Retired fisheries expert slams minister

Jack Knox
September 17, 2009
The Province

medium;">For retired fisheries biologist Gordon Hartman, it was the sight of Nero fiddling while Rome burned.

With a full-scale salmon crisis on the West Coast, the famed Fraser River sockeye run approaching total collapse, where was federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea? In Norway, banging the drum on behalf of the fish-farming industry.

Which, after hearing some of her comments, told Hartman all he needed to know about Shea's priorities when it comes to Pacific salmon.

"It was the straw that broke the camel's back," Hartman says from his Nanaimo home.

So Hartman recruited another retired Department of Fisheries and Oceans scientist, Casey McAllister, and drafted an Aug. 31 letter accusing Shea and DFO of doing a poor job of protecting wild salmon while giving unrestrained support to the aquaculture industry.

"Historically, we recall times when DFO stood out clearly on environmental issues," they wrote. Marine oil exploration, fish habitat, coastal logging, the Site C dam proposal -- DFO was always there, on the side of the angels.

"As opposed to this, DFO's performance during the past 25 years or so is lamentable." That's particularly true regarding the protection of Pacific salmon, they wrote. The letter accuses DFO of sitting quietly by while fish-bearing streams are pre-empted for private power development, condoning massive gravel removal in salmon habitat in the lower Fraser River and playing hand-maiden to the aquaculture industry.

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