Dangers of Genetic Engineering in the Forest
NEW JERSEY MAN KILLED IN QUEBEC MAPLE SUGAR EXPLOSION – that
is a headline you will never see, but tragedies like that happen every year.
Yet the news is suppressed because no one wants to kill the cash cow. The result: one unsuspecting innocent after
another gives their life for tourism, as dollars make a one-way trip across the
US-Canada border.
Quebec officials
boast that they are the #1 producer of maple sugar and syrup. “Vermont is a distant #2,” they say
derisively. Meanwhile rumors swirl. Are they injecting maple growth hormone into
their trees? How do they do it? I don’t
have the answer. All I know is that
maples are said to be exploding when tapped, and the jagged wood makes deadly
shrapnel. Arborists say it’s excess sap
pressure, but who really knows?
What about the safety of the syrup? I’ll take good old organic maple any
day. I don’t wear blood diamonds and I
don’t eat MGH-enhanced blood syrup. Who
wants to eat maple candies that some poor farmer died to harvest?
Vermont says they have not had a maple sugaring fatality in years, but who knows if that's true? Recent accounts suggest Canadian maple sugar farms are littered with jagged stumps where proud trees
once stood. Ask what happen and the
answers are vague. Lightning, vandalism,
or crazed loggers.
The season is upon us, folks. Know your syrup. Be careful around the trees. There’s a good reason forest peoples don’t
sleep under tree branches. Don’t find
out the hard way.
Comments
furniture to Indonesia to have it processed for sap, I began to say, "Wait a minute." I had grown up in northwestern PA, in Crawford County, which has its own maple-sugar industry, and I had never heard of an exploding tree. (Crawford County farmers reportedly shipped their syrup to VT to be marketed.) Anyway, the NPR story aired on April 1st. That is why I am amazed at your report. I wonder if NPR knows about this.