Canada

 

There is a  terrific new Nature on Public Broadcasting in the US called, simply, Canada.  The only segment situated in the east is about the annual visit of hundreds of thousands of Semipalmated Sandpipers to the mudflats in the Bay of Fundy for a feast.

There, they feed voraciously for several days on tiny mud shrimp called Corophium, doubling their weight in preparation for their 7,400-mile/12,000-kilometer flight to South America.  But the star of the beautifully filmed show is our own Madeleine, a Peregrine Falcon whose astounding aerial acrobatics make breathtaking footage.

I say Madeleine, because the commute to Minas from St. Croix Cove is a short 100 km  - about an hour's flight at average falcon speed.

Madeleine, who has a fund named for her and her descendants at Ecology Action Centre,  first appeared in St. Croix Cove in 1986, well before the dump which plagues us.  How the presence of this exceedingly rare and magnificent bird escaped the attention of the East Coast Aquatics Environmental Assessment in 2017 is easily explained:  the experts forgot to ask the locals.

Focused on repeat business, East Coast didn't want to hear anything unusual. Keep it Simple is the consistent message from the Department of Environmental Exploitation and Climate Change Denial (DEECCD, or 'deceased', as they are popularly known).

The experts, Dr. Sarah Gutowsky and Jacob Walker were focused on habitat loss, never considering what a little chemical mismanagement might do:

Substance	Assessment of 8/4/04	Assessment of 10/8/04	Acquatic Guidelines	# of times exceeded 8/04 to 12/20
Ammonia	no data		2.2	6
Arsenic		0.002	0.005	16
Cadmium		no data	0.000017	15
Copper	0.18		0.002	16
Iron	0.04		0.3	18
Lead		no data	0.001	9
Mercury		no data	0.0001	2
Nitrite		no data	0.06	2
Zinc	no data		0.03	7
Toluene •			0.002	4
Phenol		no data	0.004	6

Our laborious analysis of the monitoring-well data discovered 101 samples exceeding allowable aquatic concentration guidelines in just 2 months.  Since DEECCD didn't bother to tell us, they probably didn't tell Madeleine.

Pro-business rules and anti-people prejudice combined with last-century science and an addiction to secrecy lead to completely backward results.

And favorable stories about our fair province will go the way of the Labrador Duck.

Let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth - Matthew 6:3