The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 1, 1995- C1

SECTION C
ER 638-7283

iNSIDE _
SPORTS MENU:

C2 MALCOLM BAXT

“.SKEENA ANGLER
_. ROB BROWN
False farming

MAGES OF hardworking, gum

booted men working to raise fat

salmonids in luxuriant natural sur-

roundings rolled off the large metal
reels of the old Bell and Howell projector and
on to the screen, What a good idea, I thought,
Was this the wave of the future?

Dennis Briscoe had acquired the documentary
film for the Northwest Chapter of the Steelhead
Society from the library. After the screening we
Kicked the idea around. Perhaps we ought to
throw our support behind this environmentally-
friendly industry. Maybe we should push the
notion that it eventually supplant the traditional
market fishery causing so us much grief.

We were naive, We were wrong. As we soon
found out, antibiotics, algaecides, hormones,
fungicides, parasites, genetic pollution, are just
some of the bricks that make up the foundation
of the aqua cultural edifice — a structure as foul
and ecologically reprehensible as any you can
imagine.

id

Elizabeth Clark, Kim Haugland, Terresa LeFebvre,
Kathleen Gook, Stacey Marceau, Ruby Prihar,
Roxanne Chow, Reyann Morrison, Lee-Anne
Critchley and Shawna Davis show off their banner.

SKEENA JR. GIRLS had not only their skills but also
their stamina tested at the zone championships. And
proved they had enough of both as they made it two
years in a row. Above team members Felecia Arbuah,

Consider the following consequences of fish
farming, A fish farm is, in effect, an appetite-
whetting buffet for marine creatures: magnets
for heron, seals, otters and sea lions, When
these animals follow the trail of their instincts to
a farm they are either shot dead or blasted with
an acoustic” harassment device (AHD).
Designed to scare away predators through the
emission of a loud sound underwater an AHD
may sound humane, but, at 210 decibels —
enough volume to make thrash metal sound like

» .Brahm’s lullaby. — it-ain’t, Cetologists worry. . [

these devices not only bar whales from

preferred haunts, but may also disrupt their ~

migratory paths,

Whales are not the only sentient creatures
evicted from beautiful estuaries and bays by fish
farms; we are tao. Tourists tend to avoid places
whose water has been covered in surface slime
and fouled with fecal matter and toxic gases.

To the larvae of prawns and crabs the fish
farm is a great gaping mouth. When these tiny
crustacea find their way into the confines of the
holding pens unnatural writhing masses of fish
work them over in a most unsatural way,

The crap excreted by an average fish farm, ac-
cording io Norwegian experts — who have had
along and tortured experience with fish farming
— is roughly the waste equivalent of forty thou-
sand people. That’s a heap of poo. And what
does it do? It filters to the bottom and smothers
the creatures living there,

_ And that is not the only excrement excreted

from the fish farming industry. From the lips of
industry spokesmen ooze claims that tidal flush-
ing takes care of waste. Once again we hear an
industry make the preposterous claim that the
Solution to pollution is dilution. It just isn’t so,
Speak to divers or sport fishers who have expe-

rienced the effects of fish farming first hand. -

They call the farms dead zoncs.

And we mustn’t overlook genetic pollution.
Notwithstanding mounds of letters from en-
vironmental groups warming them of the perils,
the Socreds permitted fishy entrepreneurs to im-
port Atlantic Salmon. Apparently salmo salar
grows more quickly and, like most Europeans,
is accustomed to crowded conditions, Thanks to
the stormy disposition of the sea, about ten to
twenty-four thousand juvenile Allantics have
escaped cach year since fish farms began to
despoil our beautiful marine environs. As a
result 15 rivers in this province contain Atlantic
salmon; some have spawning populations,

Think about the European Starling, consider
the jeopardy of wild Norvegian salmon stocks
asa result of disease introduced by escaped
farm fish, and you have a sense of the problem.

Fugitive salmon range widely, In Alaska
legislators wisely slapped a ban on fish farming,
They are not pleased that Atlantic salmon from
here are showing up in their commercial nets.

Antibiotics are fed to farm fish living in
cramped quarters where the disease potential is
magnified. Those drugs are then passed on to
you, the unsuspecting consumer. Your immune
system docsn’t need any more, believe me.

Then there’s the economic idiocy of feeding
four pounds of wild herring and anchovies to
produce one pound of drug soaked salmon, I’ve
just scratched the surface here, but before ] sign
off, 1 simply must mention the Ministry of Agri-
culture, Food and Fish a.k.a, MAFF, Only the
misguided Socreds under VanderZalm (whose
name ironically means "of the salmon" ) could
have created this monstrosity, and with It the
ideal context for a turf war wilh the Ministry of
Environment’s Fish and Wildlife Branch,

What the MATFioso must do fs bring in a law
that ensures all farmed fish are labeled as such.
- Then it must preside over the dismantling of a
"destructive industry that has no business being

in business, Then it must dismantle part of itself

and go back to dealing with agriculture, :

Zones leave ’Cats purring

SKEENA JR. GIRLS are zone

champions again, but they
gave themselves a bit of a
scare on the way..

“We went about it the long

way,”? admitted coach. Bill

Gook. . oo.

The tournament opened’ as
expected, the Wildcats easily
handling Prince Rupert
secondary 74-47.

That put them through to the
‘A’ semi-final and a meeting
with Charles Hayes, the other
coast city team.

There Hayes took advantage
of a slow Skeena start and ear-
ly foul trouble to hang on for a
45-41 victory to send the
Wildcats to the ‘B’ side and a
retum against Prince Rupert.

This turned out to be a much
closer affair, Skeena having
had only a 15 minute break
between games and “‘still in
shock’’, said Gook. However,
the ‘Cats prevailed 45-35.

@ Number one

Which again meant they had
lime only to catch their breath
before hitting the court again,
against Hayes.

Because of the double

knockout format, they also-

faced the task of defeating the
Hays twice to take the title.

Hayes sank the first basket in
the showdown, but that was
the only time the -Ruperteers
were to cnjoy a lead during a
54-24 rout by the Wildcats.

“They -played really good

‘defence,’’ Gook said of his

team, ‘They never allowed

“They played really good defence, they never al-
lowed Hayes to get any momentum.”’.......... GOOK.

Now in their third consecv-
tive game, it Was no surprise
Skeena deliberately kept the
pace slow in the early going.
But when the time came to put
the pressure on, they did what
had to be done pulling away io
a 46-30 win,

That victory, said Gook,
gave the team a _ big
psychological lift, and an hour
break before the finale game
didn’t hurt either,

YOU'VE GOTTA have heart, and Caledonia Senior
Girls basketballers showed they had a lot of that at
the zone championships. Facing a tough Charles
Hayes team they hadn't been able to’ beat during the
regular season, Cal found themselves with their backs

. fo the wall after losing the opener in the best-of-three -

1

Hayes to get any momentum.”

As for what it took to slog
through the back door, he sug-
gesied the experience of the
squad had been a major factor.

“They've played a lot of big -

games this ‘season,’” he ex-
plained.

Although smaller than their
rivals, Gook said Skeena had
more speed and had played
well as a unit,

Felecia Arbuah and Roxanne

Chow were the Wildcat
sharpshooters, | Lee-Anne
Critchley again proved a

leader while Kathleen Gook
controlled the boards,

"Now. the team wait’ for the

trip to the provincials, ‘to be
held at Maple Ridge March 9-
11. And also wait for news of
where they have been ranked
for the tournament.

That’s a factor because a
seeding near the bottom. will

' pit them against one of the top”

teams in their opener,

“That first. game is impor-
tant,” Gook said, ‘‘If you can
get that under your belt, then .
you.can go from there.”’

Given the way Skeena has—

handily. defeated Duchess Park

of Prince George — a highly
regarded team provinicially —
this’ season, he anticipated
Skeena should get the seeding
they want. Te,

series, But they dug deep to take the next two and up-

set the pre-playoff

landers, Bec

avourites. Next week Linnae Bee, =~
Keri Brown, Lisa Clark, Joanne Cooley, Julie Gil- -.
Heenan, Louisa Hendriks, Nicole R
pon, Karen Shepherd, Karla Steadham; Tannis ‘Tr
‘tier and Christine Zaporzan head for the provincials

pe