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[Eagleye]

Hello

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alexandra Morton   

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

[chris gadsden]

Hello

For the past month people have been telling me that Grieg Seafood is emptying salmon farms, due to a lice epidemic that cannot be controlled with drugs.  The public is increasingly coming to me, not government with their concerns.

In this case, the federal government seems immobilized and the provincial government seems unconcerned, assuring me there is “no evidence of drug resistance”, even though their own graphs indicate otherwise. 

An remarkable group of local people decided to ground-truth the reports and we have been to Nootka and followed these farm fish as they are taken for processing.  They dove down 90’ to the plant outfall pipe, took a sample and sent it to me.  The province insists these lice are not drug-resistant, are not surviving in the trucks carrying them across Vancouver Island and are not able to escape into Discovery Pass. We found otherwise and this is a threat to the Fraser sockeye.

If these lice are indeed drug-resistant it is too late to stop their spreading, but we will continue to track them.

The film of our investigation to date is on my blog http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

Like every fish farm problem that arises in BC, drug-resistant sea lice are already a serious problem in Norway. Just last week the ex-Attorney General of Norway issued a warning to Canada about this, and strongly suggests we get Norwegian salmon farms off our wild salmon migration routes before it is too late. See my blog for this.
 
I will be speaking at the Ladner Community Center on Tuesday Feb 23 at 7 pm

[chris gadsden]

Hello

This was a ground-breaking week with NBC News, CTV, Vancouver Sun and Globe and Mail reporting on problems with Norwegian industrial salmon farming and very disheartening news from DFO that we should not expect healthy wild salmon returns this year.

There was a significant legal decision and I received a graph which seems to portray the lice levels in the Grieg Seafood fish farm that we filmed in Nootka.

Next week the Federal Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans is formed. If we don't get impact of salmon farming on their agenda the Norwegian fish farm industry will be successful again in degrading the Canadian Fisheries Act, to protect Norwegian interests at expense of threatening our salmon. So stay in close touch with your MP about this.  They are hearing from a very well-run Norwegian lobby. We don’t have those kinds of funds, but we are much more numerous.

And if you have doubts about contacting your MP there is new research showing that the politically active are the happiest people!

I have put all these links on my blog, I know you will let me know if some don’t work..... http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

Thanks to all of you,

alex

[chris gadsden]

Hello

The Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans was formed yesterday. They will have their agenda set by the 10th.  If you want them to revisit impact of salmon farming on wild fish in Canada you have two days.

There are several breaking issues that need to be dealt with swiftly such has the developing drug resistance in sea lice on both coasts and the new drugs that are being approved rapidly to try and deal with this. These drugs cannot remain in the pens and enter the ocean.

Every Atlantic salmon facility in British Columbia must be tested for the ISA virus in case it is here to prevent it from spreading to the North Pacific.

There are many issues that affect many people and I just want to let you know this opportunity exists and will close soon. I have heard the Norwegian companies are meeting with MPs to revamp the Fisheries Act to meet their needs.


The clerk is of this committee is Travis Ladoucer
 Fax: 613-992-9069
 E-mail: FOPO@parl.gc.ca
 
The MPs are:

 Rodney Weston  - Chair

Raynald Blais, Lawrence MacAuley – Vice Chair

Fin Donnelly   Member
Randy Kamp   Member


http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

[chris gadsden]

Therefore, I have decided it is time to take the issue of industrial salmon farming to the people in an unprecedented way. I have written letters, done the science, met with government and industry around the world, engaged in government processes, talked to thousands of people, been the subject of international media and films and today I stand facing a vertical wall of impenetrable denial. Nothing has brought reason to this situation. We will lose our wild salmon if government continues to carelessly put farm salmon before wild salmon every time.
 
Because there has been no significant progress in spite of this enormous effort and time spent by many, I no longer feel there is hope of reforming this industry. Government is allowing Norwegian salmon farmers to continue denying even the most basic issues, like sea lice and ISA virus introduction to the North Pacific.  If we let this play out our wild fish simply will not survive
 
So it is time for the Get Out Migration.  I am not talking about all aquaculture. I am referring specifically to the massive scale Norwegian feedlots.  There are Canadian fish farmers who know how to use tanks on land who are not impacting our wild salmon and herring. This is about saving wild salmon and all of us who depend on them.
 
I will begin deep in the beautiful Ahta River in mid April with the salmon and move by boat through the Broughton Archipelago to Sointula. On Earth day April 22 I will simply start walking to Victoria and ask people join me to stand up for wild salmon so that our politicians will know we exist. We will communicate our progress and connect the countries facing this industry through the website www.salmonaresacred.org <http://www.salmonaresacred.org>  We hold salmon as sacred because they so generously feed our world. They built the soil of this province with their flesh, they grow our children, they feed the trees that make the oxygen we breath, they are food security in a world losing ability to even pollinate flowers.
 
When we get to Victoria, we will meet with representatives from government.
 
We cannot match the corporate fish farm PR machine, nor their lobbying power. So I am simply inviting people to make themselves visible by joining us on foot, electronically and by mail.   This will be peaceful, colourful, musical, fun, family oriented. Unless we all stand up and become visible, government will continue to degrade the laws of Canada to the benefit of the salmon farming industry, as suggested in the most recent throne speech.  The salmon farming industry cannot survive unless is it free to grow relentlessly to meet their responsibility to their European shareholders. BC cannot survive this, we know we cannot pour an endless amount of fish into the ocean. We will carry a message to the Federal government – do not degrade the Fisheries Act again so that it no longer protects the fish that belong to the people of Canada.
 
Please stand up for wild salmon by joining a migration emerging from the Broughton Archipelago then leaving Sointula on 22nd April and closing with a blessing in Victoria on Mothers’ Day (9th May). If you are interested in hosting other events, leading a migration arm from the Fraser River Valley, Gold River or other places in B.C. or just joining us for one step of the way please let us know. www.salmonaresacred.org <http://www.salmonaresacred.org> This website will be active shortly.

Hope to see you on this migration.

Alexandra Morton

[chris gadsden]

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

A series of government memos reveal a heated debate in 1995 over a sea louse outbreak on a farm salmon on the Fraser sockeye migration route (Okisollo Channel). In 1995, a salmon farm requested permission to use hydrogen peroxide to treat an extremely heavy outbreak of sea lice on their fish.  When the Ministry of Environment, Parks and Lands (MELP) informed the company that their drug application would have to be released to the public, the fish farmer withdrew the request. When environmental groups found out about the sea lice outbreak, the BC Salmon Farmers Association called for an investigation of MELP and a guarantee that fish farmers had a right to secrecy in the future.
 
Sept 6, 1995 Don Peterson of MELP writes, “The company has withdrawn their application (for hydrogen peroxide) because they heard there was a requirement to advertise if a pesticide was going to be applied. I guess they were either afraid of the shareholders…or the public finding out... the company has asked that this request be kept strictly confidential and that all correspondence on the subject be destroyed.”
 
September 28, 1995 the BC Salmon Farmers Association criticized Minister Moe Sihota (MELP): “…government has an obligation to maintain confidentiality… Government is further prevented from unauthorized collection, use or disclosure of information…. puts at risk … capital investment of private citizens and individual companies…”
 
However, salmon farms operate in Canada’s public waters and impact a Canadian resource - wild fish.
 
On October 23 Earl Warnock of MELP writes, “I find it unconscionable that they (fish farmers) are only prepared to undertake measures appropriate to protect their stock health and the environment unless they can do it in a clandestine manner.... and for them and MAFF to ask us to operate with them in this way says something about the people we are dealing with.”
 
“MAFF” = Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL).
 
Either the sea lice remained on the farm fish on the Fraser sockeye migration route or they were treated without permission from MELP.
 
November 03, 1995, Bryan Ludwig, MELP writes: “…we are in the difficult position of being concerned about use of pesticides for treatment of sea lice, but also wanting to ensure we avoid a severe outbreak for fear of transfer to wild stocks.”
 
These documents reveal heroes among our MELP bureaucrats who tried to protect our wild salmon from salmon farms.  Gordon Campbell disbanded MELP as soon as he took office in 2001, and he renamed MAFF, MAL and gave them control of allocation of Crown Land. The fish farm industry did not develop a sea lice action plan, the public lost their government biologist advocates, sea lice outbreaks continue with lethal infection underway today rates on wild juvenile salmon on the Fraser migration route (Okisollo Channel)  (photos available) and Fraser sockeye stocks migrating through Okisollo Channel are in steep decline.
 
October 23, 1995 Earl Warnock MELP:  “If the truth harms their integrity perhaps they need to look at themselves…”
 
If we cannot save wild salmon in British Columbia, we do not live in a democracy.
 
All documents available at www.salmonaresacred.org, “Breaking News”

[adriaticum]

http://www.oceanfutures.org/news/blog/end-line-open-net-cage-salmon-farm

http://www.oceanfutures.org/news/blog/gift-sea

[chris gadsden]

Once again the press gets it incorrect as there was at least 4, 000 to 5,000 people at the legislature not about 1, 000 as the article in the Financial Post, bad reporting once again. Congratulations to Alex for her DSc (honoris causa) she  received the other day at Simon Fraser.

Chris

Hello Salmon People

The effort to protect our wild salmon from salmon farm pathogens, pollution and by-catch continues to grow. We are keeping abreast of the issues at:

www.salmonaresacred.org
 
Hundreds of people have been mobilized by the Get Out Migration writing letters, holding meetings, demanding answers from their politicians and the science continues. First Nations are saying this has united them more than ever in their history.  Status quo must be revised, the sockeye leaving the Fraser River are once again heavily infested with sea lice near the salmon farms and the salmon farmers have put government on notice - they will not be volunteering any further disease information again. The secrecy around salmon farm disease is a red flag and the people trying to answer why the Fraser sockeye are dying are running blind.  The Fraser sockeye decline began at the same time as salmon farm outbreaks of IHN.  IHN virus is lethal to sockeye and the fish feedlot outbreaks represent pathogen loads higher than wild sockeye have ever experienced.  See attached graph. It is unacceptable that they demand to operate in secrecy in public waters when there is clearly cause for concern.  The Governments in power have done nothing to protect BC from these disease outbreaks, in fact they have aided in the cover-up.

Our westcoast Federal Fisheries Critic, MP Fin Donnelly asked Canadian actor William Shatner to lend his star power to this issue and you can see the result at:
http://www.findonnelly.ca/

The Cohen Inquiry into the Fraser sockeye decline is under intense scrutiny for hiring people connected to DFO to investigate DFO.  Meanwhile, scientists who have worked on impact of aquaculture were rejected due to their connection to me.  However, we have the same lawyer as won our BC Supreme Court challenge, Greg McDade, and we are optimistic that this Inquiry can be a powerful process to reveal the scope of impact of salmon farms on the Fraser sockeye.    I encourage all to visit their website frequently and see the submissions.  There is one posted there now from hockey star Willie Mitchell who has a deep personal interest in salmon. http://www.commissioncohen.ca/en/

We are hopeful that this year’s Fraser sockeye return will be a big one because this lineage has shown the least decline. There are numerous Fraser sockeye runs and year-classes. These strands twist together like a rope.  If we get this strand back, we are lucky but it does not mean the ones we are losing have recovered. Each generation of salmon stands alone, but also are critically linked genetically and ecologically. They cannot thrive alone.

As the inquiry turns up the heat on salmon farming, the attacks have disintegrated to mud-slinging. Below are two links to the National Post that cast doubt on anything this paper has ever published.  The money reported in this article must include everything related to wild salmon research, I don’t believe the environmental organizations have received anything close to this for working on salmon farm issues.  As well, I have been in the middle of this for 20 years and have never been approached by Alaskan interests.  These writers are grasping at straws. Their source on this was reportedly hired by MP John Duncan, a salmon farm advocate. The scientific community is responding and we will be posting these as they come in on salmonaresacred.org

http://www.financialpost.com/news/Salmon+farm+battle+about+competition/3167822/story.html

http://www.financialpost.com/This+science+fishy/3169251/story.html  

The Cohen Inquiry funding is scant and so donations would be helpful. There is an avalanche of documents to review.  I hate asking for funds, but there is a Pay Pal button on the Salmonaresacred.org website. Since this work would be considered political by Revenue Canada there are no tax-receipts possible. My operations are frugal with no office rental and an abundance of incredible volunteers, so the tiniest donations count and go straight to the work.

Our next court date on the charges against Marine Harvest for illegal possession of wild salmon and herring is this Tuesday.  We hope the Department of Justice will appear in court and move forward on this very important case to investigate the rate of wild fish consumption by the salmon farming industry. While the DOJ has assumed our charge we have not abandoned the case.

Rising out of this fracas is Canadian landbased fish farming technology.  Farming salmon is never going to feed the world because it takes more fish than it makes, but aquaculture has a place and there are Canadian engineers, communities and organizations who are going to lead us out of this mess offering jobs and a product and technology that Canada can be proud of.  Some supermarkets, such as Overwaitea in Canada are currently sourcing land-based salmon from Washington State, which is an opportunity missed. http://www.livingoceans.org/media/news04211001.aspx  As well, one of the 4 main supermarkets in Norway, ICA, announced that fish farmers must move into closed containments within 3 years, or they will remove farmed salmon from their close to 1000 stores in Norway, Sweden and Holland.  Between disease, drug resistant lice and their markets  the fish farm industry will have to move into tanks and hopefully Canadian fish farmers who are ahead of the curve will reap the benefit.

COSTCO is a major buyer of BC farm salmon.

I was given an honorary Doctorate of Science from Simon Fraser University last week for the research I have done on salmon farm-origin sea lice.  This was an enormous personal milestone and should help those who are trying to evaluate what we know about the impact  of farm salmon on wild salmon.  Simon Fraser University has become a leader in wild salmon research, conferences and education.

There are never enough funds to do the ongoing research in the field and through the documents and so I have launched an online store to continue supporting myself www.alexandramorton.ca is a way for me to remain financially viable and keep my voice free and unencumbered.

Thank you, to all of you. Our numbers are growing, we are concerned about the people who work in the salmon farming industry, but we will continue to powerfully, peacefully and unrelentingly protect what belongs to all of us and the future – wild salmon.  Wild salmon are thriving everywhere in the North Pacific, except where there are salmon farms.

For recent juvenile sockeye/lice photo see http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/


Dr. Alexandra Morton DSc (honoris causa)

[Terry Bodman]

I talk this issue up at every opportunity. I am finding more and more people in my social circle are beginning to listen and are becoming concerned. I see some hope that this issue may be addressed and some action taken. On the other hand, maybe I am being too optimistic.