For complete media see Press Coverage

 

  "Ministry's refusal to release information could set precedent"
- Island Courier, Nov 26 2010.
“The government is desperate to find any excuse to block the release of this information, even if it is the same data we've already won the right to see for other years," said Randy Christensen, Ecojustice staff lawyer. "We believe it's an abuse of the FOI process and it certainly makes it seem like the government is trying to hide something”
Read more here

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(Harbour City Star, 24th September): "Local company studies fishery: Results of research done by a Nanaimo company are adding fuel to the fire in the debate over whether fish farms are somehow connected to declining West Coast salmon stocks" 
For more information see here

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From Otto Langer writing in the Richmond News: "One can only wonder if the salmon farmers and their lobby friends have a code of ethical conduct.  The fish farmers have refused to release any information of lice levels on neither specific farms nor the number of farmed salmon in their pens when juvenile sockeye would have migrated past their operations" For more on this see here

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Salmon feedlot leases expired

(August 23, 2010, Broughton Archipelago) Salmon Feedlots in the Broughton Archipelago are operating on Crown Land tenures that have been expired for years. This week biologist Alexandra Morton has applied for these licences to return them to their natural state to grow wild fish to the much greater benefit of British Columbians and the BC economy. For more information, see here. 

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Paddle for Wild Salmon

http://www.timescolonist.com/travel/Flotilla+takes+salmon+farming/3374006/story.html

The Get Out Migration marches on with a flotilla, walk and rally in Vancouver on 25th October.Salmon Are Sacred has spaces for 160 people in canoes and calls on experienced paddlers, Tribal Journeys canoe teams and kayakers to join Alexandra Morton, Elena Edwards, First Nations leaders and our flotilla in pulling together for wild salmon as we journey down the Fraser River.

See here for more details. Also check our Events section to see when and where the Paddle will be.

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New Draft Aquaculture Regulations

(July 29, 2010) The Department of Fisheries and Oceans assumes control of salmon aquaculture in British Columbia as of December this year. They recently released their proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations on the Canadian Gazette and until September 12, the public has the ability to comment on them. After reviewing the draft regulations, the worst case scenario of these regulations will see:

• issuing of federal licences without consulting First Nations
  
• expansion of the industry without environmental assessments
  
• licencing salmon feedlots to "harm, alter, disrupt and destroy " the coastal North Pacific (Fisheries Act S35(1))
  
• legalization of destruction of wild fish attracted to the lights and food and trapped in the pens
  
• allow for incomplete disease reporting
  
• tailor each licence to meet the needs of the companies with no public input

We are extremely concerned about the repercussions of the new regulations on the management of salmon feedlots in British Columbia. If you are concerned, you can sign a petition addressed to the Prime Minister, or you can voice your concerns to Mr. Ed Porter (PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca), who is fielding comments from the public until September 12, 2010.

To read more, see Alexandra's blog post.

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Rebuttal in the Financial Post

(July 8, 2010) Articles in the Financial and National Post last month have sparked a number letters to the editors and opinion pieces, first from researchers Dr Krkosek, Lewis, Riddell and Morton and then from Marine Harvest's Clare Backman and anti-salmon feedlot critic Vivian Krause.

Krause's opinion piece was written as an attack on Alexandra Morton and the work her and her colleagues have done. It has now been rebutted by a letter to the editor from Alexandra, who offers insights into the differences of opinion in the salmon farming issue but also about the kind of communities we could be living in:

     The letter by Vivian Krause about me is a glimpse into a world where money gets results, where the responsible corporation puts the shareholder above all else, including life on Earth, where the goal is more money.
     But there is another way to view the world. We are all aboard the same rock hurtling through a hostile universe and when someone grows, someone else is displaced.

     The Norwegian feedlot industry has been displacing people, businesses and wildlife as it grows. They use feedlots that break strict biological laws that limit disease. The people of British Columbia have asked that the wild salmon migration routes be left untouched, but Norway refuses and government cannot risk more for this industry. Of course people are pushing back. The biological world cannot survive the relentless growth the stock market demands. In our bodies, we call it cancer. Feedlots have to be quarantined.

     Aquaculture is not the problem. There are innovative Canadian companies ready to raise fish on land, supermarket chains are demanding land-based farm fish and scientists are equipped to restore wild salmon. Canada could be a leader in sustainable aquaculture with abundant wild salmon. The longer the industry resists change, the more fragile it becomes.

     Assigning my motivation to an Alaskan payoff has been repeated for years without evidence. As for the big U.S. funders, they have never funded me. They funded an environmental coalition I left years ago. But Ms. Krause also lashes out at fishermen paying for the research, as well as the integrity of the editor of the journal Science. Is she implying we are all cheating for money? Interesting. I think her point is that research into the impact of salmon feedlots should not be done, nor published. I make my living at www.alexandramorton.ca.The Norwegian salmon feedlot industry is in crisis because it has failed to meet international standards for mandatory disease reporting, while their viral outbreaks are alarmingly correlated with the collapse of Canada's biggest wild salmon stock, the Fraser sockeye.

     Aquaculture is not the problem. There are innovative Canadian companies ready to raise fish on land, supermarket chains are demanding land-based farm fish and scientists are equipped to restore wild salmon. Canada could be a leader in sustainable aquaculture with abundant wild salmon. The longer the industry resists change, the more fragile it becomes.
 

Dr. Alexandra Morton, Echo Bay, B.C.

Read more: http://www.nationalpost.com/todays-paper/Land+based+salmon+answer/3248508/story.html#ixzz0tCuAoDhO

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Why the secrecy on sea lice?

(July 6, 2010) Six years ago, the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation and Ecojustice applied to the provincial government for the statistics of sea lice on salmon farms for 2002 and 2003, at which time it was not available. Starting in 2003, farms report their data first to the BC Salmon Farmers Association, which aggregrates it based on region (to protect the proprietary rights of different salmon farming companies) and then sends it on to the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands). The provincial government fought long and hard against this FOI request, but T. Buck was recently granted rights to the data because the information and privacy commissioner ruled the government had no legal reason to keep the information from the public.


From an article today in the Times Colonist,

The government had justified the first refusal by claiming that releasing the information would hurt the interests of the salmon aquaculture companies. That argument was rejected by the information commissioner.
 

Now it is pointing to another section of the act and claiming releasing the data could mean revealing "trade secrets."
 

If that was a legitimate claim, the government surely would have raised it during its initial fight to keep the data from the public.
 

The government's reasons for continuing this costly fight to keep scientific data secret are unknown. But it is creating the perception that the ministry is more interested in the well-being of salmon-farming companies than in the health of wild salmon and the right of the public to basic facts in the ministry's possession.

So why is the government wasting taxpayers' dollars on what looks very much like an attempt to stall the release of this information?

Read more: http://www.timescolonist.com/news/todays-paper/secrecy%20lice/3240546/story.html#ixzz0swbMl4A1

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Greenpeace hangs longline from Costco roof to highlight need for ocean protection

(June 29, 2010) To raise awareness on poor sustainable seafood policies, Greenpeace hung a banner on a Costco in Vancouver today. They've also launched a new site - oh-no-costco.ca to facilitate action for consumers to take against the super chain.

For more, see:
http://www.greenpeace.org/canada/en/recent/action-costco-roof/

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Articles in the National Post

Below are two links to the National Post that cast doubt on anything this paper has ever published. 

Salmon Farm Battle about 'competition', Kevin Libin (June 17, 2010): http://www.financialpost.com/news/Salmon+farm+battle+about+competition/3167822/story.html

This science is fishy, Terrence Corcoran (June 17, 2010): http://www.financialpost.com/This+science+fishy/3169251/story.html  

The money reported in the first article must include everything related to wild salmon research, it is not conceivable the environmental organizations have received anything close to this for working on specifically salmon farm issues.  As well, Alexandra Morton has been in the middle of this for 20 years and have never been approached by Alaskan interests, despite Mr. Libin's strong assurances that "this is not a conspiracy theory".

The comment on the science done around the sea lice in the second article is equally unbalanced and unresearched. The author of This science is fishy is clearly is not familiar with the concepts of ecology and resource management on this coast. If he has decided he has the authority and knowledge to announce the research that has been done on sea lice as "ill-founded" and "junk", we wish him all the best in the peer review process and discussions with the editors of prestigious scientific journals. In the future, Mr. Corcoran can hopefully educate himself by discussing these matters with the authors of the papers he has been so confident to refute nationally, instead of only speaking to their critics.

These writers are grasping at straws. Their source on this was reportedly hired by MP John Duncan, a salmon farm advocate. The scientific community is responding and we will be posting these as they come in below:


Letter to the Editor
Dr. Neil Frazer
The National Post newspaper
June 18, 2010

Sir:
Mr. Corcoran's article on salmon farming in British Columbia needs
correction as follows: (1) The decline in pink salmon was real, but has
been temporarily arrested by coordinated use of a toxic chemical
therapeutant that is put in salmon feed to kill lice on farmed salmon
before they can infect out-migrating juvenile wild salmon. (2) In the CMB
study published in science, lice were not only observed, they were counted
and classified as to developmental stage. (3) Juvenile wild salmon were
sampled from nine or more locations along their migration routes. (4) The
CMB study did not claim or assume that sea lice are the only cause of wild
salmon fluctuations. (5) The large returns of wild pink salmon in 2009
were due mainly to renovation of the spawning channel on Glendale Creek in
the summer of 2007. Other statements are misleading: (6) The CMB models
were not criticized by any scientist with expertise in mathematical
epidemiology, an area of science in which neither Vivian Krauss, David
Groves, Alastair McVicar, Ben Koop, nor Brian Riddell are qualified, as
they will, or should, readily admit. (7) Environmental NGO's are
supporting the salmon farming issue because knowledgeable Canadians have
pleaded with them to do so and because Canada's Department of Fisheries
and Oceans (DFO) is untrustworthy. I became interested in this issue when
I noticed scientists at DFO making absurdly unscientific public
statements. Why are they lying? I asked myself. If Mr. Corcoran were a
scientist qualified to write on this matter he would be asking himself the
same question.

Respectfully,
Neil Frazer

Professor of Geophysics
School of Earth and Ocean Science and Technology
University of Hawaii at Manoa
Honolulu, HI 96822
In BC: 250-334-3969; In HI: 808-956-3724
http://www.soest.hawaii.edu/asp/GG/people/people.asp?ID=2215

 
Comment from Dr. Rick Routledge:

I am one of the scientists who have contributed to what Terry Corcoran has characterized as the junk science surrounding the salmon farming controversy. By focusing his criticisms on one particularly bold prediction in one article out of an increasingly large number of research reports, he is creating a seriously biased impression.

I believe that any careful, unbiased assessment of the full research record would lead to the following conclusions: (i) that salmon farms have the potential to produce large, unprecedented infestations of sea lice on passing juvenile salmon, (ii) that these lice levels can and do kill young pink and chum salmon, and (iii) that this potential has been thwarted in recent years primarily through heavy reliance on a chemical with the trade name, “Slice”.

In addition, when juvenile migration routes through the Broughton Archipelago have, on a couple of occasions, either been deliberately or incidentally emptied of farm fish, subsequent adult returns have rebounded.

Furthermore, the mathematical prediction that has been attacked
so vigorously has not actually been thoroughly tested. Continuing,
rapid declines to extinction were predicted only if the lice levels were to remain as high as they had been. Fortunately, the lice levels have been lower in recent years.

It seems likely that these lower lice loads are due in large part to the aggressive use of Slice on the fish farms. But it is clear that this is not a viable, long-term solution to the problem. Pests typically develop resistance to chemical treatments. Slice-resistant strains of sea lice have already evolved on both sides of the Atlantic. Any sensible person would expect the same to happen any time now in BC. Recent surges of lice abundances on BC farms suggest that it may already have done so.

Elevated lice loads have also been detected on juvenile Fraser River sockeye and larval herring that were caught in the core of an area of salmon farms near Campbell River, BC. Both Fraser sockeye and Pacific herring have been key components to west coast fisheries. Any wise, cautious person would take the risk to these key fisheries very seriously indeed.

The evidence that has accumulated over the last decade must not be dismissed as junk science promoting irresponsible, alarmist activism. It demonstrates a very real threat to a natural treasure of global significance. The calls for reform are a prudent reaction to a substantial body of scientific evidence.

Rick Routledge, PhD
Simon Fraser University

Fish science
Dr. Brian E Riddell & Dr. Alexandra Morton, Financial Post
Thursday, Jun. 24, 2010
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/Fish+science/3193857/story.html

We are writing this letter together to put an end to the numerous attempts to fabricate scientific discord associated with the affects of aquaculture on wild Pacific salmon. The Canadian public will only benefit from abundant wild salmon and aquaculture if they have accurate information. Mr. Corcoran's exaggerations and misinformation are more damaging to the fish farm industry than the science he lashes out at in his column.

Every new industry matures as it develops and aquaculture does represent potential value to our coastal communities. But it must not jeopardize our wild Pacific salmon. Indeed, nowhere else in the world has open-net pen aquaculture existed with such an abundance of wild salmon, as present in British Columbia. To ensure wild Pacific salmon are sustained the ecological footprint of fish farming must meet the biological requirements of wild salmon. Mr. Corcoran seems to want to place the blame for the current situation on activists, but his conclusions are inaccurate and more fishy than any of the science he attempts to discredit.

For the record, first and foremost the claim that sea lice from fish farms in British Columbia were contaminating wild pink salmon is true. Without treatment for sea lice, the farms in the Broughton Archipelago were proven to be the major source of lice infecting juvenile pink salmon. The treatment of lice on farmed salmon, a plan developed through collaborative research in the archipelago, successfully reduced infection and proved that the farms were the primary source of infection. There really is no debate on this point.

Mr. Corcoran says, The great salmon farming scare proved to be a false alarm. This is incorrect. Declines in levels of sea lice are the result of a management (treatment) plan enacted in the Broughton Archipelago since 2007. Implementation of that plan is consistent with improved returns of pink salmon to the Broughton Archipelago in 2009.

Mr. Corcoran employs deliberately inflammatory language. As the primary author (Riddell) of the federal fisheries article rebutting the December 2007 extinction prediction article in Science, I have never referred to flawed science, cherry-picked data, or fudging the data. To infer attribution of these terms to me (Riddell) is totally inappropriate.

To his credit Mr. Corcoran has retained some important messages. I (Riddell) am concerned about the salmon farming experience around the world and I do question how environmentally justifiable open-net pen salmon farms are. Mr. Corcoran quotes Dr. Ben Koop, who rightly says science takes a lot of different perspectives and [then] combines and debates. This is exactly what has been occurring on the West Coast of Canada vis-a-vis aquaculture. We, as a community of scientists, acted and initiated the science that triggered management that has temporarily reduced sea lice. We did not wait to see if the extinction prediction was true or false. We are aware of strong indications worldwide that the current treatment measures may fail if or when the lice become drug-resistant. Therefore, the people involved must continue to develop solutions of which closed containment seems to be an increasingly attractive option.

“So where does this leave us?  We have little respect for rhetoric that belittles the efforts of the many people concerned with wild salmon, aquaculture and the health of our communities.  Open-net pen salmon farms may not be ecologically possible and only an honest debate will allow us to move forward to the benefit of all.  This is very much a work in progress, and it is premature for Mr. Corcoran and the Financial Post to pass judgment.   The legacy of Pacific salmon for Canadians and their economic, social, and ecological values must be foremost in all of our efforts. Wild Pacific salmon have far greater values for BC and Canada than any single industry will ever have!”

Dr. Brian E Riddell, CEO, Pacific Salmon Foundation & Dr. Alexandra Morton, executive director, Raincoast Research Society

Fish science
Mark Lewis and Martin Krkosek, Financial Post
Thursday, Jun. 24, 2010
http://www.nationalpost.com/opinion/Fish+science/3193858/story.html

Re: This science is fishy, Terence Corcoran, June 18

We wish to correct erroneous and misleading statements regarding our scientific work in this column. Our scientific articles on the effects of salmon farms on wild salmon in British Columbia are accurate and have stood up to rigorous challenges.

In 2007, we published a peer-reviewed paper in Science, which analyzed 36 years of Department of Fisheries and Oceans data on pink salmon spawning in 72 rivers of B.C. to isolate the effects of sea lice infestations in the Broughton Archipelago. The results indicated local populations would, on average, drop to 1% of historical levels within four years, if infestations continued. Indeed, a crisis was underway. However, the results also indicated that, if infestations were eliminated, wild salmon ought to recover.

In response to the infestations, farms in the affected area started co-ordinating the use of chemical pesticides. The preliminary data indicate there has been a corresponding reduction of lice on wild salmon and that wild salmon are in recovery. This is a success story of science informing practice, not "junk science."

Anyone who consults the published literature will find that our results are robust and stand up to the critiques that have been raised. The data have been double-checked and subjected to rigorous analysis and re-analysis. The infestations are not make-believe computer simulations, but are data from several years of fieldwork that analyzed over 50,000 wild juvenile salmon for sea lice.

It is undeniable that industrial salmon farms can threaten wild salmon. However, there are solutions, such as co-ordinated management and moving farms off migration routes or into closed containment technology. We hope that progress towards these solutions will not stall.

Mark Lewis, D. Phil, University of Alberta & Martin Krkosek, PhD, University of Washington
 

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MP John Cummins Exposes the Inquiry
 

(June 9, 2010) MP John Cummins has released a series of statements on the conflict of interest that is developing within the Cohen Commission. For full details, see www.johncummins.ca

In a recent statement on the appointment of the Commission's advisors, Cummins writes,

The clear expectation of a judicial inquiry is that it will be presided over by an unbiased judge and supported by a neutral staff who can in no way be identified with the matter under review. This is clearly not the case with the Cohen Inquiry into the decline of the sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.

In staffing his board of scientific advisors Justice Cohen has shown a complete disregard for the most basic principle of any inquiry and most certainly a judicial inquiry and that is the strict neutrality of the presiding justice and his staff with regard to the issues and organization being investigated.

The Department and its "scientific advice" are the target of the Cohen Inquiry. The Terms of Reference "direct the Commissioner to consider the policies and practices of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans …including the Department's scientific advice."

The Terms of Reference go on to direct Justice Cohen to develop recommendations "for any changes to policies, practices and procedures of the Department in relation to the management of the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery."

Simply put, this is an inquiry into the Department's scientific advice and management of the Fraser River fishery or more specifically about problems in its scientific advice and management of the fishery.

Unfortunately, it appears that neither Cohen nor those he has named as advisors sees a need for neutrality when it comes to the Inquiry.

 

 

Contact:
JOHN CUMMINS, M.P.
Delta - Richmond East
(613) 992-2957, (cell) (604) 970-0937, (604) 940-8040)
www.johncummins.ca

To Express Your Concerns:
Contact the Commission - 604 658 3600

Also see:
http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/142-john-cummins-cohen-commission

 

 

More Details on the Terms of Reference of the Cohen Inquiry

http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/

Sections referencing DFO:
Therefore, Her Excellency the Governor General in Council, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, hereby

(a)?directs that a Commission do issue under Part I of the Inquiries Act and under the Great Seal of Canada appointing the Honourable Bruce Cohen as Commissioner to conduct an inquiry into the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River (the "Inquiry"), which Commission shall

(i)?direct the Commissioner

(B)?to consider the policies and practices of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (the "Department") with respect to the sockeye salmon fishery in the Fraser River - including the Department's scientific advice, its fisheries policies and programs, its risk management strategies, its allocation of Departmental resources and its fisheries management practices and procedures, including monitoring, counting of stocks, forecasting and enforcement,

(D)?to develop recommendations for improving the future sustainability of the sockeye salmon fishery in the Fraser River including, as required, any changes to the policies, practices and procedures of the Department in relation to the management of the Fraser River sockeye salmon fishery,

(b)?authorizes, pursuant to section 56 of the Judges Act, the Honourable Bruce Cohen of Vancouver, British Columbia, a judge of the Supreme Court of British Columbia, to act as Commissioner.

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Blaming salmon farms for decline makes for one fishy tale

Monday, May 31, 2010
GWYN MORGAN, From the Globe & Mail
Gwyn Morgan is the retired founding CEO of EnCana Corp.

A small group of activists began an anti-salmon-farm walk at the northern tip of Vancouver Island on April 23. When they arrived at the provincial legislature in Victoria, 500 kilometres and two weeks later, more than a thousand were on hand to sign petitions calling for an end to open-net ocean salmon farms. Protest leaders included authors of reports arguing that the spread of parasites - called sea lice - from the farms were responsible for the decline of wild salmon.

In fact, a few weeks before those protests, Mark Sheppard, the provincial government's leading aquatic veterinarian, had testified before the House of Commons standing committee on fisheries and oceans, saying: " Contrary to what you hear or see in the media, sea lice in British Columbia are not a growing problem ... Lice abundance on both farmed and wild fry have actually declined for five consecutive years." The activists also claim that Atlantic farmed salmon interbreed and compete with native Pacific salmon, theories that are also refuted by marine scientists. That's not the only problem the protesters have with salmon farms. Protest leader Alexandra Morton decries the Norwegian ownership of many B.C. fish farms. "I think the Norwegians, frankly, should just go home ... the money will stay here; it will not go to [foreign] shareholders," she told the House committee last month. Apparently, Canadian ownership would bring back the salmon.

The one thing that salmon farmers and protesters agree on is that wild salmon stocks have declined precipitously. While pink (also known as humpback) and chum salmon are abundant, stocks of the species most critical to the commercial and sports fishery have plummeted. Coho and chinook returns are down more than 70 per cent since the early 1990s and the 2009 Fraser River sockeye run saw only 1.7 million fish return when more than 10 million were expected, prompting Prime Minister Stephen Harper to strike a public inquiry.

The inquiry will have no shortage of possible causes to examine. Some blame global warming, others the impact of dams on spawning fish, and even diseases spread from government hatcheries. A hike along silt-laden and sun-exposed spawning streams brings home the destructive legacy of now-outlawed logging practices. As for fish farming, the inquiry should look at what's happening to salmon stocks where farms are not a factor. For example, returns of Alaska's prized chinook "king" salmon were so low that the 2009 commercial fishing season was cancelled.

But standing high above the cacophony of this debate stands the elephant in the stream ... fishing by both humans and animals. B.C.'s harbour seal population has rocketed to more than 100,000 from 10,000 since the commercial harvest and predation control ended in the 1970s. And the population of the even more ravenous Stellar sea lion has grown to about 28,000, the highest in a century. Peter Olesiuk, a scientist with the Federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, has studied the staggering impact of seal and sea-lion predation. One study of Vancouver Island's Puntledge River found that only three dozen harbour seals killed an estimated 10,000 spawning adult salmon. Mr. Olesiuk also calculated that more than three million salmon fry were taken from the river as they swam toward the ocean the following spring. "They take 60 to 70 Chum salmon per minute; per seal ... they eat the fish like popcorn," the study said.

In his 1998 book Lament for an Ocean: The Collapse of the Atlantic Cod Fishery, Michael Harris documented the disappearance of the North Atlantic cod in the early 1980s. It's interesting that this fishery collapsed without the scapegoats now being blamed for decline of Pacific salmon. Rather than global warming, the 1980s followed a period of global cooling. And there were no fish farms operating. Calling the disappearance of Atlantic cod "a true crime story," Mr. Harris spelled out the evidence against an array of suspects, including enormous foreign factory ships and fishers on spawning grounds. The verdict: Fishing technology had advanced to the point where "we were able to kill everything," and a profoundly dysfunctional regulatory policy failed to prevent it. At a 1997 Atlantic Vision Conference cited in the book, participant Vic Young enunciated an enlightened way forward: "We need ... fewer plants, fewer fishermen, fewer trawlers, fewer seals, less political interference, more control over foreign overfishing, and better harvesting technology and practices."

Policy makers for today's Pacific salmon fishery seem unable to learn these lessons. Their actions pay little heed to the fact that the sport fishery takes relatively few fish, doesn't damage fish habitat and is a vital contributor to the economies of coastal communities. By contrast, net economic returns from the commercial fishery are marginal thanks to a bizarre unemployment insurance qualification system and other policies that keep too many boats on the water. Habitat-damaging commercial fishing practices, such as bottom dragging, continue to be allowed. And an aboriginal fishery system is not only unfair, but creates dangerous conflict.

We live in a time when there seems to be one group or another campaigning against almost every human endeavour. Each group's actions have unintended consequences. Anti-meat campaigners helped drive consumer demand for fish, and it is farmed fish that supplies most of that demand. An unintended consequence of closing fish farms would be higher demand for wild fish, making efforts to control overfishing even more challenging.

B.C.'s salmon farms provide thousands of jobs in coastal communities devastated by the decline of commercial fish catches and the once-mighty forest industry. At more than $600-million annually, farmed fish are the province's biggest agricultural export. That's the good-news story that has been lost during the activists' photo ops on the legislature lawn.

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Dear Editors:

Heavily biased misinformed writing such as below damages the credibility of your paper.  Someone should have reviewed this piece with the scientists studying the collapse of wild salmon in BC.  This author has misused information by quoting the DFO scientist on seal impact in a highly localized special case situation. To extrapolate this to a major impact on wild salmon in BC is highly misinforming.

Mark Sheppard has not published a single paper on salmon farming. He works for a government agency tasked with supporting salmon farming that is coming under increasing scrutiny. His comments, are just that...comments and are not supported by the high lice numbers in areas of the BC coast this year. Your author failed to note international scientists are warning drug resistance is causing salmon farm companies to lose control of  sea lice to and release increasingly more toxic chemicals into the ocean in a losing arms race with this parasite.

Unlike your author I have met with the Norwegian fish farm CEOs  and understand they intend to continue expanding to meet shareholder demand even though science warns too many fish in pens causes disease epidemics that threaten wild public fisheries and salmon farming as per the Chilean experience.

There are no dams impacting the salmon that the Judicial Inquiry is investigating and commercial fishing is not a factor as the stock that collapsed was not fished.

Your author is unprofessionally cherry-picking in failing to note that Alaska and Russia are enjoying record returns of sockeye, which is the salmon species that triggered the judicial inquiry.

Ford and Myers 2007, show scientifically that wild salmon go into exceptional decline in the presence of salmon farms. This is because these operations violate natural laws by holding salmon stationary triggering pathogens to flourish.  To use the argument that BC should trade a $600 million industry that imports fish from Chile to feed their fish, while impacting a 1.6 billion dollar wilderness tourism industry with 40,000 jobs dependant on wild salmon makes this article look like an industry-paid ad.

There are solutions and Norway is not interested in them, but there are Canadian fish farmers who are.   Canadian fish farmers will absorb the lost jobs, while developing world-class technology and a farm fish product which is greeted with enthusiasm by the increasingly ethical fish consumer market. Large markets in BC are currently sourcing land-based farm salmon from Washington State.   BC is losing out on by supporting an industry which refuses to upgrade to meet environmental and consumer demand for non-destructive fish production methods. 

Alexandra Morton
Biologist, British Columbia

 

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Salmon Farms refuse to release disease information if the province of BC makes fish farm disease public

Eighteen years of secrets, the Ministry of Agriculture and Lands and Gordon Campbell

 
(May 28, 2010 Sointula) In July 1992, IHN virus broke out in Atlantic salmon smolts as they were put in salmon farm in Okisollo Channel.  Okisollo is within the Fraser sockeye migration route. Even though the Fraser sockeye were migrating through the area, no one called for the IHN infected farm salmon to be culled.  The Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food (MAFF) kept this epidemic secret from the Ministry of Environment, Lands and Parks (MELP) even though there was a disease sharing protocol in place. When MELP heard “rumors” of this IHN outbreak three months later, MAFF still refused to give them the details of the outbreak. The policy in enhancement hatcheries is to destroy IHN infected smolts to prevent spreading to wild salmon.
 
Today, MAL is misinforming the public about the extent of past IHN outbreaks on their website and in a recent legal decision all BC salmon farming companies state they will refuse to reveal disease records if their reports to MAL are made public.
 
Note: MAL and MAFF are the same agency and MELP and MOE are the same.
 
 

1992 memos - a trail of secrets and disregard for wild salmon health

 
October 5 1992 Don Peterson at MELP : 

“Our fish health staff report …. rumours of an IHN virus outbreak in Atlantic salmon… Please provide …information …..IHNV is easily transmitted to trout and Pacific salmon species and we need to make an assessment of risk to wild stocks please respond ASAP.”

October 8, 1992 Don Peterson, MELP: 

“Had a call from Al Castledine (MAFF) ….There has been an outbreak….DFO doesn’t want this to become an issue at this time, Al specifically asked that we not make a media issue of this – at least not until DFO has their act together.”

This was 4 months after the outbreak began
 
October 28, 1992 the Minister of MELP John Cashore to MAFF: 

“IHN virus is lethal to trout and steelhead. These wild fish inhabit the marine environment where this farm is located… my Fish Culture staff only learned of this incident very recently …. There is … a protocol agreement that is intended to alert each of our agencies when problems such as this arise….the breakdown in communication could have potentially serious consequences for fish stocks….”

November 12, 1992 Harvey Andrusak MELP to MAFF:

“The recent outbreak of IHN virus in Atlantic salmon smolts owned by BC Packers causes considerable concern for the Fisheries Branch of MELP….I request your cooperation.”

November 19, 1992 J. E. Fralick MAFF to MELP

“results are considered proprietary by our Animal Health Branch and cannot be released.  I firmly believe…the IHN outbreak poses very minimal risk to wild stocks.”

November 27, 1992 H. Andrusak, MELP to MAFF

“I am disappointed with your response….when  MAFF is asked for information…we are referred to DFO, when we ask DFO, I am referred to you. This is unacceptable….fish health is the responsibility of DFO … and MELP….why is MAFF involved in fish health at all?”

December 17, 1992 G.R.Armstrong MELP

“Prior to the IHN outbreak, fish health scientists believed that IHN was transmitted only in fresh water.  The significance of the outbreak is that it apparently occurred in sea water…Atlantic salmon farms are now a potential vector for transfer of IHN.”

January 5, 1993 G.R. Armstrong MELP to MAFF

“I do not understand how the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can have little concern for IHN simply because it is endemic to wild salmon…. Atlantic salmon in pens are now a potential vector.”

While the 100,000s of Atlantic salmon in the IHN infected fish farm were left in the ocean on the Fraser salmon migration route,  300,000 trout were culled in a provincial hatchery in 1991 due to IHN. B.C. Environment, Lands and Park – Information Issue 92-35
 
When Gordon Campbell took office in 2001 he cancelled MELP and so the BC public lost the only team of bureaucrats who were fighting to protect our wild salmon from corporate salmon.
 

MAL website today - inaccurate

 
Have things improved, No.
 
While the MAL website acknowledges there have been IHN outbreaks in Atlantic salmon farms, it grossly misinforms the public about the timing and location of the outbreaks.
 

“Outbreaks of this disease (IHN) in Atlantic salmon farms in British Columbia occurred in 1992, 1995, 1996,1997 and 2001. All reported cases occurred within the Campbell River area.”

http://www.agf.gov.bc.ca/ahc/fish_health/IHNV.htm (website updated May 16, 2004)
 
In fact, there were in 12 million Atlantic salmon infected from 2001 – 2003 over 400km of the BC coast from Clayoquot Sound to Klemtu (Saksida 2006).  More than 1/3 of BC’s wild salmon and many Washington State salmon use this area and were challenged with this highly infectious disease generation after generation.  The BC Liberal government did nothing to stem this flow of pathogens.
 

February 2002 - BC Supreme Court Injunction identifies IHN risk to wild salmon

 
When a salmon farm in the Broughton Archipelago tried to dispose of 1.6 million IHN infected farm salmon in 2002, BC Supreme Court granted the Musqueam First Nations an injunction to prevent delivery of these fish to a processing plant in the Fraser River because these fish threatened the Fraser River’s wild salmon with IHN.
 
What about the other 10 million left in net pens on the marine migratory routes used by the Fraser all south coast, and Clayoquot wild salmon and steelhead?
 
March  1, 2010 - Ruling forces MAL to release fish farm disease information and fish farmers threaten to cease all public reporting of disease outbreaks
 
Four years ago the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation filed a Freedom of Information request to MAL for salmon farm disease records.  MAL refused. But BC’s Freedom of Information and Privacy Commissioner ruled on March 1, 2010 that MAL could not legally conceal this information and to release it by April 12, 2010. In the decision, the fish farm companies of BC are on the record stating if their disease information is released they will never report diseases to the province of BC ever again (see below). T. Buck Suzuki is still awaiting full disclosure.
 

“Mainstream flatly submits that it will not supply similar information when it is in the public interest that similar information continues to be supplied._⁶⁶  Mainstream does not explicitly say there is no authority under which it may be compelled to provide data for the audit.”
 
“Marine Harvest submits there are “no regulations or laws” which require it to release the information it gives to Ministry veterinarians or designates during on-site visits.  It states that release of the requested information would result in Mainstream no longer supplying the requested information”
 
“Grieg Seafoods contends there is no statutory requirement that allows
the collection of audit data and that it only provides data on the understanding the data would be kept confidential.  It states it will no longer submit the data if the applicant's access request is granted”
 
“Creative Salmon argues that it provides audit information on a voluntary
basis and if the applicant’s access request is granted it will “immediately cease to volunteer further information to the Ministry”

To see the document in full see here (find pdf link below the press release):
http://www.ecojustice.ca/media-centre/press-releases/public-gains-long-awaited-access-to-sea-lice-records
 
How can the governments of Canada and British Columbia allow this ongoing suppression of information that is clearly in the public interest and the courts have ruled threatens a resource the people of Canada and British Columbia are passionate about?  Salmon farms are in the public waters of Canada, they are leasing Crown Land supposedly “to provide the greatest benefits for British Columbians” (Crown Lands BC website) and they do not legally own their fish. Will the BC Liberal government allow them to operate in secret, to the detriment of a highly valued public resource?   We will all get to find out.
 
This has got to stop. 
 
 www.salmonaresacred.org   

 

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Government memos reveal fish farmers pressured government to keep sea lice drugs secret, six years before biologist Alexandra Morton made it public

(May 26, Sointula) A series of government memos reveal a heated debate in 1995 over a sea louse outbreak on a farm salmon on the Fraser sockeye migration route (Okisollo Channel). In 1995, a salmon farm requested permission to use hydrogen peroxide to treat an extremely heavy outbreak of sea lice on their fish.  When the Ministry of Environment, Parks and Lands (MELP) informed the company that their drug application would have to be released to the public, the fish farmer withdrew the request. When environmental groups found out about the sea lice outbreak, the BC Salmon Farmers Association called for an investigation of MELP and a guarantee that fish farmers had a right to secrecy in the future.
 
September 06, 1995 Don Peterson of MELP writes, “The company has withdrawn their application (for hydrogen peroxide) because they heard there was a requirement to advertise if a pesticide was going to be applied. I guess they were either afraid of the shareholders…or the public finding out... the company has asked that this request be kept strictly confidential and that all correspondence on the subject be destroyed.”
 
September 28, 1995 the BC Salmon Farmers Association criticized Minister Moe Sihota (MELP): “…government has an obligation to maintain confidentiality… Government is further prevented from unauthorized collection, use or disclosure of information…. puts at risk … capital investment of private citizens and individual companies…”
 
However, salmon farms operate in Canada’s public waters and impact a Canadian resource - wild fish.
 
On October 23, 1995 Earl Warnock of MELP writes, “I find it unconscionable that they (fish farmers) are only prepared to undertake measures appropriate to protect their stock health and the environment unless they can do it in a clandestine manner.... and for them and MAFF to ask us to operate with them in this way says something about the people we are dealing with.”
 
“MAFF” = Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL).
 
Either the sea lice remained on the farm fish on the Fraser sockeye migration route or they were treated without permission from MELP.
 
November 03, 1995, Bryan Ludwig, MELP writes: “…we are in the difficult position of being concerned about use of pesticides for treatment of sea lice, but also wanting to ensure we avoid a severe outbreak for fear of transfer to wild stocks.”
 
These documents reveal heroes among our MELP bureaucrats who tried to protect our wild salmon from salmon farms.  Gordon Campbell disbanded MELP as soon as he took office in 2001, and he renamed MAFF, MAL and gave them control of allocation of Crown Land. The fish farm industry did not develop a sea lice action plan, the public lost their government biologist advocates, sea lice outbreaks continue with lethal infection underway today rates on wild juvenile salmon on the Fraser migration route (Okisollo Channel)  (photos available) and Fraser sockeye stocks migrating through Okisollo Channel are in steep decline.
 
October 23, 1995 Earl Warnock MELP:  “If the truth harms their integrity perhaps they need to look at themselves…”
 
If we cannot save wild salmon in British Columbia, we do not live in a democracy.
 
Alexandra Morton
250-974-7086

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Updates on the Fraser Migration Route

(May 25, 2010) We recently received photos from a sea lice sampling program in the Discovery Islands, which indicate the current level of louse infection on our wild migrating smolts.

This juvenile sockeye from Okisollo Channel, on the Fraser migration route, is heavily infected with young sea lice.  These lice will become adults in a few weeks and take their toll on this fish after it leaves the Vancouver Island area.


May 25, 2010 - Sockeye fry from Okisollo Channel with juvenile lice (stage: Chal. A)


May 25, 2010 - Chum fry from Okisollo Channel with adult L. salmonis lice.

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A visit to Norway

(May 20, 2010) A Canadian delegation recenty attended Cermaq's AGM in Oslo, Norway. Neil Frazer prepared an essay about his visit there as part of the delegation. After explaining their time in Norway he goes on to offer his insights as to why this issue has become so complex in Canada.

"There is no need to feel sorry for Cermaq/Mainstream shareholders, or for those of Marine Harvest and Grieg. Removal of salmon farms from the migration routes of wild Pacific salmon will reduce North American farmed salmon production, but will only temporarily reduce the profits of those three large Norwegian companies...To see this, consider events following the recent disease crisis in Chile. When Chilean production dropped, farmed salmon suddenly became a luxury instead of a commodity in the markets served by Chile. Prices jumped, and salmon farmers not directly affected by the epidemic enjoyed greatly increased profits."

"Peer-reviewed studies show that farm-fostered sea lice reduce the productivity of wild salmon populations...Despite the simplicity of the mechanism, and the many peer-review studies that support it, there is confusion in Canada because of a small group of scientists in Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO)."

  To read Frazer's account in full, download it here.