Whitehorse Star Transcript of the Deadly Fishing Line and the September 16th Clean-Up

June 28, 2006 at 2:19 pm

If you have been following this blog, you know there will be a clean-up of Pumphouse Lake on September 16th. Let me know if you want to participate! I would like to thank Adam Skrutkowski, Chuck Tobin and Philip Merchant for supporting me in this initiative. Stay tuned as details on the clean-up to follow.

The following is a follow-up story from Chuck plugging the clean-up.

Deadly fishing line will be cleaned up

By Chuck Tobin

A Whitehorse resident has embraced the challenge to clean up deadly fishing line around Pump House Lake.

Discarded line, strewn about the shoreline like an invisible trap waiting to entangle birds and other animals, was the cause of death for a Marsh Hawk last month at a popular fishing hole along the Fish Lake Road.

Wildlife technician Philip Merchant said in mid-May the northern harrier was found along a trail near the lake with fishing line around its neck.

The line was not tight enough to strangle the bird, but likely tight enough to cut off the supply of food, causing prolonged starvation and exhaustion, Merchant surmised.

Dennis Zimmermann, a local angling enthusiast, said when he saw the article in the Star, he mentioned it on his blog that he uses to promote angling and conservation.

One thing led to another, and now Zimmermann and company - supported by the Vancouver Aquarium"s national shoreline cleanup program - are planning to untangle the area in September.

“There are a lot of conservation-minded anglers out there, and I just want people to know it"s not just all about taking, it"s about giving,“? Zimmermann said in an interview this week.

He said he has two young children he is teaching to fish, and he wants to know the opportunity for them will still be there when they grow up.

Angling, said Zimmermann, is his passion.

He noted there"s a fellow who"s travelling around the world on a fly-fishing journey. He"s fished the largest of marlin in Australia, the most exotic of the prehistoric salmon in Tanzania.

But his first fish in his quest was caught here in Whitehorse a couple of years ago - a rainbow trout from McLean Lake, and Zimmermann was with him.

Kathleen Smith is the manager of the TD Canada Trust Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup. She said the organization contacted Zimmermann after his blog starting getting hits and forwarding them to the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup site.

She said there are some 20 people signed up to help with the cleanup scheduled for the organization"s national cleanup week running Sept. 16-24.

The organization will provide garbage bags, log books to record the material collection and general information about the program.

Last year, there were cleanup efforts sponsored by the Great Canadian Shoreline Cleanup organization in Whitehorse, Faro, Haines Junction, Teslin, Watson Lake and Old Crow, she said.

Smith said 243 kilograms were collected by 235 participants, cleaning up a 6,546 metres of shoreline.

In addition to the Pumphouse Lake project, Smith added, the Yukon currently has three other sites listed with the organization for cleanup this years: the Golden Horn Elementary School pond; Porter Creek and a section of the Yukon River.

Smith said discarded fishing line is a common item collected during the annual cleanup.

The International Coastal Cleanup organization, she noted, has just added fishing line to its list of 12 of the most common items collected during coastal cleanups.

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