4 ~ Wednesday, October 10. 1990 - North Shore News Lesson to be learned from Norwegian fish farm e A DELEGATION of Members of Parliament from Norway arrived in Ot- tawa recently to warn Ca- nadians about fish farms. According to Norwegian MP Heakon Blankenborg, the crisis caused by polluted riverways is now “the main ecological! problem in Norway.”’ It is a ‘thot issue,’’ added MP Hallvard Bakke, beceuse ‘ton the one hand you have a very sensitive international market,'’ meaning Norway doesn’t want to scare off customers for its salmon, and ‘‘on the other hand, we have our domestic problems,’’ meaning that something has to be done. There are at least 70 rivers in Norway that have reached the point of no return due to certain parasites and diseases being passed from captive stocks of salmon to wild ones, which is what happens when salmon escape from fish farms and breed with their free- ranging cousins. Norway was the pioneer in salmon fishing. Its regulations, according to Skeena MP Jim Fulton, who hosted the visit by Norwegian parliamentarians, are tougher than Canada’s. Yet, during the 50 years that Norway has been experimenting with ‘‘sea-farms,”’ as they’re call- ed over there, nobody has devised a way to avoid having captive salmon get sick. For one thing, a five-acre fish farm can generate as much fecal waste as a town of 5,000 humans. It is a basic sanitation problem. And when they get sick, other captive salmon get sick too. Some of them inevitably escape and spread the illness to wild fish. There is also tie proulem of “genetic pollution,’' srtaning a weakening of the overall salmon stock due to interbreeding with captives. The poisons that Norway is considering using to purge the country’s rivers of ths: resulting biological contamination are so toxic that nothing will be left alive at the end of the program. The rivers will have to be destroyed in order to be re-stock- ed and started all over again. It is an appalling solution, but the sort of thing that can happen if an ecological crisis is left to fester too long. Which brings us to British Coi- umbia, where there are now more than 100 salmon ‘‘feedtots’’ strung up and down the coast. Fulton is calling for a royal commission into the aquaculture issue. He points out that Alaska has recently banned the practice in order to protect wild stocks. In Norway, there have been problems associated with the multimillion-dollar aquaculture industry for decades, but fish farmers and regular fishermen alike have kept quiet for fear of losing markets. The terrifying solution now fac- ed by Norwegians over tainted fish is something that could have been avoided if the problem had been squarely faced years ago. lt is tronic, of course, that al the very time Jim Fulton for one, is Worrying about the pessibility Bob Hunter ; ECOLOGIC of having to take outrageously radical measures to save tainted waterways at some point in the future, the Canadian governinent is planning to go ahead right now with a biological ‘‘final solution”’ of its own in Alberta's Wood Buffalo National Park. If Ottawa has its way, the larg- est free-roaming herd of buffalo in the world will be utterly destroyed and replaced by animals bred in captivity. According to a report issued by the Northern Diseased Bison En- vironmental Assessment Panel, roughly half the 4,000 bison in the park are infected with either bovine brucellosis, tuberculosis, or both. They should all be slaughtered, the panel concluded, in order to make sure that the diseases don’t spread to cattle or other bison. The only way to eliminate the risk of spreading disease is to have “all free-ranging bison now living in Wood Buffalo National Park and surrounding areas removed and replaced.”’ Such a course of action, according to a press release put out by the panel, would be “‘the largest wildlife conservation effort to save a sub- species ever undertaken in Canada.” We are going to *‘save’’ the wood buffalo by wiping all the wild ones out. Classic modern madness, if you ask me. The Canadian Nature Federa- tion feels the sarne way. **In Europe,’’ the CWF states, “scientists working on the recov- ery of the European bison are concerned about the low diversity of their herd, but do not have the animals to augment the gene pool. **In Canada, we are poised to destroy the largest, most diverse American gene poo! in existence. The bottom line is: once it is gone, it is gone — there will be no second chance. The vaunted effort to ‘save’ a sub-species may therefore have irreversible effects on the future viability of Ameri- can bison.”’ The slaughter is ‘*totally unwar- ranted,” the wildlife federation concludes. So stay tuned. The Canadian government is once again on the verge of unleashing a biological holocaust against a species of animal. The feds just never learn, do they? ST es TAKE A CLOSER LOOK! Your Port is “Heading for the Future” Into the next century... Look for the PORT 2010 The Port of Vancouver has begun Display... formal planning for the facilities and services that will be needed to serve Canadian trade over the next 20 years. We're introducing PORT 2010 with facts and information: about the Port of Vancouver as itis Today —and alook at elements to be considered in planning for Tomorrow. Join us at the beginning... We call this project. 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