Transcript
Since we’ve started this program, there wasn’t a single flight that we would do where we didn’t find marine-based pollution from commercial vessels and fishing villages. And now it’s more the exception than the rule.
Jan-Andrej Skopalik, Regional Manager for the Atlantic for the National Aerial Surveillance Program.
Since we´re in the business of protecting as many marine mammals and sea life as possible, especially on the East coast because we do have an economy that’s largely derived from the cultivation of marine species, we want to make sure that we take care of our environment as much as possible.
These are all natural resources that belong to the Canadians as a whole. So we want to make sure that things we can protect the environment from are taken care of.
Due to the Ocean’s Protection Plan we have expanded our portfolio of mission-types to 20 different types. But it used to be fly for ice in the Winter, fly for pollution in the Summer.
That’s a simplification, but that’s basically how it used to be.
Most government aerial platforms go covert. So high-level, painted grey or blue to hide.
We’re a bright red, with the word “surveillance” written right down the side. As our colleagues in the South keep joking, “Canadian covert”.
We fly generally at low altitude across fishing villages to wave the flag, to let them know that we are out there and that we are looking.
The spills are drying up, you know, pardon the pun, since it’s on the ocean. But they are certainly becoming more and more rare.
My job is basically to put myself out of a job. Who wants to put themselves out of a job? I guess I do.