Tag Archives: Canadian Food Inspection Agency

Rivers & Oceans

DFO Confirms No Problems with Raw Oysters from Cortes Island

Audio by De Clarke; Research & text by Roy L Hales;

There has been a flurry of media stories about the dangers of eating raw oysters lately, but Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) confirmed that there have been no problems with Cortes Island grown oysters. (And there have been no problems anywhere with cooked oysters.) Only one of the 8 emergency closures DF0 listed, in response to Cortes Currents request, is in the Discovery Islands. A DFO notice from December 23 states, “The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has received reports of illness linked to BC Aquaculture Tenure Landfile #1402974” in the Bold Island-Crescent Channel area between Quadra and Read Islands. The other 7 oyster closures pertained to 42 ‘Landfiles’ in the Baynes Sound area across from Denman Island. 

Mo Qutob, Communications Advisor with Fisheries & Oceans Canada, emailed that all of the closures he listed were in force as of December 31, 2024. 

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Animals, Health

Chronic Wasting Disease reported in the Kootenay Region

On January 31, 2024, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed that two cases of Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD) have been found south of Cranbrook, in the Kootenays. ‘The first sample came from a ‘harvested’ adult male mule deer and the second from a white-tailed doe that was struck on the road. 

CWD is a highly infectious and fatal disease, which the U.S. Centres for Disease Control and Prevention states, “affects many different species of hoofed animals including North American elk or wapiti, red deer, mule deer, black-tailed deer, white-tailed deer, sika deer, reindeer, and moose.”

This is the first report of CWD west of the Rocky Mountains in Canada or the United States.  

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