Thread: Underwater fence to be built between U.S., Canada

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Underwater fence to be built between U.S., Canada
April 1, 2007
BY ERIC (NOT SO) SHARP
FREE THINKING OUTDOORS WRITER

Worried about the continuing arrival of new fish diseases, the U.S. government will spend $2.3 billion to build an underwater fence that will separate American and Canadian waters along the 1,100-mile length of the Great Lakes.

Stretching from Duluth, Minn., on Lake Superior to the head of the St. Lawrence River in northern New York, the fence will be funded by a $10 federal excise tax for 10 years on each fishing license sold in the eight states that border the Great Lakes, and a 1 cent surcharge on each minnow or worm bought by anglers.

"The idea came to me when I was watching that guy on CNN who rants about how we need a fence along the Mexican border to keep illegal immigrants out," said I.M. Lyon, director of the U.S. Natural Utilities Technical Services (USNUTS). "If we can build a fence to keep out something as big as a Mexican, it should be easy to stop something as small as a fish."

A disease called viral hemorrhagic septicemia, which appeared in the Great Lakes in 2005 and caused large fish kills, was traced to the Canadian Maritime provinces. It almost certainly reached the Great Lakes in the ballast water of a ship from Canada.

"It was yet another undesirable from north of the border, like Lorne Greene's singing and Bob Probert, and for our biologists, it was the final straw," Lyon said. "The sensible thing to do would be to ban all saltwater ships from coming into the Great Lakes. But the shipping companies and their clients own too many congressmen and senators for that to happen, so we decided to try the fence. What the heck, if nothing else, it should boost the USNUTS budget."

The U.S. government has banned the movement of live bait and game fish out of the eight Great Lakes states and the two Canadian provinces that border the Great Lakes. That ban has drawn howls of protest from anglers, who say it is senseless when the fish can swim across borders on their own.

"The anglers had a point," said Dr. Wada Loada-Bool, chief researcher at the Government Office of Fish Science (GOOFS). "That ban won't stop the spread of the disease. USNUTS figured out the only way to do it was to keep those nasty Canadian fish from swimming over and infecting our American fish."

Loada-Bool said the fence would be like a giant gill net, but with mesh so fine that no fish bigger than a half-inch thick could swim through. The top will float at the surface, and the bottom will extend to the lake beds.

As a backup, the fence will be patrolled by 10,000 freshwater pink Amazon River dolphins from South America carrying automatic multishot spearguns mounted on harnesses on their backs. The dolphin program was designed by famed Sino-Franco biologist Dr. Foo LaKrepp at the Basic Animal Neurological Adaptation and Naturalization Administration Service (BANANAS) in Bolles Harbor.

"If something gets through the fence, it will set off an alarm, and with 10,000 of those Amazon River dolphins in the lakes, a dozen will never be more than seconds away. The dolphins will be trained to blast every fish in sight near the fence," LaKrepp said.

Petty Officer Lou Nahtik, a U.S. Navy special weapons researcher, has been training the dolphins at a secret Navy Organic Weapons Assessment Yard (NOWAY), whose location we can't tell you because then it wouldn't be a secret any more.

Nahtik said tests with the pink dolphins have gone well "except for one little hitch. Whenever a boat goes over them faster than 40 miles an hour, the dolphins' sonar seems to register it as a group of escaping fish, and they open up with their spearguns.

"During one test run, one of our trainers had a spear come through the bottom of his boat and just miss his keister. But that's not a big problem, because most boats don't go that fast, and there aren't all that many boats out there in the deep water where most of the dolphins will be."

Lyon said his office had received several complaints from anglers about the net and dolphin plan, which he attributed to their unwillingness to pay another $10 for their licenses.

"Those people don't have a leg to stand on," Lyon said. "I was sitting on a dock in Bolles Harbor last summer when I saw a guy going out for a day of walleye fishing. I suddenly realized that if fishermen could afford $20,000 for a boat, $2,000 for fishing tackle and $200 for beer, they could sure as heck afford $10 for us to build an underwater fence.

"So we don't care what the fishermen say. We're starting to build that fence today -- April Fools' Day."

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Sure thats normal governmental bs or a good April fools joke, build a fence to stop the fish but not the terrorist and illegal invaders. Must be a special trigger release on the spear gun for the dolphin flippers. Dang wish I had come up with that one and gotten a patten on it. but the shoulder stock would be hard to come up with.

I think the trained gators we got here would work better than dolphins. Dolphins have to get salt shots once a day when in fresh water. But the gators can adapt to the colder water and have fingers for the spear guns.
But if we sent them up there it would cut down on the gator gumbo and cause the price to go up in the restaurants.

Yum-Yum, hot an spicy Carolina Gator Gumbo.

Originally Posted by mail

Yum-Yum, hot an spicy Carolina Gator Gumbo.

well, hey stranger.

Gator gumbo
Categories: Big Kevin Little Kevin
Yield: 1 servings
1 cup Oil
2 pounds Gator; cut up or boned
1 ½ pounds Audouille
1 cup Flour
4 cup Chopped onions
2 cup Chopped celery
2 cup Chopped green pepper
1 tablespoon Chopped garlic
8 cup Stock or flavoured water
2 cup Chopped green onions
Cooked rice
Joe's Stuff seasoning
File

1 Season and brown the gator in oil (lard or bacon dripping) over a medium heat. Add the sausage and saute with the gator. Remove both from the pot. 2 Make a roux with equal parts of the oil (must be free of food particles to avoid burning) and flour to a desired colour. 3 Add the onions, celery and green pepper. Add the garlic and stir continuously. 4 After the vegetables are tender, return the gator and sausage to the pot and cook, stirring frequently. Gradually stir in the liquid and bring to the boil. 5 Reduce the heat to simmer and cook for an hour or more. Season with Joe's Stuff. Approximately 10 minutes before serving, add the green onions. Serve over rice or with French bread. File is a green powder of young, dried, ground sassafras leaves, used in gumbo for flavour and thickening. It may be placed on the table to add to the gumbo as desired. 1/4 - 1/2 tsp per serving is recommended. Converted by MC_Buster. Recipe by: Big Kevin Little Kevin Converted by MM_Buster v2.0l.
http://www.astray.com/recipes/?show=Gator%20gumbo