Wild Salmon Stocks - Discussion Continued

Just got finished reading through "nowhere to hide". I confess, had to jump back more than a few times and re-read sections. Also a few of the other links kindly provided. What a mess! And yes, I have to agree that there is not one simple solution.

Brian: Victoria isn't dumping raw sewage are they? Even treated sewage is a heck of a problem. I saw the water analysis that was done of the Thames and Sacramento rivers and some of the drugs as well as the other nastiness would make Baby Chinook cry, or get very stoned or whatever would happen if the metabolites of cocaine, birth control pills, prozac and the others listed that I can't recall, were ingested.

Blackfish: Shutting down or severely reducing the catch isn't out of the realm of the possible. It's been done with other species, I believe on the east coast.
Is that an action that is being seriously considered at this time. I didn't see it in any of the links so far.

Hey Codger...
http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/features/sewage/index.html

The Lingcod was closed here for a few years but is now open.
http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/sci/sa-mfpd/lingcod/ling_lifehistory.htm
Like Blackfish said, closures are short term pain for long term gain.
For the health of a species, I don't mind leaving the rods at home.

That is absolutely insane.
"Greater Victoria dumps an average of 129 million litres of raw sewage into the Strait of Juan de Fuca every day, making it one of the most high-profile sewage polluters in Canada and one of the few remaining urban centres in North America to dump untreated waste into the ocean."


Phone call to MP in the morning. Darn governments are tossing all kinds of money around so that they look like they're doing something. Pretty bloody obvious place to spend some is ensuring that we don't share our crud with the rest of the planet.

Give your MP a call, mine didn't even know about this.

"Poop" is an issue but there are greater hazards in sewage. If I can find the link I'll post it.

So far a couple of possible partial solutions.
Close down the fisheries for a while.
Discontinue polluting the area in Juan de Fuca.

My own suggestion that you all put a sock on it and keep the human population from expanding, which nobody has agreed with.

Is relocating fish farm to onshore locations really practical or is there any info on that idea being actually explored.

Seeing it's election time, good time for our polititians to listen to what we want.
I often thing that at every election (federal, Provincial and regional) there should also be a referendum on several different issues. There seems to be so many things we would like changed.
I haven't read all of Blackfish's links but I suppose relocating fish farms to onshore locations is too costly for some. I think it may eliminate some problems.
Population growth is one problem I suppose. Thing is, families are getting smaller aren't they? (my father had 12 siblings & I have one).

I found the disk, I'm in the process of retyping the equations in a format that will work on this forum (I previewed it in several fonts and had boxes instead of operators) and typing up an explanation. Something to keep in mind is that I am a full time student and there are probably 80 lines of equations here. I've got a final exam on Wednesday morning at 7:30 so Wednesday around 2 is when I am predicting that I will be done. Please hold your criticisms of my timeline until after it has been posted.

Incidentally I saw a population drop between 8 and 25% in the 42.72 km^2 of ocean surface (sg of 1.018 and above) of the simulation (I made up a fictional cove in south east Alaska and added a salmon farm, I assumed no escapees and the variance was primarily dictated by the treatment regiments).

13,094 Voices not heard

I just received this from Alexandra Morton (she's heading up the www.adopt-a-fry.org website) to try to get the fish farms under the Canadian Fisheries Act.

Can anyone from other countries fill us in how the fish farm issue in your country is?

Dear Minister of Fisheries, the Honourable Gail Shea and Premier Gordon Campbell,

I am writing to you again, as I have every week since the middle of February, to ask that you apply three sections of the Fisheries Act to the industrial salmon feedlots. I have not received a reply. The U.S. Organization Trout Unlimited has sent their own letter to you with 360 signatures on it.

They write:

...”we can no longer stand by and watch silently as this new salmon crisis unfolds. We have begun to call on our legions of advocates to voice their support for the protection of British Columbia’s wild salmon and steelhead stocks before it is too late.”

Premier Campbell 13,094 people have signed letters to you on this issue but there remains confusion over your position on salmon farms. You have suggested on your website that you do not intend to attempt to regain control of fish farms following my constitutional challenge which removed salmon farms to the Federal government. However, you have joined the Norwegian fish farm corporation Marine Harvest in their appeal challenging this BC Supreme Court decision. Your actions contradict your words.

In a recent trip to Ottawa MPs and Senators asked me what you intend to do:

Appeal the decision
or
Abide by the decision

Please visit www.adopt-a-fry.org to read the Trout Unlimited letter.

No one can understand why or how the salmon farming industry in Canada is allowed to operate outside the Fisheries Act which applies to everyone using the marine environment.

Alexandra Morton

That is truly bizarre. Fish farms in the ocean and they don't fall under the Fisheries Act? Probably falls within the purview of the Surrey Parking Authority, and you don't want to mess with them.

Hi,

It seems like the first one probably got thru with maybe some backhanders or other non public manoeuvring then the rest were grandfathered in.

I have just found that Inland Waterways Vessels which carry all sorts of Cargos in Germany are not built to any class rules, they fall under the same rules as Road going vehicles- Go figure on that one.

It all sounds a little "fishy"

A little news on Alexandra Mortons quest to get the fish farms under the Canadian Federal Fisheries Act...

Hello

Please view this Global News clip. A government should be willing to listen to the public. But the Liberals could not be more clear…they locked the door, left the people concerned about wild salmon on the street and suggested we take our concern to the NDP.

http://www.globaltv.com/globaltv/bc/video/index.html?releaseID=1116227153

I went to Canada Place because we needed to know:

If re-elected on May 12, will the Liberals protect wild salmon? We got the answer - No.

In this video Liberal Nanaimo-Parksville MLA candidate Ron Cantelon said wild and farm salmon can co-exist. Look at the salmon river next to you. There is no evidence this can or ever will happen (Ford and Myers 2007). Humanity itself is threatened by direct exposure to diseases in feedlots. The fish feedlots absolutely have to be isolated from the ocean environment.

Wild salmon are the backbone of the BC economy, but the BC Liberals are selling hundreds of rivers, in the same watersheds where wild salmon are hatching right now. Farm salmon - need no rivers.

Chief Bob Chamberlin has filed a class action law suit against the British Columbia Government alleging that wild salmon are being decimated by open net-cage salmon farming in their Territories, asking "Why doesn't government realize what's at stake?"

Connect the dots. This is the last time we get to decide if we want wild salmon. I have always voted Green and hope to again one day, but on May 12, I am voting for the best hope my community has to survive …. NDP.

Please forward.

Alexandra Morton


Also THIS VIDEO WAS DONE BY INDEPENDENT PRODUCERS

http://vimeo.com/4403328

No funders, no sponsorship, no political affiliation...

Feel free to forward or embed this video on your site.


And a little more from yesterday...

Hello

Gordon Campbell locked the doors when I tried to deliver our letter and left us on the street. Campbell has been re-elected and at first I thought this meant BC does not actually want wild salmon, nor their rivers. I began to make plans to give up and get my own life back in order, but then someone forwarded me this map. The ridings with wild salmon and wild salmon rivers, did not actually elect Campbell.

Thousands of people have told me they want wild salmon and have wished me success in this, but at every BC election a handicap is laid on us who are trying to do this. I am writing to say people cannot wave from the sidelines any longer, because we are not succeeding. Wild salmon are going extinct on our watch. Yes, yes climate change will be a factor, but wild salmon are built to survive cataclysmic change in their environment and if we allow their genetic warehouse to rebuild right now, we stand a far better chance of receiving the food and energy this fish brings to us in the years to come.

Grieg Seafood is trying to build two of the biggest fish farms on the coast, on the juvenile salmon migration route for Fraser River and East Vancouver Island stocks, at York Island. Marine Harvest is trying to increase the size of their “farms” coastwide. They are taking me back to court this summer to resolve whether they own their fish in the Canadian Ocean. Atlantic salmon eggs are still being imported into BC, despite the Infectious Salmon Anemia virus popping up everywhere the Norwegian salmon farmers operate. Emamectin benzoate (Slice) is being used in our waters....with no warnings posted during usage...even though the U.S. Food and Drug Agency apparently has a ban on any food products “exposed” to this neurotoxin (Pacific Fishing current issue). This means all of us who are fishing, and harvesting seafood near fish farms have no way to make sure we are not “exposed” to the drug. And the fish feedlots are in violation of many sections of the Fisheries Act.

Not only is there no progress, we are moving backwards.

I am headed to Norway next week, but doubt anyone is listening there either.

I can only see two ways forward.... The courts..... And for us all to step up and say “no more.”

The solution is so simple: Apply the laws of Canada, The Fisheries Act. If the Norwegians can’t comply they should leave. Give the Canadian fish farmers who want to revamp their industry in closed tanks a break in getting set up. Market wild and farm fish to raise the value of both. And restore wild salmon in a way that has never been tried.....adhering to their biology, the natural laws that have caused them to thrive in the first place.

And we need everyone who wants wild salmon to sign this letter. Currently we are at 14,000.....and we are still on the street, this was not enough to even get in the door.

It is up to you guys.

Alexandra Morton

Another update from Alexandra...


Message from Alexandra Morton in Norway, disease and sea lice are not under control in Norwegian salmon farms and BC stands to lose all

I have been in Norway for 10 days because 92% of fish farming in British Columbia is Norwegian owned. I have met with many Norwegian scientists, members of the Mainstream and Marine Harvest boards, been to their AGMs, toured the area with fishermen, examined a closed-containment facility, met the Norwegians fighting for their fish and joined a scientific cruise.

I thought Norway had this industry handled and I expected to learn how marine salmon farming could work, but this has not been the case. My eyes have really been opened. This industry still has major issues that are growing and has no business expanding throughout the temperate coastlines of the world. The way they have been treating sea lice in Norway has caused high drug resistance. The only solution in sight is increasingly toxic chemicals. In the past two years (2007, 8) sea lice levels have actually increased on both the farm and wild fish. The scientists I met with are holding their breath to see if drug-resistant sea lice populations will explode and attack the last wild salmon and sea trout. The same treatment methods have been used in BC and we can expect this to occur as well.

I am not hearing how the industry can possibly safeguard British Columbia from contamination with their ISA virus. Infectious Salmon Anemia is a salmon virus that is spreading worldwide, wherever there are salmon farms. In Chile, the Norwegian strain of ISA has destroyed 60% of the industry, 17,000 jobs and unmeasured environmental damage. The industry is pushing into new territory. If this gets to BC no one can predict what it will do to the Pacific salmon and steelhead, it will be unleashed into new habitat and we know this is a very serious threat to life.

Professor Are Nylund head of the Fish Diseases Group at the University of Bergen, Norway, reports that, “based on 20 years of experience, I can guarantee that if British Columbia continues to import salmon eggs from the eastern Atlantic infectious salmon diseases, such as ISA, will arrive in Western Canada. Here in Hardangerfjord we have sacrificed our wild salmon stocks in exchange for farm salmon. With all your 5 species of wild salmon, BC is the last place you should have salmon farms.”

New diseases and parasites are being identified. The most serious is a sea lice parasite that attacks the salmon immune system. There is concern that this new parasite is responsible for accelerating wild salmon declines. The Norwegian scientists agree with many of us in BC. If you want wild salmon you must reduce the number of farm salmon. There are three options.

The future for salmon farming will have to include:

permanently reduction of not just the number of sea lice, but also the number of farm salmon per fjord,
removing farm salmon for periods of time to delouse the fjords and not restocking until after the out-migration of the wild salmon and sea trout.
But where wild salmon are considered essential they say the only certain measure is to remove the farms completely.


There are many people here like me. I met a man who has devoted his life to the science of restoring the Voss River, where the largest Atlantic salmon in the world, a national treasure, have vanished due to sea lice from salmon farms. Interestingly he is using the method I was not allowed to use last spring... Towing the fish past the farms out to sea. Another man is working with scientists and communities to keep the sea trout of the Hardangerfjord alive. There are so many tragic stories familiar to British Columbia.

The corporate fish farmers are unrelenting in their push to expand. With Chile so highly contaminated with the Norwegian strain of ISA all fish farmed coasts including Norway are threatened with expansion. I made the best case I could to Mainstream and Marine Harvest for removing the salmon feedlots from our wild salmon migration routes, but they will not accept that they are harming wild salmon. They say they want to improve, but they don’t say how. Norway has different social policies which include encouraging people to populate the remote areas and so fish farming seemed a good opportunity to these people. BC has the opposite policy, but the line that fish farms are good for small coastal communities has been used in BC anyway. I have not seen any evidence that it has even replaced the jobs it has impacted in wild fisheries and tourism.

It is becoming increasingly clear to protect wild Pacific salmon from the virus ISA the BC border absolutely has to be closed to importation of salmon eggs immediately and salmon farms MUST be removed from the Fraser River migration routes and any other narrow waterways where wild salmon are considered valuable.

Our letter asking government that the Fisheries Act, which is the law in Canada be applied to protect our salmon from fish farms has been signed by 14,000 people to date at www.adopt-a-fry.org <http://www.adopt-a-fry.org> has still not been answered.

Please forward this letter and encourage more people to sign our letter to government as it is building a community of concerned people word wide and we will prevail as there is really no rock for this industry to hide under and longer.


Alexandra Morton

Some more recent info...

Hello

Please take time to vote on this newspaper website.

Unless government sees our numbers they will not work to resolve this issue. I was in Campbell River area yesterday viewing the sea lice infection rates on wild salmon and it is not getting any better. The majority of sockeye, pinks and chums were infected with young lice which means they got infected in the region of the fish farms. Meanwhile Greig Sea Foods has an application to put into two of the biggest fish farms in the coast in the Johnstone Strait area which means all these infected wild salmon will be exposed again on their way to sea.

From what I learned in Norway, it is virtually certain that we will see the Norwegian strain ISA epidemic that is unstoppable in Chile, and Scotland.

Please vote it is a small effort compared to where we are at with this issue

Alex
http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/index.html


This is an interesting read, especially the comments by professor Are Nylund, head of the Fish Diseases Group at the University of Bergen, Norway...

http://www2.canada.com/courierislan...l?id=2206950f-920d-4edb-92b0-21bcfd020648&p=1

Some more from Alexandra Morton received a couple of days ago...

Hello All,

Fisheries Minister the Honourable Gail Shea finally answered us. Please go to www.adopt-a-fry.org “The Letter” to see her response. Here is my answer.

Also go to www.farmedanddangerous.org to see that large environmental groups in BC are calling for immediate closure of salmon farms on the crucial Fraser River migration route.



June 16, 2009

The Honourable Gail Shea
House of Commons
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
Parliament Buildings, Wellington Street
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada K1A 0A6

Dear Minister Shea:

Thank you for your response to my letters asking that the Fisheries Act be applied to fish farms, signed by 14,000 people.

It is clear I have failed to communicate the scope of the problems we, on the coast of British Columbia, are facing with the fish farming industry. Your reply does not address the relentless state of conflict between fish farmers and many businesses and communities, as a result of the salmon farms being placed on the migration routes of BC’s most valuable wild salmon stocks. Whatever else has harmed, or still is harming wild salmon it is certain that the annual sea lice epidemics, associated with salmon farms worldwide, are contributing substantively to the negative impacts on an extremely valuable public resource. The people of BC are being asked to accept reduced opportunities on our wild salmon, simply to accommodate a fish farm industry that refuses to pay the additional cost of building walls around their livestock.

It seems unrealistic for you to write that aquaculture operations are subject to the Fisheries Act when:

They have unlicensed packers moving fish over Canadian waters
They use grow lights strictly prohibited by the Fisheries Act that are attracting wild fish into pens of 100,000’s carnivorous fish.
There are no records on fish farm by-catch of highly valuable Pacific species such as herring, juvenile salmon, black cod, etc.
Fish farmers widely use a drug that is not approved for use in Canadian waters and they never post warnings that could protect the public from this toxic drug.
Salmon farming appears unconstitutional in Canada as it:

privatizes ocean spaces
believes it owns schools of salmon in Canadian marine waters.


Then there are the enormous issues of “release of deleterious substances” and habitat alteration.

Can you explain what you mean by “the Province will continue in the role it has been assuming to this day in managing aquaculture within the province”. How long will they “continue”? The Province has no mandate to protect wild fish and it is unconstitutional as per the Supreme Court of BC for the Province to regulate salmon farming after February 2010.

From my perspective, it is Provincial regulation that got us into this mess simply because they have no legal mandate to protect wild fish in the ocean. The result of this regulatory mismatch is the Province can do their job of regulating the “farm” component of fish farming while largely ignoring the ocean component where we all know the “farm” effluent, including parasites, viruses, bacteria, escaped Atlantic salmon and drugs go. I know the Province does check some ocean parameters outside the pens, but not outside the leases and that is where all conflicts with the public resource exist.

I think it is time to reevaluate where we are at with this issue. No responsible person can look at salmon farming from a global perspective and say there are no problems. You cannot say the problems have been resolved, nor can anyone say farm fish benefit the public more than wild fish and should thus receive the preferential treatment that they do. You cannot even say they are going to feed the world as they catch fish to feed to their fish. As I write, a neighbor watched young wild Broughton pink salmon spilling onto a road as farm fish were transferred out of boat into a truck. What right do fish farmers have to possess wild juvenile salmon in their pens, boats and trucks? How many herring, salmon and black cod are destroyed in this manner?

Minister Shea, there is something very wrong with the way salmon farming is being handled in BC. In the past, DFO ignored disastrous impact on an extremely valuable fishery and that management regime continues to cause economic hardship in east coast towns, as well as, depriving the world of a large food resource. I would argue the same management regime is well underway in British Columbia affecting wild salmon, the BC economy and the eastern Pacific.

When I met with the executive officers of the largest fish farm companies Marine Harvest and Mainstream, last month in Norway, I heard them say repeatedly that they would only adhere to the laws of each country, not bring their best practices with them from Norway. But what I see are the laws of Canada not even being enforced.

Minister Shea, you are faced with a clear legal decision. Either bring the fish farming industry into compliance with the laws of Canada or call on Parliament to change the laws to bring them into compliance with the fish farming industry. You cannot leave this in a state of perpetual lawlessness. When I began my work on juvenile salmon and did not realize I needed a permit, DFO investigated me and said if I ever retain juvenile salmon without a permit again I would go to jail. Since then I have made sure I have a permit to handle young salmon. I want to know what permit and legal possession limit you will be issuing to Marine Harvest and the others for possession of wild salmon, and other wild fish in their pens, boats, trucks and fish? You cannot know the scope of this problem without placing observers on fish farms and farm fish vessels as you do with commercial fishermen and this is one of the requests made by the 14,000 people who signed the letters to you.

Thank you again for your reply. I know this is a difficult issue that you have inherited. However, you accepted this role and now the ability of the eastern Pacific Ocean to support life and the BC economy rests with you.

Warmly,

Alexandra Morton


And some more from today...

Hello

The Courier Islander paper in Campbell River is asking for us to vote again, this time to on whether or not we think the two Grieg fish farm applications in Johnstone Strait should be approved or not. They are two of the largest fish farm applications made on this coast and will be placed opposite one another in a narrow channel where it meets Johnstone Strait. In years when there is warm water off shore 1/3 of all BC wild salmon will pass these farms on route to their southcoast rivers. In spring millions of juvenile salmon will have to run through or along these farms to reach open water.

The two most vulnerable moments in a salmon’s life are saltwater entry and seawater entry and these farms and the many farms east of them expose a significant percent of BC’s wild salmon to whatever pathogens are in the farms from sea lice to viruses.

No other feedlots are allowed to come into such close contact with wild species and no other farmers in Canada are allowed to never deal with their wastes and simply release them into one of Canada’s most valuable fishery.

Despite the science and resistance form local communities, the same three Norwegian companies just keep applying for more and bigger fish farms in BC.

The voting box is on the upper right hand side of the page at http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/index.html

The public has never been given this opportunity to voice its opinion such before format.

If you have not done so please sign my letter (www.adopt-a-fry.org) asking that the Fisheries Act be applied to fish farms as it is to all other marine activities. If there are enough people raising their voices reason will be brought to bear on this situation. The solution is simple apply the laws of Canada, support the Canadian fish farmers who want to reinvent their industry on land and restore the wild salmon using their own remarkable biology.

Alexandra Morton

Interesting. At the Courier Islander poll link...
yes 98.4%
no 1.4%
The wishes of the people are not for this.

For those interested, heres a story NOT FROM ALEXANDRA MORETON about our low Sockeye salmon return...
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/search/?query=fraser+river+salmon&x=25&y=12

I haven't posted here for a while, as I felt discouraged to do so by Blackfish.
I do not claim to be an expert or scientist but am just concerned for our environment.
I agree with Blackfish in an earlier post of his that fishfarming in the ocean is not the only danger to wild stocks but it is not benefitting them either. If we can do a little improvement in every aspect of how we treat our oceans it would be a good thing...don't you think?
Anyway, here is some interesting news from Alexandra Morton...

Hello

I apologize for a second email so soon, but important news on the issue of salmon farming has become daily. Most astonishing is the warning sent today to Canada from former Attorney General of Norway, Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn,

“we had an open goal to save wild salmon but we missed the target,”....”If you want to protect wild salmon then you have to move salmon farms away from migration routes. ”

I have posted his entire plea to Canada on my blog, see below for link.

I am working on a very serious incident in Nootka Sound/Esperanza Inlet where reports keep coming to me that sea lice are out of control on salmon farms. Neither the province nor DFO will act to stop this from spreading to eastern Vancouver Island, so we are doing the investigation for them. This problem is exactly what Rieber-Mohn is talking about.

http://www2.canada.com/courierislander/news/story.html?id=913af0e6-31ff-4ec4-b66f-908cbfc32c7a

A group of us went to Nootka Island and found extremely high larval sea lice numbers. These farm salmon are being transported to Quadra Island for processing and a sample taken 90’ down from the plant’s effluent pipe found live lice eggs are pouring into Discovery Passage. Drug resistance in sea lice is causing serious problems in eastern Canada and Norway and means we stand to lose our ability to protect the Fraser sockeye. It is becoming increasingly apparent that wild salmon runs in BC, as in Norway, depend on de-lousing farm salmon that are on the migration routes. The Discovery Islands host 1/3 of all BC’s wild salmon during migrations as well as millions of Norwegian farm salmon. If these Nootka lice attach to the farm salmon we stand to lose a generation of wild salmon and more drugs will be used on our coast, with the end result being the situation in Norway loss of BOTH wild and farm salmon. I have contacted the federal and provincial governments all the evidence with no action from them to contain this. This is a well-known catastrophe. You can follow it by checking on my blog.

Dr Larry Hammell from the University of Prince Edward Island speaks about "an eruption of the lice last summer", developing resistance to sea lice chemicals, "treatment failures" etc http://podcast.cbc.ca/mp3/maritimenoon_20100126_26452.mp3

Professor Tor Einar Horsberg at the Norwegian School of Veterinary Science who said: "The harsh treatment that is needed to reach lice limits will lead to more resistant and multi-resistant lice. There is a dramatic development, and I'm worried how this will end": http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utskriftsvennlig/?artId=588564

"The sea lice situation is now out of control along the entire coast of Nordland and south” : http://www.nmf.no/default.aspx?pageId=121&articleId=2354&news=1

I don’t know why we refuse to avoid the situation Norway is facing. It is not even good for the fish farmers. The province of BC maintains there is “no evidence” of drug resistance, but there is evidence everywhere people are willing to look.

You can join our efforts at www.adopt-a-fry.org

Alexandra Morton