How close in proximity were you sampling to these farms? How long did you observe the fish in NATURAL conditions (not hanging off the end of a dock in high densities and abnormal temps) to see if the sea lice had any effect? What methods did you use for sampling these fish?
As close as 35-50 meters from the farm, probably at Glacier Falls in the Broughton fish farm was the closest sampling site. I'm not sure what you mean by observing the fish in NATURAL conditions. There are no docks where samples were taken, I can assure you we didn't hang off the end of any docks to do our sampling...
. We were sampling juvenile pink and chum salmon in high density schools around pens using 130' x 8' beach seines. The methods were to sample entire schools with our seines. We were always successful in getting a school in its entirety. From the school we pursed the net and sub-sampled with large dip nets, transferred them into 60L holding tanks and then randomly selected individual fish from each with smaller dip nets. The juveniles were then put into plastic bags with just enough water for them to breath, then held up to a hand lens for parasite enumeration. Other information was taken from each juvenile (Species, FL, predator scars, motile-scars, etc). The fish then went into a recovery tank and afterwards returned to the ocean. Other work that had consistent results with ours was being conducted around our sampling sites and involved preserving fish in ethanol and enumerating lice by microscopy back at the lab.
If you look at much of the research done, it clearly shows that all salmon after a certain size (which they attain in less than a wk of being in freshwater) can shake lice off or shed lice off without much of a negative effect.
You won't see any argument from me about this. We are, however, talking about juvenile salmon when we bring up the topic of farm-wild parasite transfer.. and juveniles don't migrate back to the fresh water..
If you don't think I have seen closed containment, then once again you need to give your head a shake. I worked in a brand new research recirculation facility funded by the government for 2 years while I went to VIU. I'm not saying closed containment fish farming can't be done. The problem is the cost associated with raising salmon. Freshwater fish are no problem, salt water fish are the problem. To transport salt water, chill it, etc is much too expensive. Even if they went to the measures to make all farms closed containment, the next thing you guys would be complaining about is the effluent.
What I glean from this is that you have experience working at a closed-containment facility, but also that it's not feasible because it is too expensive. Is the price of transporting salt water, chilling it etc worth the cost of imperiling our wild fish?
Next, you say farms don't pay for anything at all? Many of these companies are the only reason there are eel grass beds being restored and/or being put into many estuaries. These companies constantly donate money for research to make less of an impact, and will try and help wild salmon as much as they possibly can by donating for research/restoration projects. If you don't believe me maybe look into it a little bit.
Here you claim that the ONLY reason eel grass beds are being restored are because of fish farms. Fish farming companies improving wild habitat is largely a strategy to improve their public image. This is similar to what Kinder Morgan does with local streamkeeper organizations. Also - they aren't the only ones restoring eel grass beds, there are NGO's and other volunteer groups raising awareness and volunteering to preserve these types of habitats. One of the farm sites (Sir Edmund Bay) was ideal eel grass habitat, but there was a giant dead-zone around the farm. This farm was decommissioned by the end of our sampling season.
And your right, multi species integrated aquaculture is most definitely the way of the future. Many people are looking at raising fin fish in pens, surrounded by bivalves and seaweeds to filter out waste, and also having sea cucumbers at the bottom of the pens to filter out waste that drops to the ocean floor. Land based operations are using settling ponds with various plant species to help filter out waste (and to sell the plants) while they grow out fish.
We're on the same page here, it's what we should be doing..
And like I said... there are MANY places where they have scientists telling people not to fish on stocks, along with catch limits and such. In the end it all comes down to money and the government will ignore scientists and allow fishing any ways and people will poach, etc. If you're convinced that DFO will do a good job managing the stocks, then more power to you, but I would put trust in someone who says "too many fish will clog spawning grounds, we need to harvest a few million." Shows how educated they are eh.
I work for a regulatory agency, and an enormous amount of work is done each year to establish test fishery data complete with stock identification profiles based on genetic and scale-based racial analysis as well as hydroacoustic abundance estimates and other metrics to manage the fishery. The information is gathered in-season and management decisions are made with the most current data available. If you do not believe in the mechanisms in place to protect the resource, then you are the problem to begin with. I can't imagine living with such a pessimistic view about humanity.
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Topic: Fun with Mrs. Alaxandra Morton (Read 23209 times)