High price of fuel may help save the idiotfish

The poor idiotfish — nicknamed by fishermen for its gawky,
bulbous eyes — might get the last laugh yet.

Small Steps

A dripping faucet can really add up to a huge waste of water.
If you’re serious about saving water in your home, a grey-water –
the wasted water from activities such as bathing — recycling…

The Ivory Palace

We touched down in New Delhi at about midnight and spent the night at the Ivory Palcae hotel in New Dehli’s Karol Bagh distirct. Roddy and I made it safe and sound, but only my bag. Roddy’s is still somewhere between here and JFK airport in New York. A four hour wait at JFK because [...]

Transforming the Gateway Project: More Important Now Than Ever

20/20 Vision BC
The following is the text from the August 2008 edition of the 20/20 Vision “postcard”
Background: The BC Government’s Gateway Project was announced in 2004 with claims it would reduce congestion and enhance travel for people and goods around the lower mainland. It includes widening Highway 1 from the Second Narrows Bridge in Vancouver [...]

When is the next bus coming… exactly?

Ottawa has introduced “a new GPS fleet tracking system on OC Transpo buses to improve service”. Even with such a system, there may be significant challenges to running buses precisely on time with variable traffic. Once buses are GPS…

Terrain.org Launches New Online Submission Tool

Now people who submit poetry, essays, fiction, articles, and reviews may create a username and password and log in to easily submit and track their work. Accordingly, we no longer accept submissions by email (but queries should still be sent that way). And our submission period is now open for our next issue, No. 23, with the theme of “Symbiosis,” which launches on January 10, 2009. View our Submission Guidelines, then log into our new Submission Manager, to submit your work.

Recyclable Comedy: Al Gore’s historic challenge to the nation

One hundred percent of energy from carbon free sources within ten years. We can do this. If we learn to time travel. http://www.plentymag.com/podcasts/listen/al_gores_historic_challe.mp3



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What’s a “pesticide”, really?

Denham Dingle asks:
Define "pesticide" please!  Is it a substance to kill animal pests only or does it extend to plants – i.e. so-called "weeds"?
Good question! The definition of ‘pesticides’ includes insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, rodenticides, algaecides, and slimicides. Be aware that "Weed and Feed" products include chemical pesticides.
So yes, the definition of pesticide extends to plants [...]

Pollution concerns linger over Faro mine cleanup plan

The federal team tasked with caring for the Yukon’s defunct Faro mine say they are moving closer to a plan to close and clean up the site, but worry about pollution.

The idiot fish story

High fuel costs and the rising dollar may have given unlikely protection to one of Canada’s least sustainable fisheries – the longspine thornyhead, or idiot fish. But it’s not enough.

DSF has called for an immediate moratorium on the fishing of the longspine thornyhead. And our fisheries expert, Scott Wallace, knows all there is to know about this fascinating species.

The longspine thornyhead is called the “idiot fish” in industry circles, but truth be told this groundfish is a biological genius. It has carved out an existence one kilometre under the sea in one of the earth’s least livable environments, where water pressure is extreme and little oxygen, food, or sunlight can be found. The longspine thornyhead can survive the pressure of the deep ocean but whether it will be able to survive the pressure of human activity is another question.

Beginning in 1996, Fisheries and Oceans Canada endorsed a deep-sea bottom-trawl fishery for this species with virtually no information about its abundance or life history. Most of the catch of this species, 86 per cent, is taken from the continental shelf off the west coast of Vancouver Island by boats dragging massive trawl nets across the ocean floor. Now, about 94 per cent of the seafloor in the depth range of 500 to1,200 metres in this area has been trawled.

Research shows that populations of the fish may have declined by 50 to 60 per cent between 1996 and 2004. In 2007, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada designated the longspine thornyhead as “special concern”. The declines and the COSEWIC designation, along with the known destructive impacts of bottom trawling, should have led to a closure of the fishery. Instead, it continues with no change in fishing practices.

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