Archive for category: News

The Ontario Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-OC) Executive Committee has provided comments on the draft Provincial Fish Strategy prepared by the Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR). “Ontario’s Provincial Fish Strategy: Fish for the Future” is a guiding document for managing fisheries resources in Ontario. It identifies provincial fisheries goals and objectives and tactics to achieve them. The main purposes of the strategy are to improve the conservation and management of Ontario’s fisheries resources; and to encourage fishing as an activity that contributes to the individual well-being and the social, cultural and economic well-being of communities in Ontario. View AFS-OC Comments.

The Great Lakes Fishery Commission today commended the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for completing the “Great Lakes and Mississippi River Interbasin Study,” (GLMRIS) a major report aimed at finding ways to prevent the movement of harmful invasive species between the Great Lakes and Mississippi River basins. The study, mandated by Congress, outlines a range of options available to re-separate the two basins, which were connected artificially more than one hundred years ago. The options presented, while protecting the entire Great Lakes basin from species like Asian carps and snakehead, also benefit the people of the Chicago region through better flood management and improved water quality. The report did not provide an exact plan (called a “preferred option”) for implementation, prompting the commission to join with scores of interested organizations and policy-makers to call for an immediate effort to agree upon and fund a specific project to achieve separation. Read more

Fisheries and Oceans Canada and the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, today announced the test results of a single live Grass Carp (Ctenopharyngodon idella) caught near Dunnville, Ontario in the Grand River, near Lake Erie. Testing has confirmed that this specimen was sterile, and therefore not able to reproduce. Read more

Jack Imhof received a Conservation Pioneer Award at the 19th Annual A.D. Latornell Symposium recognizing his 25 years with the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (MNR), decade with Trout Unlimited Canada (TUC) as well as other academic and volunteer pursuits, including as President of the Ontario Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-OC) which included being part of the organizing committee for the 2008 AFS Annual Meeting that drew over 1,200 fisheries professionals. Read more

The Ontario Chapter of the American Fisheries Society (AFS-OC) has sent an Open Letter to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans to convey concerns regarding the proposed approach to revise the Fisheries Act and other environmental legislation in Bill C-38. In addition, views regarding decisions to close the Experimental Lakes Area (ELA) and the elimination of the National Round Table on Environment and Economy (NRTEE) were expressed. Copies of the letter have also been sent to Fisheries Critics for the New Democratic Party (Fin Donnelly), Liberal Party (Lawrence MacAulay), and Green Party (Janice Harvey). Read more