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Let science rule lake

Scientists reserve their strongest criticism for those who get ‘loosey-goosey’ with factual information to further their own agenda

Scientists, like myself, reserve their strongest criticism for those who get ‘loosey-goosey’ with factual information and statistics to further their own agenda.

In a recent letter, Todd Hooper goes beyond ‘loosey-goosey’ with his unsubstantiated assertion that “most people... very much support the family fishing project at McGuire Lake.” I’m certainly not aware of numbers that justify such an assertion. Perhaps Todd Hooper has them?

He further states that “There is a very small group of people that disagree with this project.” This is ‘by-passing’ of scientific understanding of McGuire and the expressed community concern for the lake’s integrity.

The fish-stocking rationale for McGuire Lake (rejected by the community only a few years ago) was never justified by science anyway – just by the motives of a minority group without regard for science or the community.

The only “small group of people” – and let’s not forget the inexcusable, unnecessary turtle “by-catch” debacle – whatever euphemistic jargon “by-catch” refers to is the declining group of provincial ‘fishers’ that are now so desperate for new ‘converts’ as to introduce fish and fishing-ops anywhere, whatever the environmental ‘costs’  The “small group of people” label is  theirs alone.

In fact, the well-documented majority of outdoor recreationists in B.C. do not fish; the shrill minority voices are just part of deceptive ‘jiggery-pokery’ work of a by-gone, nature-exploiting, blood-sport era, and those yearning to unrealistically prolong it.

Preservation and protection is needed now – not out-dated exploitation.

Really, what could be more contradictory than this minority fishing group espousing their boundless love of nature and natural systems on one hand, while unnaturally impacting them for the worse, on the other?   ( I believe that the turtles and the doomed, stocked trout can readily relate to a “worse-off” McGuire Lake following fish-stocking.

For Todd Hooper and others, solutions to a fishing quandary for McGuire is simply to return the lake to its former un-stocked and un-fished state – and leave it be, forever after!

Tom Crowley