Little Fish from the Thames River : Fish Habitat it's Everyone's Business

Fish Habitat it’s Everyone’s Business

What is fish habitat and why does it matter? Fish Habitat is any place that fish go that provides fish with food, shelter, space to reproduce and spawn as well as migration routes. What does this mean to water quality? Everything, good fish habitat proves that the water provides healthy fish populations and this is a good indicator of water quality. Also under the fisheries act fish, shellfish and even marine mammals are considered “fish”.

Why is fish habitat protected? In Canada, Fish Habitat is protected under the Fisheries Act, which is federal legislation enforced by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The Act states that anyone or organization that wishes to work near water must ensure that they do not cause any Harmful Alteration Disruption or Destruction (HADD) to fish habitat. Working near water includes private landowners putting in a deck, new factories, city bridges, and oh yes even mines, pipelines and oil sands.

So what’s the problem? You may have guessed it. What is Harper’s favourite resource oil, therefore it is more important than our other resources fisheries, and even freshwater. Would you be surprised to know that the next legislation that Harper plans to gut is the Fisheries Act? Why to speed up the Enbridge Pipelines process. How would this achieve this you ask? Well under the fish habitat guidelines every project must submit proposals how they will avoid any HADD to fish habitat and if they cannot they have to explain what they will do to rebuild it. Before a project is allowed to start an environmental assessment must be preformed to ensure that there will be no harm to the fish habitat.

By removing this law the government will eliminate the need for these assessments and will allow projects and developments to occur in these areas. Therefore those pesky environmental professionals wont be getting in the way of the pipeline Harper is so insistent on. Not only will this have serious harmful effects on the fish habitat at the site, it will effect all the fish populations in these rivers and other habitat. These fish are food to other wildlife including grizzly bears, walruses, otters and whales. Fish habitat is not only important to coastal communities most of the communities along the pipeline route are in BC’s interior and will suffer enormously if the fish habitat laws are removed. Other provinces will suffer as well, our worst fear arctic gas exploration may be possible.

First, to challenge the Fisheries Act one would need to prove that the activity in question was having an “adverse effect” which would be like saying we can’t prove conclusively that smoking causes cancer or that eating cake leads to weight gain. Just because we cant prove it does not mean people wont get cancer form smoking, just like destroying fish habitat will kill the fish. Second, a person would need to prove that the fish population was of “economic, cultural or ecological value” but values are based on social and cultural perspectives, which vary widely, and are infinitely difficult to nail down.

Former DFO Scientist Otto worked for the federal government for 32 years, says “Mr. Harper and his ministers plan to remove a decades-old requirement in the Act to protect all fish habitats. Instead, the protections would apply only to fish that are of “economic, cultural or ecological value.” This really baffles the 600 scientists that work for DFO they argue that “All species are of ecological value, a fact recognized by the current Act,” they write, “For example, some of our most economically and culturally valued fish species feed upon minnows and so-called ‘rough fish’ species, which allow them to survive and grow.”

We need to protect all of our fish species, as they are all important to the aquatic ecosystem and the food chain. In order to protect the fish we must protect their habitat and keep the Fisheries Act the way it is. Fish are the glue that holds our country together. Fish support our economy, shape our cultural and are passed down to our children.

The current Fisheries Act allows us to understand that fish need habitat to survive, and harming their habitat will inevitably cause harm to the fish. This act has been around since the 1860s and has been serving well since, in other words “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. DFO used to pass out on pencils saying “No Habitat – No Fish”.