Ca - The Terrace Standard, Wednesday, March 12, 2003 SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN KEENA ANGLER- ROB BROWN Twofer ast week Safeway, one of our distant- ly owned and focally operated corner grocery emporia, offered two farmed Atlantic salmon for the price of one. Ef you missed this offer read on-and be consoled. If you were one of those shoppers who took ad- vantage of this incredible deal, before greasing your skillet consider what is written below, You may want to take your brace of salmon back’ to the store and trade them in for a few cans of their nutritious and healthful wild counterparts. The fact is Atlantic salmon do drugs when they’re down on the farm. A fish farm is a filthy place in the way that a pig farm is. But a pig farm is cleaner, and pig farms aren’t set down smack dab in the middle of prime unreal real estate ‘where they can contaminate and otherwise grossly violate those life generators otherwise known as marine ecosystems. When you cram 50,000 fish into a pen measuring 90 by 90 by 48 feet deep, thereby giving each pathetic fish a space of eight cubic feet, you get disease. Creatures like Aeromonas salmonicida bacteria show up. Aeromonas is a tough little microbe, so tough that when it showed up at the Scanmar farm on the central coast, the fish farmers dis- covered it was resistant to all the antibiotics ap- proved for use in fish farms. Ultimately an alarmed DOCTOR DFO prescribed Erythromy- cin when he discovered that the bacteria and the possibility of a nasty fish disease called frunculosis had spread to other farms 10 kilo- meters distant. All this despite that fact that the good doctor himself had previously expressly forbidden the use of Erythromycin. You don't need any more antibiotics in your system; none of us do when real doctors the world over are enormously concerned with the rampant spread of disease by new antibiotic resistant super bugs. While the moratorium on salmon farm expansion was still in effect, the farms already operating increased their production by 40 per cent by increasing the number of fish in their pens, thereby increasing the need for antibiotics — and pesticides. That’s right, pesticides. In the age when the demand for organic produce is growing dra- matically because you and I are getting tired of eating food treated with chemicals with cancer linkage, the fish farmers dose their piscine cap- tives with Ivermectin. They soak the poison into food pellets, administer it orally, then call it a pharmaceutical to circumvent a legal loophole, Ivermectin is used to treat sea lice at- tracted to the unnaturally large finned biomass in fish farms. So toxic is Ivermectin that its manufacturer Merck Corp. has not approved, or even tested the drug for use in water. This is not surprising since four nanograms of the toxin in one litre of water will kill shrimp. Proportional- ly, that's the equivalent of one ounce per 10,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools. The use of Ivermectin has caused a huge scandal in Britain where the history of aquacul- ture is longer and covered in red flags we ignore at our peril. In 1994, for example, 11 per cent of farmed salmon tested by the government con- tained Ivermectin. Europe is particularly sensitive to the build up of dioxins, furans, and PCBs. In tests conducted by the UK government on farmed salmon, all these cancer starters were found in dangerously high levels in British farmed sal- mon and in Danish, Norwegian, and Chilean farmed fish as well. The revelation of these findings in an “award winning BBC documentary that was aired in 2001 caused so much embarrassment to the UK's Foods Standards Agency that they went from recommending two to three portions of oily fish per week to suggesting that farmed salmon should not be eaten more than once a week. In other words consuming more than this amount would exceed food safety limits. of the consumption of crustacea. Farmed fish -are dyed, The fish farmer consults his SalmoFan then buys the pellets containing that artificial colour, Chemicals like canthaxanthin and astax- anthin are commonly used in these colouring agents. The former was once used in a Sun-tan- ning pill until it was shown to cause retinal damage. , In a world uncontaminated by rampant consumerism, excessive greed and environ- mental ignorance fish mongers would be fined fined for giving it away. ‘TERRACE STANDARD ______638-7283 Sports Scope Seniors battle in Penticton in 2004 LOCAL senior athitees will be on their way to Penticton in 2004 for the B.C. Senior Games. - , Penticton was one of six communities bidding for the games and was awarded the honour just last week, Penticton is famous for tourism, sun, fun, beaches, lakes, the Ogopogo, the Penticton Peach Festival, the Ir- onman Canada Triathlon and the Pacific Northwest Elvis Festival. This year’s senior games take place in Chilliwack. Wanna play fastball? FASTBALL fans are hoping to rejuvenate Terrace’s men’s fastball league this summer. Terrace organizers are hoping to form four local teams for some inter-city play. Men aged 14 and older are welcome ~ experience isn’t necessary. The league’s also hoping to have a mid- get feeder team for players aged 14-18, a men's team and a seniors team for players 40 and up, If you're interested call Ryan at 635-0825 or Norm at 635-2249. ROBBIE MILLER unleashes a powerful delivery at the Terrace Lanes as his team of teen bowlers prepares for this weekend's Youth Bowling Co neil's pro- vincial 5-pin championships in Kelowna. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN: PHOTO: Red hot teen bowlers eager to take on B.C. By SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN TERRACE’S top teen bowlers are looking to strike gold at this weekend’s provincial bowling championships in Kelowna. The senior boys bowling team knows what it takes to win - they blew away the competition at the northern zone finals Feb. 15-16 securing top spot by a whop- ping 372 points. Michael Dahms, Jesse Mumford, Carl " Haugland, Robbie Miller, Phillip Durand and Andrew Dahms make up the stellar squad, but they've had to shuffle their line-up for the championships. Andrew Dahms also plays for the northwest zone's top juvenile curling team and those provincials are being held the same weekend as the bowling finals. Dahms opted to join the curlers and Matthew Kumpolt stepped in to join the bowlers in Kelowna. “I'm not worried about bringing in an alternale,” says coach Eva Wilkinson, pointing to their close averages as a posi- tive point. Dahms' average is L71 while Kumpolt’s is 172. championships for the second year run- ning. Last year they annihilated the compe- tition by more a more than 300 point spread, easily taking the provincial final. The team went on to the national championships in Quebec and came home with a bronze medal. Having another shot at the national title is high on Robbie Miller’s list of goals. At 18 years old this is the last year he’s eligible to play at the senior youth level. “Tt’s ny last year — our goal j is always to win,” Miller says. With an easy win at the zones the boys are confident going in to the provin- cials but they know anything can happen. “We know we can bowl good enough,” says Michael Dahms. “So it’s not a mat- ter of being too confident it’s whether we bow] our best on that day or not.” Like any other sport, every member of the team plays an important role. “I’ve bowled with them for so long I THE TESSA Grade 6 and 7 girls basketball tourna- ment Mar. 1 offered plenty of action and exciting games. Uplands School claimed first place in both divisions. SARAH A. ZIMMERMAN PHOTO Hoops tourney offers great competition THE GYM was buzzing with activity at Caledonia Senior Secondary as the Terrace Elementary School Sports Asso- ciation (TESSA) hosted a girls Grades 6 and 7 baskerball tournament Mar. 1, The Grade 6 event saw Uplands take top spot with a 37- 15 win over Dassie Hall. Third place winner was Clarence Michiel followed by Thornhill Elelmentary. The sports- manship award was given to Centennial Christian School, _ The afternoon's Grade 7 tournament saw a series of games with lop-sided scores throughout. The day finished with Uplands coming out on top win- The pink flesh of wild salmon is a result. for Selling Atlantic Salmon - heli, they'd be The boys have their sights set on the big prize. If they clinch top spot at pro- vincials they'll move on to the national Bantams caught by the Storm in zone final PENALTY trouble and a lacklustre first two periods lead to the defeat of Ter- race's Inland Kenwortn Bantam reps in the final of the zone championships in Terrace Mar. 2. During round robin play Kitimat lost to both Smi- thers and Terrace disquali- fying them from the final game. Terrace beat Kiti- mat Mar. 1 in a fast-paced, high-energy game by a score of 4-1. The team lost its sec- ond round robin game against Smithers that night 6-5. In the championship game the Smithers Storm came out playiag hard, fast hockey. Smart pass- ing, well executed plays and accurate shooting marked the Storm's. game. . A first period. 3-0. lead for Smithers left the Ter- Mumford. race bench feeling defla- ted and showing it. “We came out flat for the first two periods, we only had three shots in the first period and five in the second,” says head coach John Amos. “You can’t do that against good teams and expect to win.” The team's forte throughout the season was in getting lots of shots - the team averaged 10 shots per period over the year, bul that was missing in Sunday’s game. “We did outplay them in the third period but it was too late,” Amos said. Smithers beat Terrace 7-2. Christien Vance picked up four. goals for Smithers and Zach Davies scored the remaining three. “We couldn’t shut down ‘Zach and Christien, they scored all their: goals. even know I can depend on them,” says Jesse “Usually When you play at a higher level, it pushes us too.” ning over Veritas 24-12, Cassie Hall beat out Clarence Mi- chiel for third spot by a score of 34-18, Sportsmanship awards went to Cassie Hall and Thornhill Elementary. Puan 7 TERRACE won the opening game (above) of the northwast zone champion- ships defeating Kitimat 4-1. Unfortunately the team couldn't pull out a win against Smithers in the zone final and settled for second after a 7-2 defeat, Calen Findlay and Gann ae Kerr scored for Terrace, with players assigned to. strong those two players shadow - them, that’s - how ate,” Amos said.