Canada's Fisheries Act

The federal government is not particularly trusted nor beloved by the country's scientists.  The simple fact being that science in this country feels it is being threatened, that its progress is being hampered by a government that sees too little practical value in practical science and environmental sciences, opting instead to shift priority funding to the kind of science that accelerates manufacturing and trade.

The Canadian Society For Ecology and Evolution has sent an open letter of protest to the Conservative government over proposed revisions to the Fisheries Act that would have the effect, in their opinion, of placing 80% of the country's 71 freshwater species at risk of extinction.  The letter is co-signed by the government's own former main independent advisory body on species at risk, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.

The threatened closure of the world-famed Experimental Lakes Area near Kenora in northwestern Ontario is another issue of contention.  "In my time working in the U.K. government I never saw any sign that any of the behaviour, practise or actions of the Canadian government would be even remotely tolerated", said Nick Dulvy, recruited by Simon Fraser University to the post of Canada Research Chair in Marine biodiversity and Conservation.

If the proposed changes to the Fisheries Act contained in Bill C-38 go through, the legislation would eliminate one of the most effective environmental components of federal law - the standing ban on any activity that is proven to result in "harmful" alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat.  On this matter a case in point is not too difficult to identify.

The invasive Asian snakehead fish from China, imported into Canada live for food represents a dreadful threat to the preservation of native Canadian fish.  These predator-fish are barred entry to the United States legally, but they have been introduced nonetheless.  Likely live for Chinese accustomed to eating them in their native surroundings, and possibly through importation for aquariums.

As with such problem species, when they become too large for the aquarium, unthinking people set them loose in the nearest waterway.  In the United States biologists recognize they have become a threat, as a voracious, predatory fish that consumes all living things wherever it happens to find itself.  There was much ado over closing off aquatic entry to the Great Lakes to halt the fish's progress in infecting North American waters.

The snakeheads have ruined some southern U.S. waterways, consuming everything, leaving devastation behind.  They are amazingly resilient creatures, capable breathing out of water, and of travelling overland on their fins, some great distances, a peculiar adaptation for a fish, more than amply amplifying their threat to native species.  They have been reputed to capture small pets venturing too close to the beasts' lairs.

And now they are suspected of having made their way into British Columbia; Burnaby has been placed on the alert for their presence, and ichthyologists are attempting to search out those places where snakehead spotters claim they've been seen and identified.  The fear being that they will make their way into B.C. rivers and completely disrupt salmon runs, for starters. 

Canada has seen fit not to outlaw the importation of live snakeheads for human consumption.  Likely for fear of offending Chinese-Canadians accustomed to having the fish on their tables.  In all likelihood, once the situation was adequately explained to the community, they would doubtless give it their blessing that the fish only be allowed importation after being caught and processed for food.

As things stand at present, it is too late to apprehend the eventual invasion of snakeheads.  But the federal government should leave such decisions in the hands of those who know best how foreign species impact on native species, and govern the country's needs in this direction accordingly.

Jeremy Wade holds a giant snakehead, a native of Southeast Asia and some areas of India. The most aggressive species of snakehead, it is capable of growing to over 3 feet in length and weighing over 40 pounds.