very hot in the gordo camp this summer I hope
Where is Carol James probably on holidays even when she's here she is not heard my donation is now canceled

I am not 100% sure, but I believe the proponent in this case was the local native band, you will notice that the article did not talk about any First Nation comments.

Percy:

Just as a point of trivia, there are salmon in the Humber River in Toronto. I saw them swimming upstream last October. The Don River is probably a different story...I think it's still quite polluted.

If people want to help save the environment, they need to get involved in their local municipal governments. This is what the developers do, and that's why they are so often getting their way.

the billions of dollars in advertising time BC will get from the Olympic investment will be great for all of us who work in the tourism industry, for years after teh Olympics. Its our time to shine for the world.

Bring on the Olympics, can't wait as it will be good for me and the tens of thousands who wait tables, clean rooms, drive cabs . . you know - ordinary people just trying to make a living, not politically motivated types or managers on a union payroll.

Unless cleaners and food service people are getting paid per room or per burger I doubt they're looking forward to Olympic crowds while still getting the same wage as they ever did.

LOGJAM 603 I agree that the olypics will be great. The disabled of this province are currently uniting to use these games as a means to shame the government into putting money into pensions that we can survive upon. The olympic games and especially the paraolypic games will provide us our international venue to get help!! Too bad it will have to come at the cost of an embarassed country but, so far the public has not supported our needs and the Campbell government has forced us into actute poverty and our children are also being forced into poverty. In 2010 you'll get to see first hand the cost of neoconservative cruelty.

Logjam 603:

"...managers on a union payroll."

Okaaaay...

The Olympics will be an economic disaster for BC. Our local village politicians are dreaming of tourists flooding the Interior, forgetting the Expo 86 disaster.

Expo 86 lasted, what was it, 6 months (6)in the summer months and cost me $5,000 minimum, although I never went near the thing, but my turnover went down, so did everybody else's.

The expected tourists never materialized and scores of privately owned hotels, motels, restaurants went bellyup. It also drained monies from the "Heartlands", with our own people flocking to Vancouver. I was canvassing all other business owners I knew in the Williams Lake area at the time and they all lost money, even the supermarkets. It was the same story, well covered in the papers at the time, but how soon people can forget the facts.

So, how and why would 12 days of Olympics in the middle of Winter bring anybody outside of Vancouver and why? This is something I have yet to hear explained in a logical and rational way.

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Thanks, Chris, for the interesting article. This covers a lot of topics that I'm studying right now - maybe I can give an impartial scientific perspective on the issue.

I'll keep my arguments within the current broad socio-economic trends - there ARE people who want to build things and those things will require basic building materials. From a structural viewpoint, those materials will be concrete, steel, or wood. Because of it's ability to withstand wet conditions, concrete is the material of choice for interacting with the ground. However, for any other structural elements - anything above the ground, that is - steel or timber products would do fine (except floor slabs tend to be concrete to kill noise, but there are ways around this for wood or steel). The choice often comes down to a matter of economics - designers specify the cheapest material.

On the environmental side, there are arguments against all of them. The steel smelting process isn't exactly clean - smelters dump all sorts of stuff in the water, logging causes silt runoff that chokes salmon, and concrete is pretty well explained above. Logging can be conducted in a more responsible manner, but it runs the cost up. I'd imagine steel could also be produced in a cleaner way, but they choose the cheapest alternative (weigh the probability of a fine and the amount of that fine vs. the cost of avoiding it). I've never actually seen a study that compares the relative impacts of these three products on fish stocks.

However, wood tends to win out in the Carbon Dioxide (green house gas) fight. It can be argued that trees absorb CO2 and when they are cut and used in construction, that CO2 is never eaten by an animal that turns it back into oxygen (O2). The corollary of that is that a tree isn't entirely CO2 - it also absorbs nutrients from the ground, so by logging a forest and calling it a carbon sink will deplete soil nutrients.

Back to the Fraser River - neither argument presented above is entirely true. Removing sediment CAN help flood conditions if done very precisely and with a LOT of analysis up front. It's highly unlikely that the gravel is being removed in such a planned manner, because it would require a coherent strategy, not just the approval of individual licenses, as is usually the case.

As for the actual strategies of flood prevention discussed above... Removing sediment from anywhere in the channel would be helpful, as it gives more room for higher water to flow (we're talking about floods, so even removing gravel that's currently above the surface is helpful).

If you remove the sand bars, the flood water that flows over-top of it will still be relatively shallow during a flood - so the gains would be rather small. And of course any fisherman can tell you that these sand bars are essential for providing fish the backwaters and shelter they need to migrate and spawn.

If you cut the channel deeper in the middle, it would have more of an increase in velocity than removing the gravel bars. However, this higher velocity would result in the now-steepened channel slopes. They would collapse in, possibly devastating the channel.

So I guess my point is that it's even worse for the fish than presented above. Even the David Suzuki Foundation spokesman understated the dangers of removing gravel.

My apologies if this post was a bit of a rant - I hope someone found it useful.

Kory
Don't worry about a lack of trees. Canada has the Boreal Forest, the largest forest ( or second ) in the world. It's huge and stretches across northern Canada.
What should be highlighted, is this volcano spewing more crap into the atmosphere than anything mankind has ever , in our total existence. It's somewhere in South America and is happening right now.

Fiat Lux makes an incisive point. I, too, was around Vancouver during Expo 86 and saw the same economic phenomena occur- a net drainage of resources and business from elsewhere. Now that we look back on it, EXPO 86 was a cunning political ploy to obtain Federal Funding for big infrastructure projects like Skytrain and a grand excuse for opening up the development lands around False Creek.

In most major American cities, they don't need a major international event to build a subway line and redevelop property, but BC's unique political climate requires a grand excuse to force through funding for numerous projects all at once.

Now we have the Olympics and I can see the same pattern of behaviour emerging again. A small group of businessmen will make some real money. Alot of trouble will be thrown up to expand highways and Skytrain lines and put up new facilities. Rather than deal with interminably boring and fractious root problems behind the Lower Mainland's infrastructure woes- like the GVRD, we cook up a mega-event as an excuse to ram through projects.

In March we had another fish catastrophe in Burnaby:

Massive fish kill in Byrne Creek
http://www.burnabynow.com/issues06/031106/news/031106nn1.html

When half a dozen dead cutthroat trout were spotted in the lower portions of Byrne Creek on Saturday afternoon, local Streamkeeper Paul Cipywnyk knew it was not a good sign.

As he and his wife continued their daily stroll along the creek, they found dozens more dead fish from near the Edmonds SkyTrain station to the new fish habitat pond just below Marine Drive. By Sunday afternoon, after city engineering crews inspected the damage, more than 300 dead cutthroat were counted in the waterway, plus several coho salmon.

"Sadly, it looks like a complete wipeout for Byrne Creek again," said Joan Carne, the unofficial head of the largest and most active Streamkeepers group in South Burnaby. "Even the worms in the creek died, too."

By the time B.C. Ministry of Environment staff arrived to collect and count the dead fish on Monday, whatever substance it was that killed the fish had long since washed away.

I thought that was pretty interesting. There is great value in trying to keep our local streams clean- obviously the DFO isn't up to it even in town, and the Streamkeeper Paul Cipywnyk's blog http://www.cipywnyk.net/mtblog/ entry on this matter says that he has noticed that fewer citizens are actually calling in to report suspicious spills.

We need to get the money reallocated to officials who protect the environment and we need to band together with stronger citizens groups to watch what is happening in our own back yards and broadcast this information - on the web for starters.

Kory you're right we do have to build things.

However we don't have to build at the rate we are now, using crappy construction methods so that buildings don't last.

We should also be looking at recycling the material from buildings and roads that are being moved/demolished.

Very little salvaging is going on in Vancouver these days- although many old homes with floors and excellent timbers still intact are being torn down to create flimsy condos or stucco mega-homes.

We need to think about the lifecycle of building materials, so that they will be able to be salvaged easily when the time comes.

With regards to 2010 - I wonder if Jim Green or Larry Campbell ever feel twinges of regret when they see the direction the Olympics they pushed so hard to get are taking this province?

I'd love to know.

Hmmm, go figure. 2.25 million alevin dead and BC Environment Minister, Barry Penner (from Chilliwack) has not spoken up in outrage? Of course not... Wouldn't be surprised if Steelhead Aggregates was a primary donor to his campaign for reelection. SE2 was Penner's battle that gave him widespread support but denied him a cabinet position. Now that he's in, he lacks any clout in defending the environment from his pro-development buddies.

Mary Jane
You don't realize that with the high cost of commodities ( copper, steel, aluminum, etc. ) that everything is being recycled.
God knows China has bought every scrap of steel and copper that exists. Old ships, barrels, steel studs, it doesn't matter. If it exists, recycle it.
I don't think you are aware of this, everything you complain about not happening, is happening.

Right on B.C. Mary, and Coyote. I am right behind you on your observations, and your obvious earth comments.

We are frogs that were placed in cold water, and heated slowly. We stayed in the pot as we did not notice the changes in tempeture. If our world looked like "this" SUDDENLY, we would be freaking out, and we would not stand for it. I am thankful for the Tyee and its many supporters, for bringing to light these important earth issues...

The boreal forest in Alberta it almost totaly slated for the oil sands project\destruction. What are we doing. Would our ansestors have believed we would be capable of complete annialation of this prestine forest. The salmon steams are being distroyed systematically, and therefore threatening the survival of salmon in general, let alone the ecology of the salmon which includes the forest, the bears, the wolves, and the timy organisms we do not see...

I ask, what has the human race done FOR the Mother Earth? If we do not start doing good, there will be no reason for us to be allowed to stay here.

We are not special enough to be allowed to stay for the sake of human survival...ha. We need to answer to a much higher court then our own...

Peace.

RTB

Today (20 April), the scientists' letter is mentioned in Canada's largest daily newspaper.

On Page A14, in fact. "Scientists urge PM to set strategy on climate change." Ho hum, yawn, eh?

And when Prime Minister Harper gave the Ministry of Natural Resources to that proven deadwood, Gary Lunn, could he have shown greater contempt for the environment? Little Gary got right to work, of course, and eliminated 15 climate programs.

But the good news is that David Emerson is not happy. He is reported to be frustrated by Stephen Harper's rigid restrictions. So the news ain't all bad ... but pretty close.

All forms of life on Earth have specific purposes and are programmed for the long term sustainability of the overlapping stystems of ecologies and the elimination of waste. There are no "fittest" in species. They survive as long as they fulfill the demands of the ecology.

The human race is the only one that evolved, or was put here without any logical purpose, or reason. This is why it is the major destroyer of every and anything it touches.

Unless, of course, we believe the words of religious maniacs, like Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, Jim Watt, who said: "When the last tree is cut, the Lord will return". Or as our own Phil Gaglardi said it in his Socred Minister days: "Pollution is the sweet smell of money" and " The Lord put the coal just under the surface so we can open pit mine it"

This is why some call the human race the "Crowning glory of creation!"

Others tell the truth, by calling it the "Bad joke of creation"

Ed Deak, Big Lake.

Fiat lux said:"When the last tree is cut, the Lord will return". Or as our own Phil Gaglardi said it in his Socred Minister days: "Pollution is the sweet smell of money" and " The Lord put the coal just under the surface so we can open pit mine it"

Yes welcome to the land of opprogreedity...ha.

It was one of Ralph Klein's ministers who commented on the plight of the threatened woodland caribou herd near Hinton,Alberta, saying that industry WILL continue in this threatened caribou's habitat, BUT with the implimentation of the best science available. Bull sh**, or Bovine Fecology...I mean really, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that without habitat, these pathetically few animals will die... Shooting wolves and reclaiming lands will not work, as caribou ecology is much more refined then that... When will our "leaders" learn that they don't know enough to know what they don't know? "Perfection" is not humanly possible to duplicate...

On an "up" note again, I am thankful for those that seek the truth like B.C.Mary, Ed Deak, and others... Keep up the good bloggin'dudes...

Peace...

RTB

Now is this guy a genius ! or what ?

THIS IS THE KIND OF MENTALITY THAT IS IN THE KAMPBELL KLAN ...they love this kind of thinking/or non-thinking ...

BC Dude: great idea on the petition.

R. Smiley

The internet is Key to start a "No to 2010" and I'll bet the majority of BCer's would give a resounding "NO"!
Put that $ towards saving our children’s/grandchildren future (salmon, etc) not a huge sinkhole of debt
Where are our raw logs going, can U say w bush?
I worked for Mac Blow in the 60's we were shipping what was called "Jap Squares" whole trees cut into 12", 18", 24", 36" "=inch
cut to fit more into cargo holds..
We got them back as souvenirs of BC (lil totem poles etc,,, laughing w/sad tears
Later

and who said Canadians were not as racist as the Americans ?

i wonder what the Japanese called them ?

I think my brother might be out on the Vedder right now freezing his ass off,trying to catch something.

seems all of our rivers fish stocks are really dwindling and they need all the help we can muster.

construction eats up mountains of gravel and in a lot of European construction the gravel is made from and on site,that Eagle Ridge protest is a good example,they want to drill through,well use the material for gravel

DON'T GO RUINING FISH HABITAT

A movie is about to be released called "An Unconvenient Truth." It is mainly about globalwarming and if you want more information about it you can go to http://www.climatecrisis.net/
and read about it. Here are couple of quotes from the site that brought this discussion to mind.
"What changed in the U.S. with Hurricane Katrina was a feeling that we have entered a period of consequences." Al Gore

"It is difficult far a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it." Upton Sinclair

Raif: Damn, once again I find myself agreeing with you and I was pretty sure that would never happen, you being a Socred shill and all, but...strange bedfellows, I guess.

Last year the herring on the east side of this Island were so small they swam through the mesh of the nets. Some of us think that's because DFO in it's idiocy is allowed 80+ metric tonnes of krill to be seived out every year to be added to pelleted food for the salmon in the feed lot pens. OH, it has some possible uses in the manufacture of lipstick, too.

Without the krill the herring were so small they couldnt be caught.

So DFO ignored it's own regulations and it's own permitted areas and sent'em all over to the west coast.

It was to make you weep and some did. And, of course, the fleet OVERfished it's quota.

This year? Herring came late and herring came in far far fewer numbers. Some areas seemed not to get any herring at all. What is usually a couple of weeks of strong herring activity was, in some places, a matter of one day of spawning and then...

this is bad news for the wild salmon.

Mind you once those pesky wild fish are gone there's no longer any reason to protest the increased numbers of pens full of lice infested feed lot atlantics, is there? They can string'em side by each all up and down the entire coast. With no wild fish they can dam every river they encounter, maybe two or three dams per river, sell all kinds of hydro to keep the lights burning around the used car lots in the Hew Hess Hay.

I mean, what's the damn fuss, right? We've got lots of video's of fish coming upriver to spawn so future generations can sit in front of their TV's and see what used to be. people will forget what real fish tastes like and eat the pallid slop from the farms. Those family members of MP's and MLA's who have investments in feed lot fish pens will make lots of nice money and what'n'hell's to complain about, eh?

Don't be so damned ungrateful. They brought you the Olympics, why complain if they have to dredge every spawning bed in the province to get enough washed gravel to use as backfill? We'll have a LEGACY from the Olympics! How many legacies do you get a chance to get, anyway? After all the whole Expo 86 thing worked out just ticketyboo, those people who got evicted from their single resident hotels did fine under the bridges and when the crowd went home there was all that land for Lee Kwai Cheng to pick up for a song. He's probably still singing.

Just keep on voting for the neo-Cons and when you join the increasing numbers of Xian fundamentalists in Church be sure to read ONLY those parts of the Bible they underline for you. Don't read those parts which say God created the earth and commanded us to respect that creation and treat it as a gift. Don't read the parts which say Love thy neighbour, just read the parts about smiting hip and thigh and stoning sinners and ever vengeful flames and never, ever, not even once wonder what the Prince of Peace would think about the wars being planned in His name. Herring? Hell, it isn't as if many people EAT them, they've been used for fertilizer, cat food, dog food and fish pellets for years, who's going to miss them when they're gone? Krill? When was the last time you sat down to a meal of krill on toast. That's right. Never! So what's all the fuss about.

Just shut up, pay your taxes on time and in full and do what the hell you're told.

And no, we won't face a future election with Chretiens chosen leading the Libs. The sickening reality is that Justin the Wimp (too much like his mom that boy) will face off against Ben the Smarmy (chip off the old block) and the rest of us can join Mary with our heads in the loo hurling in disgust.

Hi Mary! Give'em hell, hen!!

Replying to Bob the Cat:
I was one of those (now unemployed) fish counters, Bob. I worked on Vancouver Island for DFO for six years, but now there is no budget for counting spawning salmon and no one is doing it any more, except in a few streams where there is a Species-at-Risk (SARA) concern. The Fraser River coho are not a species-at-risk and neither are the Sakinaw sockeye, according to the powers that be.

Last year there was an unprecedented but undocumented collapse of Coho salmon on the southeast coast of Vancouver Island and it seems that no one has the budget to do anything about it. It is not true to say that no one cares, but their budgets have been decimated and they are powerless to act.

I have trouble believing the story as posted. Proving that salmon eggs die in the gravel is very difficult to do. It is even more unbelievable that a gravel bar could be built across the largest single sockeye river on Earth too, without multiple charges being laid against the perpetrators.

This, and a number of similar issues leads me to believe that the federal government has written off the Pacific salmon as an expendable resource. I would love to read an impassioned letter to the contrary from some credible working biologist within DFO, but I am not holding my breath.

I am presently operating a smolt fence on a small stream in Nanaimo. It is a volunteer operation, but this is the last year I can afford to do it. It is heartbreaking to see the fishery so ill-managed.

The only remedy I see in the long term is to pry local control of the Pacific salmon from the federal government. The resource should be managed locally, by independent biologists who understand the issues, but have no financial interest in the resource.

The blunt truth is that even among the commercial fishing and angling communities, the primarry beneficiaries of the industry, there is no understanding of the basic biology of the salmon they catch. Very few British Columbians are prepared to put on a pair of waders to count salmon fry, or smolts or even spawning adults. Most guys just want to catch their limit and to Hell with next year. Tell me it ain't so, Joe.

Fish Counter how do we go about getting provincal/local control?

Fishcounter

Of course there are people who care..

I meant...

Aye it is that...I wonder if Government sees the natural Salmon runs as a nuisance and if its gone it can be full speed on the Fish Farms.
say it ain`t so

Thanks for your very informative reply.
bob

I hadn`t seen Anne Camerons post above...yes thats how I see it as well..

fishcounter sez ...

haraldkann sez ... like everything else in GOVERNMENT,if it is an EXPENSE they don't want to deal with,they download it to some one who cares and can do it thereby saving monies in the budget that allows them to crow about the good mamaghement they are providing

and the general public is to busy trying to feed and clothe themselves while keeping a roof over their heads...

MEAN WHILE EUROPEAN TOURISTS COME OVER SPEND A PITTANCE ON A FISHING LICENSE AND FISH TO THEIR HEARTS CONTENT AND THEN LEAVE,THEIR FISHING,SUBSIDIZED BY US

see some thing wrong with this picture ?

What I see wrong with the picture is what I see every summer in the village in which I live. Tourists, often from Alberta or the USA arrive in droves, park their campers, then put their boats in the water. They go out every day and fish fish fish. Now, say they catch a ten pounder, oh wow, great, but then they catch a 20 pounder. You can only have so many fish per day. No problem, toss the ten pounder back in, the scavengers will feast...now the regulations say you can only have so many fish when you head off home...but who pray tell is going to count them? We have only one road in and out of here and i have NEVER seen a checkpoint. Never. Nobody on the dock to check that they haven't overfished their limit. We have ONE fisheries guy, he's a good guy, dedicated to his job, but he can't be everywhere on the west coast of the Island at once!! There's a cute business going on, too. Yanks come with their boats and a few days later some "friends" arrive to go fishing. Now a yank isn't allowed to be a fish guide. WHo checks? The business part of it all happens below the 49th. The "friends" pay for their vacation down there. NO money changes hands up here. Just some friends up for a few days on the water. But it's fish guiding, and sooner or later someone's registered in Oregon boat is going to wind up burned to the water line. Maybe THEN there will be someone doing some checking. They come and either stay at the hotel, on an "all inclusive" , all paid below the 49th of course, or they camp and they've brought all their groceries in with them. Anyone who touts "sports fishing" and "tourism" as big money makers has got to be smoking BC Bud!! Fish fish fish untl your boots are full then off you go and guess who winds up standing in icy cold water helping the Salmon Enhancement people try to ensure there are baby fish to replace the ones being hauled out day after day after day. How long can one inlet support this kind of gold rush mentality? Why are the fishing licenses so goddam CHEAP? I can almost see out-of-province Canadians getting a reasonably priced license, we're a country, we all live here. But out of country people should pay twice what they're paying. Now the DFO has handed off the checking of the total catch to the border guards...who are so overworked I doubt they'd have time to look for a Smiley or two, they're up to their nose holes in drug smugglers. Everybody is handing it off to the next guy who hands it off to the next guy who...drops it into a hole and nothing gets done.

But, as the gentleman pointed out, WE wind up doing the work and picking up the tab. And you know what, we'll keep on doing it, too, because we value our fish. They're like those out-of-province tourists, they're Canadian, too, dammit!

It's really hard to watch it happen every year without beginning to wonder just what the actual agenda of the DFO and the federal gov't. is. I mean we COULD have had someone working for them who knew which end was the Up end but no, political debts got paid and we got the Invisible Man, John Duncan (who?) hired, supposedly to do what he didn't bother to do when he was the MP.

but that's okay. That's fine. Just keep fiddlin', and watch them all dancing to each other's tune.

Now the Fraser River oolichan (eulachon or candlefish) are gone. (Some summer student in Ottawa is probably trying to figure out if the oolichan is related to the pelican). I wonder if it is true that the people of Canada just don't deserve to have healthy fish stocks. I don't know how we take the bureaucracy out of it, but if we don't, we ain't gonna have any coho left in three years.

Fish-Counter:
Thank you for your informative posts. I've been following the current threads on the subject and it makes me heartsick to hear of the devastation taking place. Although it is a small gesture, I will be writing to my MP. It's the LEAST I can do!