Escaped river otter takes his destiny into his own (tiny) hands

Since March, two escaped North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) have been leading the staff at the New Zoo Adventure Park in northeastern Wisconsin near Green Bay on an otterly wild chase.
During a snowstorm on March 20th, security cameras showed otters Louie and Ophelia leaving their enclosures. The zoo staff believe they escaped through a hole in a buried part of the fence that had clearly gone unnoticed. Zookeepers quickly noted their absence, and immediately set the stage for a high-stakes chase scene straight out of an episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Per the zoo's updates 'operating procedures for animal escapes were activated,' and they even called in a professional animal tracker.
The otters, however, were not very subtle in their escape. They left fresh tracks in the snow, galavanting around the zoo and beyond in full view of cameras. The pair never went very far, which is consistent with normal otter territorial behavior, according to the zoo.
'Both Louie and Ophelia were born in the wild and brought into human care through a process of rehabilitation. North American river otters are native to our area and are very comfortable and capable of surviving in Wisconsin's climate,' the zoo reassured readers. 'The Zoo is surrounded by natural ponds and other waterways which provide ample food and safe places to sleep even at this time of year.'
The zoo staff set up traps in locations where the otters were seen more than once, but like any good story, antagonistic foil characters in the form of raccoons quite literally foiled their plans by interfering with the contraptions. One raccoon even set off a trap shortly before one of the otters tried to enter it, forcing the staff to pivot toward 'raccoon proof' traps.
Nonetheless, the zoo announced Ophelia's return on April 1 (after clarifying that the announcement was not an April Fool's joke). After two months of Louie evading capture, the zoo concluded that he had taken his destiny into his own hands.
'Due to the length of time that Louie has been missing, we believe he has made the decision to be a wild otter,' the zoo wrote in its latest animal update. 'We accept this, although we would, of course, welcome him home if he decides to return.'
[ Related: Female sea otters use tools more than males. ]
The zoo staff explained that, given the reports of his sightings, they believe he is 'healthy and surviving well.'
The only thing left to do now is find another male otter to keep Ophelia company.

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Hamilton Spectator

16 hours ago

• Hamilton Spectator

He spent nearly 50 years picking the produce you eat. Now the last of the old masters of the Ontario Food Terminal is making his last stand

It was 5 a.m. on a Thursday in May and Marshall Cohen was furious about the state of his cucumbers. He'd ordered them earlier that morning at a farm stand in the Ontario Food Terminal, the biggest wholesale fruit and vegetable market in Canada. As is the custom, Cohen's order was delivered to his truck, parked at a loading bay at the far end of the terminal, just off the Queensway in Etobicoke. But when the cucumbers arrived, Cohen's truck driver noticed yellow spots and bruises. He took photos and sent them to Cohen, who was still walking around the market, now looking for size-25 hothouse tomatoes. 'It's a joke!' Cohen screamed when he saw the photos. He forwarded them to the cucumber salesman, waited a few minutes, then got him on the phone. 'I'd say good morning, but it's not a very good morning,' Cohen said. 'Did you see the pictures I just sent you?' The salesman hadn't seen the photos. 'Well you look at those f——-g pictures,' he said. 'Are you f——-g kidding me? OK, take a look at what you sent me. You should be ashamed of yourself.' 'Oh f—-,' the young salesman said, realizing he'd just sent bad cucumbers to one of oldest and most revered produce buyers at the terminal. 'Yeah, that's right,' Cohen said, 'you should say 'Oh f—-.'' Marshall Cohen, one of the oldest buyers at the Ontario Food Terminal, wearing his typical all-black outfit. For Cohen, layers are important, especially in warmer months, when going back and forth from the outdoor farmers' market to the indoor refrigerated warehouses. If you've lived in or around Toronto in the last 45 years, there's a decent chance you've eaten something that Cohen, 78, personally selected from the thousands of pallets stacked up at farm stands and refrigerated warehouses in the terminal. He has bought produce for fruit markets, restaurants and grocery stores, including Summerhill Market. People here treat him like one of the last old masters of an art form. But he is out of time, still insisting on face-to-face deals in a world of screens, holding out hope that he can pass on his secrets and his methods before he retires, because if he doesn't, it will be a loss for everyone in this city who finds pleasure in a perfect piece of fruit. On the phone, the cucumber salesman tried to explain that they'd sent the wrong pallet by mistake. Cohen interrupted: 'Please exchange it now. Goodbye.' When he hung up, he hit the button on his phone so hard that his arm swung back, as if he'd fired a gun. The food terminal operates as a secret world in the middle of the city. More than two billion pounds of produce flow through the food terminal every year, making it one of the most important hubs in the North American fruit and vegetable trade. The public is forbidden inside, but behind the gatehouse, just off the Gardiner Expressway, buyers are making split-second decisions that determine what people around the province eat. Marshall Cohen speaks to a contact, one of dozens of phone calls he makes in a regular day of buying produce at the Ontario Food Terminal. You can try to pick the nicest fruit at your local grocer, but at that stage, your sense of choice is largely an illusion. Squeeze and taste the green grapes all you want. The whole display probably all came from the same skid, from the same growing region, picked on the same day. On grapes, Cohen can opt for premium, known as number ones, or discounted number twos. There are different varieties, from different countries, sold by different wholesalers at the terminal, who give different deals, depending on the buyer. Each shipment of grapes has spent a different amount of time on a cargo ship, in a truck, waiting at port. They have different levels of sweetness, different sizes and colours, a different pop when you bite down. The strength of your local market's produce section depends on how the buyer navigates those options, or whether they choose to buy at all. Earlier this month, for instance, grapes were caught in a gap in the global weave of growing seasons. The last of the good, late-season grapes from Peru and Chile were gone and Mexico's season was just starting up, so the available grapes were small and sour. Some buyers went for the Mexican crop anyway, because they needed to get grapes on the shelf. Not Cohen. His method, which he learned from the old buyers who mentored him in the early 1980s, is probably best described as: Bite It, Squeeze It, Smell It. If the product does not pass that test, he walks. 'You can't buy over the phone,' he told me recently. 'I don't trust anybody. I want to see.' I met Cohen in 2021, when I was working on a story and needed a guide at the food terminal. Since then, he's called me regularly, asked about my family, sent holiday greetings and let me shadow him for dozens of hours at the terminal, where he has made me eat an immense amount of fruit. He carries a knife on him to cut into the larger specimens, like melons. One morning, during a frenzied lecture on why his tomato provider is the best in the terminal, he pushed a little tomato into my hands and barked, 'Put that in your mouth.' A while later, a tomato flew past my head. I looked up and saw two buyers rummaging through a case of discount hot house tomatoes, flinging the rotten ones into the air without looking where they were going. Another came at me, and another. I don't think Cohen even noticed it was happening. As we walked around the farmers' market, a driver on the back of a power jack called out to us. Power jacks, the delivery carts that are central to the terminal's chaotic ballet, are always buzzing around with skids of produce, reversing at high speed into impossible parking spots. 'Marshall!' the man yelled. Cohen barely even noticed the chaos. A power jack would come within centimetres of him and he wouldn't flinch. 'They know not to hit the old man,' he said. Earlier in his career, a power jack clipped him so badly he thought it snapped his ankle. It didn't, but he couldn't walk for four days. I asked what he said to the driver. 'What do you think I said to him?' This spring, he introduced me to growers, salespeople and other buyers, and gave each a similar instruction: 'Tell him the truth. No bulls—-.' Then Cohen would walk away so I could ask them about him. But he never went far and I'd hear him in the distance, shouting on the phone. 'Marshall is part of the elite club,' Pino Prosa, a salesman at Canadian Fruit & Produce told me. 'The new way of buying is this,' Prosa said, pointing to his cellphone. 'They're just texting orders.' As Prosa talked, I could see Cohen in the edge of my vision, wandering around Prosa's sales floor, slapping melons. Marshall Cohen smells a melon at the Ontario Food Terminal. He prefers melons from later in the growing season, because they tend to have higher sugar content than the early-season fruit, which tastes like cucumbers. He was in his usual black baseball cap, with dark glasses, a black puffer jacket and a black vest over top, which one of the wholesalers had gifted him years back. Before it faded, the vest had Cohen's nickname, 'Legend,' emblazoned on the breast, but now you could only make out the L. I asked him why he was slapping melons. He said some of the honeydews were early-season, so they'd be low in sugar content and taste almost like cucumbers. He picked up a honeydew from another region, that was later in its growing season, and shoved it in my face. 'Take a deep breath,' he said. 'Sniff it in hard.' It smelled syrupy. 'See?' he said. 'There's sugar. There's flavour.' After Cohen's blow-up with the cucumber salesman, his anger evaporated. It was a special morning, not to be spoiled by yellow-spotted cucumbers. One of his favourite farmers had finally arrived at the market. Welsh Bros., a farm out of Scotland, Ont., produces what Cohen considers to be the finest asparagus in the province. He had been anticipating for it for weeks. That day, Welsh Bros. was selling for $90 a case. Before Welsh Bros. arrived, asparagus was going for as much as $130 a case. Now no one would dare charge more, Cohen said. In early May, Marshall Cohen at inspects the first asparagus of the season from one of his favourite growers, Welsh Bros., at the Ontario Food Terminal. On the way to Welsh Bros., Cohen's boss called, asking Cohen to add size-27 kiwis to his list, which at that point included about two dozen items, including four cases of figs, 20 of the fingerling potatoes, two of the watermelon radish, and a case of French beans. 'OK, listen, the French beans are all s—-,' he told his boss. 'They're all spotted. They're garbage.' At Welsh Bros.' farm stand, Cohen waved over the asparagus, like he was warming his hands on its glow. There was no smell to it. Bad asparagus stinks like fish, he said. Each Welsh Bros. bunch had straight spears that were all the same size, so they'd cook evenly. Cohen pulled out a piece and ran his finger up it, tracing the flashes of blue and purple in the tip. 'Just look at this,' he said. 'This stuff talks to you.' Cohen is lean with a wooden walk that makes him look almost like a bird of prey, the kind you see in an enclosure at a sanctuary, slower and gnarled, but still, no one's putting their finger in the cage. There are also days when he says he feels 35, when the weather is right and the arthritis in his shoulders and knees isn't acting up. 'I've looked at people my age, even younger, and they've retired too early. Their brain has gone soft, their muscle tone has gone soft,' he said. 'I have my cappuccino in the morning, talk to the guys. It's sort of like a way of life.' Until last year, he was the buyer for Summerhill Market, a long stint that owner Brad McMullen said helped elevate the chain's produce department. Before that, Cohen was the buyer for his own small chain of stores, Eglinton Fine Foods, for almost 25 years. He sold cars for a few years before Summerhill brought him back to the terminal. Lately, he starts at about 4 a.m. and works four or five hours a day, buying for what's known as a jobber, a company that supplies restaurants, grocers and institutions. Marshall Cohen leaves one of the produce showrooms at the Ontario Food Terminal, holding his handwritten list of more than two dozen items he needed to buy that morning, which included fingerling potatoes, French beans, limes, figs and watermelon radish. Over the course of his career, Cohen has watched the terminal change. Since the 1950s, the terminal has been the main stock exchange for fruit and vegetables, a central gathering place for farmers from all over the province. More recently, major grocery chains have opened their own giant produce distribution centres and left the terminal. The big grocers still do business here when their own warehouses run short on items. But the terminal is now a lifeline for independents, who can't rely on sprawling corporate supply chains — the family farmers, regional supermarket banners, chefs, caterers, ethnic grocers and start-up food manufacturers. 'It feels like it's from a different era,' said University of Toronto assistant professor Sarah Elton, who studies the terminal. 'It's so vital and important for today, also.' Marshall Cohen on the phone at the Ontario Food Terminal. The warehouses operate like big refrigerated showrooms, with pallets of product on display from all over the world and salespeople roaming the floor. 'I might get lucky with limes here,' he said, digging into a box at one of the showrooms. 'Woah, woah, I'm going to buy these. These are beautiful. These are nice. They're firm, clean.' I asked if they were the right size. 'That's the perfect one,' he whispered at me as we approached the salesman to negotiate a price. 'Don't say nothing.' A lot of the time, I felt like the new boyfriend at someone else's family dinner. Cohen played the helpful uncle, leaning in to add the necessary context to what was going on in front of me: That salesman used to be the toughest guy at the terminal. That man just lost his wife. That kid shouldn't have bought all those watermelons. In the hall, Cohen flagged down a young guy who'd worked his way up at one of the wholesalers. 'What do you call me?' he asked. 'The Legend?' the man said. 'No, besides that,' Cohen said. 'Oh! Uncle Marsh,' the man said. I got the sense that Cohen sees Uncle Marsh as his last great role, his King Lear. 'He still calls some of my friends, to this day, to check in on them,' said Cohen's 51-year-old son, Justin. 'He would call my business partner when I was out of town just to check in and make sure I was doing a good job.' When Justin was at university, before cellphones, Cohen would call Justin's house. 'I would hear my roommates answer the phone and be on the phone for 10 minutes talking to someone,' Justin, the eldest of Cohen's three sons, said. 'And then finally they would say, 'Hey it's your dad, he wants to talk to you.' ' A few times this spring, usually in the late morning when his buying was done, Cohen confessed to me that something was nagging at him. It was part of the reason he was still working at 78. He wanted to find an apprentice, but he had left Summerhill too abruptly to properly train one. 'I don't think that's ever going to happen now,' he said. 'It's too late.' The best he can do, at this point, is slowly let his secrets slip, here and there. 'Did you see the Rainier cherries?' he told some younger buyers recently. 'Go look at them.' It would have taken at least a year, likely two, to pass on all his rules and stratagems. One of them has to do with spreading your business around to different suppliers. If there's a fire on a banana ship and you haven't been spreading your banana business around, you probably won't have a relationship with the one supplier at the terminal who still has bananas that day. Another rule, he told me, is to 'never give a guy a third chance.' I thought at first it must have something to do with fear and respect. But it was actually about forgiveness. Don't give a guy a third chance, but you've got to give him a second. About an hour or so after the ugly phone call, Cohen looped back around to see the cucumber salesman face to face. His name was Khushal Bhinder, one of the younger produce dealers at the farmers' market. 'I've got to give this guy credit,' Cohen said on the way to see Bhinder. 'He started with nothing.' Bhinder smiled when he saw Cohen coming. Cohen pulled him into a hug. 'I'm sorry,' Cohen said softly. 'I'm sorry.' 'Hey, it's OK,' the salesman told him. 'You can say anything.'

Hamilton Spectator

13-06-2025

• Hamilton Spectator

Who's Looking Out for the Seafarers?

As Nathan Smith reached the deck of the freighter Sakizaya Youth, a bulk carrier as long as two football fields, two crew members came to greet him. The ship was docked at the Alliance Grain Terminal in Vancouver, and the crew — 'seafarers' in the language of shipping — would soon be on their way to the next port in Panama. They are part of a global workforce keeping some 50,000 freighters — and the goods they carry — going from port to port. Life at sea offers steady employment and, for workers from many countries, above-average wages. But it also brings the risk of exploitation and abuse. Seafarers are far from home, dependent on the shipping company and often unaware of their few legal protections. That's why Smith was climbing onto the Sakizaya Youth. 'We're just here to talk about a few things, make sure everything's in line,' Smith told waiting ship's officers. 'We're here for you. We're not here to cause any trouble; we just want to find out if everything's OK.' Smith worked on tugboats in Canada for more than a decade before becoming an inspector for the International Transport Workers' Federation, or ITF, in 2018. On this surprise visit he brought seven others — inspectors from the United States, union officials and longshore workers. Smith is British Columbia's sole inspector for the federation and is used to visiting ships alone. The group visit was part of a plan to reach out to longshore workers and raise their awareness of the world of seafarers. 'I just want to open up their eyes to what's going on, so they can also keep an eye out for seafarers when they see problems,' he said. The ITF is a global federation of about 700 trade unions, representing about 20 million transport workers across the world. International organizations including the United Nations and the World Economic Forum recognize the federation as a representative and advocate for seafarers. The April 25 inspection of the Sakizaya Youth marked the start of the ITF's first North American week of action to raise awareness about the working conditions of seafarers. Smith said the industry is rife with systemic exploitation, violence and extreme working conditions. Workers go where the ships take them and have little control over when they return home to their families. 'These are among the most exploited workers in the world and Canada is not helping,' he said. That Friday morning, Smith and eight others gathered at the Maritime Labour Centre in East Vancouver. In attendance were ITF inspectors Ryan Brazeau and Sam Levens from the U.S. west coast, plus members and officials of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. ILWU Canada president Rob Ashton spoke to the group. 'You all know the severity of the conditions of these workers. As we go onto these vessels, remember that you have their lives in your hands,' Ashton said. 'I'd say you're doing God's work today, but I'm not religious. Instead, I'll say you're doing the good work of the labour movement.' First, the group would head to the Flying Angel Mission to Seafarers at the Port of Vancouver hoping to catch up with some seafarers. Then they planned to conduct a surprise inspection of the three ships docked at Vancouver grain terminals. The International Transport Workers' Federation has agreements with many employers of unionized workers giving representatives authority to board and inspect ships. By industry estimates, the ITF represents more than half of all seafarers. By the federation's own estimate, it represents approximately one million seafarers. The International Chamber of Shipping, a shipowners association, in turn estimates approximately 1.9 million people serve on international merchant ships. Seafarers play a critical role globally and in Vancouver's economy. According to the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority, the port receives about 3,000 ships each year, enabling $300 billion worth of trade with 170 different countries. On board these ships, seafarers are responsible for a wide range of duties including navigation, ship maintenance, cooking and handling cargo. But the job can be risky. At the group's morning gathering, the inspectors and union members swapped stories about problems. ILWU Local 400 president Jason Woods pulled out a black and white picture from 1976 of then-ITF inspector Tom McGrath surrounded by mouldy potatoes in a ship's kitchen. Smith said bad food is still an issue. Food is expensive in Canadian ports, he said. 'Because the company gives crews a budget, they prefer to hold off until they go to places where they have cheaper food,' he said. 'There's always problems with rotting food, rotting vegetables and not enough food.' And then there are visa issues. Seafarers don't need a visa from Canada if they're passing through the port, or even visiting the city during their brief time here. But for workers nearing the end of their contracts — or any seafarer hoping to go home — visas and travel approvals can become critical. They don't need a work permit to leave Canada, but the worker who arrives to replace them might. Smith said that earlier this year, a cook from the Philippines learned his wife was suffering from a terminal illness. But his path to flying home was complicated. The shipowner wanted someone to take over his responsibilities as cook before buying him a ticket home. Emails between the ITF, the employer and a seafarer charity obtained by The Tyee corroborate the story. In April, the cook reached out to the Mission to Seafarers, a charity, for help. According to a chaplain at the mission, the cook's wife was terminally ill with days left to live. The cook wasn't sure he could go home until the ship could bring in another cook to replace him — a process that can often take more than a week while the replacement worker waits for a visa. The chaplain reached out to the ITF for help getting the cook home. The next day, the company agreed to fly the cook back and another seafarer stepped up to take over the cook's duties until it reached the next port. 'Canadian visa restrictions make arrangements on short notice impossible,' the ship manager said in an email to the Smith. 'We are presently in progress to arrange... to sail without a cook to next port, where a reliever can join.' It's a common issue in Canada, according to Smith. If a seafarer's contract is up and they need to head home from Canada, their ship needs replacement workers — called relievers — to take over their roles. But instead of getting visas for relievers to fly into Canada, shipowners will often pressure fatigued seafarers into staying on board past the length of their contract. In an email to The Tyee, Mary Rose Sabater, a spokesperson for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, or IRCC, said relievers aren't required to get a Canadian work permit — a document separate from a visa that grants foreign nationals the right to work in Canada — but it's recommended they apply for a temporary resident visa. She said seafarers do need to have a valid passport and paperwork proving they have a contract to work on an international vessel. However, IRCC says on its website that foreign workers may need a visa or special travel documents to enter Canada before joining a vessel as a crew member, depending on their country of origin. Sabater added the department recommends seafarers apply for temporary resident visas anyway, 'to avoid any delays or complications upon arrival.' 'IRCC recommends that seafarers submit their applications a minimum of four weeks in advance of their planned travel, where possible,' Sabater said. IRCC says on its website it takes 27 days to process visas for relievers from the Philippines, 19 days for workers from India and 24 days for workers from China. Smith said it often takes longer in practice. He said it usually takes workers from India three months to get the paperwork they need to come relieve workers, and workers from the Philippines one month. Smith said most companies try to plan ahead to relieve crews. But some ships press workers to stay on board until they can reach another port. Transport Canada and the ITF check some seafarers' contracts to see if they have already expired, but Smith said shipowners would rather gamble on having an inspector catch them keeping seafarers on board past their tenures during a random inspection than go through the visa process. 'Seafarers cry out to us, saying that they want to go home, that they feel like a prisoner on board,' Smith said. At sea, shipowners and captains have near-absolute control over sailors' lives. Seafarers' working environment is predominantly male, physically tough and isolated. The conditions often breed violence and exploitation, and sailors frequently struggle with mental health and suicide, said Brazeau with the International Transport Workers' Federation. A study published last year in the journal International Maritime Health surveyed 788 seafarers in France and found about 66 per cent of female respondents and 38 per cent of male respondents said they had been sexually harassed while at sea. One-fifth said they had been victims of sexual harassment in the past 12 months. Then there's the risk of abandonment, when companies end the employment of seafarers in a foreign port without providing any way for them to get home. And often without paying the wages owed. While abandonment is sometimes because of a bad-faith employer, it often happens when a shipowner goes out of business or becomes insolvent, according to the ITF. The International Labour Organization and the International Maritime Organization run a database tracking cases of abandonment worldwide — the vast majority of which were reported by the ITF. Once workers are abandoned at foreign ports, it's up to workers' groups, port authorities and state governments to bring them home. So far this year, the online database lists 70 cases of abandonment — 37 of which are still unresolved. Last year, there were 308 cases of abandonment, with 54 cases being unresolved. That's a sharp rise from fewer than 20 cases per year between 2011 to 2016. The last case of abandonment at a Canadian port was reported in 2014, when 12 crew members were stranded when the ship's owner suddenly stopped contacting crew. The case was resolved when the City of Sorel-Tracy, Quebec, held a fundraiser to send the seafarers home to Turkey and an airline donated the tickets they needed. The ITF's Smith said many cases never get reported because seafarers' workplaces are isolated and precarious and their access to labour law and complaint processes is limited. Transport Canada spokesperson Sau Sau Liu said in an email that Canada is a signatory to the Maritime Labour Convention, which sets out the labour standards for seafarers. Lui added the department inspects vessels arriving from international ports based on complaints, risks or vessel profiles to ensure they comply with the convention. 'If non-compliances are observed, the inspector can order the detention of the vessel until the matter is resolved,' Liu said. Back in Vancouver, Smith and the other campaigners headed to their first stop, the Mission to Seafarers at the Vancouver port. The mission has been offering services to seafarers visiting Vancouver since 1973. Its blue wood heritage building was built in 1905 as a showpiece for BC Mills Timber and Trading Co. and has been used as the headquarters for the Vancouver Harbour Commissioners and the National Harbours Board. Now it's home to a tuxedo cat named Archie, with a foyer that features a makeshift shop offering low-priced snacks, drinks and warm clothes for seafarers passing through Vancouver. There are tables, chairs and couches where they can relax, although most show up just looking for a place to nap, said senior port chaplain Peter Smyth. The inspectors and union members arrived with stacks of pizza and pamphlets about mental health, hoping to connect with ship workers. But the seafarers who do come to the mission decide they would rather use the time to explore the city. One sports a blue 'Vancouver' hoodie, a souvenir of his first visit to the city. The Tyee agreed to protect his identity because he feared retribution from his employer. Last year, the sailor, who is from the Philippines, worked on a small cargo ship that only travelled the Baltic Sea. In March, he signed on for a nine-month contract on a container ship operating on the Pacific Ocean. He says he's looking forward to returning home to his family by Christmas. 'Since this is my first container ship, it's a little bit more of an adjustment,' he said. 'But I can adapt to any kind of work.' Work at sea can be challenging, he said. 'If we encounter some bad weather, it's very difficult to work because you feel dizzy, you feel like vomiting,' he said. 'It's good to work on a big vessel like this. You get less seasick.' The sailor said he previously worked at an airport in the Philippines. But working at sea paid better. 'I can earn some big money — more than working on land,' he said. Last month in Geneva, Switzerland, the International Labour Organization — a United Nations agency that establishes international employment standards — set the 2026 global minimum wage for seafarers at US$690 per month — approximately C$954. That's more than double the minimum wage in the Philippines. And it's a solidly middle-class salary, by international standards. According to the International Labour Organization's global wage report, the median wage of lower-middle-class workers internationally was US$448 per month in 2021. But money isn't the only reason people are attracted to the work, said Helio Vicente, director of employment affairs at the International Chamber of Shipping. 'It's exciting,' he said. 'If you want to explore the world, that is one of the big attractions of seafaring.' The chamber is a trade association representing more than 80 per cent of the shipowners and employers that make up the world merchant fleet. Vicente said the International Chamber of Shipping has 'worked incredibly hard' with the International Transport Workers' Federation to address some of the systemic issues facing seafarers. Visas for relievers are a priority, according to Vicente. He said the employer association participated in discussions about how to improve visa processes at the annual International Labour Organization meeting in April and it will be a topic of discussion next year. 'What we want to do ahead of that meeting is really take stock about how we can help... and find ways to address the need for seafarers to be moving around in a way that's much freer,' he said. He added the association is working to reduce abandonment cases alongside the International Labour Organization, which established a task force to address the issue in April 2024. 'Abandonment is a complete scourge on us as an industry and it gives everybody a bad reputation,' Vicente said. 'We are meant to look after our workforce.' He said the task force's first priority is to organize data on abandonment, so trends can be identified and addressed. Vicente added that to ensure instances of violence and harassment on ships can be addressed, the employer association participated in conversations last year about ways to make it easier for employees to report misconduct. He said the reporting framework is evolving and he hopes it creates reliable channels for sailors to report breaches of their rights. 'We're doing absolutely everything we can to address the issue,' he said. 'The ability for seafarers to report in the comfort and knowledge that they will not be retaliated against is important.' Tiny particles of grain dust blew off the Sakizaya Youth into a westerly wind as the labour campaigners walked on board. The bulk carrier ship was docked in Vancouver for a few days to fill with grain before starting the two-week trip to Panama. The vessel was owned by Wisdom Marine Group, a Taiwanese shipping company that did not respond to The Tyee's requests for comment. It flew a Panamanian flag and had a crew of 21 workers of Chinese nationality. Smith explained to the captain — the only crew member in plain clothes — that he was with the International Transport Workers' Federation and planned to do an inspection. The first priority was to check the provisions locker where the ship stored its food. An officer in blue coveralls led the way downstairs to the provisions locker. The ship's storage room for food was kept cold. It was filled with produce that looked fresh and unspoiled, though it had not been restocked since April 7 — more than two weeks prior. 'How long is it going to last for, that's my concern,' said Sam Levens, one of the U.S.-based ITF inspectors. 'This is a lot of fresh stuff.' The cook, who did not offer his name, explained the ship planned to restock provisions when it reached Panama in two weeks. The ship budgeted US$8.50 per crew member per day for provisions — a budget that would go much further at its next port. Back upstairs, Smith pored through a binder of paperwork including collective agreements and time cards. He had noticed the crew's time cards were filled in uniformly, reporting each member had worked exactly 44 hours per week with no overtime. The crew had all been on board for about nine months. According to the captain, the plan was to send the crew home when they arrived in Panama. That was in line with the crew's contracts, which said they would stay on board for nine months — plus or minus one month. The International Labour Organization standard for seafarers is that the maximum period of service on board is 11 months. A couple of hours after arriving, Smith announced the inspection had come to an end. But before he left, the captain asked for a picture. The captain, crew and labour campaigners all headed back to the deck, where they posed for a shot with the black flag of the International Transport Workers' Federation. One crew member held up an ITF pamphlet about managing mental health. The group planned more inspections and crew engagement over the next few days in Surrey and Delta before taking the campaign south of the Canadian border. Smith said he plans to turn the awareness campaign — and the practice of bringing longshore workers along for inspections — into an annual event. He said he hopes that by building connections between seafarers and port workers, he can strengthen seafarers' access to labour rights here in Canada. 'The more we talk to these seafarers, the more we can grow this,' he said. 'Hopefully, seafarers can start to feel more and more comfortable.' Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. 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Yahoo

12-06-2025

• Yahoo

Escaped river otter takes his destiny into his own (tiny) hands

Since March, two escaped North American river otters (Lontra canadensis) have been leading the staff at the New Zoo Adventure Park in northeastern Wisconsin near Green Bay on an otterly wild chase. During a snowstorm on March 20th, security cameras showed otters Louie and Ophelia leaving their enclosures. The zoo staff believe they escaped through a hole in a buried part of the fence that had clearly gone unnoticed. Zookeepers quickly noted their absence, and immediately set the stage for a high-stakes chase scene straight out of an episode of Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner. Per the zoo's updates 'operating procedures for animal escapes were activated,' and they even called in a professional animal tracker. The otters, however, were not very subtle in their escape. They left fresh tracks in the snow, galavanting around the zoo and beyond in full view of cameras. The pair never went very far, which is consistent with normal otter territorial behavior, according to the zoo. 'Both Louie and Ophelia were born in the wild and brought into human care through a process of rehabilitation. North American river otters are native to our area and are very comfortable and capable of surviving in Wisconsin's climate,' the zoo reassured readers. 'The Zoo is surrounded by natural ponds and other waterways which provide ample food and safe places to sleep even at this time of year.' The zoo staff set up traps in locations where the otters were seen more than once, but like any good story, antagonistic foil characters in the form of raccoons quite literally foiled their plans by interfering with the contraptions. One raccoon even set off a trap shortly before one of the otters tried to enter it, forcing the staff to pivot toward 'raccoon proof' traps. Nonetheless, the zoo announced Ophelia's return on April 1 (after clarifying that the announcement was not an April Fool's joke). After two months of Louie evading capture, the zoo concluded that he had taken his destiny into his own hands. 'Due to the length of time that Louie has been missing, we believe he has made the decision to be a wild otter,' the zoo wrote in its latest animal update. 'We accept this, although we would, of course, welcome him home if he decides to return.' [ Related: Female sea otters use tools more than males. ] The zoo staff explained that, given the reports of his sightings, they believe he is 'healthy and surviving well.' The only thing left to do now is find another male otter to keep Ophelia company.