Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[moosebreath]

Re: salmon farm organic certification

This is a company that does and has not used antibiotics for just about 10 years.  If disease was such an intense issue how possibly could a company achieve a survival rate higher than 90% over two years of a cycle for each cycle all these years?  Interestingly this  90% survival rate is very similar to companies that do use antibiotics.  Go figure.

This from another board...

Unless something has recently changed, Creative Salmon holds licenses for six fish farms and is owned by five private investors. Its shares are evenly split between three Japanese and two BC owners. Anyone want to call a company three-fifths Japanese and two-fifths BC "locally owned?" That is a matter of interpretation.

 Even without any publicized escapements, you still have what is called ”leaching” where some fish just go missing from those open net pens. Their certainly is the possibility of propagation of those genetically inferior salmon with wild Chinook. I would actually take any Atlantic salmon feedlot over any company raising any kind of Pacific salmon in open net pens for that reason alone. Meaning the risk is to great to the genetics of the wild stocks and there should be NO genetically weakened Pacific salmon ever allowed in any “open net pen” – EVER!

 HOWEVER, Creative Salmon has another VERY big issue. It is called Norwegian ISAv causing their Chinook to turn jaundice and "DIE"! Think about this for a moment… They only raise Chinook salmon from their own broad stock. Creative Salmon Chinook have already been diagnosed with the Norwegians strain of ISAv! Creative Salmon very well could be actually growing their very own version of the Norwegian ISAvirus; and “may” actually now be passing it down generation to generation through their very own eggs; and “may” be passing that disease to the wild! Kind of explains all those dead jaundice salmon starting to turn up in BC, doesn’t it?

“Dr. Miller said the ISA virus has now been confirmed in numerous wild fish, and in chinook samples provided by Creative Salmon, a fish farm on Vancouver Island.”

 “Dr. Miller said her tests found a virus that is 95-per-cent similar to the European strain of ISA, which has infected farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway, Scotland, Atlantic Canada and Chile.” With “open net pens” they aren’t playing with dynamite - they are playing with nitroglycerin! You might as well go out and find a bottle of nitroglycerin and stick it your trunk, drive around, and wait for it to blow. That is exactly what they are doing with all those open net pens in BC concerning the Pacific salmon. And, it will blow!

 So, I must ask… is anyone really okay with any type of salmon “open net pens,” especially on wild salmon migration routes? To include, Creative Salmon growing Chinook salmon that can interbred? And… with already known Creative Salmon has their very own Norwegian ISAv? And disease already killing their own Chinook salmon? And those Chinook swimming around intermingling with your wild BC wild salmon?

 Concerning their “organic certification” all one has to do is look at who pushed that “organic certification” through! Ever heard of the “fox in the henhouse”?

Executive Director - Ruth Salmon (fitting last name, isn’t it?)

Board of Directors
 Clare Backman, Marine Harvest Canada
 Jonathan Barry, Breviro Caviar Inc.
 Chris Beattie, Skretting Canada
 Shelley King, Aquaculture Association of Canada
 Jerry Bidgood, Prince Edward Aqua Farms Ltd.
 Cyr Couturier, Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association / Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland
 Steve Cross, Kyuquot SEAfoods Ltd.
 Linda Duncan, Mussel Industry Council of North America
 Terry Ennis, Atlantic Aqua Farms Inc.
 Jason Mann, EWOS Canada Ltd.
 Ann Worth, PEI Aquaculture Alliance
 Nell Halse, Cooke Aquaculture Ltd.
 Angela Bishop, Aquaculture Association of Nova Scotia
 Stewart Hawthorn, Grieg Seafood BC Ltd.
 Pamela Parker, Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association
 John Rose, Icy Waters Ltd.
 Roberta Stevenson, BC Shellfish Grower's Association
 Stephen Stewart, Confederation Cove Mussels Ltd.
 Karen Tracey, Northern Ontario Aquaculture Association
 Fernando Villarroel, Mainstream Canada
 Mary Ellen Walling, BC Salmon Farmers Association
 Brian Yip, Fanny Bay Oysters

Board of Directors Executive
 President - Clare Backman, Marine Harvest Canada
 Vice-President - Terry Ennis, Atlantic Aqua Farms Inc.
 Treasurer - Cyr Couturier, Marine Institute, Memorial University of Newfoundland
 Secretary - Pam Parker, Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association

Executive Members-at-large
 John Rose, Icy Waters Arctic Charr
 Laurie Jensen, Mainstream Canada

[moosebreath]

Escapes from salmon farms are beginning to be a thing of the past through technology and regulation.

I should hope so after this fairly high number....pathetic.

"In 2006, the worst year on record, 921,000 farmed salmon escaped, according to the Norwegian Fisheries Directorate."

http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/11/18/norwegian-salmonfarmoffersbountyforescapedfish.html

[chris gadsden]

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2013/12/it-is-official-the-cfia-never-retested-my-samples.html

[Fisherbob]

http://www.mainstream-group.com/portal/wps/wcm/connect/msca-content-en/mainstream-canada/news/conflict-and-criticism/critic+spins+tale+about+isa+virus+but+leaves+out+significant+facts

[salmonrook]

[quote author=moosebreath link=topic=34512.msg330351#msg330351 date=1386357

So, I must ask… is anyone really okay with any type of salmon “open net pens,” especially on wild salmon migration routes? To include, Creative Salmon growing Chinook salmon that can interbred? And… with already known Creative Salmon has their very own Norwegian ISAv? And disease already killing their own Chinook salmon? And those Chinook swimming around intermingling with your wild BC wild salmon?

[/quote]
 How would that be different than a hatchery raised chinook interbreeding with a wild chinook?Has this ISA outbreak been been confirmed,if it has, isn't it law that they must cull their stock?
 To me at least its a native species that is here,and does not pose  the invasive species risk that is happening all over the world.

[Dave]

Dont believe everything you read on blogs salmonrook ISA, the disease, has not been found in BC or Washington State

[rjs]

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2013/12/it-is-official-the-cfia-never-retested-my-samples.html

thats nice the feds never re tested  then CFIA urged the OIE to suspend the Kibenge lab because "government labs couldn’t replicate his results."

[shuswapsteve]

Already presented in this thread:
http://www.fishingwithrod.com/yabbse/index.php?topic=32635.0
(page 30)


As for Dr. Miller's discovery of the ISA virus in Chinook samples provided by Creative Salmon there is more to that story than what you have portrayed.  First, the Dr. Miller's study of the ISA virus in those fish also found that the prevalence of that virus was the same in healthy fish as it was in sick fish.  Second, the results from that study were linked to a data from a licenced veterinarian sampled the fish and a board certified veterinary pathologist that examine sections of organs under a microscope.  This way it was obvious to see that the sick fish were sick and the healthy fish were healthy.  This suggests that whatever Dr. Miller was finding was not the cause of disease in those Chinook Salmon. (Cohen Exhibit #2078)

To add to this:

Attempts to replicate these findings by the CFIA National Reference Laboratory for ISA in Moncton, New Brunswick, were unsuccessful (Cohen Exhibit # 2004).  In addition, all the experts (Dr. Nylund, Dr. Kibenge, Dr. Miller and Ms. Gagne) during the ISA testimony at the Cohen Commission Inquiry were unanimous in declaring that we have no evidence of ISA in BC (Cohen Final Report; Vol. 2, Ch. 4. Pg 80).

Kind of explains all those dead jaundice salmon starting to turn up in BC, doesn’t it?

Really?  In 1999, Dr. Kibenge isolated a strain of ISAV from eastern Canada in farmed Coho Salmon from Chile which did not have clinical signs of ISA (Kibenge et al. 2001).  It was shown that the fish had a disease characterized by jaundice which continues to occur in Chile without any evidence of ISAv (Smith et al 2006).  This finding supports Dr. Kibenge’s conclusion that his ISAv findings in these farmed Coho “might have been coincidental” (Cohen Exhibit #2086).

Lastly, from the University of PEI Atlantic Veterinary College website:

“It is important to note that the presence of ISAv sequences in tissue samples does not necessarily mean that the actual disease, ISA, is present in the subject fish or that ISA is present in the area where the fish were collected,” said Dr. Kibenge. “Viral material can be present in animals without them actually having the associated disease. In order to confirm whether an infectious viral disease is present, further testing is required.”

The OIE definition (confirmation) of ISAv infection requires that the virus be successfully grown in cell culture. Thus, the PCR test should be viewed as a highly sensitive screening test that, if positive, is only the first diagnostic step in documenting an ISAv infection, should one exist.

http://avc.upei.ca/dr-fred-kibenge-invited-testify-bc-salmon-inquiry

References:

Kibenge FSB, Garate ON, Johnson G, Arriagada R, Kibenge MJT, Wadowska D (2001 ). Isolation and identification of infectious salmon anaemia virus (ISAV) from Coho salmon in Chile.  Dis. Aquat. Org. 45:9-18

Smith PA, Larenas J, Contreras J, Cassigoli J, Venegas C, Rojas ME, Guajardo A, Perez S, Diaz S (2006). Infectious haemolytic anaemia causes jaundice outbreaks in seawater-cultured coho salmon, Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum), in Chile.  J. Fish Dis. 29:709-715

[troutbreath]

shteve it still looks like a smear job against Morton. A shut the f up or will disqualify the lab and all the people involved. Bad cricket old boy. You might be OK with it but others would prefer something less Machiavellian.

[troutbreath]

Don't read it.  Simple.

Probably the shortest to the point you've posted. kudos

[Dave]

shteve it still looks like a smear job against Morton. A shut the f up or will disqualify the lab and all the people involved. Bad cricket old boy. You might be OK with it but others would prefer something less Machiavellian.

So TB, how would you deal with this?

[troutbreath]

Be straight forward in the first place. Like saying it's an indicator of a possible problem. Not shut down/slander other labs for presenting what they have found.

[shuswapsteve]

shteve it still looks like a smear job against Morton. A shut the f up or will disqualify the lab and all the people involved. Bad cricket old boy. You might be OK with it but others would prefer something less Machiavellian.

Smear job??  It is good to be somewhat skeptical and I realize that a person like you would be, so that is why I provided actual references to the information.  Feel free to check them out including the complete comment from the AVC (the lab that was apparently slandered) if you do not believe me.  If ISA was found in these farmed Chinook salmon from Creative then please show me.  Are Dr. Nylund, Dr. Kibenge and Dr. Miller wrong in their assessment of ISA?  They are saying something different from Ms Morton.

[shuswapsteve]

Hey TB because you replied in a respectful manner I did a little digging for you to help you understand what Miller said and what she did not in regards to those Creative farmed Chinook.  This is all found in either the Cohen transcripts or the Cohen Final Report.  In a nutshell, Dr. Miller believes that she found something that is ISAv or ISAv-like and that although it is not proven to cause mortality or disease in these farmed Chinook it appears elicit to a flu-like response in them (preliminary).  It does not mean that Dr. Miller's work was incorrect; instead, it could mean that an asymptomatic ISA-like virus has existed off our coast for some time.  This is what some of her retrospective work suggests.

Dr. Miller went on to say that, although the populations of fish from which she sampled may not be suffering disease and mortality related to ISA, there is a biologically consistent, flu-like response in them to whatever it is she is detecting with the ISA segment 7 test.(Justice Bruce Cohen; Cohen Final Report; Vol. 1, Ch. 9, pg. 465)

DR. MILLER: So it's biologically consistent that they are responding to a virus that causes an influenza kind of response. That's not to say that they're suffering disease and mortality. Cohen Transcript; Dec 15, 2011. Page 87-88

Dr. Miller's response to whether ISAv is here or not:
DR. MILLER: I wouldn't disagree with that. I mean, I think that I clearly believe that there is a virus here that is very similar to ISA virus in Europe, but we really do need to get a fuller sequence to get more information about how similar it is, given the level of discrepancy between the various different primers that we're using.  So yes, I do think that there is sequence validation that there is an ISA-like virus here.  How it gets classified I think will be determined both based on a fuller sequence and also obviously we have not established that it causes disease.  Cohen Transcript, Dec 15, 2011; page 60.

Dr. Nylund's response to whether ISAv is here or not:
Dr. NYLUND: But if you look at the situation in wild Pacific salmon that we've seen so far and the result presented by Miller here, I don't think we have seen evidence of ISA virus in Pacific salmon, so far. No hard evidence.  We have a lot of indications that the virus could be present in Pacific salmon, but there is no hard evidence. And I really would like to discuss the results presented by Miller, because I find them a bit strange, some of the results.  So I hope that maybe she could clarify something for me, because it's something I'm wondering about, if I'm allowed to ask her about how the results were obtained? Cohen Transcript, Dec 15, 2011; page 57.

Dr. Nylund's follow-up response to Miller's results:
DR. NYLUND: Yeah, well, if you look at that presentation by Miller, she has an alignment of the ISA-7 showing three fixed differences. Actually, if you look at that alignment, and I meant alignment because I have a lot of sequences in my lab that hasn't been published yet, there are seven differences in the space between the two primers and those seven differences cannot be found in Canadian or European ISA virus. But unfortunately, those differences also introduces a stop codon into this sequence, which means that it's not a functional sequence, it can't be coding for an ISA virus or another virus protein because you don't have stop codons in there. A stop codon means that it's the end of the sequence, coding sequence and this is not the end of the coding sequence for an ISA virus.

So that means that I find it hard to believe that this could be a functional sequence.  I think this could be due to unspecific annealing of the primers that are picking up something else than actually virus.  Cohen Transcript, Dec 15, 2011; page 100.

As described in the previous chapter, I find that the evidence does not allow me to conclude whether the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) or an ISAv-like virus currently exists in Fraser River sockeye. I also do not have sufficient evidence to determine
whether such an ISAv or ISAv-like virus, if present, is endemic to BC waters or has been introduced. (Justice Bruce Cohen; Cohen Final Report; Vol. 2; Ch. 5; pg. 111)

To read more of the Dec 15, 2011 testimony (including Dr. Kibenge's response to whether ISAv is here or not on page 59):
http://www.watershed-watch.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/CohenCommission-HearingTranscript-2011-12-15.pdf

[shuswapsteve]

Moosebreath, you might want to look for a new source of information.  Better yet, read the actual Cohen Final Report and related transcripts with exhibits for yourself.  Somehow Dr. Miller does not seem to agree with your source – neither does the data collected to date.  Here is some more information on Creative farmed Chinook.

DR. MILLER: And so I don't think that there's -- and there's no indication that what we're picking up as ISAV positives has any correlation with their jaundiced syndrome. There's no indication that it's causing disease, necessarily, in those fish, but we basically picked up a similar prevalence level and CT values that we see in wild migrating sockeye. Cohen Transcript Dec 15, 2011 page 53

MS. CALLAN:
26 Q: Now, your results were interesting because you didn't only have unhealthy fish testing positive for ISAV?

DR. MILLER: Yes, and I never suggested that ISAV was anything to do with this jaundice disease.

Q: Okay. And in fact, if we turn to provincial Tab 22, you'd agree that the positive ISAV PCR test results are as common in healthy fish as they are in sick fish?

DR. MILLER: Yes, I only saw this morning, but yes, again, I never came forward and suggested there was any relationship. Cohen Transcript Dec 15, 2011 page 96