Well, well, well, can't hide the truth forever

Clint r

Well-Known Member
Copied from castanets news service.

Contributed - Sep 15 12:32 pm
By Ray Grigg

The salmon farming industry may present a front of confidence and optimism, but behind the public relations image is a reality of threat and fear.

The situation in Norway - from which the industry spread to Scotland, Chile and Canada's East and West Coasts - shows the direction salmon farming is headed. It is not a healthy future.

In Norwegian salmon farms, viral diseases proliferate and sea lice are developing resistance to the pesticide of choice, emamectin benzoate (aka SLICE).

With increasing frequency, sea lice-infected farmed salmon in Norway must be bathed in a hydrogen peroxide solution to cleanse them of the parasite. This is also becoming the practice in Chile, Nova Scotia and British Columbia.

SLICE was once allowed for use in Canada only through the Emergency Drug Release program as a treatment of last resort. But since June 2009, it has been routinely applied and is now becoming ineffective.

Although escaped farmed Atlantic salmon don't seem to be a major problem in B.C., where they are not native, in Norway and Canada's Maritimes, their damage to the native Atlantic salmon may be serious and irreversible.

The Norwegian Institute for Nature Research recently tested 20,000 Atlantic salmon in 147 Norwegian rivers. It found that, in 109 of these rivers, up to 50 per cent of the wild fish and up to 42.2 per cent of their genes were altered by interbreeding. This genetic contamination could impair the viability of the wild fish, and that would be a serious threat to wild Atlantic salmon in Canada's Maritimes.

In Chile, which does not have native salmon, about 20 per cent of farmed fish are once again dying from an outbreak of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv). The disease previously spread throughout its industry between 2007 and 2009, killing millions of salmon, costing the industry $2 billion. Heavy antibiotic use is now promoting drug resistant super-viruses.

The latest disaster for Chilean salmon farms has been a toxic algal bloom. The "red tide" has poisoned about 2,000 kilometres of coast, killed uncounted tonnes of wild fish, contaminated shellfish, and been fatal to people and marine mammals.

The environmental catastrophe has sparked riots and allegations of criminal wrongdoing.

Chilean biologists implicate the salmon farming industry in the spread of the bloom because the supply of fecal nutrients beneath the many open-net pens promotes algal growth, and because more nutrients were added when about half of the estimated 100,000 tonnes of dead salmon were left to rot in the sea.

Meanwhile, in British Columbia, tonnes of farmed salmon in Clayoquot Sound and other facilities have died from toxic algal blooms and low oxygen conditions.

The list of B.C. problems is long and damning: uncontrollable sea-lice infections require hydrogen peroxide baths; piscine reovirus is now epidemic in farmed fish; HSMI (heart and skeletal muscle inflammation) has been found; ISAv and many other viruses threaten; and First Nations are issuing eviction notices to the industry for trespass in their unceded territories.

The threats to salmon farming are real and growing, and the environmental threats the industry represents are similarly bleak.

Ray Grigg is an internationally published author.
 
what truths are being hidden? algae blooms or low DO levels? that's not been hidden.
the fact that they sterilize there fish as per government regulation.... not hidden.
all hatcheries sterilize their equipment and fish should we shut them down?

i agree sea based farms are not good for the coast and should be moved. seal populations over 30-40 years have exploded and something is making that animal very healthy in the off season. i'll let you in on a secret.... its not wild salmon.. lol. one hour ( well 2 beer) boat ride in hotham sound counted 75 pups born on the sunny side, all nice and healthy probably because they were fed well all winter.
 
really? Seals? They might be killing some salmon but your gonna have to do better than that. in fact, I'll pull a Dave on you. We want to see a published paper by an accredited d marine biologist backing up your claim. If not that's just....lame.
 
lol, never said i was a pro. just making an observation like the one you post by an "Ray Grigg is an internationally published author."
 
Be interesting to see how the pro fish farm guys will deflect and discredit this post. They can't deny the problems in others areas of the world and their weak defence is a very simple - it can't happen here. Lame.

That's what they said in all the other parts of the world where salmon net pen feedlots have caused environmental harm. Just a matter of time of time before it does here as well if nothing is done to get them out of our waters and on to the land. Then what excuses will the fish farm supporters churn out?
 
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lol, never said i was a pro. just making an observation like the one you post by an "Ray Grigg is an internationally published author."


Read my original post again. I make no such claims. That's an article copied from a reputable news service.
 
Be interesting to see how the pro fish farm guys will deflect and discredit this post. They can't deny the problems in others areas of the world and their weak defence is a very simple - it can't happen here. Lame.

That's what they said in all the other parts of the world where salmon net pen feedlots have caused environmental harm. Just a matter of time of time before it does. Then what excuses will the fish farm supporters churn out?

Oh you know. The seals did it. Or the whales. Or any number of things except the fish farms themselves
 
Any truth to this?
Me thinks Shuswap, Birdsnest and Dave will know?
http://tidechange.ca/2016/09/04/not-well-salmon-farming/
Any truth to what Ray Grigg says...lol? Ray Grigg is another one of those well known fish farm critics that either doesn't know what he's talking about or greatly exaggerates. First, while its not totally inconceivable that there could be localized nutrient inputs from salmon farming sites it's a total exaggeration with zero evidence to suggest that salmon farms in BC are a major contributor to toxic algae blooms we have been seeing. He also ignored work done in Puget Sound into the relationship between toxic algal blooms and salmon farms there.

Second, Mr. Grigg ignores what we already know about these blooms and what we still need to know. We know many of the factors (i.e. wind, currents, tides, upwelling, nutrients, River estuary influence and water temperature) involved but how they all interact to bring about these blooms is not totally understood. Cohen looked into toxic algal blooms as a cause of Fraser Sockeye declines but the evidence did not clearly point in that direction. Again, there is still more we don't know.

Third, these blooms are not a new phenomenon off our coast and have been around much longer than salmon farming. We have an extensive monitoring program off our coast that looks into this. Our coast is in a naturally upwelling zone - when the conditions are right these blooms can occur. It's just not off the BC coast either.

Fourth, Mr. Grigg ignores the recent warm ocean conditions since 2013 off our coast as well as the fact that this recent toxic algal bloom covered a large part of the Pacific Coast with California being hit hard. Look up Heterosigma akashiwo and it's occurrence on this coast because apparently Mr. Grigg hasn't. No deflection here. If anything, Mr. Grigg conveniently side-stepped some vital context to this discussion. I believe it's a weak assertion to claim salmon farms here as a big contributor to toxic algal blooms off our coast with nothing more than speculation and circumstantial inferences from other areas. That's lame.

He does make a good point about farmed and wild Atlantic salmon interactions off the east coast; however, it also raises questions and concerns regarding interactions between wild and hatchery Pacific salmon and the release of billions of ranched salmon released each year by the US, Russia and Japan. PRV epidemic in farmed fish? Well, there is lots missing from Mr. Grigg's assertion as well as his claims about HSMI off our coast. No mention of any recent, local work on PRV.

https://www.whoi.edu/fileserver.do?id=39383&pt=2&p=29109
https://www.pices.int/publications/scientific_reports/Report23/HAB_Canada.pdF
https://www.facebook.com/Harmful-Algae-Monitoring-Program-216356751718929/
http://oceanservice.noaa.gov/facts/why_habs.html
 
I have been very busy with the start of kindergarten for my oldest daughter plus work - not mention fall fishing. Don't have much time for fishing forums this time of the year, except on weekends. I only used your quote for reference - not directed at you. Not putting anyone straight other than addressing what Mr. Grigg had wrote.
 
It may seem strange - but I agree w Shuswap on what I see as occasional exaggerations - in what Ray Grigg writes. The plankton bloom claim is another one of those (need to look at scale and timing). We extensively covered and debated this exact claim 1&1/2 YA on this forum at: http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum...pposing-salmon-farms.61340/page-2#post-773274

There are - of course - large nuggets of truth in Grigg's writing too (e.g. PRv articles) - but keep in mind he is a reporter - not a researcher. He does what reporters do.
 
I admire your patience Shuswap, answering questions that have been answered before, so many times. Your analysis of Ray Grigg is spot on, imo.
We pro salmon farmers can't and don't deny salmon farms in areas of indigenous Atlantic's have caused possibly irreparable damage ... from interbreeding. And, as that can't happen here that's why the Pacific coast is so irrelevant to this discussion regarding other countries. Please, get over this point and look for another scapegoat for declining wild Pacific salmon. Start looking at the science of climate change and it's effects on the ocean and freshwater productivity and especially, overfishing, including sports fisheries.

Yeah, that's you.

Nothing strange with agreeing with a professional biologist on this issue, aa.
 
[QUOTE="D that's why the Pacific coast is so irrelevant to this discussion regarding other countries. .[/QUOTE]

Are you saying the problems other counties are having and have had are not relevant to your Fish Farms on the coast of B.C.?
 
if fish farms are the reason for the destruction of salmon stocks on the inside, and farms in sechelt inlet have had there leases cancelled for 20+ years then where are all the fish? Indian arm had two farms in it and they have been gone for 20 years as well, why is it the indian river still struggling?
does the damage that is being implied last this long?
 
Why were their leases cancelled? Anything to do with the decline of stocks? I don't work at a fish farm so I'm guessing here, but once a runs been decimated then I think it'll be a while if ever before It comes back
 
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Whales and seals and now sport fisherman? No wonder people distrust fish farms. They can't even agree about what they agree about. At least the anti side are all in agreement that fish farms are a problem.
 
[QUOTE="D that's why the Pacific coast is so irrelevant to this discussion regarding other countries. .

Are you saying the problems other counties are having and have had are not relevant to your Fish Farms on the coast of B.C.?[/QUOTE]

They are not MY fish farms, I have no connection at all to any fish farming activity.
None.
But to answer your question .... yes. After 40 years of salmon farming here on the Pacific coast, give me an example of how ff have impacted wild stocks at the population level. While you're thinking about that, consider habitat destruction, climate change, over fishing, blah, blah...
 
I have read and heard quite a bit of nonsense and denials from the pro-farm lobby - but to suggest that the risks and impacts other jurisdictions have both already realized and are yet in the process of understanding - the impacts from the open net-pen technology - are not pertinent/relevant in the Pacific is probably the most absurd and irresponsible response I have yet seen/read. as I wrote on 08 Sept (http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum...first-nation-leaders.64127/page-9#post-803267):
I consider anyone who thinks the Pacific Ocean is somehow immune from the same problems as the Atlantic presumably due to some "magic wand" held by the PR firms of the BCSFA - deluded and/or naive and irresponsible. I certainly wouldn't expect this perspective from our professional fish farm regulators. yet, somehow - that perspective exists in the aquaculture branch of DFO; and apparently in a few, rare individuals in DFO that consider that their attachments to their coworkers in the aquaculture branch precludes them from using their own common sense and precautionary approach - thereby avoiding being responsible public servants and regulators.
The only exception to that long list of impacts would be inbreeding with local Atlantic salmon stocks.
 
I admire your patience Shuswap, answering questions that have been answered before, so many times. Your analysis of Ray Grigg is spot on, imo.
We pro salmon farmers can't and don't deny salmon farms in areas of indigenous Atlantic's have caused possibly irreparable damage ... from interbreeding. And, as that can't happen here that's why the Pacific coast is so irrelevant to this discussion regarding other countries. Please, get over this point and look for another scapegoat for declining wild Pacific salmon. Start looking at the science of climate change and it's effects on the ocean and freshwater productivity and especially, overfishing, including sports fisheries.

Yeah, that's you.

Nothing strange with agreeing with a professional biologist on this issue, aa.
Don't forget about the damage to salmon stocks from Bigfoot, little green men and the boogeyman.
 
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