Federal government petition to end salmon farming in Canadian waters

[TheBigGuy]

Can you show me these scientific documentations of ISA (the disease) in Pacific Salmon here in BC? Are you suggesting that these "obviously very sick" fish died from ISA? If so, where is this evidence? Do you have any more information on this "large die-off" you are talking about?

Shuswap, I am personally not into the never ending procession of documentation that your type demand to prove that our wild Salmon are being infected by farmed Salmon. Any laboratory that has dared to report a positive test result of the ISA virus is stripped of their certification, and the government denies the results are valid. Basically, that only leaves the government labs to do the testing, and they won't even allow testing of the farmed Salmon for the virus.

Shuswap, I'm sure you know full well the government doesn't permit the CFIA to perform testing for the virus in live farmed Salmon. To prove a positive result that the government deems acceptable, you need access to the fish in the net pens. Without access to the fish in the farms, proving with 100% certainty to a standard the government will accept is impossible. No fish farm is going to allow an independent organization access to test their infected stock while an outbreak is occurring. If the government refuses to test fish farms for ISA, and independent testing is prohibited by the fish farms, it's a little difficult to get scientific data that the government recognizes as proof. The only testing the government will accept as valid proof of infection needs to be performed on fresh tissue samples from dying ISA virus infected fish. The standard of proof that the government requires is unobtainable from dead Salmon, and live sources are obviously not available.

Tissue testing that Ms. Morton had performed on packaged farmed Salmon purchased from grocery stores returned positives for ISA infections. Samples of dead BC Salmon Ms. Morton collected from our rivers also tested positive for the ISA virus. Of course the government denies that the results prove the Salmon were infected. The government "appropriated" the infected samples from the lab that did the tests for Ms Morton, claiming they were going to retest the samples to confirm the results. When Ms Morton pressed for the results of the government's lab tests, they reluctantly admitted that her samples were never re-tested.

You can read the following articles regarding those ISA test results, and find out what happens to a lab when they dare to report positive results.


http://commonsensecanadian.ca/morton-salmon-virus-lab-stripped-of-world-body-certification/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...d-of-credentials-after-audit/article12977743/

 

[Clint r]

Signed.

 

[agentaqua]

Can you show me these scientific documentations of ISA (the disease) in Pacific Salmon here in BC? Are you suggesting that these "obviously very sick" fish died from ISA? If so, where is this evidence? Do you have any more information on this "large die-off" you are talking about?

First thing Shuswap - the onus on providing evidence of "no effect" of any industry - is the responsibility of that industry. That's why almost all industries (with the obvious glaring exception of the fish farm industry) go through an environmental assessment.

So this "evidence" you suggest providing should come from the industry - and demonstrate that they have not been having - and will not cause measurable effects on wild salmon.

Since DFO, CFIA and the BCMoA all hide fish farm fish health from the public - it is impossible to prove/disprove what happens to wild fish when farm fish have an outbreak. That's totally why it is kept secret, I believe. I also believe that the fish farm lawyers, lobbyists and PR people know well the words: "legal liability", and "civil action" - and have successfully scared and pressured high-end government regulators into keeping this a secret.

Yes - it may be that the farmed fish were infected with a disease-causing organism from wild stocks initially - or from disease organisms/particles from another farm site - but if their bodies retransmits these disease vectors after being affected - then any wild stocks in the vicinity have an elevated risk of contracting a disease from those disease vectors. The level of that risk depends upon a number of factors including the numbers of infected fish, the shedding rate, the number of infective particles in the water, the closeness of the wild stocks, the length of time wild stocks are subjected to disease vectors, etc.

They now attach information about the survival of disease vectors to a particle flow model - and call it "agent-based" modelling - in an attempt to get a handle on that risk. This is the problem with the open net-cage technology - you really can't mitigate that risk too much - unless you know how this interaction works - and possibly move the farm site into a slightly better (less risk) spot.

So one would need to sample wild stocks concurrently with an outbreak on a farm to figure that out - and guess what - you can't do that - because "Mum's the word" on farm outbreaks.

Think they planned it that way? I do.

As far as ISA goes - if you read the peer-reviewed report that Alex and others released - you should understand why the current ISA testing regime doesn't work for ISAv HPR0: http://discoverynewvariantisav.typepad.com/files/art3a10.11862fs12985-015-0459-1.pdf

As far as evidence there was quite a bit of that - weak positives that were arbitrarily labelled by false positives by CFIA. The samples from River's Inlet and Cultus Lake are particularly worrisome as there have been dramatic and long-lasting downturns in those stock trajectories.

The arbitrary part comes from interpreting the lab results - how many cycles it takes in the PCR process before you label the results a "weak positive" verses a "false positive". If a regulator is instead worried about protecting trade, rather than wild stocks - guess what - that magic arbitrary number increases so that "weak positives" magically become a "false positive" with the stroke of a magic wand - the pen. see:
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2014/05/cover-up-isa-virus-get-a-promotion.html
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/...know-about-isa-virus-in-british-columbia.html
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/...overy-of-a-new-strain-of-isa-virus-in-bc.html
http://discoverynewvariantisav.typepad.com/

The rest of the magic trick involves PR firms and script writers - often the same ones the industry uses. They make this issue go away for everyone but the fish. The magic wand doesn't work on them.

 

[TheBigGuy]

On a related note, for all the deniers out there that claim this industry is disease free and no risk to our wild Salmon. Here is another article regarding another disease prevalent in farmed Salmon introduced to our local waters. The article is about a lawsuit filed against a local aquaculture company and the federal government for knowingly allowing the transfer of infected fish to open pens in the ocean. The licence that was issued to the company actually permits the introduction of knowingly infected fish into our oceans. The law suit by Ms Morton claimed this was in violation of federal laws. She won the law suit against the company and the federal government, but of course they are appealing.

The court found that the licence conditions at issue in the case were inconsistent with the law which prohibits the transfer of fish carrying diseases or viruses that may be harmful to conservation of wild fish.

https://www.undercurrentnews.com/20...-strikes-down-aquaculture-licence-conditions/

 

[shuswap]

Shuswap, I am personally not into the never ending procession of documentation that your type demand to prove that our wild Salmon are being infected by farmed Salmon. Any laboratory that has dared to report a positive test result of the ISA virus is stripped of their certification, and the government denies the results are valid. Basically, that only leaves the government labs to do the testing, and they won't even allow testing of the farmed Salmon for the virus.

Shuswap, I'm sure you know full well the government doesn't permit the CFIA to perform testing for the virus in live farmed Salmon. To prove a positive result that the government deems acceptable, you need access to the fish in the net pens. Without access to the fish in the farms, proving with 100% certainty to a standard the government will accept is impossible. No fish farm is going to allow an independent organization access to test their infected stock while an outbreak is occurring. If the government refuses to test fish farms for ISA, and independent testing is prohibited by the fish farms, it's a little difficult to get scientific data that the government recognizes as proof. The only testing the government will accept as valid proof of infection needs to be performed on fresh tissue samples from dying ISA virus infected fish. The standard of proof that the government requires is unobtainable from dead Salmon, and live sources are obviously not available.

Tissue testing that Ms. Morton had performed on packaged farmed Salmon purchased from grocery stores returned positives for ISA infections. Samples of dead BC Salmon Ms. Morton collected from our rivers also tested positive for the ISA virus. Of course the government denies that the results prove the Salmon were infected. The government "appropriated" the infected samples from the lab that did the tests for Ms Morton, claiming they were going to retest the samples to confirm the results. When Ms Morton pressed for the results of the government's lab tests, they reluctantly admitted that her samples were never re-tested.

You can read the following articles regarding those ISA test results, and find out what happens to a lab when they dare to report positive results.


http://commonsensecanadian.ca/morton-salmon-virus-lab-stripped-of-world-body-certification/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news...d-of-credentials-after-audit/article12977743/

You arguments are missing a lot. First, you forget the viral surveillance work done by both the Canadian and US governments the past few years. Secondly, if you haven't been involved in sampling fish for viruses and diseases then you should brush up on what is done along with the protocols and procedures. Thirdly, ISA is a federally reportable disease and roles and responsibilities that come along with that are in legislation which you should familiarize yourself with first before saying what the CFIA should do or not do. Lastly, you are missing some important details on why the AVC lab was stripped of it's ISA reference testing status and the organization (OIE) that made the decision. The Commonsense Canadian?? More like the Nonsense Canadian, in my opinion..

 

[TheBigGuy]

The link I posted with the article from the common sense Canadian was accompanied by a link from the Globe and Mail. Both articles were essentially the same, but the commonsense article was a little more in depth, so I posted both.

I did read a bit about the testing for diseases in the Study in Washington state. The industry backers were all promoting how it was a vindication of claims of infection. I would give more credence to a US study personally. I just was amazed at the figures I read they tested over 900 wild Salmon and a whopping 15 from the fish farms in the article I read. Perhaps the study wasn't concluded at that time. When I read that, I had a hard time believing the study was a good sampling of fish disease rates in Wash fish farms.

As far as any Cdn study goes, I wouldn't waste my time reading it. I'm sure it says what ever the piper calling the tune in Ottawa wants to be spread by the news and guys like you.

 

[shuswap]

First thing Shuswap - the onus on providing evidence of "no effect" of any industry - is the responsibility of that industry. That's why almost all industries (with the obvious glaring exception of the fish farm industry) go through an environmental assessment.

So this "evidence" you suggest providing should come from the industry - and demonstrate that they have not been having - and will not cause measurable effects on wild salmon.

If critics are not trusting thousands of samples to date that say otherwise then the onus should be on critics for providing this evidence of ISA. Just because you don't trust someone doesn't mean that it was done improperly.

Since DFO, CFIA and the BCMoA all hide fish farm fish health from the public - it is impossible to prove/disprove what happens to wild fish when farm fish have an outbreak. That's totally why it is kept secret, I believe. I also believe that the fish farm lawyers, lobbyists and PR people know well the words: "legal liability", and "civil action" - and have successfully scared and pressured high-end government regulators into keeping this a secret.

Diseases like ISA and IHN are federally reportable diseases. Do you see east coast fish farms hiding the fact that they had an ISA outbreak? Are these confirmed outbreaks reported to the OIE? What advantage would a fish farm here have by hiding ISA? Better yet how you hide an ISA outbreak when it's not just a few fish that die but thousands? I don't buy your argument.

Yes - it may be that the farmed fish were infected with a disease-causing organism from wild stocks initially - or from disease organisms/particles from another farm site - but if their bodies retransmits these disease vectors after being affected - then any wild stocks in the vicinity have an elevated risk of contracting a disease from those disease vectors. The level of that risk depends upon a number of factors including the numbers of infected fish, the shedding rate, the number of infective particles in the water, the closeness of the wild stocks, the length of time wild stocks are subjected to disease vectors, etc.

Yes, there are many factors that come into play on whether the host infected with a virus develops a disease or not. This is part of my argument. This is the level of understanding I do not see from Ms Morton.

As far as ISA goes - if you read the peer-reviewed report that Alex and others released - you should understand why the current ISA testing regime doesn't work for ISAv HPR0: http://discoverynewvariantisav.typepad.com/files/art3a10.11862fs12985-015-0459-1.pdf

I remember this from a past thread where I asked why these samples were not retested (apparently not repeatable at the original lab) at another independent lab. If there was concern about this virus spreading Canadian to US waters then why wasn't there any collaborative testing done in the US? If this virus was found in US waters like Washington State or Alaska does that mean that it spread from Canada? Still some questions to be answered.

As far as evidence there was quite a bit of that - weak positives that were arbitrarily labelled by false positives by CFIA. The samples from River's Inlet and Cultus Lake are particularly worrisome as there have been dramatic and long-lasting downturns in those stock trajectories.

Those that imply that the situation at Cultus is due to ISAv needs to follow the whole situation and not just bits and pieces. Cohen discusses ISAv and results in his Final Report along with a panel of experts who weighed in on those results.

 

[shuswap]

The link I posted with the article from the common sense Canadian was accompanied by a link from the Globe and Mail. Both articles were essentially the same, but the commonsense article was a little more in depth, so I posted both.

I did read a bit about the testing for diseases in the Study in Washington state. The industry backers were all promoting how it was a vindication of claims of infection. I would give more credence to a US study personally. I just was amazed at the figures I read they tested over 900 wild Salmon and a whopping 15 from the fish farms in the article I read. Perhaps the study wasn't concluded at that time. When I read that, I had a hard time believing the study was a good sampling of fish disease rates in Wash fish farms.

As far as any Cdn study goes, I wouldn't waste my time reading it. I'm sure it says what ever the piper calling the tune in Ottawa wants to be spread by the news and guys like you.

Infection and illness are two different things. Just because a host is infected doesn't necessarily mean that it will develop an illness because of it. Why would you put more credence to a US study? Do you believe they do not engage in aquaculture or have a vested interest in it? That is pretty easy to answer if you look at Puget Sound and Alaska or the fact that the US is posed to ramp up aquaculture activities in the near future. So, really muzzling of scientists here has nothing to with it because now that Harper is gone you do not believe them anyway? Sounds a bit like confirmation bias to me. Take care.

 

[TheBigGuy]

Funny no comment regarding Alexandra Morton's lawsuit against the federal govt. Apparently a federal judge was in agreement with the evidence that the smolts were diseased and had no right being in the ocean with our wild fish. From the fact they were found guilty pretty much undermines your arguement the industry is disease free and no threat to wild fish. I'm no lawyer and neither are you, I will assume the judge that made the ruling understood the risk of disease transmission to wild stocks.

 

[TheBigGuy]

At the time the studies were done the Conservatives were still in power. Institutions do not change overnight. Time will tell if the Liberals start taking protection of the environment seriously.

 

[agentaqua]

... Just because you don't trust someone doesn't mean that it was done improperly.

You are totally correct Shuswap - and just because you trust someone also doesn't mean that they are using the best methodologies to detect a disease vector, neither. Trust is developed through sharing data.. which isn't done wrt fish health and disease reporting.

You are also right that just because some people are happy with hero worship - and blind faith - it doesn't mean that the regulators are up-to-date and correct in their methodologies. If you took the time to read the latest Morton article over the science - and wanted to acknowledge the science in there - we would be having a very different debate.

It appears to me either you don't know the differences in the methodologies - or don't want to debate that wrt ISA HPR0 - because if you had to acknowledge that science - all of a sudden - the unsupported assumptions made about detecting ISA HPR0 or related variant become moot.

And that means we would have to face some uncomfortable realities...

Diseases like ISA and IHN are federally reportable diseases. Do you see east coast fish farms hiding the fact that they had an ISA outbreak? Are these confirmed outbreaks reported to the OIE? What advantage would a fish farm here have by hiding ISA? Better yet how you hide an ISA outbreak when it's not just a few fish that die but thousands? I don't buy your argument..

Then you don't understand compartmentalization and trade, then Shuswap - or how the CFIA works. Thanks for the opportunity to explain this to the rest of the forum

The East Coast is acknowledged to be an ISA-HOT zone. They can export to another "HOT" zone with their product - but not "FREE" zones with fresh product. See: http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals...mentalization/eng/1345164530104/1345164735083
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals...ts/2015-12-31/eng/1451580753172/1451580886185
http://www.inspection.gc.ca/animals...tic-movements/eng/1450122972517/1450122973466
http://www.fao.org/docrep/007/y5325e/y5325e0b.htm

The Pacific - to date - has not been declared an ISA-HOT zone wrt CFIA and compartmentalization - they can export to bot HOT and "FREE" zones - that opens up the market...wink, wink, nudge, nudge.. say no more!

What if your biggest market was an uninfected zone and you wanted to sell your fresh product there? What happens then? What happens when BC gets declared an "infected" zone?

Yes, there are many factors that come into play on whether the host infected with a virus develops a disease or not. This is part of my argument. This is the level of understanding I do not see from Ms Morton..

On an individual animal basis - the process happens in stages - or has to get through stages. We covered all of that on the other ISA thread which unfortunately seems not to have yet been transferred from the old forum software.

On a population-level - the "Risk" can be assessed and diminished by simple overarching practices - like closed containment - as an example.

I remember this from a past thread where I asked why these samples were not retested (apparently not repeatable at the original lab) at another independent lab. If there was concern about this virus spreading Canadian to US waters then why wasn't there any collaborative testing done in the US? If this virus was found in US waters like Washington State or Alaska does that mean that it spread from Canada? Still some questions to be answered..

I agree - all good questions - all need answering...

Those that imply that the situation at Cultus is due to ISAv needs to follow the whole situation and not just bits and pieces. Cohen discusses ISAv and results in his Final Report along with a panel of experts who weighed in on those results.

Yep - made recommendations using the best information that he had at the time - while DFO withheld critical info on ISA.. yep!

 

[TheBigGuy]

I'm sure Shuswap will be replying to your post shortly agentaqua, as you quoted him, and he can't resist replying to you. I've never found shuswap's posts to be anything but fit for the ignore feature in the past. However, in this thread he is actually serving a useful purpose for once. His constant posts trying to minimize the threats from fish farms are keeping this thread at the top of the new posts. Hopefully this will result in many members noticing the thread and signing the petition.

 

[BearCove]

Big Guy,

Hoping for the same thing, won't get buried.

Would be nice if Admin with put a sticky on it and keep it at the top till after the petition closes. I believe it is important enough, especially on a forum like this.

 

[Dave]

I'm sure Shuswap will be replying to your post shortly agentaqua, as you quoted him, and he can't resist replying to you. I've never found shuswap's posts to be anything but fit for the ignore feature in the past. However, in this thread he is actually serving a useful purpose for once. His constant posts trying to minimize the threats from fish farms are keeping this thread at the top of the new posts. Hopefully this will result in many members noticing the thread and signing the petition.

I don’t know if he has time to respond but I’m sure he would like to, and may yet. Due to a warmer than anticipated winter and spring, a time and temperature sensitive program he works with has been scheduled a bit earlier. He will be in the field to, wait for it ……. work with, and compile data on wild salmon populations.

Back when I was doing similar field work for extended periods of time (4-6 weeks), my primary focus was getting laid as often as possible; he may be busy right now, lol!

 

[fogged in]

Signed.

Me too signed sealed and delivered.
Loved the reference to the "Three Fish Farm Amigos" made earlier by a member.
Fact of the matter is most people believe right or wrong, disease and sea lice are out of control in open pen fish farms.
My suggestion is the Fish Farms allow Alex Morton and her team of biologists on site to do testing and inspection on a regular basis
They have nothing to hide according to the Three Amigos, or do they???
What you say "Amigos"

 

[wildthing]

why people cant see the obvious on oceans pens.
give them the choice take it on land or drop Atlantic's on the west coast
and fund the hatcheries with coho and springs give the commercial guys openings on the returns
and every body wins
and if they don't like it tell the Norwegian companies to go back home

signed and support

 

[bigdogeh]

it's interesting that on the east coast the commercial lobstermen are in an uproar (and deservedly so) due to the "slice" and other chemicals used to try to prevent sea-lice. they've been shown to not only kill or harm sea lice but it also kills lobsters and other crustaceans as well. and on this coast it kills shrimp and other crustaceans. we see very noticeable declines of shrimp and crab, up in tahsis, nootka sound area etc and it makes you wonder how much of it is related to "slice" emanating from the fish farms feeding into that region. and I'm sure others have noticed declines in other areas as well. alot has probably due to commercial overfishing, but I would bet a lot is due to this toxic chemical (poison). from what I've read this was a pretty controlled chemical at one time. but seems to have been given free reign to the fish farms to use. I'd like to hear the industries (and governments) comments on that. as far as I know slice also effects krill, barnacles, crab, shrimp, and other crustaceans. and apparently people may be ingesting this chemical as well now when consuming fish.

http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/s...ironmental-impacts/chemical-treatments-slice/

what are your thoughts on this shuswap? is this OK in your mind also?


Since 2005, salmon farmers in BC have used an average of 7,240 kilograms of SLICE per year to treat lice-infested fish – showing a steady dependency on the drug.3
3 BC Ministry of Environment

 

[fshnfnatic]

Signed as well.These things gotta go!

 

[TheBigGuy]

Big Guy,

Hoping for the same thing, won't get buried.

Would be nice if Admin with put a sticky on it and keep it at the top till after the petition closes. I believe it is important enough, especially on a forum like this.

Yes, it would definitely be nice if this thread was made a sticky. Let's hope it is.

 

[Cuba Libre]

Signed......