Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => Fishing-related Issues & News => Topic started by: aquapaloosa on April 17, 2012, 10:46:43 AM
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http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=17&id=51494&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target (http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=17&id=51494&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target)
http://protestingtheprotesters.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/fear-mongering/
http://www.canada.com/Government+officials+salmon+farmers+contradict+claims+disease+farmed+salmon/6468826/story.html (http://www.canada.com/Government+officials+salmon+farmers+contradict+claims+disease+farmed+salmon/6468826/story.html)
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Thanks Aqua. Pretty soon she'll run out of her 15 minutes and she has herself to thank for that.... :o
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I've crunched the numbers and figure she's at 12 minutes 11 seconds :D
Almost like Crusty Clark, eh Chris?
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http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=17&id=51494&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target (http://www.fis.com/fis/worldnews/worldnews.asp?monthyear=&day=17&id=51494&l=e&special=&ndb=1%20target)
http://protestingtheprotesters.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/fear-mongering/
http://www.canada.com/Government+officials+salmon+farmers+contradict+claims+disease+farmed+salmon/6468826/story.html (http://www.canada.com/Government+officials+salmon+farmers+contradict+claims+disease+farmed+salmon/6468826/story.html)
Do you really expect the pro fish farm people quoted in these stories to say anything different? ::) ;D
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I've crunched the numbers and figure she's at 12 minutes 11 seconds :D
Almost like Crusty Clark, eh Chris?
No David, Alex has been doing this for years, long before you and the others came on board so to speak. ;D ;D ;D
One fine lady that is trying to save our wild fish from what has happened to our precious wild salmon wherever fish farms have been world wide, long before they came to our waters.
Once again, no one from your side wants to talk about that here. :o
Of course when you have a government that seems to want to gut the Fisheries Act along with not doing more in protecting habitat I guess promoting fish farms tells us what we are up against. :( :-[ :'(
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No David, Alex has been doing this for years, long before you and the others came on board so to speak. ;D ;D ;D
One fine lady that is trying to save our wild fish from what has happened to our precious wild salmon wherever fish farms have been world wide, long before they came to our waters.
Once again, no one from your side wants to talk about that here. :o
Of course when you have a government that seems to want to gut the Fisheries Act along with not doing more in protecting habitat I guess promoting fish farms tells us what we are up against. :( :-[ :'(
Here is an example what I am saying above, from the CBC.
Moves gut environmental protection, say critics
Environmental groups and opposition parties, however, insist the government is merely giving big energy companies carte blanche by dismantling the checks and balances that protect the environment.
"After slashing funding to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, they’re now saddling it with the obligation to do more complex reviews, faster, with fewer resources," NDP environment critic Megan Leslie said Tuesday.
"You're going to have less time, less resources from the federal government to actually look at and understand these projects and less opportunity for the public to point out errors and omissions in submissions by proponents," John Bennett, executive director of Sierra Club Canada, told CBCNews.ca.
Green Party Leader and MP Elizabeth May said the moves go farther than what industry stakeholders were asking for.
"This kind of savaging of the environmental assessment process are more about speeding the development even more than the industry needs," May told CBC News Network.
May and Bennett both said the overall impact from the government's move comes not just from changing the rules, but from cutting budgets of federal departments such as Environment Canada, and firing hundreds of scientists who currently contribute to the environmental review process and work to protect Canadians from environmental disasters.
"What's really happening here is that the federal government is abdicating its responsibility and trying to get out of the protecting-the-environment business," Sierra Club's Bennett said. "Why don't they go all the way and shut down Environment Canada and be honest and say, 'We don't give a cupcakes'? Because that's what they're doing."
The government counters that by not reviewing small, minor projects, it can focus more resources on major ones, as well as back up "enforceable" assessment decisions with financial penalties of up to $400,000 for companies that refuse to comply with decision conditions.
David Collyer, president of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, applauded the measures, saying they will address some of the uncertainty companies face over how long their applications take in the existing process.
Collyer said he believes that eliminating agency overlap and redundancy allows for more resources to be directed to assessments of major projects that have a larger potential for environmental impact.
"I don't see anything in any of the announcements that would indicate to me that there's any intention to reduce environmental oversight," Collyer told CBCNews.ca.
"The focus on responsible environmental outcomes, we all expect that and Canadians expect that."
In addition, the Harper government will spend $35 million over two years on marine safety and $13.5 million on pipeline safety to help protect the environment, Oliver said.
That will include requiring double hulls and mandatory pilots on oil tankers, as well as more inspections of oil and gas pipelines.
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Everyday eloquently addressed this question of yours a while ago. If you don't remember that post, (and I can't find it) it's mainly that your argument is not applicable to Pacific salmon or BC/Washington State salmon farms.
When you speak of other countries harmed by salmon farms do you mean Chile? No wild stocks there to harm. Do you mean Norway? Still awesome sport fishing there if you have deep pockets. Do you mean Scotland, Ireland and Britain? I suggest 2000 years of habitat destruction, human population growth and commercial fishing is the main cause of the demise of those fisheries. But interestingly, according to British angling magazines, this year Scotland had a pretty good salmon season and increased sea trout (anadromous brown trout) populations.
All the problems have arisen when farmed Atlantic's (save Chile where poor husbandry and woefully inadequate environmental standards are the norm) are raised in areas that have wild Atlantic stocks. Escapes and diseases passed between wild and farmed salmon happened and still are, much like diseases of domestic animals and wild ungulates and birds have occurred in North America.
But here is the important part, Pacific salmon are a different animal and seem to have developed an immune system that is able to withstand the diseases lethal to Salmo species.
If these diseases that Ms. Morton reports on so regularly were indeed an issue, why are there no mortality's among Salmo species?
I believe we need to pick our battles for wild salmon, and people like you and I and others who fight for them, have much more to fear from overharvesting and habitat destruction than fish farms. Think pipelines, oil tankers, IPP’s, etc, etc
Coffee tomorrow ? ;)
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Everyday eloquently addressed this question of yours a while ago.
This is the post of Everyday's to Chris, AF, and Holmes:
http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=28342.msg272510#msg272510 (http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=28342.msg272510#msg272510) Post # 125
Look what has happened in other countries Dan, can you give me an answer why it will be different here, no one here has given me an answer yet, maybe it is because they do not have one. Sad
First of all (most important) as said before Chile had no salmon stocks to begin with, nothing was wiped out. Norway has not had any wild stocks wiped out either.
What happened on the East coast may indeed (from my view point) have been caused by farms. But you are missing 2 major factors here:
1) The wild stocks were the same as the farmed fish. This meant that diseases could actually spread from wild to farmed and vice versa. It also meant that if any farmed fish escaped, they could actually spawn in the wild and weaken the genetic pool. This is not the case in our waters, where pacific salmon are very immune to Atlantic diseases and can't produce viable offspring with them.
2) Bio security back then was almost non existent. Farms were extremely clustered and were hot spots for disease. Fish were harvested right on site and blood was pumped right into the water. Brood fish were kept close to smolts, etc. Bio security has become incredibly harsh now. There are different management zones where only 1 age class of fish can be raised at a time. No harvest can be done at sites, and if done on a vessel no harvest water can be put back into the ocean without sanitation. Fines are huge and can result in your licence being pulled, so in short no one does it. There hasn't been an outbreak of ISA or other disease since bio security protocols have been raised.
If you are referring to their Cod fishery (and I'm sure this applies to their Atlantics even somewhat as well) that was strictly over fishing that did them in. Cod are a totally different species and inhabit different niches, etc. Farms had nothing to do with their demise, and unless you can provide some type of scientific paper (or anyone else) that is what most people would go off of.
Quote from: alwaysfishn on November 08, 2011, 10:56:07 PM
See it's untrue statements like that that try to dismiss the issue that get me riled! Both Chile and BC are raising masses of salmon in an ocean where the waste, diseases and medication effect the environment they are in. There is no difference in the environment. It's only a matter of time before our environment is negatively impacted the same way it has been impacted in Norway and Chile.
Once again, no impact in Norway and especially Chile which had no stocks to begin with, although anti farmers would love you to believe that.
Waste? How is the farmed salmon waste any different than wild salmon waste? They are fed the same stuff and produce the same waste? Even if you argue about the food waste going into the ocean, it was taken out of the ocean to begin with!
Diseases? I don't know of hardly any diseases (if any at all) that can live more than 48 hrs in the water. Once again, diseases effecting Atlantic's hardly ever effect Pacific salmon as they are more hardy and have developed immunities to many of the diseases.
Medication? This really annoys me! Anyone can go online and find the actual amount of antibiotics administered to farmed fish. 2009 it was a whopping 528 g per Metric Tonne! I guess by your standards that might be a lot (enough to pollute the ocean?!)? It would also be significantly less if it weren't for having to treat brood stock fish. The net pen fish receive maybe 10% of that and only in extreme cases where nothing else can be done.
Holmes
The fact that they cannot produce any results shows that levels were low to begin with.
It also brings to question why they did not keep samples properly, when it is mandatory that the CFIA do tests as well.
It all seems fishy to me. Even if low levels were detected to begin with, once again that does not mean that the fish was infected, just means it was carrying it.
Also about the feed.
As said before, there are strict rules on how much can be taken for fish meal. If numbers of food fish are not good, there is no catch allotted. Much of this also goes into dog and cat food, do you own either of those? If you are you are also taking "food" right "out of the mouths" of wild fish. As said before, salmon ranching taking part in China releasing close to a billion fish right into the ocean is causing much more damage than netting out an allotted amount of food fish. I still don't get why no one is in an uproar about the salmon ranching? Less and less wild fish, more and more "enhancement" (which are all taken as food over there) and no one points a finger at that?
Cheers,
Dan
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A particularly liked this quote from one of aquapaloosa's links above:
[quote author = http://protestingtheprotesters.wordpress.com/2012/04/14/fear-mongering/]
HSMI appears to be a severe disease with elevated mortality, morbidity close to 100% and prolonged duration.”
I don’t have a bachelors in science, like Ms. Morton, but I don’t see where it says that Atlantic salmon can recover from this disease. Morbidity close to 100% is extremely serious, like an outbreak of ebola would be for humans. [/quote]
I think he is right about not being a biologist, because he appears to confuse 100% morbidity (the frequency of disease in a population) with 100% mortality (the instances of death in the population). His own quote says that mortality is merely "elevated" and that duration is "prolonged" suggesting the fish could survive prolonged periods of infection.
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I am not sure how "eloquently" he answered the question, but I wonder about the subsequent responses that surely followed this post.
This is the post of Everyday's to Chris, AF, and Holmes:
http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=28342.msg272510#msg272510 (http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=28342.msg272510#msg272510) Post # 125
First of all (most important) as said before Chile had no salmon stocks to begin with, nothing was wiped out. Norway has not had any wild stocks wiped out either.
What happened on the East coast may indeed (from my view point) have been caused by farms. But you are missing 2 major factors here:
1) The wild stocks were the same as the farmed fish. This meant that diseases could actually spread from wild to farmed and vice versa. It also meant that if any farmed fish escaped, they could actually spawn in the wild and weaken the genetic pool. This is not the case in our waters, where pacific salmon are very immune to Atlantic diseases and can't produce viable offspring with them.
2) Bio security back then was almost non existent. Farms were extremely clustered and were hot spots for disease. Fish were harvested right on site and blood was pumped right into the water. Brood fish were kept close to smolts, etc. Bio security has become incredibly harsh now. There are different management zones where only 1 age class of fish can be raised at a time. No harvest can be done at sites, and if done on a vessel no harvest water can be put back into the ocean without sanitation. Fines are huge and can result in your licence being pulled, so in short no one does it. There hasn't been an outbreak of ISA or other disease since bio security protocols have been raised.
If you are referring to their Cod fishery (and I'm sure this applies to their Atlantics even somewhat as well) that was strictly over fishing that did them in. Cod are a totally different species and inhabit different niches, etc. Farms had nothing to do with their demise, and unless you can provide some type of scientific paper (or anyone else) that is what most people would go off of.
Quote from: alwaysfishn on November 08, 2011, 10:56:07 PM
Once again, no impact in Norway and especially Chile which had no stocks to begin with, although anti farmers would love you to believe that.
Waste? How is the farmed salmon waste any different than wild salmon waste? They are fed the same stuff and produce the same waste? Even if you argue about the food waste going into the ocean, it was taken out of the ocean to begin with!
Diseases? I don't know of hardly any diseases (if any at all) that can live more than 48 hrs in the water. Once again, diseases effecting Atlantic's hardly ever effect Pacific salmon as they are more hardy and have developed immunities to many of the diseases.
Medication? This really annoys me! Anyone can go online and find the actual amount of antibiotics administered to farmed fish. 2009 it was a whopping 528 g per Metric Tonne! I guess by your standards that might be a lot (enough to pollute the ocean?!)? It would also be significantly less if it weren't for having to treat brood stock fish. The net pen fish receive maybe 10% of that and only in extreme cases where nothing else can be done.
Holmes
The fact that they cannot produce any results shows that levels were low to begin with.
It also brings to question why they did not keep samples properly, when it is mandatory that the CFIA do tests as well.
It all seems fishy to me. Even if low levels were detected to begin with, once again that does not mean that the fish was infected, just means it was carrying it.
Also about the feed.
As said before, there are strict rules on how much can be taken for fish meal. If numbers of food fish are not good, there is no catch allotted. Much of this also goes into dog and cat food, do you own either of those? If you are you are also taking "food" right "out of the mouths" of wild fish. As said before, salmon ranching taking part in China releasing close to a billion fish right into the ocean is causing much more damage than netting out an allotted amount of food fish. I still don't get why no one is in an uproar about the salmon ranching? Less and less wild fish, more and more "enhancement" (which are all taken as food over there) and no one points a finger at that?
Cheers,
Dan
On the "no impact in Norway", Lars P. Hansena, and Malcolm L. Windsor, in "Interactions between Aquaculture and Wild Stocks of Atlantic Salmon and other Diadromous Fish Species: Science and Management, Challenges and Solutions" Journal of Marine Science 63:7 2000,
summarize the findings a third international symposium of of the ICES and NASCO, in Bergen, Norway, 18–21 October 2005. The objectives of which were:
to summarize available knowledge of the interactions between aquaculture and wild salmon stocks and other diadromous fish species;
to identify gaps in current understanding of these interactions and to develop recommendations for future research priorities;
to review progress in managing interactions, the remaining challenges, and possible solutions; and
to make recommendations for additional measures to ensure that aquaculture practices are sustainable and consistent with the Precautionary Approach.
Following the keynote session were sessions focusing on genetic and ecological interactions and their management, and on disease and parasite interactions and their management.
From the session on genetic and ecological interactions, it emerged that:
Although there have been considerable improvements in containment and reporting, the number of escaped farmed salmon is still very large relative to the abundance of wild salmon...
. . .Theoretical modelling, comparing wild salmon populations exposed to salmon farming with those not exposed, indicates reduced productive capacity of wild salmon in areas with farms, with the size of the reduction linked to the scale of farmed production. [emphasis mine]
Genetic change has been observed in some wild salmon populations exposed to escapees but not in others, suggesting that impacts from aquaculture are influenced by the number of escapees spawning and the abundance of the wild fish population in the river. Simulations, based on simplified input data with fixed annual intrusion rates of 20% farmed escapees, suggest that substantial changes can take place in wild salmon populations within ten salmon generations and that these changes may be irreversible.
Risks are posed by the stocking of cultured fish, and the goals of such programmes need to be carefully considered . . .
. . .From the session on disease and parasite interactions, it emerged that:
Increased understanding of all aspects of the biology of sea lice, which has led to better tools for identification of sea lice, is facilitating the development of increasingly effective integrated louse management strategies and may lead to the development of an effective vaccine in future.
Sea lice infestation pressure from salmon farms is an important issue affecting wild salmonids in many areas. Infestation levels on emigrating salmon smolts are highly site-dependent, and the risk of infestation varies from year to year and with hydrographic conditions, etc.
Sea trout are highly susceptible to sea louse infestations, with susceptibility decreasing with distance from marine salmon farms.
For salmon and sea trout, the burden of sea lice is now recognized as a strong predictor of mortality in areas with farms. [emphasis mine]
Sea louse management has evolved considerably in recent years, but there are concerns about the reliance on a handful of key medicines. Although there have been notable improvements in louse management strategies in recent years, challenges remain if wild salmon and sea trout stocks are to be effectively protected. The use of wrasse may be an important option in integrated louse management regimes.
It is essential to prevent the further spread of the parasite Gyrodactylus salaris and to eliminate it from infested rivers. . .
You can read the whole paper here: http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/7/1159.full
(http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/7/1159.full)
On the question of "How is the farmed salmon waste any different than wild salmon waste?"
How about the obvious: wild salmon are not feed antibiotics and pesticides, and they swim around (so their waste is distributed over the entire ocean) whereas farmed fish are fed antibiotics and pesticides and they are not allowed to swim around so their waste is concentrated over a single area of the ocean floor.
On the diseases not surviving more than 48 hours in the water:
Why is that even an issue? Wild fish can swim close enough to the net pens and wild juvenile salmon can swim right through the nets and come in close contact to the farmed fish to initiate transfer. And of course there is the possibility of infected fish escaping the pens.
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Ok.... I told myself I would stay out of this and I did a good job for a while, but I'm finally done my interviews, my finals, and all my papers and need something to do and the post above kind of irked me so here we go...
1) Sources for this information? I read that whole paper and saw 2 papers quoted... would you consider that reliable? I can just as easily sit behind my keyboard right now and type a paper that long with my own points on how theoretical modelling proves that salmon farms don't have an impact on wild fish and that sea lice are not an issue. Just because a paper is published in a journal doesn't mean it is a good one.
2) Next point... lets re visit that theoretical model. I seem to recall a model produced a few years back saying all pink salmon would be extinct by last year due to sea lice infestation.. Don't remember it? I'll gladly go re find it for you if you would like to argue how accurate theoretical modelling can be.
3) I still have yet to see a single paper that adequately proves that sea lice from farms are killing wild salmon. First off, how can you prove that these fish are getting the sea lice from farms? Many of the studies conducted take their samples hundreds of km's away from farms, yet the farms are the problem? If you expect me to believe that they get infected with the sea lice at farms and then swim hundreds of kilometres away from the farm, how does that prove to me the sea lice are even killing the fish?
Now to go further into the point above. Please don't qoute Morton's and Routledge's paper on the effects of sea lice on pinks and chum. First of all, they used beach seines and hand nets to catch heir fish. Weak and infected fish are slower and come to the top = easier to catch and see = biased results. They also held their barrels off a dock in warm surface water. Stressed and weak fish from capture will always die given more stress, and you're also keeping the fish in a contained environment where they are not able to escape sea lice. If their study encompassed a wild population I might be more prone to believe it. I also might be persuaded into believing their papers if they hadn't predicted that all pink salmon would be virtually extinct by the year we happened to have one of our biggest runs ever.
Here's a paper to read on sea lice not effecting swimming speeds, etc (hopefully you can see it as I'm using library data base), paper info :
Nendick, L. et al. 2011, Sea lice infection of juvenile pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha): effects on swimming performance and postexercise ion balance.
http://dd6db2vc8s.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Sea+lice+infection+of+juvenile+pink+salmon+%28Oncorhynchus+gorbuscha%29%3A+effects+on+swimming+performance+and+postexercise+ion+balance&rft.jtitle=Canadian+Journal+of+Fisheries+and+Aquatic+Sciences&rft.au=L+Nendick&rft.au=M+Sackville&rft.au=S+Tang&rft.au=C+J+Brauner&rft.date=2011-02-28&rft.issn=0706-652X&rft.volume=68&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=241&rft.externalDBID=CJFS&rft.externalDocID=2286046451
4) Lastly.. once again you guys are on the topic of being fed antibiotics and pesticides. First of all, they are not fed pesticides, besides SLICE, which is not even needed, it is used as a precautionary method to stop sea lice from spreading to wild salmon during migration. This doesn't pollute the water, it goes directly into the salmon's skin to deter sea lice from attachment. The part about antibiotics, if you read the quote from me above... The average amount of anti-biotic's administered per 1 metric tonne is just over 500g... and only 10% of that is actually administered to net pens, the rest is administered to brood at contained sites.
5) Last thing.. Believe me when I say that fish waste does not pile up below farms. They select sites based on high current velocities so that waste, blooms, etc do not have a large effect on their fish. These sites must also have very high flow rates to provide oxygen to the high biomass. As said above, one of the reasons they place sites on high current sites is to flush waste. There may be minimal piling up of waste, but it is no where near what many activists make it out to be. And don't give me the sludge argument... what do you expect to find at the bottom of the aphotic zone of the ocean.... I would gladly take a look at a bottom sample you provide from 100 km's away from any location at the same depth, bet the sample will be the same.
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Just caught the evening news and I see that the witch of the west has Routledge doing her dirty work... :D
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Sorry, if I "irked" you.
...Sources for this information? I read that whole paper and saw 2 papers quoted... would you consider that reliable? I can just as easily sit behind my keyboard right now and type a paper that long with my own points on how theoretical modelling proves that salmon farms don't have an impact on wild fish and that sea lice are not an issue. Just because a paper is published in a journal doesn't mean it is a good one...
The "paper" was a summary of the conference, not a "scientific study" in and of itself. The symposium itself was the main source, and the three papers cited were merely referencing the previous conferences mentioned in the summary.
My whole point of citing that paper was to show that these symposiums are being held and discussions are taking place because there has been an impact in Norway (as emerged from the various discussions at the symposium).
I am afraid I was not able to read the paper you provided, as I do not have access to that database. Was this study looking at "normal" infection levels, or the elevated levels found near farm sites?
Lastly.. once again you guys are on the topic of being fed antibiotics and pesticides. First of all, they are not fed pesticides, besides SLICE, which is not even needed, it is used as a precautionary method to stop sea lice from spreading to wild salmon during migration. This doesn't pollute the water, it goes directly into the salmon's skin to deter sea lice from attachment. The part about antibiotics, if you read the quote from me above... The average amount of anti-biotic's administered per 1 metric tonne is just over 500g... and only 10% of that is actually administered to net pens, the rest is administered to brood at contained sites.
However, small the amount, it is greater than the amount of pesticides and antibiotics fed to wild salmon. You had asked what the difference was...I was just pointing out the obvious.
... Last thing.. Believe me when I say that fish waste does not pile up below farms. They select sites based on high current velocities so that waste, blooms, etc do not have a large effect on their fish. These sites must also have very high flow rates to provide oxygen to the high biomass. As said above, one of the reasons they place sites on high current sites is to flush waste. There may be minimal piling up of waste, but it is no where near what many activists make it out to be. And don't give me the sludge argument... what do you expect to find at the bottom of the aphotic zone of the ocean.... I would gladly take a look at a bottom sample you provide from 100 km's away from any location at the same depth, bet the sample will be the same.
At least you are candid in saying that the sites are chosen to protect the stocks within the pens (not the surrounding environment), any benefit to the sea floor from the natural "flushing" of the site is a happy coincidence. I too would like to see a study done of the sea floor down stream of a net pen compared to the sea floor isolated from net pens (is there such a location in BC?). I would bet they would not be the same (although they may both be smelly sludge).
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At least you are candid in saying that the sites are chosen to protect the stocks within the pens (not the surrounding environment), any benefit to the sea floor from the natural "flushing" of the site is a happy coincidence. I too would like to see a study done of the sea floor down stream of a net pen compared to the sea floor isolated from net pens (is there such a location in BC?). I would bet they would not be the same (although they may both be smelly sludge).
Couple of points:
The flushing of the sea bed is not a "happy coincidence". It is one of the criteria for selecting a good site. The farms no more want a buildup of sludge under their sites breaking down and degrading the water quality than anyone else. They have money at stake in keeping the bottom healthy.
With all the farms in BC occupying an aggregate area about the size of Stanley Park, one would have to be rather incompetent not to find an area of seabed isolated from the seafarm's effects in the thousands of square kilometers of BC coastal waters.
Any deposition in the area of farms would be different than you would find in, say, major harbours, coastal industrial use areas, log booming grounds and other such areas impacted by human activity. The difference would be that in the area of farms, the deposition is organic material that decomposes to it's constituent elements and re-enters the system at the bottom of the food chain as nutrients. In other areas affected by human, commercial or industrial activities, the deposition will have a much higher level of long lived, often toxic materials that don't breakdown and support the trophic web in doing so. We have discussed this specific point previously and I referred you to Weston's study dealing with deposition under salmon farms. In the years since that study, deposition has become even less of an issue since farm practices have improved as a result of the attention paid by the industry to the issue.
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The flushing of the sea bed is not a "happy coincidence". It is one of the criteria for selecting a good site. The farms no more want a buildup of sludge under their sites breaking down and degrading the water quality than anyone else. They have money at stake in keeping the bottom healthy.
Exactly. I said the benefit to the environment (from them choosing that site for their farm) was the coincidence, the choice was made for the benefit of their stocks, not the environment.
Any deposition in the area of farms would be different than you would find in, say, major harbours, coastal industrial use areas, log booming grounds and other such areas impacted by human activity.
Thanks for making that comparison. While I understand that other human activities have a damaging impact on the environment, that is hardly an argument for continuing another activity that might have less of a negative impact. Once again, your repeated reference to the area affected being the size of Stanley park assumes a number of things: 1) the current number of fish farms is not going to increase. 2) the area of Stanley Park is small compared to the total coast line of comparable sea bed on the South Coast (for example, the area of Stanley Park may be small in comparison to the area of forested land in BC, but it is more significant in the area of Urban Forests in the Lower mainland), 3) nature can afford to lose the biodiversity in this "small" area.
The difference would be that in the area of farms, the deposition is organic material that decomposes to it's constituent elements and re-enters the system at the bottom of the food chain as nutrients. In other areas affected by human, commercial or industrial activities, the deposition will have a much higher level of long lived, often toxic materials that don't breakdown and support the trophic web in doing so. We have discussed this specific point previously and I referred you to Weston's study dealing with deposition under salmon farms. In the years since that study, deposition has become even less of an issue since farm practices have improved as a result of the attention paid by the industry to the issue.
And again, I do appreciate the efforts the farm industry has made to reduce their impacts, although I still think this has been done out of their own self interest in their stocks, not the environment itself.
While deposition at farm sites may have become "less of an issue" since Weston's study, very little is still known about the secondary impacts of nutrient loading. While calculating the rate at which nutrients are released into the water column and determining the change in nutrient levels may be easy, this is a primary effect, and nutrient levels in themselves are not as important as the result of this nutrification and whether it leads to enhanced primary productivity such as harmful algal blooms. Furthermore, although calculating the benthic deposition rate of carbon may be easy, it is "much more difficult to determine the rate at which this carbon can be assimilated, and to predict whether there will be deleterious changes in the benthic community." (Silvert, "Impacts of Marine Aquaculture" cited in Dr. Michael Tlusty et al. "Marine Aquaculture and the Environment" 2001). Silvert also mentions that "although the immediate effects in the 'footprint' of the farm may be easy to monitor, transport process may move the depositional material to a relatively remote location. It is possible for an inlet to contain several farms, under all of which a healthy benthic community can be found, but at the same time for a seriously impacted area to develop at some distance from the farms due to mechanisms which focus the depositional material in that region." (Silvert 2001) Since this affected site would be "some distance" from the farms, I am quite certain the farmers could care less about it, and would do nothing to correct this impact if not compelled to do so by the "antis."
I would like to add that I found this document (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.neaq.org%2Fconservation_and_research%2Fprojects%2Fpublications_and_presentations%2Fpdf%2F12__.pdf&ei=90uUT4XfFKThiALy0PQb&usg=AFQjCNHQzyWp3uyH2cAJK_Mc6c3k8IS8Rw&sig2=XEGj0xDba5UZ74jn9SwYZg (http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=3&ved=0CDoQFjAC&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.neaq.org%2Fconservation_and_research%2Fprojects%2Fpublications_and_presentations%2Fpdf%2F12__.pdf&ei=90uUT4XfFKThiALy0PQb&usg=AFQjCNHQzyWp3uyH2cAJK_Mc6c3k8IS8Rw&sig2=XEGj0xDba5UZ74jn9SwYZg)) very informative and it contains many references that support what absolon et al. have argued all along (that the expansion of marine aquaculture is inevitable and necessary, and that environmental impacts need to be managed so it can continue and grow. I recommend it for everyone to read. (Many of the articles have long citation lists for ED to peruse too).
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Sandman....
Basically the paper states:
Swimming and ion concentrations in the bodies of pink salmon were measured. Small fish taken from rivers were experimentally infected at .34 grams. They only started showing reduced swimming and started having problems when they were this small and had 2 or more sea lice of chalimus 3 or higher. Fish greater than 1.1 grams (pink salmon hit this size less than a week of being in salt water, hence needing to get some from the river), swimming and ion concentrations were not effected by sea lice because they can shed them.
They did two studies in this paper. One experimentally infecting fish and one with wild fish that were already infected. Swimming and body harm was only found to happen under experimental conditions with high levels of female lice that were of a stage of chalimus 3 or higher.
Now this may not be the same for Atlantic's, to be honest I couldn't find a paper on Atlantic's where this type of sea lice research had been done (makes it hard to believe any one can say it is harming them unless multiple recent studies have been done?).
Now if you go back and read my other posts, and I even believe in the first one you quoted I said that the east coast 9and wherever else Atlantics are native) and the west coast is a completely different story. Places where Atlantic's are native can definitely pose a problem. Same fish carrying the same diseases, both with around the same amount of immunity to disease, and if fish do escape there, they can go out and reproduce which therefore effects the gene pool.
On the west coast... we are using Atlantic's with native pacific's. Atlantic's die much sooner from disease, including many our salmon carry without a problem. Atlantic's have decreased immunity to almost everything so spreading disease to pacific's is highly unlikely (even with all this "ISAv" found, does any one even have confirmation it actually affected these fish, or are they just carriers?). Also if Atlantic's escape, well plain and simple they can't reproduce with pacific's and if they somehow spawn in a river and produce offspring, they will most likely die to disease, due once again to not being able to tolerate IHN and other diseases carried by Pacific's.
And yea absolon hit the nail on the head there. The sites are not picked to protect the fish (kind of my bad in the way I explained it I guess). They are chosen due to flushing capabilities and high current areas so that waste doesn't pile up, so that disease is harder to spread and so that the fish have adequate water quality. Fish farmers aren't stupid like many make them out to be, the amount of science in it is ridiculous. I should once again say I am not involved with farms, and that I don't necessarily agree with them, but I have yet to see a valid argument against them which is why I am taking this stand. The day someone proves to me that fish farms ARE the reason baby pinks have sea lice, are the reason that ISAv is present in B.C., or are the reason for any declines of stocks (which are all on the rebound somehow, weird how that works with ocean conditions eh) then I will take another stand.
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A couple more comments on that summary paper you cited:
You are aware, of course, that the conference was addressing the situation of Atlantic Salmon in Europe, and that when they refer to the reduction in wild stock breeding capacity, they were speaking of the effects of the escaped farm Atlantics on the breeding capacity of wild Atlantics. That isn't an issue here; we don't have wild Atlantics and farmed Atlantics can't interbreed with Pacifics and consequently escapees have no effect on the breadth and health of the wild genetic library. Our own hatchery support of Pacific stocks to supply the commercial and sport fisheries is the closest we come to a comparable effect on the genetic library of our wild stocks.
You are no doubt also aware that the lice problem in that area and addressed in the summary is greatly exacerbated by the presence of the sea louse Gyrodactylus salaris, a parasite introduced to Norwegian waters in the 70s. Lack of previous exposure to that louse meant the Norwegian stocks had no developed capacity to tolerate it and substantial mortality resulted. The current lice problem is still considerably larger than it would be if the wild stocks were only exposed to native lice for which they had developed defense and tolerance mechanisms over millenia. That particular louse, and for that matter, any exotic, introduced louse, does not occur in our waters.
This is not to say that the results of the conference have no value or relevance, just that in order to draw valid conclusions about the specific situation here, one needs to use information specifically developed in and relevant to our particular circumstances.
Just saw your latest response as I went to post so I'll add answers for it:
The fact of the matter is that it is not coincidence. A healthy environment is required for healthy stocks. Consequently, there will never be anything but what you call "coincidence" and if there is never any exception to that rule, it is hardly coincidence.
There is no "might" about less damaging effects from farms and there is substantial issue with the description of farm effects as damaging in the first place. We've recently been through why there isn't going to be unlimited expansion of the farms; your argument on this point was and remains a strawman.
Urban forests have value as reservoirs in an otherwise devastated-by-development forest but we aren't talking about sea farms occupying the few small remaining areas that could serve as such reservoirs for sealife. In any case, farms are not sited en masse or in areas where the rest of the sea bed has been devastated; they are distributed over a very broad area. Your analogy isn't applicable; don't lose sight of the meaning of what I said in a technical defense of your argument.
While it might be technically possible to have a single point of deposition from all the farms that might be located in one inlet in spite of the mechanisms explained by oceanography, the probability is so low as to be insignificant. Farms learned long ago that locations such as the Sechelt Inlet where such situations might even enter the realm of possibility are bad sites for growing fish. The secondary effects your citation discusses must be also looked at in terms of the site flow rates, the volume of loading and the dilution factor.
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We've recently been through why there isn't going to be unlimited expansion of the farms; your argument on this point was and remains a strawman.
In light of K. Dun Gifford's article "Reaching for Solutions: The Water Farming Initiative" in the document I cited above, where he argues that the "short answer to the question "Why Water Farming?" is that a strong expansion of foods grown in water is the realistic solution to many of the current and projected future difficulties we face in feeding the world's peoples with nutritious foods that are grown sustainably and are available at affordable prices," I think that expansion of open net salmon farming in BC is inevitable given your insistance there is nothing wrong with the practice in the first place. Therefore, it is not a strawman. It is the inevitable extension of your own arguments.
Urban forests have value as reservoirs in an otherwise devastated-by-development forest but we aren't talking about sea farms occupying the few small remaining areas that could serve as such reservoirs for sealife. In any case, farms are not sited en masse or in areas where the rest of the sea bed has been devastated; they are distributed over a very broad area. Your analogy isn't applicable; don't lose sight of the meaning of what I said in a technical defense of your argument.
It is applicable, since I was showing that the use of the absolute size of the affected area (the area of Stanley Park) can have very different meaning depending on what you compare it to (the whole coast, or the immediate area of the farms).
(http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/images/content/0030x01.gif)
While it might be technically possible to have a single point of deposition from all the farms that might be located in one inlet in spite of the mechanisms explained by oceanography, the probability is so low as to be insignificant. Farms learned long ago that locations such as the Sechelt Inlet where such situations might even enter the realm of possibility are bad sites for growing fish. The secondary effects your citation discusses must be also looked at in terms of the site flow rates, the volume of loading and the dilution factor.
Again this appears to be the one point we can agree to disagree on... what constitutes "insignificant" or "acceptable". This is the one thing that will prove to be the hinge upon which all partner groups will have to come to agreement on to determine the future of aquaculture. I do think there is a point where we can meet, we just have not found it yet.
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I do think there is a point where we can meet, we just have not found it yet.
But with informed disussions like this we seem to be getting closer ;)
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(http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/images/content/0030x01.gif)
The above chart indicates the location of the farm leases of which not all are active. One of those dots fits into burard inlet. Stanly park is less than one tenth of the area of the inlet it is on. In my opinion I feel that these charts should not be used to describe the area occupied by a salmon farm. I do realize that the dots do have to be visible to the eye but it is often displayed in a misleading manor. To clarify, if all(100 aprox) farms on our coast fit in stanly park, and one of those dots is 10 time larger than the park, then one dot represents 1000 times the area of one salmon farm. I urge those who are curious to get on google earth and take a look around and see the actual size of the farms.
Has anyone here done this?
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(http://www.oag-bvg.gc.ca/internet/images/content/0030x01.gif)
The above chart indicates the location of the farm leases of which not all are active. One of those dots fits into burard inlet. Stanly park is less than one tenth of the area of the inlet it is on. In my opinion I feel that these charts should not be used to describe the area occupied by a salmon farm. I do realize that the dots do have to be visible to the eye but it is often displayed in a misleading manor. To clarify, if all(100 aprox) farms on our coast fit in stanly park, and one of those dots is 10 time larger than the park, then one dot represents 1000 times the area of one salmon farm. I urge those who are curious to get on google earth and take a look around and see the actual size of the farms.
Has anyone here done this?
Yes, I did. But back to that later. First, are you suggesting that the area affected by the salmon farm is less than or equal to the surface area of the net cages? Do you have any evidence to back that up? I would suspect that the area affected, due to currents (especially in the "high" flushing sites you say they all use), would be much larger in area than the surface area of the cages themselves. Even in relatively still water, the area would be larger for all but the largest of particulate matter. I would suspect that the affected area would be an order of magnitude larger.
Here is an image from Google Earth of one area of the south coast and an image of Stanley Park at about the same scale (you will note that the "eye altitude" of the Stanley Park image is actually slightly lower, despite my simply scrolling over to the Park from the Johnstone Straits, so the park as pictured here is actually shown a little larger than it should be, but it still illustrates my point).
(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Salmon-Farms3.jpg)(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Stanley-Park.jpg)
I have circled the salmon farms and I would argue that the size of the circle is a pretty conservative estimate of the area directly affect by the primary impacts of nutrient loading from farm wastes (feed and feces), whereas the area affected by the secondary impacts and by liquid wastes would be larger (again, we can agree to disagree that these impacts are insignificant and acceptable).
In the lower part of the image you have five farms in an area the size of Burrard Inlet (it would be the same as having 5 farms encircling Stanley Park), and then you have 4 more in the inlet to the North (like 4 more in Howe Sound). Even if you look at the size of the cages themselves, those 9 farms would appear to cover a "significant" portion of Stanley Park.
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Yes, I did. But back to that later. First, are you suggesting that the area affected by the salmon farm is less than or equal to the surface area of the net cages? Do you have any evidence to back that up? I would suspect that the area affected, due to currents (especially in the "high" flushing sites you say they all use), would be much larger in area than the surface area of the cages themselves. Even in relatively still water, the area would be larger for all but the largest of particulate matter. I would suspect that the affected area would be an order of magnitude larger.
Here is an image from Google Earth of one area of the south coast and an image of Stanley Park at about the same scale (you will note that the "eye altitude" of the Stanley Park image is actually slightly lower, despite my simply scrolling over to the Park from the Johnstone Straits, so the park as pictured here is actually shown a little larger than it should be, but it still illustrates my point).
(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Salmon-Farms3.jpg)(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Stanley-Park.jpg)
I have circled the salmon farms and I would argue that the size of the circle is a pretty conservative estimate of the area directly affect by the primary impacts of nutrient loading from farm wastes (feed and feces), whereas the area affected by the secondary impacts and by liquid wastes would be larger (again, we can agree to disagree that these impacts are insignificant and acceptable).
In the lower part of the image you have five farms in an area the size of Burrard Inlet (it would be the same as having 5 farms encircling Stanley Park), and then you have 4 more in the inlet to the North (like 4 more in Howe Sound).
Good work!!!
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Yes, I did. But back to that later. First, are you suggesting that the area affected by the salmon farm is less than or equal to the surface area of the net cages? Do you have any evidence to back that up? I would suspect that the area affected, due to currents (especially in the "high" flushing sites you say they all use), would be much larger in area than the surface area of the cages themselves. Even in relatively still water, the area would be larger for all but the largest of particulate matter. I would suspect that the affected area would be an order of magnitude larger.
Here is an image from Google Earth of one area of the south coast and an image of Stanley Park at about the same scale (you will note that the "eye altitude" of the Stanley Park image is actually slightly lower, despite my simply scrolling over to the Park from the Johnstone Straits, so the park as pictured here is actually shown a little larger than it should be, but it still illustrates my point).
(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Salmon-Farms3.jpg)(http://teacherweb.com/BC/HDStaffordMiddleSchool/Sandquist/Stanley-Park.jpg)
I have circled the salmon farms and I would argue that the size of the circle is a pretty conservative estimate of the area directly affect by the primary impacts of nutrient loading from farm wastes (feed and feces), whereas the area affected by the secondary impacts and by liquid wastes would be larger (again, we can agree to disagree that these impacts are insignificant and acceptable).
In the lower part of the image you have five farms in an area the size of Burrard Inlet (it would be the same as having 5 farms encircling Stanley Park), and then you have 4 more in the inlet to the North (like 4 more in Howe Sound). Even if you look at the size of the cages themselves, those 9 farms would appear to cover a "significant" portion of Stanley Park.
You appear to have lost track of the original point regarding Stanley Park. The original point was that the total area occupied by farms was about the size of Stanley Park: every farm could fit into an area that size and a comparison of that area to the total area of coastal BC waters is therefore representative of what proportion of the total sea bottom on the BC coast is under farms. Since several Stanley Parks could fit into Burrard Inlet, it is clearly apparent that at least twice as many farms as exist could fit in Burrard Inlet. With respect to the original point, no technical manipulation of the argument or manufacturing of new, self determined parameters and definitions will change that.
You have yet to demonstrate the nature of any harm that might arise from any deposition that does occur or, more critically, even that harm occurs.
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Yes, I did. But back to that later. First, are you suggesting that the area affected by the salmon farm is less than or equal to the surface area of the net cages?
No, I am not discussing the "debated effects", I will leave that to the others and it has been discussed extensively and I have not seen any presented. My point is to make clear the actual size of the farm site cages.
Will someone, anyone please answer my question. For the third time:
The fact is that some of the supporters here are accomplished fish biologists that have worked in other (salmon)fields entirely and for many years. Those individuals seem to bring the most to this forum when it comes to information about salmon management. So why would they support salmon farming in BC? Why?
Paper covers rock with the response " ya but there is an effect" but what is important is the measurement of the effect. What is rarely discussed is how the environment benefits from an active salmon farm.
By the way SM, I am generally aware of the others backgrounds in this debate. Whats yours? You know me. I'm a salmon farmer.
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By the way SM, I am generally aware of the others backgrounds in this debate. Whats yours? You know me. I'm a salmon farmer.
I believe I mentioned it before when you (or someone else) asked, I am an environmental historian.
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My bad. I do recall that now. Interesting. How does one make a living as a environmental historian? Just curious. PM me if you wish, or not. Either way thanks for that.
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You appear to have lost track of the original point regarding Stanley Park. The original point was that the total area occupied by farms was about the size of Stanley Park: every farm could fit into an area that size and a comparison of that area to the total area of coastal BC waters is therefore representative of what proportion of the total sea bottom on the BC coast is under farms.
No, I have not lost track. You said that all 100 farms would cover an area the size of Stanley Park, and I said that these 9 farms alone appear to cover a signifcant portion of Stanley Park (cover the image with clear plastic and shade the farms in with a fine tip felt pen (just the cages if you like), and then place the shaded area over the image of Stanley Park (which is already slightly larger than it should be) and you can see that these 9 farms cover about 1/3 of the park. I am no mathematician, but 100 farms would appear to cover 10 times more than 9. Now, even if you do not accept that the area directly affected by the nutrient loading is larger than the surface area of the farms, (therefore, the area affected by these 9 farms is already larger than the area of Stanley Park), you can see that the farms already cover a larger area than Stanley Park. Furthermore, I have said that comparing the area to the farms to the total area of the coast is also not as useful as comparing the size of the farms to the amount of sea floor in the immediate area (the farms around Senora Island cover an area 1/3 the size of Stanley Park).
You have yet to demonstrate the nature of any harm that might arise from any deposition that does occur or, more critically, even that harm occurs.
Sorry, I thought I had.
"Previous studies have demonstrated that the most evident consequences of fish farming on the benthic environment are an increase in total organic carbon (C) accumulation in the sediment and a decrease in oxygen availability for the benthos beneath fish cages (Holmer 1991, Holmer and Kristensen 1992, Karakassis et al. 1998). These changes, in turn, have significant impact on the abundance and biodiversity of micro-, meio- and macrobenthic organisms (Karakassis et al. 2000, Mirto et al. 2002, La Rosa et al. 2004). Other recent studies have demonstrated that fish-farming effluents have effects also on the biochemical composition of the organic matter of sediment. Fishfarm sediments are sometimes enriched in lipid content due to the accumulation of uneaten fish-food pellets on the seafloor (Mirto et al. 2002, Bongiorni et al. 2005), and are characterized by increased microbenthic algal biomass in response to the increased availability of nutrients below the cages (La Rosa et al. 2001)." (Pusceddu et al, "EFFECTS OF INTENSIVE MARICULTURE ON SEDIMENT BIOCHEMISTRY," Ecological Applications, 17(5), 2007, p. 1367)
In their study in the Mediterranean, Pusceddu et al. also found that "intensive aquaculture can significantly contribute to benthic eutrophication processes, although the extent of the spatial effects of fish-farm effluent is potentially limited. However, even though spatially limited, the impact of the biodeposition derived from fish farms is site specific and can be driven by both physico-chemical and trophic contexts. We have also been able to empirically derive the minimum distance at which the siting of new fish farms should be permitted in the presence of benthic systems traditionally considered vulnerable. To date, since background ecological features on a local scale appear to have the major role in affecting the patterns of fish-farm-induced eutrophication, the future siting of fish farms should include well-designed a priori monitoring programs that are able to describe the whole ecological setting and should be tailored to the basis of the local ecological context." (Pusceddu et al, p. 1376)
While they agree with you that current velocity has an effect of lowering the "fish-farm-induced benthic eutrophication" but, they also recognize in turn, that "the spatial extent of the potential impact will be spread farther from the cages than in those sites with lower bottom currents." (Pusceddu et al, p. 1372).
Closer to home:
"Waste from finfish netpens and cages flows directly into marine waters and, in contrast to terrestrial farms, there is usually no attempt to capture it. Nutrients and suspended solids discharged by salmon farms can have considerable effects on a local scale (Goldburg et al. 2001), although salmon farms sited in well flushed areas often have minimal impact on the quality of surrounding waters (Brooks and Mahnken 2003). Dilution of nutrients means that widely spaced marine fish farms sited in areas with strong currents will probably have little impact, an argument for moving marine aquaculture out of coastal waters and into the open ocean (Marine Research Specialists 2003). . . Producing a kilogram of salmon releases approximately 0.02 to 0.03 kg of N [the nutrient primarily responsible for eutrophication in marine waters], excluding losses from uneaten feed (Brooks and Mahnken 2003). About 70 000 mt of salmon were produced in British Columbia in 2003 (C Matthews pers comm) with a gross domestic product value of C$91 million, or approximately US$66 million (Marshall 2003). Thus the BC salmon farming industry discharged about 1435 mt to 2100 mt of nitrogen" or the equivalent of 200 000 hogs. (Goldburg and Naylor, "Future seascapes, fishing, and fish farming," Front Ecol Environ 2005; 3(1): 21–28
You may argue that the eutrophication of the seafloor beneath the farms is "insignificant" compared to the total size of the coastal sea floor, or that this harmful effect is minimized under the farms by site flushing; however, I think "the nature of any harm that might arise from any deposition that does occur" has been demonstrated.
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My bad. I do recall that now. Interesting. How does one make a living as a environmental historian? Just curious. PM me if you wish, or not. Either way thanks for that.
I did not say I make a living doing history, I said that is my background, I make a living as a teacher.
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You are pointing out potential effects, not harm. To be meaningful, you need to demonstrate the the effects cause harm by some more rigorous manner than expressing your personal opinion.
Further, the numbers you quote as "evidence" are meaningless in the absence of a comparative standard by which they can be evaluated. For instance, an area 10 km by 10 km by 100m deep contains 10,000,000,000 tonnes of water and if all that 2000 tonnes of Nitrogen produced by one years crop of salmon were dissolved in that area, a concentration of 1 part nitrogen in 5,000,000 parts seawater would result if there were no consumption of that nitrogen by plants and algae which are actually food for higher forms of life which are themselves in turn consumed by even higher forms of life. Since the volume and therefore the weight of water in the coastal areas of BC is orders of magnitude greater than the calculated example, since it is constantly mixed by winds, waves and tide and since dilution rate is logarithmic over distance in three dimensions, the actual concentration of Nitrogen will be orders of magnitude less than 1 in 5,000,000 and the cumulative effect all but unmeasurable. Were it measurable, it would likely display an ever-so-slight increase in the standing biomass of life in coastal waters
I suspect that if you had ever been anywhere near a salmon farm you would realize how ridiculous your notion that 9 or a dozen farms would fill the Park is. Even if they did, ten times the size of the Park is still a minuscule area compared to the extent of the coastal waters of the province and it wouldn't change Nitrogen production.
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I did not say I make a living doing history, I said that is my background, I make a living as a teacher.
Good on you for posting your background and profession. It would be appreciated if others on this debate would do the same, absolonn, aquapaloos, shuswapsteve, Dave etc.. Are you up to that? ;D ;D
Of course I have been retired for 14 years and worked in highway engineering for 35 years for the Provincial Government.
PS
I believe one of you may have once before but it would be good to state it again.
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You are pointing out potential effects, not harm. To be meaningful, you need to demonstrate the the effects cause harm by some more rigorous manner than expressing your personal opinion.
Further, the numbers you quote as "evidence" are meaningless in the absence of a comparative standard by which they can be evaluated. For instance, an area 10 km by 10 km by 100m deep contains 10,000,000,000 tonnes of water and if all that 2000 tonnes of Nitrogen produced by one years crop of salmon were dissolved in that area, a concentration of 1 part nitrogen in 5,000,000 parts seawater would result if there were no consumption of that nitrogen by plants and algae which are actually food for higher forms of life which are themselves in turn consumed by even higher forms of life. Since the volume and therefore the weight of water in the coastal areas of BC is orders of magnitude greater than the calculated example, since it is constantly mixed by winds, waves and tide and since dilution rate is logarithmic over distance in three dimensions, the actual concentration of Nitrogen will be orders of magnitude less than 1 in 5,000,000 and the cumulative effect all but unmeasurable. Were it measurable, it would likely display an ever-so-slight increase in the standing biomass of life in coastal waters
I suspect that if you had ever been anywhere near a salmon farm you would realize how ridiculous your notion that 9 or a dozen farms would fill the Park is. Even if they did, ten times the size of the Park is still a minuscule area compared to the extent of the coastal waters of the province and it wouldn't change Nitrogen production.
I did not say 9 or a dozen farms would fill the park (I said they appeared to cover about 1/3), what I suggested was that the area affected by 9 or a dozen farms would cover the park. You ask me to check on Google Earth and "see for myself"...so I did.
I am pointing out the harmful effect. Are you suggesting that the total accumulation of organic carbon and the subsequent reduction in the abundance and bio diversity of micro-, meio- and macrobenthic organisms beneath the farms, is not harmful? If it were not harmful, why are the scientists recommending the farms be located at a minimum 2km safe distance from "any benthic system traditionally considered as vulnerable" (Pusceddu et al, p. 1372)? Again, I think we can agree to disagree here.
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If it makes you feel better Chris ... I am a retired senior research technician spending 37 years with DFO at the Cultus Lake Laboratory. At retirement I was the outreach coordinator for the Cultus Lake Sockeye program, ran a network of water temperature data loggers throughout the Fraser River watershed and, through DFO's Environment Watch program and in collaboration with UBC and SFU scientists, sampled and histologically examined many, many thousands of Fraser River sockeye and chinook.
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You ask me to check on Google Earth and "see for myself"...so I did.
I think I asked you that.
I am a fish farmer for some 19 years now. I also own and operate a private accommodations for tourism in tofino. Avid fisher, surfer dude, wilderness nut. I also do a small amount of salt water charters.
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I think I asked you that.
I am a fish farmer for some 19 years now. I also own and operate a private accommodations for tourism in tofino. Avid fisher, surfer dude, wilderness nut. I also do a small amount of salt water charters.
Good on you and Dave for posting this info. Now it would nice to hear some of your recreational fishing stories on fishing reports too. ;D
Dave and I will have to come out your way to take us fishing. ;D ;D :-\
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With so much being posted on this subject not sure if this has been posted before,my apologies if it has.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/07/salmon-disease-identified/
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I have operated a small business doing custom woodwork for quite a few years; furniture, doors and cabinets are my usual fare. In the past, I worked in the farming business as a special projects coordinator for a large outfit and traveled extensively among the farms and hatcheries up and down the coast.
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I did not say 9 or a dozen farms would fill the park (I said they appeared to cover about 1/3), what I suggested was that the area affected by 9 or a dozen farms would cover the park. You ask me to check on Google Earth and "see for myself"...so I did.
I am pointing out the harmful effect. Are you suggesting that the total accumulation of organic carbon and the subsequent reduction in the abundance and bio diversity of micro-, meio- and macrobenthic organisms beneath the farms, is not harmful? If it were not harmful, why are the scientists recommending the farms be located at a minimum 2km safe distance from "any benthic system traditionally considered as vulnerable" (Pusceddu et al, p. 1372)? Again, I think we can agree to disagree here.
We can agree to disagree in our opinions but we do need to be sure that we are working with the same set of facts.
In order to understand it, you need to look at the whole picture, not just single aspects taken out of context and interpreted according to a set of parameters based on personal bias. There is some deposition directly beneath the farms but it is undergoing a continuous process of breaking down to constituent elements; that breakdown is accelerated by site fallowing. If there are creatures that find the environment less than ideal, they simply move 100m to an environment essentially unaffected by the deposition; consequently, diversity in the benthic substrate immediately under the pen is somewhat reduced but overall diversity within an area is unaffected. That is not a permanent condition, nor one that is particularly harmful, nor one that affects the seabed a stone's throw from the pens.
Arguing precisely how many farms fit into Stanley Park is a sidetrack that has nothing to do with the point being made, though having done the actual calculation of area occupied by the farms in the past, I'll stand by my assertion that all farms will fit within the Park. The point, once again, is that the farms use an extremely small area of the coast and that because of oceanographic conditions, physical principles, biological principles and the nature of the materials being deposited, the depositions are not causing harm nor are they a cause for concern.
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I have operated a small business doing custom woodwork for quite a few years; furniture, doors and cabinets are my usual fare. In the past, I worked in the farming business as a special projects coordinator for a large outfit and traveled extensively among the farms and hatcheries up and down the coast.
Thanks.
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Hate to derail the thread further but it seems I can not PM.
I do not report the fishing out here because it is so consistently awesome.
I'd fish with the 2 of you. ;D
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Thanks.
I wonder if you might not describe your own background as well beyond your efforts as a freelance correspondent?
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I wonder if you might not describe your own background as well beyond your efforts as a freelance correspondent?
Efforts? ;D ;D See above and read all my posts since this web site started and watch all my videos, most is there. ;D ;D
May write a book for you one day. ;D ;D
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Your opinions are all there Chris, but none of the details of your background.
Not a big deal, but I find it curious that you want to know those of everyone else, but decline to share yours.
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Your opinions are all there Chris, but none of the details of your background.
Not a big deal, but I find it curious that you want to know those of everyone else, but decline to share yours.
What more do you need than this what I posted above, maybe you missed it. ;D ;D
Of course I have been retired for 14 years and worked in highway engineering for 35 years for the Provincial Government.
You can google my name for more I guess. ;D ;D ;D ;D
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Chris is way too modest to say he has been and continues to be involved in many environmental and ethical angling issues here in Chilliwack. A past member of the Chilliwack River Action Committee, a founding member of the Chilliwack Vedder River Cleanup Society, the Fraser Valley Salmon Society and the Great Blue Heron Reserve. … and much more.
He has received awards and accolades from the City of Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley Regional District and his peers.
And the good news is he is slowly coming around to the fact that salmon farming ain’t all bad ;D ;D ;D
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Chris is way too modest to say he has been and continues to be involved in many environmental and ethical angling issues here in Chilliwack. A past member of the Chilliwack River Action Committee, a founding member of the Chilliwack Vedder River Cleanup Society, the Fraser Valley Salmon Society and the Great Blue Heron Reserve. … and much more.
He has received awards and accolades from the City of Chilliwack, the Fraser Valley Regional District and his peers.
And the good news is he is slowly coming around to the fact that salmon farming ain’t all bad ;D ;D ;D
Thanks Dave for all this but the last sentence. ;D ;D ;D
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There's another contributor to these discussions on aquaculture that unfortunately, for his own good, should not respond. This guy is a well spoken and very know ledgable young biologist with a well known agency; an agency that wrongly dictates it's experts not speak publicly on fisheries issues.
Let's leave him be so we can all gain from his future posts.
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We can agree to disagree in our opinions but we do need to be sure that we are working with the same set of facts.
In order to understand it, you need to look at the whole picture, not just single aspects taken out of context and interpreted according to a set of parameters based on personal bias.
We will pretend that you do not have personal bias, but I do.
There is some deposition directly beneath the farms but it is undergoing a continuous process of breaking down to constituent elements; that breakdown is accelerated by site fallowing. If there are creatures that find the environment less than ideal, they simply move 100m to an environment essentially unaffected by the deposition; consequently, diversity in the benthic substrate immediately under the pen is somewhat reduced but overall diversity within an area is unaffected. That is not a permanent condition, nor one that is particularly harmful, nor one that affects the seabed a stone's throw from the pens.
This, of course, assumes that the surrounding area can support the additional organisms and that the carrying capacity of the surrounding area is not already reached.
Arguing precisely how many farms fit into Stanley Park is a sidetrack that has nothing to do with the point being made, though having done the actual calculation of area occupied by the farms in the past, I'll stand by my assertion that all farms will fit within the Park. The point, once again, is that the farms use an extremely small area of the coast and that because of oceanographic conditions, physical principles, biological principles and the nature of the materials being deposited, the depositions are not causing harm nor are they a cause for concern.
Again, if it is true that the deposits are not causing harm and are not a concern, why the recommendations from scientists, like Pusceddu et al, that farm be located at a minimum of 2k from vulnerable sites? While I totally understand your argument that the affected area is small compared to the overall size of the coastal sea bed, but I have a hard time understanding how a reduction of abundance and biodiversity in an ecosystem is not harmful. If the micro-, meio- and macrobenthic organisms are reduced in number or diversity, that is going to have an impact on the mega faunal organisms further up the food chains as the organisms that might feed on these organisms are reduced and the organisms that feed on those organism are reduced and so on. So while it is fine to say that "creatures that find the environment less than ideal . . .[can] simply move 100m to an environment essentially unaffected by the deposition," the reality is this may not always be possible, and this itself would have an impact on those neighbouring areas, which would now see an increase in populations that may exceed its own carrying capacity. If I clearcut a forest ecosystem, I can make the same argument that the organisms (ie: squirrels) that find the clear cut "unsuitable" can all just move over to the neighbouring forests, but we know that is not necessarily the simple move you make it out to be, as the surrounding forest may already have reached its carrying capacity for food, shelter, etc. Furthermore, while you insist that the current number of farms is not going to increase, and therefore the area that they affect is going to remain low and "insignificant," I still do not accept that there will be no expansion of salmon farming. I simply wonder at what point is the area affected no longer "insignificant"? How will we know when that point is reached? Will farmers be willing to close up shop at that point? This is why I used the reference to how we once viewed the oceans and atmosphere. We all understand that throwing a glass of freshwater into the ocean is not going cause a measurable effect, and I see that this is how you currently view the impact of salmon farms on the coast sea floor (you admit there is an impact, but it is "insignificant" when viewed in the context of the total sea floor). However, what happens when the atmosphere warms to a point where the Antarctic ice sheet all melts and that freshwater is added to the oceans? Is there a measurable impact? Just ask the billions that live within 50m of sea level. I see the same for salmon farms. You may be right that the loss of biodiversity due to the salmon farms is insignificant today, that there is enough biodiveristy in the surrounding seafloor to make any losses caused by the farms to be "insignificant," a cost of doing business, but then where do you draw the line? How many more farms can be added before their impact becomes "significant"?
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What more do you need than this what I posted above, maybe you missed it. ;D ;D
Of course I have been retired for 14 years and worked in highway engineering for 35 years for the Provincial Government.
You can google my name for more I guess. ;D ;D ;D ;D
Actually Chris, what you've just offered is what I was looking for. I'm aware of at least some of your activities with respect to the rivers, and I applaud you for them, but I was looking to get a broader picture. I did try Binging you (I'm off Google these days) and I got a Wikipedia page in your name. I figured it wasn't you though. It said that guy died in 1805. I also got a lot of links to social media pages in your name, but I don't do social media so I'm not sure if they were yours.
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The salient point is "looking at the whole picture", not single aspects in isolation, and particularly not single aspects chosen to support one's biases. For example, carrying capacity is not static and doesn't exist in isolation. Rather, it exists within a system constantly subject to varying inputs and outputs. The animals moving into the new areas are inputs, as is the increase in nutrient loading from the farms and they both increase the carrying capacity of the adjacent areas. The system rebalances itself constantly; it doesn't breakdown as a consequence of changes on the scale that farms cause. Claiming that the sky is about to fall because small changes occur ignores the need to look at the whole system in order to arrive at a real understanding of the dynamics and the realistically possible outcomes.
Pusceddu et al. studied farms over soft bottoms and sea grass beds in the warm-water, minimal tide Mediterranean and concluded they couldn't identify the specific causes of causes of changes to the sediment biochemistry. I'm not sure how you can be so certain in you conclusions about our area based on their work.
I've never suggested there will be no new farms. I have pointed out that, contrary to your representations, any growth will be slow, responsible and well regulated.
We all understand that throwing a glass of freshwater into the ocean is not going cause a measurable effect, and I see that this is how you currently view the impact of salmon farms on the coast sea floor (you admit there is an impact, but it is "insignificant" when viewed in the context of the total sea floor). However, what happens when the atmosphere warms to a point where the Antarctic ice sheet all melts and that freshwater is added to the oceans? Is there a measurable impact? Just ask the billions that live within 50m of sea level. I see the same for salmon farms.
........irrelevant hyperbole........
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Ok.... I told myself I would stay out of this and I did a good job for a while, but I'm finally done my interviews, my finals, and all my papers and need something to do and the post above kind of irked me so here we go...
1) Sources for this information? I read that whole paper and saw 2 papers quoted... would you consider that reliable? I can just as easily sit behind my keyboard right now and type a paper that long with my own points on how theoretical modelling proves that salmon farms don't have an impact on wild fish and that sea lice are not an issue. Just because a paper is published in a journal doesn't mean it is a good one.
2) Next point... lets re visit that theoretical model. I seem to recall a model produced a few years back saying all pink salmon would be extinct by last year due to sea lice infestation.. Don't remember it? I'll gladly go re find it for you if you would like to argue how accurate theoretical modelling can be.
3) I still have yet to see a single paper that adequately proves that sea lice from farms are killing wild salmon. First off, how can you prove that these fish are getting the sea lice from farms? Many of the studies conducted take their samples hundreds of km's away from farms, yet the farms are the problem? If you expect me to believe that they get infected with the sea lice at farms and then swim hundreds of kilometres away from the farm, how does that prove to me the sea lice are even killing the fish?
Now to go further into the point above. Please don't qoute Morton's and Routledge's paper on the effects of sea lice on pinks and chum. First of all, they used beach seines and hand nets to catch heir fish. Weak and infected fish are slower and come to the top = easier to catch and see = biased results. They also held their barrels off a dock in warm surface water. Stressed and weak fish from capture will always die given more stress, and you're also keeping the fish in a contained environment where they are not able to escape sea lice. If their study encompassed a wild population I might be more prone to believe it. I also might be persuaded into believing their papers if they hadn't predicted that all pink salmon would be virtually extinct by the year we happened to have one of our biggest runs ever.
Here's a paper to read on sea lice not effecting swimming speeds, etc (hopefully you can see it as I'm using library data base), paper info :
Nendick, L. et al. 2011, Sea lice infection of juvenile pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha): effects on swimming performance and postexercise ion balance.
http://dd6db2vc8s.search.serialssolutions.com/?ctx_ver=Z39.88-2004&ctx_enc=info%3Aofi%2Fenc%3AUTF-8&rfr_id=info:sid/summon.serialssolutions.com&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:journal&rft.genre=article&rft.atitle=Sea+lice+infection+of+juvenile+pink+salmon+%28Oncorhynchus+gorbuscha%29%3A+effects+on+swimming+performance+and+postexercise+ion+balance&rft.jtitle=Canadian+Journal+of+Fisheries+and+Aquatic+Sciences&rft.au=L+Nendick&rft.au=M+Sackville&rft.au=S+Tang&rft.au=C+J+Brauner&rft.date=2011-02-28&rft.issn=0706-652X&rft.volume=68&rft.issue=2&rft.spage=241&rft.externalDBID=CJFS&rft.externalDocID=2286046451
4) Lastly.. once again you guys are on the topic of being fed antibiotics and pesticides. First of all, they are not fed pesticides, besides SLICE, which is not even needed, it is used as a precautionary method to stop sea lice from spreading to wild salmon during migration. This doesn't pollute the water, it goes directly into the salmon's skin to deter sea lice from attachment. The part about antibiotics, if you read the quote from me above... The average amount of anti-biotic's administered per 1 metric tonne is just over 500g... and only 10% of that is actually administered to net pens, the rest is administered to brood at contained sites.
5) Last thing.. Believe me when I say that fish waste does not pile up below farms. They select sites based on high current velocities so that waste, blooms, etc do not have a large effect on their fish. These sites must also have very high flow rates to provide oxygen to the high biomass. As said above, one of the reasons they place sites on high current sites is to flush waste. There may be minimal piling up of waste, but it is no where near what many activists make it out to be. And don't give me the sludge argument... what do you expect to find at the bottom of the aphotic zone of the ocean.... I would gladly take a look at a bottom sample you provide from 100 km's away from any location at the same depth, bet the sample will be the same.
You clearly have never beach seined a school of salmon fry. You don't just get the weak ones. You get the entire school. This isn't the first time you have spoken with no supporting evidence with regard to something. I have helped conduct beach seines for Alexandra Morton's long running data set up in the Broughton, and I can assure you that you have obviously no idea what you are talking about. The fish are sampled correctly, subsampled randomly. The other methods involve killing all the fish. You are going to be one lousy scientist if you use the conjecture you use in public dialogue in academic circles.. people will laugh at you.
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You clearly have never beach seined a school of salmon fry. You don't just get the weak ones. You get the entire school. This isn't the first time you have spoken with no supporting evidence with regard to something. I have helped conduct beach seines for Alexandra Morton's long running data set up in the Broughton, and I can assure you that you have obviously no idea what you are talking about. The fish are sampled correctly, subsampled randomly. The other methods involve killing all the fish. You are going to be one lousy scientist if you use the conjecture you use in public dialogue in academic circles.. people will laugh at you.
Let's chock Every days post up to the naive enthusiasm of youth..... or another pro feedlot farmer that has his blinders on. ::)
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You clearly have never beach seined a school of salmon fry. You don't just get the weak ones. You get the entire school. This isn't the first time you have spoken with no supporting evidence with regard to something. I have helped conduct beach seines for Alexandra Morton's long running data set up in the Broughton, and I can assure you that you have obviously no idea what you are talking about. The fish are sampled correctly, subsampled randomly. The other methods involve killing all the fish. You are going to be one lousy scientist if you use the conjecture you use in public dialogue in academic circles.. people will laugh at you.
Talk about people laughing … I have considerable experience with beach seining and catching all of a school of anything the size of pink fry would be a rare event and totally dependent on the substrate. If you were seining over sand with no wave action I might buy it but, if Ms. Morton did indeed “sample correctly” that would be a first for her as all her other sampling exploits have shown.
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You clearly have never beach seined a school of salmon fry. You don't just get the weak ones. You get the entire school. This isn't the first time you have spoken with no supporting evidence with regard to something. I have helped conduct beach seines for Alexandra Morton's long running data set up in the Broughton, and I can assure you that you have obviously no idea what you are talking about. The fish are sampled correctly, subsampled randomly. The other methods involve killing all the fish. You are going to be one lousy scientist if you use the conjecture you use in public dialogue in academic circles.. people will laugh at you.
Textbook morton camp mentality. We're right, your wrong, we can not be corrected and are not looking to make improvements by collaborating with other scientists. We are not learning we are the educators.
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We're right, your wrong, we can not be corrected and are not looking to make improvements by collaborating with other scientists. We are not learning we are the educators.
Sounds like a description of the feedlot crowd.....
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Talk about people laughing … I have considerable experience with beach seining and catching all of a school of anything the size of pink fry would be a rare event and totally dependent on the substrate. If you were seining over sand with no wave action I might buy it but, if Ms. Morton did indeed “sample correctly” that would be a first for her as all her other sampling exploits have shown.
Dave, no doubt your venerable 37+ years of experience in fisheries is of great value in this dialogue. I would like to point out several circumstances which may further clarify my defense of Alex's sampling methodology. The fish are sampled at fork lengths ranging from 27mm to about 110mm, at which point they commence sounding and beach seining becomes a much trickier task. In the early season (late March-early April) mean FL values were around 34mm, and close to mid July they approached 90mm. Further, fish on the larger end of this spectrum, in the later part of the migration (75mm+) tended to aggregate at 'points' rather than 'bays', making matters more difficult due to increased wave action and precipitous terrain from which to stand. For most of the outward migration of juveniles, fortunately, these fish were usually located in and around sandy bays which was helpful in making schools of fish easier to sight, and having less wave action in general. Juveniles in the ~30mm to ~100mm size range aggregate in the photic zone in the water column, which is in congruence with both my visual assessment and the literature (Groot & Margolis, Quinn, McPhail). Presumably because this is the zone of high planktonic growth, and the less tumultuous nature of water in bays yields more likelihood of bonanza-style-bloom events. These provided conditions upon which fish could seen, targeted, and trapped with high degree of precision and accuracy. School sizes, especially at the smaller end of the scale tend to be smaller on average than what is observed in the later stages of juvenile growth. This made targeting schools relatively simple at this stage as they were significantly smaller than the beach seines used to trap them. The effects of sampling at the turning of the tides, where tidal forces were instantaneously zero during the sampling period provided water surface conditions such that sighting schools of fish (with the aid of polarized sunglasses) was a simple task. In the case that wave action that day was too harsh to sample, (gale force conditions usually) we simply sampled the following day. Also in the event that no schools could be targeted (which was quite rare), we would conduct a blind set. From my own experience, and the conditions outlined above, it should be easier to see why I have confidence in the sampling methods used with beach seining, and how they are as close as we can get to a representative sample of fish. I certainly have never observed, nor do I get the impression from the literature that parasitized juveniles exist in a subset of fish that is skewed in their favor.
Hopefully this elucidates my position.
PS - Not sure if you were referencing me or not with a previous post in this thread, but my association with an employer would not prevent me from speaking my mind about anything. I care about fish way too much to put my ideas aside in favor of a job.
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Thanks Jon, your observations do indeed add clarification. Was it you or AM who set the sampling protocols? If indeed it was Alex I am pleasantly surprised but wonder how she forgot the lessons learned in her later excursions.
No, I was not referring to you in my previous post. This person also cares about fish but is not allowed to speak publicly to many issues. Although I doubt he would be fired, he does have a young family to support and could certainly be reprimanded by Ottawa. IMO, he is more valuable to all of us who care about these things by sitting on the sidelines, using a false name. Sadly, DFO is becoming almost military in it's pathetically poor public relations department.
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Thanks Jon, your observations do indeed add clarification. Was it you or AM who set the sampling protocols? If indeed it was Alex I am pleasantly surprised but wonder how she forgot the lessons learned in her later excursions.
No, I was not referring to you in my previous post. This person also cares about fish but is not allowed to speak publicly to many issues. Although I doubt he would be fired, he does have a young family to support and could certainly be reprimanded by Ottawa. IMO, he is more valuable to all of us who care about these things by sitting on the sidelines, using a false name. Sadly, DFO is becoming almost military in it's pathetically poor public relations department.
This is the sad part as things that should get out to the public are being muzzled, that is why so many are concerned about FF's as we are not getting all the truth on what actually is going on. Thankfully we have people like Alex and many others, like Jon trying to get the truth out, especially in these days of lack of transparency by many levels of governments. Without them we, and the fish are in serious trouble on so many environmental fronts.
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I'm not sure how you can be so certain in you conclusions about our area based on their work.
I am not certain at all. I have not seen such extensive studies done here in BC. I am just wondering how you can be so certain that salmon farms are NOT harming the areas here when the work done else where suggests they have a negative impact on the sea beds. I have always maintained that the studies should have been done first, before the open net pens were allowed to operate here.
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http://www.winnipegfreepress.com/arts-and-life/life/greenpage/new-fish-virus-prompts-call-for-more-inquiry-hearings-into-bc-salmon-collapse-148888085.html
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Good on you for posting your background and profession. It would be appreciated if others on this debate would do the same, absolonn, aquapaloos, shuswapsteve, Dave etc.. Are you up to that? ;D ;D
Of course I have been retired for 14 years and worked in highway engineering for 35 years for the Provincial Government.
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I believe one of you may have once before but it would be good to state it again.
Sorry Chris, not sure how I missed this before...........