Coho Management Review Now Under Way

[GLG]

Sorry, not buying it. I have a passable knowledge of salmon, their biology, necessities, stressors, diseases and management, having worked in this field for close to 40 years. Still do, voluntarily. I live near the Chilliwack River and have seen the coho habitat destruction firsthand. As a boy I remember nearly every waterway in the Fraser Valley supporting either a spawning run of coho or supplying the necessary rearing habitat. Now these waterways are parking lots, shopping malls, housing developments, farmer’s irrigation ditches, or golf courses.
I do advocate for salmon farming in BC and of course I know there is an environmental impact, as there is with most human activities and all animal husbandry but IMO, there are not measureable impacts from this industry severe enough to warrant closure or removal.
I’ve been on enough forums on this issue to know I won’t be changing your minds with my opinions and I don’t expect to. So how about this …. you change mine. Show me some defensible data that proves salmon farming in BC is having a bigger impact on wild coho production than loss of habitat.

I too have a good understanding of coho salmon. I have spent the last 8 years working closely with a group here on Vancouver Island trying to keep a run, on a small river, from going extinct. Our habitat on our river is good for everything that these fish need. Others before me worked long and hard to make sure that this river was keep in a state that these fish need. We have everything in place yet our numbers are still going down. We have done studies on this river since 1995. We are doing another this summer to compare with all the others that we have done in the past. What will we find with this new study? Probably what we have found in the past, that this is a great Coho river and we should see thousands of coho. Well we know that our big problem is when our smolts leave the river and go out in the SOG. They spend some time out there and then make their way past your friends, at the fish farms, and we never see them again. Sure we get a few lucky ones that can run this gauntlet of death and come back, but most die. So if you think " IMO, there are not measurable impacts from this industry severe enough to warrant closure or removal." think of my river and the coho that live there, or more accurately, that use to live there. Is you love for this industry and the money if provides worth it? Sleep on that one and in the morning have a look in the mirror and ask yourself "Am I part of the problem or am I part of the solution."
GLG

 

[tortuga]

Hey Gil, phone my cell

 

[Theb55]

Question here. Is there any evidence that young fish swim into pens because of the availability of food and then grow too large to leave?

 

[reelfast]

Our habitat on our river is good for everything that these fish need. Others before me worked long and hard to make sure that this river was keep in a state that these fish need. We have everything in place yet our numbers are still going down. GLG

how are these smolts raised??? are they in closed containment ponds or are they in a more natural 'rearing channel'? now much are you feeding them or are they being forced for forage?

containment ponds typically yield <1% return rates so if that is what you are experiencing, you are at the norm. rearing channels, which also have the feed cut by about 75% have a much higher return rate but fewer smolt that survive before release. lots of variables in the raising of these smolt so the actual rearing practices could well be a major factor in very low return rates.

 

[bub]

I'm no expert!!! Plain and simple. Just want answers. Reelfast, check the USA containment pond yields before salmon farms.... Are you sure they were 1%????? I'm under the impression you got greater yields from your hatcheries than that. Before fish farms? I'm sure Canadian hatcheries got better yields from hatcheries before the explosion of farms

 

[cuttlefish]

Sorry, not buying it. I have a passable knowledge of salmon, their biology, necessities, stressors, diseases and management, having worked in this field for close to 40 years. Still do, voluntarily. I live near the Chilliwack River and have seen the coho habitat destruction firsthand. As a boy I remember nearly every waterway in the Fraser Valley supporting either a spawning run of coho or supplying the necessary rearing habitat. Now these waterways are parking lots, shopping malls, housing developments, farmer’s irrigation ditches, or golf courses.
I do advocate for salmon farming in BC and of course I know there is an environmental impact, as there is with most human activities and all animal husbandry but IMO, there are not measureable impacts from this industry severe enough to warrant closure or removal.
I’ve been on enough forums on this issue to know I won’t be changing your minds with my opinions and I don’t expect to. So how about this …. you change mine. Show me some defensible data that proves salmon farming in BC is having a bigger impact on wild coho production than loss of habitat.

Dave,
Charlie already provided you with a link to paper that shows wild salmon populations near salmon farms are declining at faster rates than adjacent populations where there are no salmon farms. This paper is a global assessment.

GLG provided you with annecdotal evidence from the work he has done with one stock of coho.

Here is a link to a very recently published paper on Fraser River sockeye population declines; http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1755-263X.2012.00244.x/full

I know, it's not about coho but the methodology in this research could be applied to some local coho stocks if the data are available. That would be an interesting excercise. So let me put it to you: Accept the methodology and results of the sockeye paper and you do the work to apply it to coho. Could use Fraser River coho stocks and the same time frame to narrow the variables as much as possible. Then you could actually publish your results to prove the opposite.

I'm in agreement that there are many impacts that affect wild salmon stocks throughout their life cycle but I have to agree with others that recent harvest levels have been very precautionary and while freshwater habitat loss continues only at a much lower rate. Yet some coho stocks continue to decline. Therefore the question becomes what other impacts are there and what can be done about them?

Finally, and this is addressed to all, the proposed changes to the Fisheries Act will make it much more difficlut to protect and restore the habitat in many of those irrigation and roadside ditches that used to be salmon streams. This has got to be stopped!

 

[Rockfish]

Question here. Is there any evidence that young fish swim into pens because of the availability of food and then grow too large to leave?

Young baby Pacific salmon that swim into Atlantic salmon net pens become food. This destructive industry does not like to talk about that either. But if they do I am sure it will be something like “there is no proof”, at least no proof that is acceptable to them; that is their answer to everything.

 

[profisher]

LOL, almost impossible to grow to large to get back out of the farm pens from the inside of an Atlantics stomach.

 

[Rockfish]

LOL, almost impossible to grow to large to get back out of the farm pens from the inside of an Atlantics stomach.

Of course any that do escape or even swim by these pens are now carrying what viruses and how many lice?

Time to have a little chat with your MP.

 

[Dave]

Thanks for that link Cuttlefish; interesting stuff by some respected authors. Too bad we don't have better data on outmigrating wild juvenile coho, but that can be said for all salmonid stocks I suppose.

 

[reelfast]

I'm no expert!!! Plain and simple. Just want answers. Reelfast, check the USA containment pond yields before salmon farms.... Are you sure they were 1%????? I'm under the impression you got greater yields from your hatcheries than that. Before fish farms? I'm sure Canadian hatcheries got better yields from hatcheries before the explosion of farms

yep, <1% has been the norm for decades. this includes runs like the columbia r. which for the most part stay out to sea and only pass by WCVI. hatchery smolts are just not able to deal with a natural environment plain and simple. but because the emphasis is on the number of smolts released, there is very little interest in utilizing rearing channels.

 

[GLG]

Thanks for that link Cuttlefish; interesting stuff by some respected authors. Too bad we don't have better data on outmigrating wild juvenile coho, but that can be said for all salmonid stocks I suppose.

Well have a look at this site.
http://www.postcoml.org/

GLG

 

[GLG]

how are these smolts raised??? are they in closed containment ponds or are they in a more natural 'rearing channel'? now much are you feeding them or are they being forced for forage?

containment ponds typically yield <1% return rates so if that is what you are experiencing, you are at the norm. rearing channels, which also have the feed cut by about 75% have a much higher return rate but fewer smolt that survive before release. lots of variables in the raising of these smolt so the actual rearing practices could well be a major factor in very low return rates.

We grow our smolt in round tanks.
Our smolts are doing what most other hatchery are doing .5% or less.
Even less in some years.
In the past this number use to be 5 to 7%.
Somethings going on and I point my finger at the fish farms.
You can see that the fish farms are in the middle of a virus problem.
They grow the virus and pass onto the wild fish
The wild fish pass it to others that they come into contact with.
They get sick and die.
Simple solution is to pull the net pens out of the loop.
GLG

 

[Dave]

Thanks GLG, I am familar with Welch's work, assisting him and his team with Cultus sockeye smolt tagging.

 

[wstcoaster]

there is a small river in quatsino sound stevens creek that has had many hundreds of coho previous years before 1990 it now has zilch. the shores of this inlet are covered with fish farms. a small hatchery for coho and chums was started in the 1980s was so successful thet DFO wanted it to shut down because it had started to cause them problems with commercial fishery they had no patrol boat in area no habitat loss on this system also no fish why?

 

[Charlie]

Thanks GLG, I am familar with Welch's work, assisting him and his team with Cultus sockeye smolt tagging.

Dave, not sure how I feel about you helping tag Cultrus Sockeye as that is the stock DFO initially found positive results with the European strain of ISAv - that was in 100% of the Sockeye tested. Of course, that was never "cultured" or followed up on, so DFO continues to assure there has never been a case of ISA "disease" confirmed in BC.

Guess I need to ask, since you seem to be one in the know... would you mind explaining why Marine Harvest currently has approximately 20 farms fallowed on the east side of Vancouver Island? Doesn't appear to be a IHN issue, which is currently being dealt with on the west side. And, since fish farms aren't harming wild salmon runs would you mind "independent testing proving the Norway fish farms currently doesn't have disease issues, including "ISAv" or "ISA disease" in their farms, as we speak?

Sure seems to me... there sure are a lot of Atlantic salmon suddenly dying, with lots of empty farms all of a sudden?

 

[Dave]

Dave, not sure how I feel about you helping tag Cultrus Sockeye as that is the stock DFO initially found positive results with the European strain of ISAv - that was in 100% of the Sockeye tested. Of course, that was never "cultured" or followed up on, so DFO continues to assure there has never been a case of ISA "disease" confirmed in BC.

Guess I need to ask, since you seem to be one in the know... would you mind explaining why Marine Harvest currently has approximately 20 farms fallowed on the east side of Vancouver Island? Doesn't appear to be a IHN issue, which is currently being dealt with on the west side. And, since fish farms aren't harming wild salmon runs would you mind "independent testing proving the Norway fish farms currently doesn't have disease issues, including "ISAv" or "ISA disease" in their farms, as we speak?

Sure seems to me... there sure are a lot of Atlantic salmon suddenly dying, with lots of empty farms all of a sudden?

Sorry you aren't sure about my involvement with P.O.S.T. As for fallowed farms, why not ask Marine Harvest?

 

[GLG]

Thanks GLG, I am familar with Welch's work, assisting him and his team with Cultus sockeye smolt tagging.

If you say you are familiar with his work does that include the results of his work.
Whats your take on his results of his study of Cultus sockeye.

 

[GLG]

Guess I need to ask, since you seem to be one in the know... would you mind explaining why Marine Harvest currently has approximately 20 farms fallowed on the east side of Vancouver Island? Doesn't appear to be a IHN issue, which is currently being dealt with on the west side. And, since fish farms aren't harming wild salmon runs would you mind "independent testing proving the Norway fish farms currently doesn't have disease issues, including "ISAv" or "ISA disease" in their farms, as we speak?

Sure seems to me... there sure are a lot of Atlantic salmon suddenly dying, with lots of empty farms all of a sudden?

Guess you read the rumors here
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2012/06/dear-marine-harvest-shareholders-1.html
I too have heard rumors of a big cull up north near Campbell River. (different sources)
Could be the coho smolts that are heading that way right now might get a shot at life this year.
GLG

 

[Dave]

If you say you are familiar with his work does that include the results of his work.
Whats your take on his results of his study of Cultus sockeye.

Been out of the game for a while but IMO, this program has amazing potential.

In it’s infancy the tags were too big and heavy; they required much larger, meaning older and more hatchery oriented fish, which was the case for the Cultus sockeye initially tagged by Kintama. That, plus the fish really had not imprinted on any home water source makes, again IMO, any final assumptions or conclusions based on these particular fish open for debate.
Having said that, technologies constantly evolve and this program is no exception. Tags are far smaller and easier on the tagged, stress wise. I believe Welch and savvy collaborators already have programs and funding lined up.