We have no system that coordinates expertise, taxonomic expertise for example, that would allow us to rapidly identify species, which is the first stage towards assessing a threat. The next stage after that is once you know what you have coming in through ballast water or whatever vector, or that has already been found in the Great Lakes, you have to decide, is it a threat? Then you apply the risk assessment models I talked about.
There is no regulation to do this. There is no coordinated monitoring system in place. There is no system that synergizes the activities of large numbers of people who are scattered throughout the country. Actually, the closest thing we have to that is CAISN, the Canadian Aquatic Invasive Species Network, which is NSERC-funded. The point of that was to harness the expertise of people, including people of taxonomic expertise, people of risk assessment expertise, people who understand the ecology of various kinds of organisms—and we mentioned a few of them here, ranging from fish to mussels to tunicates, and all kinds of things—-who are scattered across the country, and give them an opportunity to work together and inform government. We need to do more than that, but that's what we have so far.
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