A Letter from the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution to Minister Ashfield and PM Harper

My former supervisor, Dr. Jeffrey Hutchings, current President for the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution (of which I am a member) sent the following letter to Keith Ashfield, and distributed copies to all members of the CSEE.  I post the letter below so that my Canadian friends can see the concerns that leading Canadian scientists have about the state of science and our biological resources under the Harper government.

A Response from the Minister of Fisheries!

A few months ago I wrote a letter to the Minister of Fisheries addressing a few key issues concerning Canada's oceans, as part of the social action section for a course my friend was teaching on social justice.  The issues addressed included the implementation of the Precautionary Approach for protecting Canadian fish stocks; the appalling lack of information given to consumers about the fish they consume; the lack of regulation in marine protected areas, and the paucity of such areas; and the insanity of determining an stock's endangered status based on socioeconomic considerations.  Considering that it was election time, I did not really expect a response, and so I was delighted to find a three-page letter from Senior Assistant Deputy Minister David Balfour of Ecosystems and Fisheries Management waiting for me in my mail when I returned from my trip out east.

It was a surprisingly candid and lengthy response to each of the issues I brought up.  Since we are talking about the Canadian government, there is much emphasis on what has been done and little about the criticisms.  But at least I now know that they know that there is at least one concerned Canadian out there.  For me, the most surprising admission in the letter is towards the end, in reference to the classification of endangered species in Canada.  It is somewhat shocking - see if you can spot it!

Cool Fish - Rapid Evolution, Stickleback and Evolutionary Biology in Canada

Dr. Rowan Barrett, currently of Harvard but previously of UBC with Dolph Schluter, presented an interesting experiment at the CSEE conference last weekend that I wanted to share with you.  My goal in sharing these experiments are twofold:  first, I think the research being done in Canada needs to be celebrated, but we researchers do a poor job in communicating our findings to the public; and secondly, and more in the spirit of this blog, I think a lot of evangelical Christians hear ‘evolutionary biologist’ and immediately assume that they are biologists of fantasy, interpreting the world through a dishonest lens.  I hope that the Christians who read about these experiments will realize that these researchers are not trying to pull the wool over our eyes; instead they are following the evidence, trying their best to understand the complexity of this dynamic world.

Its Not You, Its Me - Sex, Fruit Flies, and Evolutionary Biology in Canada

I’m back!  Sorry I’ve been silent for the past week.  I just came back from five days in Banff, Alberta (with amazingly beautiful 20-degree weather the entire time, which is unheard-of in Alberta in May).  Unfortunately, I didn’t have much time to enjoy the scenery, as I was responsible for registration for the 2011 conference for the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution.  My supervisor, Sean Rogers, was in charge of the event, and pulled off what I think is unanimously considered the best CSEE conference to date.  Not that the ones in the past were bad, but this year’s venue at the Banff Center was simply perfect, and I am happy to have been a small part of it.

An Open Letter to the Minister of Fisheries

If you are at all concerned about the future state of our oceans, I have written a letter to Gail Shea (our Fisheries Minister).  Feel free to copy this letter, sign it, and mail it to her.  If you need a refresher as to why this matters, read my Lament for Canada's Oceans.  With an election forthcoming, now is the time to let our government know that we care about the future of our fisheries.  I must cite the work of Dr. Jeff Hutchings as the inspiration for much of this letter.

A Lament for Canada's Oceans

This weekend I had the pleasure of showing the documentary The End of the Line for a social justice class at Alberta Bible College.  This movie came out several years ago to strong reviews from the likes of Roger Ebert, and happens to prominently feature my honours supervisor, Dr. Jeff Hutchings, along with my ecology professor, Dr. Boris Worm (also of Sharkwater fame), and some other outstanding researchers from Canada and abroad.  The movie focuses on the plight of the world's fisheries, and shows how greed, mismanagement and uninformed consumers have worked together over the past sixty years to decimate our planet's fish stocks, such that historically plentiful fish (like Atlantic cod and bluefin tuna) have been hunted almost to the point of extinction.  Indeed, most of the fish species that we eat have been reduced to 10% of their normal levels, with a projected depletion of all of our fish stocks by 2048.  You can watch the trailer below: