Norway Study Recommends Moving to Closed Containment Salmon Farms

[Whole in the Water]

Hello Net Pen Fish Farm Supporters! Curious if you agree, or disagree with the findings and recommendations of this study?

Link to the study: http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine Policy salmon overview 2010.pdf
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Excerpt from The Tyee, Aug. 31, 2016 that refers to the above mentioned study:
"Corporate fish farms raising Atlantic salmon have created controversy in Norway, Chile, Scotland and Canada due to pollution, epidemics, escapees and viral disease exchanges that have resulted in steady declines of local wild fish populations.

A 2010 study of the industry’s impact on Norway’s wild salmon concluded “it seems clear that salmon farming is the main threat to the viability of wild salmon due to spread of diseases, escapees, environmental pollution, etc.”

As a result, the embattled Norwegian arm of the industry recently announced it is prepared to invest $100 million in closed containment systems that would end all biological contact with wild fish and other marine creatures."

 

[Clint r]

Wow. Good news indeed

 

[high tide]

Go FIGURE !

This coming from the KING in Salmon Farm Industry.

Maybe it's not TOO LATE for our coast to move to ON SHORE

 

[Dave]

Hello Net Pen Fish Farm Supporters! Curious if you agree, or disagree with the findings and recommendations of this study?

Link to the study: http://www.svt.ntnu.no/iso/anders.skonhoft/Marine Policy salmon overview 2010.pdf
____________________________________________________________________________


A 2010 study of the industry’s impact on Norway’s wild salmon concluded “it seems clear that salmon farming is the main threat to the viability of wild salmon due to spread of diseases, escapees, environmental pollution, etc.”
"

A six year old study in Norway that is totally irrelevant to what is happening here in BC and Washington ... there are no documented diseases passed to wild salmon here, no interbreeding with wild salmon, and the environmental pollution is nothing compared to what Vancouver and Victoria are dumping daily into our ocean. Lame.

Try again.

 

[Whole in the Water]

Did you read the study? Did you also read to study that linked decline in wild salmon numbers to fish farming in various parts of the world? Can you counter these findings with peer reviewed, scientific research papers that dissprove these findings? Generalized statements, personal observations and opinions don't adequately refute these findings.

There is a reaccuring pattern here. Net pen, salmon feedlots are having documented negative impacts to the marine environment in various parts of the world. It is just a matter of time before it starts to happen here like it has in Norway, Scotland and Chile.... Deflecting the issues, or ignoring a growing body of scientific research on the negative environmental impacts of net pen fish farms will not make them go away.

The fact that the study is 6 years old does not deminish its findings in any way, if not for the simple logic that if the circumstances are similar you will get a similar result whenever and wherever the net pen feedlots are. The comparison to our sewage problems is lame in a variety of ways, not to mention from the age old adage that two wrongs don't make a right. If you want to adequately defend this industry, try again.

 

[Birdsnest]

There is a reaccuring pattern here. Net pen, salmon feedlots are having documented negative impacts to the marine environment in various parts of the world. It is just a matter of time before it starts to happen here like it has in Norway, Scotland and Chile.... Deflecting the issues, or ignoring a growing body of scientific research on the negative environmental impacts of net pen fish farms will not make them go away.

I highlighted a portion of your post where you seem to agree with us that nothing has happens yet. Good then. Were making progress.

Chile doesn't really have salmon but it does have a fairly thriving trout fishing industry and those guys never seem to complain about salmon farms despite the issues they have on the farms.

more later. its late.

 

[SpringVelocity]

I highlighted a portion of your post where you seem to agree with us that nothing has happens yet. Good then. Were making progress.

Chile doesn't really have salmon but it does have a fairly thriving trout fishing industry and those guys never seem to complain about salmon farms despite the issues they have on the farms.

more later. its late.

Do some reading Chile has a better chinook salmon fishery than we do. Especially with the sizes they see in rivers. They are Columbian fish that were transplanted years ago. The salmon are thriving there.

 

[Dave]

Do some reading Chile has a better chinook salmon fishery than we do. Especially with the sizes they see in rivers. They are Columbian fish that were transplanted years ago. The salmon are thriving there.

Say what? Don't they have fish farms there?

 

[SpringVelocity]

Chinook Colonize Rivers in Chile

by Liz OsbornCurrentResults.com

It's taken less than thirty years for chinook salmon that were let loose in South America to establish spawning runs along 1500 kilometres of the South Pacific coast.

Salmon from these introductions have also swum through the Strait of Magellan and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Although North American salmon were released many times since 1924 into Chilean waters, investigators trace the origins of the naturalized fish mainly to a period of ocean ranching lasting from 1978 to 1989. Fish hatcheries at two locations in southern Chile raised and released hundreds of thousands of chinook smolts into streams flowing into the Pacific Ocean. Their stocks came from the Cowlitz and Kalama Rivers, both tributaries of the Columbia River in southwest Washington state.

Farmed salmon that escaped from net pens during the 1990s are another possible source of the naturalized runs. This study's authors nevertheless assert that fish farm fugitives haven't contributed much to the wild Chilean populations.

Adult chinook at first returned only to the release sites of ocean ranches. Yet before long the salmon were spotted in two unstocked rivers. This was the beginning of a rapid range extension that's still continuing. During the 1990s, chinook runs were documented in five major South American watersheds. By 2004, the exotic salmon had been reported from over ten basins that flow out of the Andes into the South Pacific.

Their known spawning grounds in 2004 stretched from the Toltén River, north of Valdivia, at latitude 39° S to the Grande River near Punta Arena at 53° S. A landlocked, nonmigrating group also inhabits Puyehue Lake. These chinook, which probably descended from fish farm escapees, are so successful they now comprise 28% of the fish caught in that lake.

Trawlers in the Atlantic Ocean first hooked chinook in 2002. A population of spawning chinooks were subsequently discovered in the Caterina River, a tributary of Argentina's Santa Cruz River that drains into the Atlantic. No other anadramous fish has invaded such a vast range in South America.

The salmon's rate of river colonization in South America mirrors that of chinook released on New Zealand's South Island between 1901 to 1907. Basins within 200 kilometres of the two introduction points in Chile became populated by chinook within 15 years. The new runs were initiated by a small proportion of spawning salmon which strayed from their natal river.

Similarities between their native and the Patagonian landscapes have set the salmon up for survival in the southern hemisphere. Scientists expect chinook to continue colonizing rivers farther south of the fish's current range, in both Pacific and Atlantic drainages. Their eventual southern range will likely correspond in latitude to the salmon's presence in the northern hemisphere, and comprise short rivers like those where the ocean ranching stocks originated.

The newcomers stand out as the largest freshwater fish in South America. Thus their arrival already is a boon for sports anglers, and the species might one day support a commercial fisheries.

The implications this successful invader poses for the native ecology, though, are still unclear. The salmon's presence is no doubt being felt within the freshwater and marine food webs. Chinook in the South Pacific might even prey heavily on Patagonian grenadier and southern hake, both commercial Chilean species.

 

[Birdsnest]

Do some reading Chile has a better chinook salmon fishery than we do. Especially with the sizes they see in rivers. They are Columbian fish that were transplanted years ago. The salmon are thriving there.

Your going to have to wear a cup in these rooms if you keep that up.

 

[SpringVelocity]

I am not doing it for your benifit. I am just stating a fact since you mentioned chile has no salmon which is false. I am against open farming you know that. Also chile isn't like are government. They have active hatcheries and ranching. Huge difference.

 

[Birdsnest]

Its interesting how that has happened there( and in the great lakes) when here spring salmon enhancement with hatchery fish is not very successful when it come to getting the fish to reproduce here.

Back to the topic. It suggests that closed containment may not be necessary there.

 

[Clint r]

It also suggests that salmon escaping from farms could pose an environmental hazard to native species.

 

[Dave]

Again, nothing to worry about here in BC or Washington considering that millions of juvenile Atlantics have been transplanted here over the years with none colonizing our rivers. And, when was the last time you read of a documented and verified siting of a juvenile Atlantic here in BC? I would guess about 10 or more years ago. Any adults? No.

Comparing Norway’s (or Chile’s or Scotland or New Brunswick, or Ireland or etc..) salmon farming problems with what we have here is apples to oranges and that is why, imo, we here on the Pacific coast are positioned so correctly to do this right. It seems that after nearly 40 years, this industry, despite the misinformation the anti’s portray, is doing quite well.

As an aside, I have always wondered why Washington State salmon farms are not harassed and vilified by people like Alexandra Morton? Why are those farms deemed OK, but BC farms are not? Afaik, same fish cultural practices, same feed, same everything except… a different country.

Why didn’t the Sea Shepherds’ Motor Vessel Martin Sheen visit these farms? Thoughts??

 

[agentaqua]

... there are no documented diseases passed to wild salmon here ... Lame. Try again.

I think Dave has inadvertently pointed-out the real problem with disease surveillance activities for wild stocks. The words: "documented" and "here".

Lets work on the words, shall we?

The word: "document".

The way CFIA works - is to protect trade - not our wild stocks, unfortunately. In the "CFIA-approved" methodology for any reportable disease:

1/ The disease vector has to first be identified and recognized and primers developed that are specific for that particular virus. And that can take years for this process to happen. No correct primers - no match with the PCR analysis,
2/ Even if a lab gets the matching primers (and they are not withheld in an attempt to stall disease surveillance) - the next procedure - if ones gets a preliminary positive - is to determine whether or not this is a so-called "false" positive verses a "weak" positive. That is done with a magic wand and an Ouija board - or so it seems. Basically since CFIA is interested in "protecting trade" verses our wild stocks - they make an arbitrary number up as the number of cycles in the PCA methodology they determine is the cut-off between what they consider a "weak" verses a "false" positive. No science available here folks (said in Trump-voice) - to defend that decision. If they determine the result is instead a "false" positive - everyone in CFIA ignores that result instead of follow-up testing - and life is apparently ok for them. No explanation nor interest apparently as to how that very specific RNA piece got deposited into that fish sample by that nasty anti-aquaculture fairy (who probably resembles AM in their dreams/nightmares), and those implications (please move-on, and nothing to see here folks!...), and
3/ If - on the rare occasion - they can't use that magic wand to make everything go away - and they then still have to accept a positive result - then it goes to cell culture to test for a reaction. There are very many reasons why this might not be a viable test - including the preservative and method used to preserve and maintain any virus in host fish tissue, the type of cells used (from what organs for both samples and test tissues) for cell culture, the species of fish that generated these cells of both test tissue and samples, the amount of time in incubation, the temperature of incubation, etc. And guess what - much of this complex synergistic and antagonistic variability is also unknown.

Then there is the so-called "reporting" procedures - which can be summed-up by shhhhhhhhhh........

BUT...at least the fish farming industry can keep selling it's products abroad - since we are still declared an ISA-free zone - which is really all that matters. Isn't it ??

oh...guess I just also just inadvertently finished with the word "here", except maybe to add all the names of the places where so-called "false" positives were found here - and to point-out that on the East Coast and Europe there VERY much has been examples of diseases going back and forth with wild stocks. But...that's not here. Different ocean here, I guess....maybe the fish swirl counterclockwise in their pens there...maybe they have a different disease certification and a different market...

Hope I'm not off on the official government/industry messaging here...

 

[Dave]

Aa, I would appreciate your opinion on the last sentence from my post.

 

[gone fishin]

Aa, I would appreciate your opinion on the last sentence from my post.

Why didn’t the Sea Shepherds’ Motor Vessel Martin Sheen visit these farms? Thoughts??
Dave
are you suggesting some Fish Farm sites are cleaner or less diseased then others?
or just what is your point?

 

[Dave]

Well, are Washington state salmon farms more environmentally friendly? I don’t know but I doubt it. Does nobody else wonder why an American born activist only focusses on BC farms and never condemns those south of us?

 

[fogged in]

Well, are Washington state salmon farms more environmentally friendly? I don’t know but I doubt it. Does nobody else wonder why an American born activist only focusses on BC farms and never condemns those south of us?

give your head a shake Dave
Alexandra Morton is a GREAT Canadian giving a GREAT service to CANADIANS and we are lucky to have her keeping Fish Farms in B.C. somewhat accountable as well as several knowledgeable guys on this forum.
It appears from your last post you admit Fish Farms are NOT environmentally friendly.
Ever hear the saying "money talks"....Fish Farms are very aware of it!

 

[Dave]

Yeah, and Donald Trump will make a GREAT president.
Can you answer my question?