Semi-aquatic predators such as mink are exposed to anthropogenic contaminants directly through the water and through bioaccumulation in the food chain. The biological impact of dietary bleached kraft pulp mill effluent (BKME) on mink (Mustela vison) was investigated. In a pilot study and two subchronic studies of 8 and 7 month duration, mink were fed diets containing 75% (year 1) and 45% (year 2) fish caught downstream of a BKME discharge point, and drinking water contained 25% BKME. In year two, the 45% fish diet had 15% soft-wood run BKME incorporated into the feed. The investigation was tiered. In the pilot study, behavioural, clinical, biochemical, hematological, and pathological effects were investigated. Repeating these variables, reproductive factors were added in Year one, while in Year two, hepatic enzyme (ethoxyresorufin-O-deethylase (EROD)) induction, cell mediated and humoral immune function, and hepatic vitamin A levels were evaluated. In vivo and in vitro immunotoxicity assays were developed for mink. Peripheral blood mononuclear cell (PBMC) proliferation was measured in response to mitogens in vitro. An enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay for antibody detection was developed for mink. Delayed type hypersensitivity (DTH) tests and antibody production responses were used to measure cell-mediated and humoral immunity in vivo in the experimental mink. No adverse effects were found on behavioural, gross pathological, histopathological, hematological or biochemical variables, on gestation, kit birth weight, kit survival, libido, estrus, sperm quality or hormone levels. In the Year two subchronic study, the relative liver size was increased in BKME-exposed males. Hepatic EROD activity was 1.8 times greater in exposed females (p = 0.0001) and 2.0 times greater in exposed males (p = 0.0004) relative to control mink. No difference in PBMC proliferation was seen between the control and exposed mink with any of the mitogens used. The DTH response was impaired (p = 0.014), while the antibody response was enhanced (p = 0.029) in the BKME-exposed mink. Hepatic vitamin A levels were not different in the females (mid-lactation), but were significantly decreased in the BKME-exposed males (post-breeding) (p = 0.0002). These changes represent a primary effect of bleached pulp mill effluent on the immune system, hepatic vitamin A stores, and hepatic detoxification enzyme system in exposed mink. Hepatic EROD activity provides a useful indicator for evidence of exposure to environmental toxicants in mink. The change in the immune response is occurring at the level of T lymphocyte differentiation, and therefore, affects the relative proportions of T lymphocyte subpopulations which are dedicated to cell mediated, or, T lymphocyte dependent, antibody mediated immunity. Immune deviation seen in the female mink is not associated with changes in hepatic vitamin A stores, while the decreased vitamin A in the males has an unknown effect on their immune response. The biological impact of bleached kraft pulp mill effluent does not cause dramatic or subclinical signs of toxicity in exposed mink. However, the interference with hepatic vitamin A storage, and changes to the immune response, present concerns regarding long term effects on health, reproduction and longevity in exposed mink.

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American and Canadian Indian policy in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries generally focused on "civilizing" Indian peoples. In other words, the government wanted a more sedentary, less dispersed Indian population who would likewise require less land for traditional hunting and gathering activities and might be more easily assimilated when time and circumstance required. Such policy, however, was best suited to agricultural regions. In forested regions or other areas which were not suitable for commercial cultivation, conflict arose as Aboriginal groups tried to maintain their traditional practices while other interest groups sought to access the same resources. Increasing use of these non-agricultural areas by sport hunters, commercial fishing industries, logging enterprises, tourists, and in some cases prospectors and land speculators, grew in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. These interests not only competed for the same resources from which the Indian population secured its subsistence, but they also influenced the governments of the United States, Canada, Wisconsin, and Saskatchewan to regulate traditional Indian hunting and gathering activity. Conservation commissions in both the United States and Canada went about the business of re-shaping the public perception of the acceptable use of fish and game. Traditional subsistence activity had little, if any place in these new fish and game management strategies. This was the case even though Indians in both northern Saskatchewan and Wisconsin negotiated treaties which they believed upheld their access to vital resources. The conflict over resources became acute in the early twentieth century when governments in both places actively interfered with traditional activities. Such interference had the most dire consequences for the Indian people in both areas. The case studies presented here illustrate the historical antecedents of conflicts which still exist today. The Indian concern for continued access to natural resources has rarely been heard in its historical context. This study places the historic confrontation between Indian subsistence resource users and government resource-managing agencies in the context of the early twentieth century conservation movement. The two areas studied here have striking similarities. The governments refused to uphold treaty promises and rarely listened to the Indians' demands for continued access to natural resources. This study explains how governments managed resources in their own interest and relates not only the struggle for access to resources, but also how Indians responded to government interference in their way of life. It is important to move beyond a comparative analysis of two similar tribal populations in a cross-border analysis. By examining two disparate tribal groups who negotiated similar treaties in two different eras but in distant geographic locations, a better understanding of governmental conservation motives and actions, as well as the impact of such governmental activity on Indian people, may be achieved. This study is a unique look at the impact of the early conservation movement on the subsistence needs of Indian peoples in North American non-agricultural regions.