Little Hawk
Active Member
Howdy,
Thought I'd post this on Alex's behalf.
Please forgive all the stupid arrow-things...
Alexandra Morton wrote:
> *Message from Alexandra Morton in Norway, disease and sea lice are not under
> control in Norwegian salmon farms and BC stands to lose all
>
> *I have been in Norway for 10 days because 92% of fish farming in British
> Columbia is Norwegian owned. I have met with many Norwegian scientists, members
> of the Mainstream and Marine Harvest boards, been to their AGMs, toured the area
> with fishermen, examined a closed-containment facility, met the Norwegians
> fighting for their fish and joined a scientific cruise.
>
> I thought Norway had this industry handled and I expected to learn how marine
> salmon farming could work, but this has not been the case. My eyes have really
> been opened. This industry still has *major* issues that are growing and has no
> business expanding throughout the temperate coastlines of the world. The way
> they have been treating sea lice in Norway has caused high drug resistance. The
> only solution in sight is increasingly toxic chemicals. In the past two years
> (2007, 8) sea lice levels have actually increased on both the farm and wild
> fish. The scientists I met with are holding their breath to see if
> drug-resistant sea lice populations will explode and attack the last wild salmon
> and sea trout. The same treatment methods have been used in BC and we can
> expect this to occur as well.
>
> I am not hearing how the industry can possibly safeguard British Columbia from
> contamination with their ISA virus. Infectious Salmon Anemia is a salmon virus
> that is spreading worldwide, wherever there are salmon farms. In Chile, the
> Norwegian strain of ISA has destroyed 60% of the industry, 17,000 jobs and
> unmeasured environmental damage. The industry is pushing into new territory. If
> this gets to BC no one can predict what it will do to the Pacific salmon and
> steelhead, it will be unleashed into new habitat and we know this is a very
> serious threat to life.
>
> Professor Are Nylund head of the Fish Diseases Group at the University of
> Bergen, Norway, reports that, “based on 20 years of experience, I can guarantee
> that if British Columbia continues to import salmon eggs from the eastern
> Atlantic infectious salmon diseases, such as ISA, will arrive in Western Canada.
> Here in Hardangerfjord we have sacrificed our wild salmon stocks in exchange for
> farm salmon. With all your 5 species of wild salmon, BC is the last place you
> should have salmon farms.”
>
> New diseases and parasites are being identified. The most serious is a sea lice
> parasite that attacks the salmon immune system. There is concern that this new
> parasite is responsible for accelerating wild salmon declines. The Norwegian
> scientists agree with many of us in BC. If you want wild salmon you must reduce
> the number of farm salmon. There are three options.
>
> The future for salmon farming will have to include:
>
> * permanently reduction of not just the number of sea lice, but also the
> number of farm salmon per fjord,
> * removing farm salmon for periods of time to delouse the fjords and not
> restocking until after the out-migration of the wild salmon and sea trout.
> * But where wild salmon are considered essential they say the only certain
> measure is to *_remove_* the farms completely.
>
>
> There are many people here like me. I met a man who has devoted his life to the
> science of restoring the Voss River, where the largest Atlantic salmon in the
> world, a national treasure, have vanished due to sea lice from salmon farms.
> Interestingly he is using the method I was not allowed to use last spring...
> Towing the fish past the farms out to sea. Another man is working with
> scientists and communities to keep the sea trout of the Hardangerfjord alive.
> There are so many tragic stories familiar to British Columbia.
>
> The corporate fish farmers are unrelenting in their push to expand. With Chile
> so highly contaminated with the Norwegian strain of ISA all fish farmed coasts
> including Norway are threatened with expansion. I made the best case I could to
> Mainstream and Marine Harvest for removing the salmon feedlots from our wild
> salmon migration routes, but they will not accept that they are harming wild
> salmon. They say they want to improve, but they don’t say how. Norway has
> different social policies which include encouraging people to populate the
> remote areas and so fish farming seemed a good opportunity to these people. BC
> has the opposite policy, but the line that fish farms are good for small coastal
> communities has been used in BC anyway. I have not seen any evidence that it has
> even replaced the jobs it has impacted in wild fisheries and tourism.
>
> It is becoming increasingly clear to protect wild Pacific salmon from the virus
> ISA the BC border absolutely has to be closed to importation of salmon eggs
> immediately and salmon farms MUST be removed from the Fraser River migration
> routes and any other narrow waterways where wild salmon are considered valuable.
>
> Our letter asking government that the /Fisheries Act, /which is the law in
> Canada be applied to protect our salmon from fish farms has been signed by
> 14,000 people to date at www.adopt-a-fry.org <http://www.adopt-a-fry.org> has
> still not been answered.
>
> Please forward this letter and encourage more people to sign our letter to
> government as *it is building a community of concerned people word wide* and we
> will prevail as there is really no rock for this industry to hide under any longer.
>
>
> Alexandra Morton
>
Thought I'd post this on Alex's behalf.
Please forgive all the stupid arrow-things...
Alexandra Morton wrote:
> *Message from Alexandra Morton in Norway, disease and sea lice are not under
> control in Norwegian salmon farms and BC stands to lose all
>
> *I have been in Norway for 10 days because 92% of fish farming in British
> Columbia is Norwegian owned. I have met with many Norwegian scientists, members
> of the Mainstream and Marine Harvest boards, been to their AGMs, toured the area
> with fishermen, examined a closed-containment facility, met the Norwegians
> fighting for their fish and joined a scientific cruise.
>
> I thought Norway had this industry handled and I expected to learn how marine
> salmon farming could work, but this has not been the case. My eyes have really
> been opened. This industry still has *major* issues that are growing and has no
> business expanding throughout the temperate coastlines of the world. The way
> they have been treating sea lice in Norway has caused high drug resistance. The
> only solution in sight is increasingly toxic chemicals. In the past two years
> (2007, 8) sea lice levels have actually increased on both the farm and wild
> fish. The scientists I met with are holding their breath to see if
> drug-resistant sea lice populations will explode and attack the last wild salmon
> and sea trout. The same treatment methods have been used in BC and we can
> expect this to occur as well.
>
> I am not hearing how the industry can possibly safeguard British Columbia from
> contamination with their ISA virus. Infectious Salmon Anemia is a salmon virus
> that is spreading worldwide, wherever there are salmon farms. In Chile, the
> Norwegian strain of ISA has destroyed 60% of the industry, 17,000 jobs and
> unmeasured environmental damage. The industry is pushing into new territory. If
> this gets to BC no one can predict what it will do to the Pacific salmon and
> steelhead, it will be unleashed into new habitat and we know this is a very
> serious threat to life.
>
> Professor Are Nylund head of the Fish Diseases Group at the University of
> Bergen, Norway, reports that, “based on 20 years of experience, I can guarantee
> that if British Columbia continues to import salmon eggs from the eastern
> Atlantic infectious salmon diseases, such as ISA, will arrive in Western Canada.
> Here in Hardangerfjord we have sacrificed our wild salmon stocks in exchange for
> farm salmon. With all your 5 species of wild salmon, BC is the last place you
> should have salmon farms.”
>
> New diseases and parasites are being identified. The most serious is a sea lice
> parasite that attacks the salmon immune system. There is concern that this new
> parasite is responsible for accelerating wild salmon declines. The Norwegian
> scientists agree with many of us in BC. If you want wild salmon you must reduce
> the number of farm salmon. There are three options.
>
> The future for salmon farming will have to include:
>
> * permanently reduction of not just the number of sea lice, but also the
> number of farm salmon per fjord,
> * removing farm salmon for periods of time to delouse the fjords and not
> restocking until after the out-migration of the wild salmon and sea trout.
> * But where wild salmon are considered essential they say the only certain
> measure is to *_remove_* the farms completely.
>
>
> There are many people here like me. I met a man who has devoted his life to the
> science of restoring the Voss River, where the largest Atlantic salmon in the
> world, a national treasure, have vanished due to sea lice from salmon farms.
> Interestingly he is using the method I was not allowed to use last spring...
> Towing the fish past the farms out to sea. Another man is working with
> scientists and communities to keep the sea trout of the Hardangerfjord alive.
> There are so many tragic stories familiar to British Columbia.
>
> The corporate fish farmers are unrelenting in their push to expand. With Chile
> so highly contaminated with the Norwegian strain of ISA all fish farmed coasts
> including Norway are threatened with expansion. I made the best case I could to
> Mainstream and Marine Harvest for removing the salmon feedlots from our wild
> salmon migration routes, but they will not accept that they are harming wild
> salmon. They say they want to improve, but they don’t say how. Norway has
> different social policies which include encouraging people to populate the
> remote areas and so fish farming seemed a good opportunity to these people. BC
> has the opposite policy, but the line that fish farms are good for small coastal
> communities has been used in BC anyway. I have not seen any evidence that it has
> even replaced the jobs it has impacted in wild fisheries and tourism.
>
> It is becoming increasingly clear to protect wild Pacific salmon from the virus
> ISA the BC border absolutely has to be closed to importation of salmon eggs
> immediately and salmon farms MUST be removed from the Fraser River migration
> routes and any other narrow waterways where wild salmon are considered valuable.
>
> Our letter asking government that the /Fisheries Act, /which is the law in
> Canada be applied to protect our salmon from fish farms has been signed by
> 14,000 people to date at www.adopt-a-fry.org <http://www.adopt-a-fry.org> has
> still not been answered.
>
> Please forward this letter and encourage more people to sign our letter to
> government as *it is building a community of concerned people word wide* and we
> will prevail as there is really no rock for this industry to hide under any longer.
>
>
> Alexandra Morton
>
