Fish Farm trouble in BC.

[Whole in the Water]

Could you please define the process" peer reviewed"?

Sure, here are some definitions and why it is important.

Merriam Webster Dictionary:
Definition of peer review
:a process by which something proposed (as for research or publication) is evaluated by a group of experts in the appropriate field
—
peer-review
play \ˈpir-ri-ˈvyü\transitive verb

Wikipedia: Peer review is the evaluation of work by one or more people of similar competence to the producers of the work (peers). It constitutes a form of self-regulation by qualified members of a profession within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards of quality, improve performance, and provide credibility. In academia, scholarly peer review is often used to determine an academic paper's suitability for publication. Peer review can be categorized by the type of activity and by the field or profession in which the activity occurs, e.g., medical peer review.

Why peer reviewed research is important to the scientific method:

Purpose
The process is designed to prevent dissemination of irrelevant findings, unwarranted claims, unacceptable interpretations, and personal views. It relies on colleagues that review one another’s work and make an informed decision about whether it is legitimate, and adds to the large dialogue or findings in the field. The process is considered essential, but has also been criticized as slow, ineffective and misunderstood.
http://teachingcommons.cdl.edu/cdip/facultyresearch/Definitionandpurposeofpeerreview.html

Peer review means that a board of scholarly reviewers in the subject area of the journal, review materials they publish for quality of research and adherence to editorial standards of the journal, before articles are accepted for publication. If you use materials from peer-reviewed publications they have been vetted by scholars in your field for quality and importance. https://library.sdsu.edu/reference/news/what-does-peer-review-mean

Reviewers play a central role in scholarly publishing. Peer review helps validate research, establish a method by which it can be evaluated, and increase networking possibilities within research communities. Despite criticisms, peer review is still the only widely accepted method for research validation. https://www.elsevier.com/reviewers/what-is-peer-review

Here is a flowchart of what it can look like:

The peer review process

 

[bones]

Right... It proves the science was conducted properly. If doesn't prove its factual. In other words, where is the proof that fish farms are destroying wild stocks?
If this is hard to understand then here, studies show that wild salmon are dieing to predators, to help understand and prove this they have lots of dead wild salmon in seal poop. What does or do you have to show me dead wild salmon from the farm industry?

 

[bones]

Now.... How are out going smolts through the jaun de fucca dieing from sea lice in the Broughton? How is nootka sounds declining salmon numbers affected by Broughton sealice?

 

[agentaqua]

If pink salmon can swim around fully infected then why not or why are Chinook or Coho wild adults not infected?

Who said they weren't?Maybe you can provide some evidence for your rather weak assertion?

If sea lice are killing wild salmon then were are all the dead salmon?

Well, either predators eat them - or they sink and die. In any event - otta sight - otta mind. That's why we need public fish health real-time reporting with geographic co-ordinates - thanks for affirming that.

Really? What farm? Thought by law they were denied access to farms?

Dr. Kristi Miller-Saunders (Head of Molecular Genetics, Pacific Biological Station, Department of Fisheries and Oceans): http://www.ourcommons.ca/DocumentViewer/en/42-1/FOPO/meeting-38/evidence
When I started down this path of research in 2012, I was told by an upper manager, who's no longer with the department, that it was irresponsible to ask research questions that could potentially result in negative economic ramifications on an industry if we did not already know the answer. At the time, my lab was developing very powerful technology that could simultaneously quantitate 47 different pathogens—viruses, bacteria, and fungal parasites—in 96 fish at once. We had populated this platform with assays to virtually all the infectious agents that were known or suspected to be pathogenic in salmon worldwide, including many that were associated with emerging diseases in other parts of the world but that had never been assessed in Canada. The manager was concerned that by employing this technology, we would make our salmon in B.C. look dirty, and impact their economic value in the market, and that if we uncovered agents that were not known to be endemic, ENGOs and the public would immediately point to the aquaculture industry as the culprit. As such, the attitude was don't look closely, especially for things that we didn't know already were there. It took almost two years to get approval to go ahead with this technology, which we are now employing on over 26,000 wild, enhanced, and farmed salmon in B.C.

At present, the department relies heavily on information that the industry provides to determine, for example, what pathogens and diseases to focus risk assessments on. There are not, to date, any provisions to enable scientists to conduct risk assessments to sample fish on farms unless the industry agrees to provide them. With those agreements, the industry generally retains some level of control over how the information is analyzed and interpreted. The exception is the regulatory audit program, whereby the aquaculture management division collects samples of normal daily mortalities from farms that are randomly selected for sampling. When the industry was regulated by the Province of B.C., they had a right of refusal to provide these samples, but that changed when the federal government took the lead. My research program is the first to be allowed access to these audit samples for research purposes, and I'm extremely—

Now.... How are out going smolts through the jaun de fucca dieing from sea lice in the Broughton?

Who said they were? In fact you raise an interesting point about the Harrison returns:

How is nootka sounds declining salmon numbers affected by Broughton sealice?

Not by Broughton sealice - by Nootka sealice:

 

[Whole in the Water]

Q

Right... It proves the science was conducted properly. If doesn't prove its factual. In other words, where is the proof that fish farms are destroying wild stocks?
If this is hard to understand then here, studies show that wild salmon are dieing to predators, to help understand and prove this they have lots of dead wild salmon in seal poop. What does or do you have to show me dead wild salmon from the farm industry?

Wrong... Science does deal with facts that is why it is called science and uses the scientific method. It is not about doing properly conducted research on myths, beliefs, opinions, rumours, gossip, intuition, etc.

Why not read the article(s), to honestly try to understand what is being stated, look at the data and what it indicates and/or proves. If one doesn't what does that say about being close minded?

After this if you are still unconvinced than provide peer reviewed, published research to refute it. Otherwise one's comments are just biased, personal opinions based upon cherry picked responses that suits a particular bias.

 

[bones]

But it doesn't factually connect sealice to the death of salmon. I'm not saying the science is wrong. I'm asking how you connect dead salmon to sealice. Btw where is the evidence?

 

[agentaqua]

But it doesn't factually connect sealice to the death of salmon. I'm not saying the science is wrong. I'm asking how you connect dead salmon to sealice. Btw where is the evidence?

Bones - if you took the time to read even the abstracts of many of the dozens and dozens of references I posted earlier on this thread - you would have seen the answers to your question. There are many different facets/options to generating data/evidence for this - including, but not limited to: direct observations of sea lice numbers on wild juveniles; mortality/morbidity studies looking at death, reduction in swimming ability, stress-related chemicals and genomics studies in the labs & in the wild; and population studies/stock trajectories. I encourage you to go back and read those posts - or even the studies those posts refer to.

 

[bones]

Well, either predators eat them - or they sink and die. In any event - otta sight - otta mind. That's why we need public fish health real-time reporting with geographic co-ordinates - thanks for affirming that.

So what is it then? Predators or are they sinking? Where is the peer reviewed science paper? Where's the dead fish? Millions die every year and yet you can show the connection from sealice to dead smolts. Your implying this happens.

Not by Broughton sealice - by Nootka sealice:

So what your saying is the wild salmon stocks across the province are dieing due to sealice outbreaks every where, and yet no dead sealice covered smolts. Just a couple swimming in a jar.

Who said they weren't?Maybe you can provide some evidence for your rather weak assertion?

I did you ignored it.........the industry hired people to study this. Apparently a scientist is only a scientist pending who pays him

 

[agentaqua]

Swimming ability (burst speed, and distance swimming/time) is affected by host health, and energy reserves. Lice and other disease-causing organisms can affect fish health and energy reserves. If a predator chases a school of fish - the ones that would likely be caught would be the more affected ones. I doubt if this is a big surprise to most of the posters on these forums. This effect is well-known and well-supported:
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eva.12164/epdf

Also, fish most commonly sink when they die - I also doubt if this is a big surprise to most of the posters on these forums. Once they sink - they most likely will be eaten by some critter(s) that live on the ocean floor.

Otta site - otta mind (for some).

And - NO - I believe I have been pretty consistent in posting that impacts from the open net-cage salmon industry are but one set of impacts - but ones that we can and should do something about - esp. lice and disease transfer. The impacts by open net-cage industry operations include impacts due to lice loading (from FF fish - which is why they monitor and treat at trigger levels now) on the early marine entry wild juvenile salmon - which are most at risk due to their small size and the fact that they hang-out near the FF sites for extended periods of time. As mentioned - the metric to watch is number of lice per gram of host weight - as an average and attached to prevalences. All this in the many articles I posted.

Instead of desperately hoping that the many dozens of peer-reviewed articles I posted are wrong - and written by dozens of authors/scientists and carried-out by hundreds of researchers - maybe you could read a few of them. It might answer your questions - although I doubt that mere science could change your mind - although - speaking of "hope" - I hope I am wrong in this belief.

PS - Where is your evidence to support your assertion that: "why are Chinook or Coho wild adults not infected?" Even more pertinent - where is your industry's evidence that they DON'T harm wild salmon? Your turn!

 

[shuswap]

Who said they weren't?Maybe you can provide some evidence for your rather weak assertion?

Not by Broughton sealice - by Nootka sealice:

Well if we are going to talk about “weak assertions” the top graphic rates very high on the list. It has surfaced here many times on the forum, but it doesn’t get any more informative, in my opinion. This is a very common graphic used by prominent open net pen fish farm critics in the media to make their argument, but it’s misleading and paints a very simplistic view of an issue that can’t be described in a picture. It also ignores other information for context. While it’s true that Harrison Sockeye have been on a different trajectory when compared to other Fraser Sockeye CUs they have fallen well short of brood the last 3 years which is similar in many respects to other Fraser Sockeye CUs. Critics never mention this and it’s for good reason because their quasi-correlation begins to fall apart. The other myth spread from this graphic is that Harrison Sockeye do not experience prespawn mortality. That is 100% false.

The term “healthy” is also misleading because if we recall testimony from Dr. Randell Peterman during the Cohen Inquiry he said that Sockeye spawning streams from southeast Alaska down to Washington State have been producing fewer and fewer adults each year for the last 6 decades.

https://www.watershed-watch.org/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Exh-748-Final.pdf

Where is that reflective in the first graphic? Like c’mon. It’s hard to have a honest and constructive dialogue with many farm critics when they cherry pick what they want to believe. Instead it’s just an endless loop of the same old arguments and labelling. That’s why I have avoided this thread. I would rather engage in the one about forecasting where it’s not so heated and OBD doesn’t call me a lobbyist. I agree that the environmental assessment process could be better though.

“Maybe there’s a bit more to this” should be what critics should be saying. You guys can go back to your slugfest now. Lol

 

[terrin]

2.3 million litres of pesticide for Cermaq in Clayquot Sound because there are no Sea Lice problems. https://actions.sumofus.org/a/minis...2&referring_akid=36550.12657.lWvSTR&source=fb This is disgusting.

 

[bones]

PS - Where is your evidence to support your assertion that: "why are Chinook or Coho wild adults not infected?" Even more pertinent - where is your industry's evidence that they DON'T harm wild salmon? Your turn!

already have show industry evidence (few pages back), if you could wait a couple weeks for peer review process on the latest study. it shows fish farms are not affecting wild salmon stocks to the degree that you claim

 

[agentaqua]

already have show industry evidence (few pages back), if you could wait a couple weeks for peer review process on the latest study. it shows fish farms are not affecting wild salmon stocks to the degree that you claim

alright - what is the "degree" you think I claim - verses say - the already accumulated evidence I posted already on this thread?

 

[bones]

funny game..... if fish farms kill or are responsible for killing wild stocks then why is it that everyone has moved on? could you comment on the recent findings from the salish sea project?

 

[agentaqua]

ya - I really don't think it is a "game" wrt protecting wild stocks - although that may be the perspective for industry pundits and PR people. Which people do you identify as "moving-on" over FF impacts - the FF people? certainly not the many hundreds of researchers which I posted their peer-reviewed results on this thread. So far you have provided exactly ZERO contradictory science. can't say I believe that will change much, neither.

 

[agentaqua]

Thanks for agreeing about the lack of environmental assessments, Shuswap. The figures I inserted were handy to show migration routes and FF sites - in answering Bone's questions re: the Broughton's and Nootka sea lice. The Harrison debate was part of Morton's assertions - and all I can say - is that it is an interesting debate that needs more data/study.

 

[terrin]

MONITORING AND MODELLING OF SEA LICE INTERACTION WITH WILD AND FARMED SALMON IN THE BROUGHTON ARCHIPELAGO
This project has helped to improve our understanding of the interactions of sea lice with wild and farmed fish. The results of this research will help inform decisions on the siting and management of finfish aquaculture sites in BC and support the long term health of wild fish populations and the fish farm industry.

The interaction of sea lice with farmed salmon and wild salmon has been the focus of international concern for at least a decade. Health and growth performance issues associated with sea lice infestations continue to be a significant concern for the salmon farming industry globally, driving the implementation of preventative measures in areas where there is the threat of infestation. This project developed a predictive model of the distribution of sea lice originating from fish farms and estimated the number of encounters of out-migrating salmon with sea lice. It also established statistically robust models to capture associations between the sea lice burden on wild fish and conditions on BC fish farms. Modelling was used to associate factors such as year, month, type of seine gear used, fish species, and fish length to the presence of sea lice on wild chum and pink salmon. Using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) software, trajectory maps (maps which show the direction and distance of particle movement) and particle density maps were generated for fish farm locations in the Broughton, as well as corresponding fish farm connectivity tables (tables which describe the overlap of particle exchange between farms).

Apr. 2012–Mar. 2014

Funded By: DFO – Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (DFO – ACRDP) Co-Funded By: Marine Harvest Canada; Grieg Seafood BC; Mainstream Canada

Project Lead: Peter Chandler (DFO)

Collaborators: Marine Harvest Canada; Grieg Seafood BC; Mainstream Canada

Contact: Peter.Chandler@dfo-mpo.gc.ca

www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/science/enviro/aquaculture/acrdp-pcrda/index-eng.htm

The Broughton Archipelago area showing the locations of fish farms and the sites sampled during the 2012 monitoring program.
Paid for by the DFO and Fish Farm companies. Seems like a conflict to me but also don't find the results of this posted anywhere. By the looks of things they were sampling far and wide from the actual Fish Farm sites which to me would ingicate the degree to which they are having an impact on the Wild Salmon smolts.

 

[fogged in]

funny game..... if fish farms kill or are responsible for killing wild stocks then why is it that everyone has moved on? could you comment on the recent findings from the salish sea project?

Hey Bones
Why would you say "everyone has moved on? "
No one has moved on.
To debate with you is insane!
I was trying hard not to post any more due to this however cannot help myself
Did you see todays story in today Times Colonist ...typical of Fish Farm reckless attitude.

Thousands of bags foul park shores
Kept in dark, say Pacific Rim communities
Parks Canada is investigating after thousands of plastic aquaculture bags washed ashore on islands in Pacific Rim National Park southeast of Ucluelet. The MP for the area and a local environmental group are asking why it took a week to make the incident public.
The federal parks agency discovered on Nov. 10 that large bags, used to hold aquaculture feed, washed up on several islands in the Broken Group Islands.
“Parks Canada takes this issue very seriously and has begun cleaning up the debris within the national park reserve,” the agency said in a statement.
Parks Canada did not identify the company responsible and did not say if the bags came from a fish farm.
Gord Johns, NDP MP for Courtenay-Alberni, said he’s upset that First Nations communities and local cleanup organizations were not informed of the plastic spill.
“We want to know the details. What is their cleanup plan? How are they going to pay for it? When are they going to clean it up?” Johns asked. “We have cleanup volunteers who are ready to go. To not communicate with them is just really shameful and very disappointing.”
About 2,000 bags have been removed from four of the inner islands, but Parks Canada said stormy weather has made it challenging to reach all areas of the Broken Group Islands. The agency said it will “continue to assess the scope of the incident and clean up debris within the park reserve as weather permits.”
Surfrider Foundation, an environmental advocacy group that organizes beach cleanups, has contacted Parks Canada to offer assistance with the cleanup, said the group’s chair Michelle Hall.
Large plastic bags can break down into microplastics that become near-impossible to remove from sensitive ecosystems, Hall said.
The incident underscores the need for a strategy to combat plastic pollution, including plastic bag bans, she said.
Johns has tabled a motion in the House of Commons calling on the government to dedicate annual funding for marine debris cleanups and for a national strategy on ocean plastics. “The government keeps touting its world-class ocean protection plan, but it’s invisible when it comes to cleaning up marine debris and cleaning up ocean plastics.”
Alexandra Morton, an aquaculture critic and biologist, said she hopes Parks Canada carries out a thorough investigation that holds the offending company responsible. “I just hope they do a serious investigation and figure out where [the bags] came from and charge them,” she said. “The release of plastics is in no way a minor incident.”

 

[bigdogeh]

I was glancing through some news clips earlier today and noticed that headline.. I kinda said to myself at the time... Geez, it's bad enough we have these fish farms sprouting up all over the place with their untreated industrial pollution, disease, viruses, etc and now we have 1000's of plastic bags polluting our inside waters...
I didn't realize at the time they may have been from a fish farm as I had only read the headline, but after reading this it really doesn't surprise me at all...


Maybe bones and a few FF supporters have "moved on" in their FF fantasy land (move along, nothing to see here...) but I don't think too many other people who know what's going on with this industry and the damage it is doing have... (thankfully)

 

[agentaqua]

I don't get why the farm didn't send a couple guys out in a skiff to pick up their mess right away.