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There is something fishy here

Apr 26, 2011 | 10:01 AM

for paNOW

I do not like fish — including the fish in the backyard pond, which I never see anyway.

There are four reasons why I do not like fish:
1. They have bones
2. Captain Highliner does not live in Nova Scotia
3. Tuna may not be tuna
4. Some dolphin are trapped purposely; the very same dolphins which may be hiding in tuna cans.

There ought to be more checking on which ‘fish’ are fish and what have they been swimming in recently. Are they from the Atlantic, Northern Pacific or questionable Chinese fish farms? I have no problems with China. However, China has different food safety standards than we do. Food coming into Canada for Canadians should be checked by Canadian food inspectors and it isn’t always. There are too many food shipments and not enough food inspectors.

I say ‘questionable fish farms’ because I recently saw a documentary on the subject of fish farming. What I saw, and didn’t like a bit, was a vegetable farm some feet above the fish farm. The problem is that fertilizer for such vegetable farms is called ‘night soil.’ It is human excrement. Being as the fish farm was below the vegetable farm, the fertilizer would be seeping down into the fish farm.

Captain Highliner not only didn’t tell us that, he looks as though he is a Canadian. Not necessarily so. His fish often come from China. I avoid his packages of fish because I don’t know if they come from fish farms, the open sea or both?

‘Packed in Canada for…’ can indicate the product may have come in bulk from another country. Some cans marked ‘fish’ may have a notice saying there is no dolphin meat in that can of, maybe, probably, tuna.

That being the case, why did Japanese fishermen threaten force when a television crew tried to visit there secluded ‘fish farm’? It was clearly marked ‘No Entrance,’ but the reason was most disturbing. The ‘fish farm’ was a good sized ocean bay filled with thrashing, trapped dolphins – thousands of them.

Their government could well have rules against catching dolphins and using the meat as ‘fish.’ Dolphins are mammals. Fish are fish and that is all they should be. But, some Japanese fishermen, obviously, are able to trap dolphins and pass their meat off as fish.

Dolphins are dying at an ever increasing rate. Man is responsible for very nearly all of those deaths. Hopefully, the Japanese government officials will eventually track down these illicit farms and close them down.

Meanwhile, we need more inspectors in Canada to see to it that fish are fish and that they have been raised in a safe, clean environment.