Boating New Zealand — December 2017

70 Boating New Zealand

A Canadian angler has generated a social media

storm with a photo of the deformed pike he caught

in Alberta’s Saskatchewan River.

The perils of plastic

A

dam Turnbull expressed his outrage on

Facebook – urging people to be more

responsible about littering, and captioned

the images “Pick up your garbage!”

The fish had become ensnared

• presumably years earlier – in a plastic drink
  wrapper. “This is a Powerade wrapper which takes
  up no room in your pocket until you get to a
  garbage can,” he wrote. He believes the wrapper
  was probably thrown out of a car window, and
  then blew into the river.
  He says the fish “bit and fought as it should”,
  and added it was very much alive. He released it to
  hopefully give it a chance of recovery.
  “Once I removed the plastic it took off like a
  dart. I’m sure it’s gonna thrive now, if it was able
  to survive with the wrapper around it.”
  Littering, he says, is unacceptable on any
  level. “I just want people to know something as
  small as this can have a devastating impact on the
  environment.”
  Commented one viewer of his post: “Takes one
  second of your time to place your trash in a bag
  and remove it! How would you feel if you had a
  load of rubbish and trash dumped in your kitchen?
  It’s our planet – let’s look after it!” BNZ

BOATBRIEF

WORDS BY LAWRENCE SCHÄFFLER PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM TURNBULL

Adam removed

the plastic ring

from the pike

and released the

fish – hoping it

would make a full

recovery.

I just want people

to know something

as small as this can

have a devastating

impact on the

environment.