INSIDE: Flight Fest takes to the skies Pg. 13 T U E S D A Y August 13, 2013
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E N T E R T A I N M E N T chilliwacktimes.com
Limited fishery angers natives
Urged to vaccinate against measles
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he Fraser Health Authority is urging residents of the eastern Fraser Valley to get vaccinated against measles after about 60 women and newborns were exposed to the highly contagious disease at the Abbotsford Regional Hospital and Cancer Centre. “The exposure of newborn children to this virus is a very concerning situation,” Fraser Health chief medical officer Paul Van Buynder stated in a press release Thursday. “They are too young to respond to the vaccine and some will not have received protection in utero from their mothers . . . It is a timely reminder that not vaccinating children can have consequences for EB IRST other vulnerable First reported on infants.” Relatively low chilliwacktimes.com immunization ra t e s i n s o m e parts of Abbotsford, Mission, Chilliwack, Agassiz, Harrison Hot Springs and Hope have led to several “clusters” of the virus in those communities in previous years, according to Fraser Health, the most recent being in April 2010 shortly after the Olympic Games. The most effective protection against the disease is two doses of vaccine, health officials said. The vaccination is free to all those born after 1957, People who suspect they have been exposed to measles or have developed symptoms, should see their medical practitioner but should notify the medical practitioner’s office before arriving in order to prevent the spread of the disease to other patients. The families exposed to measles at the Abbotsford hospital, meanwhile, will be contacted by health officials directly.
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BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
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Let’r buck!
Cornelia Naylor/TIMES
A bronc rider is launched off his mount during the bareback competition at the Chilliwack Rodeo held during the Chilliwack Fair on Saturday.
Attendance up at this year’s Chilliwack Fair BY CORNELIA NAYLOR cnaylor@chilliwacktimes.com
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ttendance at the Chilliwack Fair was up 15 per cent last weekend despite the absence of a midway again this year. “Overall we had a really positive response from everyone,” fair coordinator Brett McCarthy told the Times. New additions to the three-day event were a big hit. The “moo-ternity” pen, which featured cows in labour, witnessed the birth of six calves over the weekend.
SEE MORE PHOTOS layar “Everyone loved it. Every time there was one giving birth, we had big crowds,” McCarthy said A new—and surprisingly handson—reptile display by the Reptile Guy (Abbotsford’s Mike Hopcraft) also drew crowds, as did Future West Promotions’ first motocross at the fair. “They had a couple race days and they all really enjoyed it, and spectators liked it too,” McCarthy said.
The absence of big, flashy rides was the only hitch. Securing a midway provider has been an ongoing struggle, McCarthy said, because there are only two such companies in B.C., and companies coming from outside the province have to pay $2,000 to get each of their rides certified. “That adds $20,000 onto their bill,” McCarthy said. With cities competing over only two providers, Chilliwack usually loses out to the B.C. Northern Exhibition in Prince George when the two events fall on the same weekend as they did this year.
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empers among local First Nations fishers flared Friday when they were told there would be no sockeye opening on their stretch of the Fraser River over the weekend and only an abbreviated 12-hour opening for Chinook. “We’re pretty pissed off,” Lower Fraser Fishers’ Alliance co-chair Ken Malloway told the Times after a heated conference call with fisheries managers Friday. “Normally this time of the year we fish three times a week, from Thursday to Sunday. But now we’re being cut back and cut back. We haven’t had a regular fishery yet this year.” The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has allowed no commercial or sport harvest of sockeye from the Fraser so far this season, and First Nations in the area have had only limited openings for food and ceremonial purposes: one for 24 hours, another for 48 hours and a limited-participation dry-rack fishery in July. Malloway and other local First Nations fishers were angry at being denied a sockeye opening this weekend because openings for aboriginal fishers above and below their stretch of the river (above the Port Mann Bridge and below Sawmill Creek) haven’t been shut down, and they say local sport fishers are going after sockeye illegally close to home.
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