More salmon-farms in the Clayoquot?

[Birdsnest]

salmonfarmscience
Your fish farms have lost 900,000 fish to disease from 3 farms this season alone on our coast plus another huge loss in Washington State.
This particular disease came to your Atlantic salmon from our Pacific Salmon, who have developed somewhat of a immunity to the virus.
Is there a solution to these HUGE losses other than ensuring Atlantic salmon do not come into contact with Pacific Wild Salmon, or are these losses going to simply continue until all our wild salmon are gone!
I do believe the Science as you like to call it says Sockeye Smoltz coming into a concentration or contaminated area of this particular virus are subject to death.
Another concern is your Fish Farms run lights all night to speed growth while Smoltz of all wild species pass by. Your people say your Atlantic salmon eat pellets and would not eat these Smoltz if they were attracted to the lights...right? What Science do you have to prove this, particularly when Atlantics have escaped and have been caught we have found bait fish in their bellies?
The evidence goes on and on why fish farms and wild salmon do not mix.
Just look at the track record all over the world.
This is just a short off the cuff reaction to your posts.
If you want to feed the world with salmon, do it on dry land ensuring your effluence is clean when it goes into the environment....which is another HUGE problem you have yet to reslove both from your farms AND from the plants where you import your eggs and raise them thru the smolt stage!
You will have a tough time convincing many people on this form that Fish Farms belong in our Pacific Coast waters and have NO NEGATIVE IMPACT on our wild stock or our environment...why.....because any claims like to this effect are simply a lie!!

As cuttlefish points out. Statements should be made with something backing them.

About the lights:


http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2007/dfo-mpo/Fs97-4-2662E.pdf

The potential for predation by caged Atlantic salmon on wild food organisms has
raised concerns about the possible impacts on local populations of wild fish species in
the vicinity of fish farms. The use of bright lights on some sites had raised specific
concerns that wild species of fish and zooplankton were being attracted to the lights and
were then being consumed by the captive salmon. We collected and examined
stomachs from Atlantic salmon reared at four different aquaculture sites on the northern
end of Vancouver Island. One site used large lights as a technique to enhance growth.
We examined a total of 600 stomachs from all sites collected over a 9-week period. We
collected another 134 stomachs from an experimental aquaculture site near the Pacific
Biological Station, Nanaimo. Most gut contents were contained within caecae, in
various states of digestion. The gut contents varied in time and within and among pens
but very little wild feed was taken by salmon at any of the sites. The main wild
organisms consumed were caprellids, small crustaceans that are part of the ‘fouling’
community that grows on the webbing of nets on the cages where the fish are held.
There were some wild pelagic organisms such as copepods and euphausiids but these
were rare. Only one fish was found in the stomachs, a small sand lance (Ammodytes
hexapterus). No fish larvae were found in the stomachs but very small items, such as
larvae of marine fish such as herring (Clupea pallasi) or eulachons (Thaleichthys
pacificus) might have gone undetected because after a short time in the stomachs, the
fragile tissue in fish larvae would have been unrecognizable. It is probable, however,
that if substantial numbers of fish larvae had been consumed, we would have detected
some. There were no obvious differences in the consumption of wild organisms among
the sites and lights had no apparent effect on the consumption of wild food.

 

[fogged in]

As cuttlefish points out. Statements should be made with something backing them.

About the lights:


http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2007/dfo-mpo/Fs97-4-2662E.pdf

We collected and examined
stomachs from Atlantic salmon reared at four different aquaculture sites on the northern
end of Vancouver Island. One site used large lights as a technique to enhance growth.
We examined a total of 600 stomachs from all sites collected OVER A 9M WEEK PERIOD
We collected another 134 stomachs from an experimental aquaculture site near the Pacific
Biological Station, Nanaimo. Most gut contents were contained within caecae, in
various states of digestion. The gut contents varied in time and within and among pens
but VERY LITTLE was taken by salmon at any of the sites. QUOTE]

So you are convinced an Atlantic salmon raised on pellets will not eat bait fish because your "science" says so.
Your samples mean nothing as it boils down to when the samples were taken and did smotz enter the enclosure area during that time. Your study does say VERY LITTLE.....what does that mean.
How do you explain the reports that escaped Atlantic Salmon had bait fish in the stomachs when captured and examined.
I say a farmed Atlantic salmon will take bait fish if it is made available to them!
You say the "science" states otherwise based on this very limited study.
On and on it goes.
Please tell me Birdsnest....what are fish farms going to do about all the disease, which is irrefutable accounting for the need to cull over 900,000 Atlantic salmon.
Not to mention all the other problem of contamination, other disease and sea lice concentrations.
AND WHY DID FISH FARMS TELL THE GOVERNMENT THAT IF DISEASE REPORTS WERE GOING TO BE MADE PUBLIC THEY WOULD STOP REPORTING.
Only now, since the growing public outcry, are we seeing some of the facts.

 

[fogged in]

About the lights:


http://publications.gc.ca/collection...97-4-2662E.pdf
Tell me Birdsnest
Did you actually read all that BS?
It goes on and on and reminded me of the old saying "******** baffles brains"
Within that Bull **** I found this
"Although the results provide clear evidence that some wild organisms were
consumed at any of the sites, we do not conclude that these results are definitive and
further investigation may be required, using different approaches. For instance, we
observe that the total stomach contents of all the caged salmon, farm food and wild
food, appears to be low relative to the probable requirements for both growth and
metabolism of caged salmon."
So like I said, on and on it goes.
There are BIG BUCKS at stake and no one should be surprised at what the fish farms will say or do to protect their interests

 

[Rockfish]

Rock fish: I notice you speak for what seems like a large number of people or some organization. I was just wondering who or what those people or group(s) may be?
”

Not a member of any organization or political party for that matter other than this forum. My views are my own although I am pleased that increasingly those who take the time to educate themselves on this issue are coming to the same conclusion that it is critical for the well being and survival of wild salmon that alien Atlantic salmon pens be removed from our ocean. Indeed the public’s opinion on Atlantic salmon pens farms has changed over the last year or so which is why we may be seeing such a barrage of recent Atlantic salmon PR types on this site. That tends to happen when they get nervous about their financial self interest. It always backfires on them because it focuses our attention and motivates like nothing else.

Are fish farms the only challenge that wild salmon face and should be worked on; absolutely not, but they are in my opinion a major one and more importantly one of the easiest to resolve. We just close them down or we could try moving them to containment. I am skeptical that containment systems will be able to completely insure that viruses and parasite can truly be kept contained.

It is not just the pacific evolved diseases and parasites that Atlantic net pens concentrate at a time and place where they would not normally be found in nature and then infect pacific salmon, especially out migrating baby salmon. That in itself is hugely damaging to wild salmon.

It is also the Atlantic salmon viruses that have been introduced into our ocean in their imported eggs that Pacific salmon have no resistance too that especially concerns me. I have noticed that this industry is greatly concerned when they have a pacific based virus infect their pens that Atlantics have little resistance too because it kills Atlantic salmon. What concerns me is that I am pretty sure they don’t give a rat’s butt about Atlantic salmon viruses their Atlantic salmon carry but have some resistance too but Pacific Salmon do not. They don’t want to cooperate with independent testing for them and when independent scientists like Morton test for and find them they do all they can to discredit her.

They cull their Atlantic salmon when they have a Pacific virus that threatens their fish and profit. I don’t believe they would cull healthy (from their perspective) Atlantic Salmon that carry a virus that is a major threat only to Pacific Salmon. The corporate profit motive just does not work that way. They don’t want to test for them, they don’t want anyone else testing for them, they sure as hell don’t want any to be found and they don’t want the public to find out about them. That more than anything is the driving force behind the recent gag order legislation the provincial government tried and failed to push through. Beyond that is the fact that when you concentrate animals in pens like this you create the perfect environment to quickly evolve many generations of viruses which can lead to the emergence of a new super virus which many not only end Atlantic Pen salmon but our Pacific salmon as well.

What is very evident to most British Columbians is just how in bed with these salmon pen corporations our governments are. They are selling us out and they are selling out wild salmon. Look how DFO treats their own scientists who find something which could potentially reflect badly on this industry. The message seems clear to me, if you value your job and your research funding, if you want a future, don’t find anything that has the potential to reflect badly on this industry. In seems to me that DFO research seems to be done for the purpose of defending this industry and making them more profitable and I resent my tax dollars being wasted on this kind of corporate welfare when it should be going to restore Pacific salmon.

In the corporate world you have to grow, that’s what their shareholders demand. The question British Columbians have to ask themselves is, do we want our iconic pacific salmon or do we want Atlantic salmon pens smothering and polluting every once beautiful inlet on our coast. It really is that simple, do we want to work to restore our pacific salmon and follow Alaska’s lead in banning Atlantic Salmon Pens or do we want to look like the coast of Norway. If I had to chose between the Alaskan and BC models I would take the Alaska Pacific Salmon Ranching system any day over Alien Atlantic salmon pens. By the way if you chose to abandon Pacific Salmon don’t assume you will at least have alien Atlantic salmon. A disease may just wipe them out and put them out of business, leaving a multi-billion dollar mess all along our coast for the taxpayers to clean up. It has happened before in Chile.

 

[Charlie]

When one sees, “The field study was organized and conducted by D.J. Gillis’ get skeptical, as he claims his specialties include Marine resources development and marketing. He makes a living doing contract work and if publishes something the contractor doesn't like, he does't get another contract.
http://www.seaveyors.ca/PDFs/Dan's CV Aug 19 08.pdf

Effect of artificial light on marine invertebrate and
fish abundance in an area of salmon farming
A. McConnell (1),*, R. Routledge (2), B. M. Connors (3)

(1) Department of Biology, (2) Department of Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, and (3) Evolutionary and Behavioural Ecology

Aggregations of marine organisms in and around fish farms may result in (1) predation of wild fish and zooplankton by farmed fish, (2) increased predation on zooplankton by wild fish, and (3) an increased probability of pathogen transmission between wild and farmed fish. Farmed Atlantic salmon consume invertebrates at least occasionally (Hay et al. 2004), although only a single fish has been found in farmed Atlantic salmon stomachs (Hay et al. 2004). However, very little farm fish feed was found in the same stomachs; hence, actual consumption rates may differ from those measured (Hay et al. 2004). Moreover, farmed chinook and coho salmon consume wild fish and invertebrates (Black et al. 1992). In regards to wild fish predation upon zooplankton, chum experienced increased feeding opportunities under security lights (Prinslow et al. 1980), and cottids consumed a higher percentage of sockeye salmon Oncorhynchus nerka fry under lit conditions (Tabor et al. 2004). Finally, increasing the abundance of wild fish directly adjacent to farmed populations increases the potential for pathogen transfer and emergent disease in both wild and farmed populations (Daszak et al. 2000). As such, disease transmission remains a concern, particularly when farmed and wild fish occur sympatrically, as is the case in British Columbia, where farmed salmon occur in the same nearshore environment as numerous wild species including 7 species of pacific salmonids (Groot & Margolis 1991) and Pacific herring Clupea pallasi.

Given the potential for continuous illumination from ocean net-pen salmon farms to influence the distribution and abundance of marine invertebrates and fish, we quantified the effect of lights on invertebrates and fish abundance in an area of intensive salmon aquaculture in coastal British Columbia.

Invertebrate aggregations around lit farms Plankton tows 60 to 80 m away from a lit and an unlit farm in northern Johnstone Strait during the day in June and July (Hay et al. 2004) found 19 taxa also found in the present study, with an additional 14 taxa only observed in the present study and 4 taxa only found by Hay et al. (2004). Some organisms such as the crustacean nauplii and poecilostomatoids observed in the present study may have been too small to be captured by the larger net mesh size used by Hay et al. (2004). Others such as scyphozoans, asteroid larvae and holothuroid larvae (observed in the present study), and crab megalops (observed by Hay et al. 2004) are only present in the plankton at a specific time of year, and may simply have been absent during one or other of the studies (Ruppert et al. 2004). Cumaceans and isopods are primarily benthic (Ruppert et al. 2004) and may be excluded by much larger sampling distance from structures and presumably deeper depths at the sample location used by Hay et al. (2004). Ocean depth at sampling point was not reported by Hay et al. (2004), but the plankton haul was conducted from 20 m depths, while the bottom depth at the sample site for the present study was ~12 m at low tide.) Different sampling times (day versus night) may also contribute to the different taxa found.

Our study found a 1.15 times non-significant increase in copepod abundance (and a significant increase of 1.49 times higher total zooplankton) in contrast to a maximum of 19.3 times higher copepod densities in illuminated freshwater cages holding coregonid fish compared to a location 3 m away (Mamcarz 1995). Mamcarz (1995) conducted lit and control tows on the same night and the disparity in our results may indicate that the increased abundance of zooplankton around the light in Mamcarz’s study was concurrent with a decrease in zooplankton abundance nearby. Alternatively the increased abundance may be related to the dimmer 60 W underwater light used by Mamcarz (1995) (as discussed above), or disparate responses in freshwater species.

Implications for invertebrates
Although little indication of a large increase in invertebrate abundance was found in the present study, artificial lights have the potential to disrupt normal light-dependent patterns such as breeding swarms in polychaetes (reviewed in Franke 1999) and may attract other invertebrates through a variety of mechanisms, many of which are not precisely known. Even in the absence of a large increase in marine invertebrates, artificial lights make invertebrates more visible and easier prey to predators (Batty et al. 1990, Blaxter & Batty 1990, Nightingale et al. 2006). This may in turn (1) attract predators such as small fish and (2) increase the likelihood that farmed Atlantic salmon will feed upon wild invertebrates. Atlantic salmon escapees may thereby be preconditioned to eat wild prey and better able to survive outside of the net-pens (Morton & Volpe 2002). Finally, sea lice are of particular concern to the salmon farming industry, and the nauplii and copepodids of Lepeophtheirus salmonis are attracted to artificial light (Pahl et al. 1999). This may cause sea lice to remain in the farm net-pens longer than predicted by ocean current models (Brooks 2005, Murray & Gillibrand 2006) and increases the potential for re-infection of farmed fish (Hevroy et al. 2003). Light-mediated interactions between sea lice and farmed or wild fish would benefit from further research.

Fish aggregations around lit farms
In examining the ecological impact of farm lights, Hay et al. (2004) did not specifically examine the wild fish around lit and unlit farms; however, more fish larvae were caught in daytime plankton tows at lit farms compared to unlit farms (11 versus 3 fish larvae). Several studies have examined wild fish abundances around fish farms in northern Georgia Strait without reference to lights. Pacific herring, threespine stickleback, and schools of 10 000s of pink and chum salmon fry have been observed in the net-pens of salmon, while nearby purse seines commonly caught young Pacific herring and pink salmon (Black et al. 1992).

Implications for fish
Over 100 times more Pacific herring were seen on lit nights compared to dark nights, but visual estimates of Pacific herring that evaded the net and were schooling around the light on lit nights range from 10s to 1000s. If large aggregations of a commercially important fish species occur near farmed species, it may be cause for concern. There would be a risk of predation by Atlantic salmon on wild fish, and Pacific herring have been identified in the stomachs of farmed chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha (Black et al. 1992). A more considerable concern when wild stocks and farmed stocks intermingle is the transfer of pathogens (Daszak et al. 2000).

Pathogens are one of the principal threats to aquaculture (Mohan et al. 2008), and likewise can endanger sympatric wild fish populations (Daszak et al. 2000). Infectious hematopoietic necrosis (IHN) epidemics in farmed salmon in BC, which recently resulted in over 12 million deaths of farmed Atlantic salmon (Saksida 2006), may have affected or been spread by migratory wild fish. Sea lice from salmon farms are associated with depressed and declining wild pink and chum salmon populations in areas of intensive salmon aquaculture in BC. (Krkoˇsek et al. 2007). In light of these pathogen-mediated interactions between wild and farmed salmon and the rate at which pathogens can spread in marine environments (McCallum et al. 2003), the use of continuous illumination at salmon farms, if it results in higher abundances of wild fish near the farms, may increase the probability, severity or rate at which pathogen transmission occurs.

These findings agree with others that suggest continuous lighting in marine areas as well as terrestrial systems (Rich & Longcore 2006 and references therein) constitutes an attractive influence over various organisms. Care must be taken when extrapolating these results to salmon farms.

The present study does raise the possibility that the use of lights may lead to the aggregation of invertebrates and pelagic fishes around aquaculture pens, potentially increasing interactions between farmed fish and wild organisms. Given their ecological and economic importance, further studies on Pacific herring and chum and pink salmon aggregations around Atlantic salmon farms are warranted.

A logical next step would be to determine the distance from which fish farm lights can attract species, and to investigate what proportion of economically or ecologically important wild populations they may influence.

Finally, any impacts of fish farm lights may not be isolated to fish and invertebrates, as harbor seals Phoca vitulina and sea birds are also attracted to artificial light (Yurk & Trites 2000, Wiese et al. 2001, Poot et al. 2008). During the present study, several seals and an otter were observed around the light; it would be beneficial to investigate the impact of the lights on local marine mammals and sea birds.

Kind of shoots down ‘Hay et al. (2004)’, doesn’t it?

As always the above can be found here:
http://www.int-res.com/articles/meps2010/419/m419p147.pdf

 

[Little Hawk]

Salmon Farmimg = 'Big Norwegian doggy shitting in our front-yard to grow fish to feed the Yanks!'

 

[Englishman]

Well, there's sure a lot of strong feelings here, and that's good. I love fishing and want to make sure there are wild salmon in the ocean for my kids and grandkids to fish, too. However, calling me a hypocrite, a scab and comparing me to a mass murdering psycho is just ridiculous. So is calling farming "evil." Try a little harder next time. This isn't religion, it's farming and fishing we're talking about. And I'll keep taking my kids fishing, and teaching them about salmon farming too

Well SalmonFarmScience, the very fact that you are already indoctrinating your kids implies with you it is a religion. That is why you will not accept any rational evidence against salmon feed lots. But your post contains so many false and misleading statements I had to challenge it in detail.

But firstly, why does you industry keep calling your very nasty creations "farms"? No one calls keeping thousand of cattle in pens and feeding them in troughs with hay and feed brought by the truck load, using automated feed distribution equipment, cattle farms. They are feed lots, plain and simple. You guys probably keep doing this as PR to make your industry seem benign and rural, when it is an industrial feed lot process. I shall refer to them as salmon feed lots and I encourage everyone to do the same.

Now I am going to refute and demolish your arguments one by one.

1) Farm sites in good locations have more than adequate tidal forces to flush and disperse fish waste. But thanks to 20 years of fighting over fish farming, the government has not had the guts to allow fish farmers to move old sites in poor locations to better locations. So we are stuck with some sites in poor locations approved 20-30 years ago, before people knew too much about what was needed, because there are no alternatives. Those sites have to meet government regulations for sulphide levels etc. But because they are not great sites, farmers have to wait longer between cycles to stock them.

This is a classic. “Before people knew too much about what was needed”. Exactly, this industry began playing Russian roulette with the environment without any understanding of the consequences. ZERO!
The creation and ongoing operation of salmon feed lots completely violates the Precautionary Principle. This is a theme that repeats itself over and over again and I shall return to it.
Here are a few examples of how salmon feed lots do in fact contaminate and pollute their locations.
Here is a Nova Scotia site that is “grossly polluted”!!
http://www.cbc.ca/player/News/Canada/NS/Audio/ID/2255867867/
Here is an abandoned farm site in BC that 3 years after closure was very badly polluted!!
https://circle.ubc.ca/handle/2429/14173

2) Do farms act as giant incubators for viruses? No. Our blog talked about this in a recent blog post: http://salmonfarmscience.com/2012/08/03/viruses-from-salmon-farms-are-low-risk-to-wild-fish/ They talked about the "mutation" risk in this post. Also one thing they did not mention, and which activists citing the "billions of viral particles" meme fail to mention, is that IHN virus particles die rapidly in sunlight and do not survive for very long without a host. A farm may shed billions of particles during an outbreak, especially if those fish aren't removed right away, but most of them will die before they ever find a new host.

On the contrary of course they incubate new strains of virus. When masses of fish are crowded together in unnatural conditions it is inevitable!
Here is an example from your own web site!!
“The Hagerman Valley in Idaho is home to a large number of rainbow trout farms, which are relatively isolated from nearby rivers and from the ocean. There are very few, if any, new introductions of IHN virus particles into the valley. For 21 years, scientists tracked and studied the evolution of the virus and found that over time the relatively few strains present in the valley grew into many”
Exactly!! The crowded conditions in the trout feed lots caused new strains of virus to mutate, because there are so many hosts in the same place!! Salmon feed lots are exactly the same, only worse.
Your post about “most of the virus particle dying before they can infect new hosts” is utterly misleading because a) there are thousands of host right there in the pens to ensure the propagation and survival of new strains and b) the feed lots that are right on the migration routes are in an ideal position to infect wild salmon. Your glib comment once again shows a cavalier attitude and violates the Precautionary Principle in spades!

3) Yes, IHN virus is designated as "HIGH RISK" because it has the potential to do huge damage to juvenile fish in aquaculture facilities, INCLUDING ENHANCEMENT HATCHERIES. This is where the virus was first observed, in a Washington State hatchery. In B.C. it killed a lot of fish at the Weaver Creek spawning channel one year. But research shows that under the natural conditions in river systems, where the density of eggs and alevins is far lower than in enhancement hatcheries, the virus is low risk.

4) Yes, there are three distinct strains of IHN, U (for Upper) M (for Middle) and L (for Lower) named for the geographical regions of the coast where they evolved different traits. The virus which showed up at fish farms is in the "U" clade.

Here you go again. Focussed only on what the IHN virus might do to aquaculture facilities. The fact remains that wild salmon in spawning channels (NOT a hatchery) WERE infected. So the risk is present. And I seriously doubt the Adams river run is a lower egg/alevin density than a spawning channel, particularly in a peak year. If you had ever seen that run you would not make unsubstantiated and foolish statements like “the risk is low”. You do not know that and why should the natural ecology and those that depend on it accept ANY risk on your behalf?!

5) IHN and other viruses is a risk farmers have to prepare for. The virus seems to only show up every 10 years, probably linked to ocean conditions like the Pacific Decadal Oscillation. But the vaccine that is available isn't field-tested, and is very expensive. Farmers weigh the risks and benefits and in many farms decide not to vaccinate against this virus because the odds of it showing up are low. This year, they gambled and lost. All farmers do this. You can't possibly vaccinate your animals against every single virus and disease which could harm them. You have to weigh the risks, and then do your best to keep the animals healthy at all times.

Again, I repeat, why should the natural ecology and those that depend on it accept ANY risk on your behalf?! This comment by you shows up clearly that all salmon feed lot owners care about is the risks and benefits, TO THEM. This is called externalisation, where all the impacts and risks to the environment, whether it be to the ecology and wild life, or other people’s economy and culture or health and well being is “off the books” to be absorbed and dealt with by society at large. You would then argue this would make salmon feed lots uneconomic and not able to be operated. Exactly! This is what those of us who have to take what the feed lot owners dish out in consequences are saying. No you cannot!. It IS uneconomic, once the salmon feed lot owners are forced to understand and accept the consequences of operating these things in the ocean.

6) Yes, the decline in Area 24 is dramatic. Do you think it's coincidence that it started shortly after the road was pushed through and the population sharply increased, along with logging, fishing and tourism in the region?

Trying to obfuscate by saying other factors are to blame for salmon population declines is a typical feed lot owners trick. Of course clear cut logging has an impact. But the huge declines in Area 24 happened coincident with the set up of the feed lots. Blaming tourism is so spurious as to be laughable.

END OF PART 1

 

[Englishman]

PART 2

7) Comparing B.C. to Chile and Norway is flawed. Chile has no natural wild salmon runs. Norway and Europe overfished their wild Atlantic stocks for centuries before they started farming. B.C. has relatively strong and healthy populations of Pacific salmon.

Nonsense, everything that happened in Chile is very relevant to BC BECAUSE we have wild salmon runs. We have a much more complex environment in BC with regard to multiple species and runs of migratory fish, and more to lose. Notwithstanding Atlantic salmon did not exist in their historical numbers when salmon feed lots started, it is well documented that the latter were the death knell for the remaining runs. There are innumerable web sites documenting the dreadful impacts of feed lots in Scotland and Norway.
Here are just a few:-
http://www.salmonfarmmonitor.org/problems.shtml
http://www.ssacn.org/environmental-impact-of-salmon-farming
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-17783724
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/7/1234.full.pdf

8) The USA has not banned salmon farming. There are salmon farms in Washington State and Maine. Alaska likes to crow about how they banned salmon farming, but they rely heavily on "ranching" projects which use -- gasp -- aquaculture technology and ocean net pens to rear fish, feeding them the same feed pellets farmed fish get, before they release them into the ocean. The fish, having imprinted on that region, come back in a year or two (depending on the species) and the fishermen just have to set nets and wait. Almost half of all salmon caught in Alaska comes from these facilities.

This is so silly, that anyone can see through this one. Even if Alaska does use net pens, raising fish to fingerling/smolt size and then releasing them has absolutely no comparison with the feed lot scenario where a migratory adults AND smolts swim through the viral and lice infested currents emanating from thousands of densely packed ADULT fish in the feed lots. As Morton has stated the huge unnatural violation the feed lots commit is mixing of adult and young fish in high concentrations. This does not happen naturally nor in the Alaska ranching example.

9) It does not take 2-5 kg of wild fish to grow 1 kg of salmon. Maybe 10 years ago but things have changed. Today it's about 1.2 kg of wild fish (which come from a fishery which hasn't increased its catch levels in 50 years) to grow 1 kg of farmed salmon.

This is absolutely wrong. You cannot get something for nothing!! Salmon are carnivores. On average it takes two to five kilograms of wild fish (used in feed) to produce one kilogram of farmed salmon.

You are mixing up feed weight with weight of processed wild fish. It IS 2-5kg of wild fish and here are the sources to prove it.
http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/salmon-farming-problems/what-is-salmon-farming/
http://www.bellona.org/aquaculture/artikler/Feed_accounts/
http://wcwcvictoria.org/154/salmon-farming-background/
And a quote from the following:-
“Skretting states that 2.02 kg of fish is used to produce 1 kg of salmon( in norwegian only). Environmental organisations are also interested in alternative feed ingredients, and WWF has done its own calculation of FIFO on its Norwegian website. They state in their calculation that 3.024 kg wild fish is used to produce 1 kg of farmed fish.”
http://www.thefishsite.com/articles/1092/how-much-wild-fish-is-there-in-fish-farming-feed

I particularly like the quote from the link below and rest my case about the fact that salmon feed lots are indeed evil!!

“Salmon production requires huge amounts of fishmeal - an estimated 4kg of wild fish is needed for every 1kg of farmed fish produced. However, the ecological impacts of fishmeal production and the consequences for communities who are losing sources of fish for themselves, has left many to question whether it is sustainable.

‘The salmon we produce is eaten by the mouths of people in the USA and Europe, but the asshole is here in Latin America,’ Jean Carlos Cardenas of Ecoceanos told The Ecologist. ‘The true cost of the cheap salmon you eat is being paid with the blood of our people and the health of our oceans.’”
http://www.theecologist.org/News/ne...l_tackles_farmed_salmon_feed_controversy.html

And this quote is pretty damning too!
“Many of the fish stocks used as feed - mostly anchovies, pilchards, mackerel, herring, and whiting - are already fished at, or over, their safe biological limit. So instead of relieving pressure on the marine environment, aquaculture is actually contributing to the overfishing crisis that plagues the world's fisheries.
To reinforce this, quite fortunately there is a completely independent path to arrive at the same conclusion. For the year 2008 approximately 2.3 million tonnes of salmon were produced worldwide (FAO ftp://ftp.fao.org/fi/stat/summary/summ_08/b-1.pdf) Again, assuming 1.2 kg of feed to produce 1 kg of salmon this means 2.76 million tonnes of salmon feed were produced. With 17% of salmon feed being fish oil this equates to the capture of 9.4 million tonnes of feeder fish. Thus, the global FFDR for salmon production is 4.09.”
http://www.verlasso.com/conversation/article/dependence-of-salmon-aquaculture-on-wild-fisheries/

10) The carbon footprint of salmon farming is not much different from fishing. The energy use is similar, but salmon farming uses far less land and has far less impact on the ocean floor. http://library.enaca.org/environment/comparative-assessment08.pdf

This too is nonsense. The link below from Cermaq (one of your partners in crime!) has a table which shows a carbon footprint comparison. Right in there it shows salmon feed lots have 6 times the carbon footprint of a herring or mackerel fishery! They shot themselves in the foot there didn’t they! Of course the fish feed lot perpetrators keep trying to show their carbon footprint is better than beef or chicken which is not the point. A wild caught fish will always have lower carbon footprint than a feed lot fish, as the table shows. You cannot get something for nothing!!
http://msc.khamiahosting.com/sites/default/files/FS_carbon footprint_2012.01.31.pdf

That's enough for now, thanks for the discussion and I look forward to more.

Finally I wanted to emphasise once again that salmon feed lots have been set up in complete VIOLATION AND IGNORANCE of the Precautionary Principle.
I quote from the link below
“The precautionary principle or precautionary approach states that if an action or policy has a suspected risk of causing harm to the public or to the environment, in the absence of scientific consensus that the action or policy is harmful, the burden of proof that it is not harmful falls on those taking the action.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle

You in the industry keep saying (even in the face of overwhelming evidence as noted above) that there is no proven harm to wild salmon or the environment caused by feed lots. This situation, forced on us by the careless money seeking business sector and ecologically ignorant politicians is completely backwards! The burden of proof should be on you to prove that there is no harm. This should have happened from day one. It didn’t and now the people, ecology and culture of BC pays the price. It is sickening, literally and figuratively!!

 

[alwaysfishn]

Good posts Englishman! Thanks for taking the time and having the patience to respond to some of the myths and half truths about feedlots.

 

[Rockfish]

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/Salmon+farmers+efficient+resources/7078710/story.html

Very good response Englishman.

You did all that work for free out of a love for our country, our province, our coast and our Pacific fish. Not because you were paid to spin the truth.

Thought you would like to see a letter in the Times Colonist from a principal Atlantic Salmon Feedlot PR Hack.

I thought you did a good job of blowing away the very self serving and misleading information in this letter in your recent post. I noticed the TC gave it a pretty picture.

I bet Mary Ellen does not work cheep. Defending this industry must keep her busy.

 

[trendsetter]

Englishman, excellent post! Thank you for the very well thought out and researched comments.

I do however have one question that had bothered me; I've seen it stated in several documentaries on fish farming and it has never made sense to me.

“Salmon production requires huge amounts of fishmeal - an estimated 4kg of wild fish is needed for every 1kg of farmed fish produced. However, the ecological impacts of fishmeal production and the consequences for communities who are losing sources of fish for themselves, has left many to question whether it is sustainable.

Salmon in the wild require a food source as well and they (one would assume) consume far more calories in their great migration from their natal stream to the gulf of Alaska, throughout their lives and then the journey back to spawn. Including extensive feeding later in life to store energy for the journey upstream.

Now, my question is do salmon feed lots actually require more feed to produce a kg of salmon than wild salmon? Logic would dictate that they actually require less given that the feed lot salmon only have to swim in circles not battle ocean currents, escape predators and journey hundreds of KM upstream to spawn.

In other industrial feed lot scenarios, take poultry for example, they bred birds and developed rearing techniques that require far less feed input to produce meat than is required for free range type production. Could this be the case with salmon farms? I don't know because I have never seen the figures which outline the actual feed consumption required for wild stocks.

That is the only argument that I can't seem to reconcile in the whole salmon farm debate. Everything else points to immediate removal of these feed lots from our waters. If in fact salmon feed lots are more efficient at converting bait fish / fish meal into salmon meat then that might be a reason for them to stay in business (on land in sealed containment to remove the other negative effects on the environment).

 

[Englishman]

http://www.timescolonist.com/opinion/letters/Salmon+farmers+efficient+resources/7078710/story.html

Very good response Englishman.

You did all that work for free out of a love for our country, our province, our coast and our Pacific fish. Not because you were paid to spin the truth.

Thought you would like to see a letter in the Times Colonist from a principal Atlantic Salmon Feedlot PR Hack.

I thought you did a good job of blowing away the very self serving and misleading information in this letter in your recent post. I noticed the TC gave it a pretty picture.

I bet Mary Ellen does not work cheep. Defending this industry must keep her busy.

Thx for the comment Rockfish. I think a letter of rebuttal to the TC is called for. I doubt it will get published but I will do it anyway.......

 

[Englishman]

Englishman, excellent post! Thank you for the very well thought out and researched comments.

I do however have one question that had bothered me; I've seen it stated in several documentaries on fish farming and it has never made sense to me.



Salmon in the wild require a food source as well and they (one would assume) consume far more calories in their great migration from their natal stream to the gulf of Alaska, throughout their lives and then the journey back to spawn. Including extensive feeding later in life to store energy for the journey upstream.

Now, my question is do salmon feed lots actually require more feed to produce a kg of salmon than wild salmon? Logic would dictate that they actually require less given that the feed lot salmon only have to swim in circles not battle ocean currents, escape predators and journey hundreds of KM upstream to spawn.

In other industrial feed lot scenarios, take poultry for example, they bred birds and developed rearing techniques that require far less feed input to produce meat than is required for free range type production. Could this be the case with salmon farms? I don't know because I have never seen the figures which outline the actual feed consumption required for wild stocks.

That is the only argument that I can't seem to reconcile in the whole salmon farm debate. Everything else points to immediate removal of these feed lots from our waters. If in fact salmon feed lots are more efficient at converting bait fish / fish meal into salmon meat then that might be a reason for them to stay in business (on land in sealed containment to remove the other negative effects on the environment).

Thx for your comments Trendsetter.

You raise a very interesting question. I suspect you are right and that wild fish would consume more energy per kg of weight given their active migratory lifestyle. I don’t know of any formal research on that but it would make sense. However, I don’t think the relative efficiency with which it is used (when as feed for fish) is the issue.

So, notwithstanding that possibility, the real issue is – where do we get the feed for say 100,000 fish in a feed lot? It has to come from somewhere.

1. We could get it from the local feeder fish resources around BC (e.g. herring) but then a) we take the food away from 50,000 wild salmon (assuming farmed fish are twice as efficient for the sake of this discussion) and b) we are depleting part of the local food chain complex with unknown effects and c) this food fish may have been used directly and therefore more efficiently, as food for humans. We rightly have local laws restricting catches of fish like herring, and I believe it is illegal to process them into fish meal or fertiliser in Canada.
2. We could get it from other fisheries around the world, where conservation laws are more lax or not enforced. In fact this is exactly what is done as most feed pellets derive from fish caught in the Southern Oceans. In this case we are a) robbing Southern fish higher up the food chain who might have eaten those fish b) depleted the Southern food chain complex with unknown effects across the ecology of the region and c) deprived local people of those fish, who might have directly utiliised those fish processed into pellets as food.

As I have posted earlier, salmon feed lots are nothing more than ecologically damaging conveyor belts for moving fish protein from the poor south to the rich industrial north. It is ecologically damaging because pellet processing and shipping directly attacks and undermines the base of the food chain; a very dangerous thing to do.

This is the source of the frustration so succinctly expressed by Jean Carlos Cardenas of Ecoceanos in the link below. ‘The true cost of the cheap salmon you eat is being paid with the blood of our people and the health of our oceans.’”
http://www.theecologist.org/News/new...ntroversy.html

 

[Charlie]

Nice job Englishman! Me I personally would rather take them one at a time!

Just for the record, Aquaculture is the farming of fish, shellfish, and aquatic plants and is among the fastest-growing segments of the world food economy and I do totally support sustainable “Aquaculture” farming; however:

“Additionally, much of what is meant by aquaculture, at least in Europe, North America, and other parts of the developed world, consists of feedlot operations in which carnivorous fish (mainly salmon, but also various sea bass and other species) are fattened on a diet rich in fish meal and oil. The idea makes commercial sense, as the farmed fish fetch a much higher market price than the fish ground up for fish meal (even though they may consist of species that are consumed by humans, such as herring, sardine or mackerels). The point is that operations of this type consume much more fish flesh than they produce, and hence cannot replace fisheries. Indeed, this form of aquaculture represents another source of pressure on wild fish populations.
Volume 7 Issue 1 Sustainable Development Law & Policy

So, I guess it is correct to use the term “feedlot operations.” Now, I also sorry to report to those still supporting, or working for those Atlantic salmon open net pens that fall under the term feedlot another term also applies – ‘Biological pollution’

“Most major aquatic species cultured in the United States are not native to their farm sites. Accidental escapes and even purposeful releases create “biological pollution” with irreversible and unpredictable ecological impacts.
Aquaculture—A Gateway for Exotic Species

If anyone supporting or working for those ‘Biological polluting’ ‘feedlot operations’ believes “Unfortunately, the information shared by our critics is significantly out of date by B.C. standards” that should be easy all one has to do is provide the documentation, in other words – PROVE IT!

I do know the Biological polluting feedlot industry have made progress and it is a top priority as everyone, including them know the current modern aquaculture practices are unsustainable: and will remain that way until you teach those Atlantic salmon to eat soybeans.

BC members [Norway] have led the way in the most efficient use of these resources [added ground-up chicken feather, which “chicken farmers is the third largest user of fishmeal and oil], drastically reducing the amount of fishmeal and oil in their feed [replaced it with chicken feathers, which exposes them to more viruses] in the past decade, replacing them with other ingredients [more, PCBs, dioxins, and diseases] while still providing farm-raised salmon with the nutrients they need to be a healthy and nutritious protein source. [In other words - same old ****].

What else can I say to that particular statement, other than the aquaculture sector [reported they] consumed 3724 thousand tonnes of fish meal (68.2% total global fish meal production in 2006) and 835 thousand tonnes of fish oil (88.5% total reported fish oil production in 2006),

Now we go to the “these improvements, today it only takes about 1.2 kilograms of these small fish to grow one kilogram of farmed salmon,” That I go back to… should be easy all one has to do is provide the documentation, in other words – PROVE IT!

Some of the fishmeal used in salmon feed is sourced from what is considered a sustainable fishery, which is the Antarctica krill fishery (oil), and some fisheries in developed countries. I would like to remind good ole Mary the majority forage fished used in that meal does NOT come from those fisheries. The majority of the forage fish used comes from developing countries without any sustainable guidelines and happen to be the source of most of PBCs and Dioxins found in those not so healthy "farmed fish" and... who really cares according to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization, the vast majority of it would never provide food to humans? It just happens, the rest of the other animals in the food chain, certainly does need that source of food for them to survive.

“On the basis of the responses received, it is estimated that in 2006 the aquaculture sector consumed 3724 thousand tonnes of fish meal (68.2% total global fish meal production in 2006) and 835 thousand tonnes of fish oil (88.5% total reported fish oil production in 2006), or the equivalent of 16.6 million tonnes of small pelagic forage fish (using a wet fish to fish meal processing yield of 22.5% and wet fish to fish oil processing yield of 5%) with an overall fish-in fish-out ratio of 0.70. At a species-group level, calculation of small pelagic forage fish input per unit of farmed fish or crustacean output showed steadily decreasing fish-in fish-out ratios for all cultivated species from 1995 to 2006, with decreases being most dramatic for carnivorous fish species such as salmon (decreasing from 7.5 to 4.9 from 1995 to 2006), trout (decreasing from 6.0 to 3.4), eel (decreasing from 5.2 to 3.5), marine fish (decreasing from 3.0 to 2.2) and to a lesser extent shrimp (decreasing by 1.9 to 1.4 from 1995 to 2006. Net fish producing species in 2006 (with fish-in fish-out ratios below 1), included herbivorous and omnivorous finfish and crustacean species, including non-filter feeding Chinese carp (0.2), milkfish (0.2), tilapia (0.4), catfish (0.5), and freshwater crustaceans (0.6).
http://www.cnr.uidaho.edu/fish510/PDF/fishmeal.pdf

Guess I would have to agree, in 2006 it took 4.5 kg (10 lbs.) of smaller pelagic, or open-ocean, fish to create 1 kg (2.2 lbs.) of high-protein fishmeal.

“Since 1981, the proportion of fishmeal used in aquaculture has been increasing and the those “fish farms” is responsible for 46% of that. What surprised me was the high percent used by pig 24%) and chicken (22%) farming and that pet food only uses 8%.
http://www.seafoodchoices.org/seafoodsummit/documents/Jacquet,Jennifer.pdf

"Aquaculture's current heavy reliance on wild fish for feed carries substantial ecological risks," says Roz Naylor, a leading scholar on the subject at Stanford University's Center for Environmental Science and Policy. Unless the industry finds alternatives to using pelagic fish to sustain fish farms, says Naylor, the aquaculture industry could end up depleting an essential food source for many other species in the marine food chain., which is fed to farmed fish (along with fish oil, which also comes from other fish), it takes.
http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1663604,00.html#ixzz23VLhYLqW

However, modern aquaculture practices are largely unsustainable: they consume natural resources at a very high rate (fresh water, coastal mangrove forests, fish meal) and, due to their intensity, these practices are extremely vulnerable to the pollution and disease outbreaks they induce.
Effect of aquaculture on world fish supplies

 

[Englishman]

Nice job Englishman! Me I personally would rather take them one at a time!

Me too Charlie, but the challenge is these guys fire off their propaganda bombs in all directions at once so as to confuse, distract, overwhelm and create doubt. My approach is to fight fire with fire and beat them at their own game by providing as complete a response as possible with all the scientifically supported background information. You do that of course - great research links by the way - but in a great deal more detail than I. Both approaches complement each other, I think.

 

[alwaysfishn]

Thx for your comments Trendsetter.

You raise a very interesting question. I suspect you are right and that wild fish would consume more energy per kg of weight given their active migratory lifestyle. I don’t know of any formal research on that but it would make sense. However, I don’t think the relative efficiency with which it is used (when as feed for fish) is the issue.

So, notwithstanding that possibility, the real issue is – where do we get the feed for say 100,000 fish in a feed lot? It has to come from somewhere.

1. We could get it from the local feeder fish resources around BC (e.g. herring) but then a) we take the food away from 50,000 wild salmon (assuming farmed fish are twice as efficient for the sake of this discussion) and b) we are depleting part of the local food chain complex with unknown effects and c) this food fish may have been used directly and therefore more efficiently, as food for humans. We rightly have local laws restricting catches of fish like herring, and I believe it is illegal to process them into fish meal or fertiliser in Canada.
2. We could get it from other fisheries around the world, where conservation laws are more lax or not enforced. In fact this is exactly what is done as most feed pellets derive from fish caught in the Southern Oceans. In this case we are a) robbing Southern fish higher up the food chain who might have eaten those fish b) depleted the Southern food chain complex with unknown effects across the ecology of the region and c) deprived local people of those fish, who might have directly utiliised those fish processed into pellets as food.

As I have posted earlier, salmon feed lots are nothing more than ecologically damaging conveyor belts for moving fish protein from the poor south to the rich industrial north. It is ecologically damaging because pellet processing and shipping directly attacks and undermines the base of the food chain; a very dangerous thing to do.

This is the source of the frustration so succinctly expressed by Jean Carlos Cardenas of Ecoceanos in the link below. ‘The true cost of the cheap salmon you eat is being paid with the blood of our people and the health of our oceans.’”
http://www.theecologist.org/News/new...ntroversy.html

The other main difference with wild salmon versus feedlot salmon is the natural balance that occurs with wild salmon. When the quantity of natural feed is not available for wild salmon, they just don't survive, nature looks after that.

Feedlots on the other hand continue to pull the same amounts of natural feed out of the ocean, without considering the conservation of the feed fish, in order to feed their salmon. Of course as the feedlots continue to expand they put more and more pressure on the feed fish sources.

 

[Rockfish]

Englishman, excellent post! Thank you for the very well thought out and researched comments.

I do however have one question that had bothered me; I've seen it stated in several documentaries on fish farming and it has never made sense to me.



Salmon in the wild require a food source as well and they (one would assume) consume far more calories in their great migration from their natal stream to the gulf of Alaska, throughout their lives and then the journey back to spawn. Including extensive feeding later in life to store energy for the journey upstream.

Now, my question is do salmon feed lots actually require more feed to produce a kg of salmon than wild salmon? Logic would dictate that they actually require less given that the feed lot salmon only have to swim in circles not battle ocean currents, escape predators and journey hundreds of KM upstream to spawn.

In other industrial feed lot scenarios, take poultry for example, they bred birds and developed rearing techniques that require far less feed input to produce meat than is required for free range type production. Could this be the case with salmon farms? I don't know because I have never seen the figures which outline the actual feed consumption required for wild stocks.

That is the only argument that I can't seem to reconcile in the whole salmon farm debate. Everything else points to immediate removal of these feed lots from our waters. If in fact salmon feed lots are more efficient at converting bait fish / fish meal into salmon meat then that might be a reason for them to stay in business (on land in sealed containment to remove the other negative effects on the environment).

It may seem logical on the surface that wild salmon which migrate huge distances and climb rivers to reproduce would expend more energy and therefore consume more calories (feed) than caged feedlot salmon. That may or may not be true. You speculate that pen salmon do not have to expend energy to fight ocean current but the pens are often placed in high current areas to wash away some of the disease, parasites and pollution.

I understand that feed lots are generally used to fatten up species to make more money at slaughter and that fast growth requires calories. It does make sense that this would be occurring in salmon feedlots. That is to say excessive feeding and eating to fatten them up and grow them quickly.

Animals and humans don’t stop eating just because they have reached their current energy requirements. If they did, none of us would have fat tummies. I am aware that farmed Atlantics are indeed fat salmon and have several times the fat content of wild salmon. Unfortunately that also means they have much higher levels of fat soluble toxins/poisons in their tissue than wild salmon. Something that should be considered when deciding what to feed your children.

I might also point out that industry wants to bring domesticated food animals to market as fast as possible to max out profits. Typically therefore domestic feed animals are breed for fast growing characteristics. They want them to grow to marketable size as fast as possible so that the pens can be turned over for the next crop and that takes calories although you can play with stats to make it look better. The faster they grow the more crops can be growen and that results in more food eaten.

The quest of industry is always faster calorie consuming growth which explains the mountains of rotting fish waste under these sewer pen disease factories that pollute and clog our coastal inlets.

I understand the industry is not satisfied with just breeding to produce faster growers, they are now working on genetically engineered multi species gene spliced Frankenfish that grow at an astounding continuous rate and one assumes consume food at an astounding rate as well. The gene that turns off growth in natural fish is itself turned off.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/39265727/ns/health-food_safety/t/super-salmon-or-frankenfish-fda-decide/

Currently these Frankenfish are not in our ocean but you can bet the salmon feedlot industry would love to bring them here. If we think now it is a concern that these feedlots consume way to much of the worlds smaller species, imagine what these monster will eat and imagine what they will do to young wild salmon and other species that enter their pens or when they inevitably escape. I think of them as potential genetically engineered Velociraptors of the ocean.

The more one learns about the salmon feedlot industry in BC the more you realized how critical it is that they not be allowed to expand and are removed from our ocean. The longer this nightmare continues the worse it gets for wild salmon and all that depend on them.

 

[Foxsea]

It may seem logical on the surface that wild salmon which migrate huge distances and climb rivers to reproduce would expend more energy and therefore consume more calories (feed) than caged feedlot salmon. That may or may not be true.

The more one learns about the salmon feedlot industry in BC the more you realized how critical it is that they not be allowed to expand and are removed from our ocean. The longer this nightmare continues the worse it gets for wild salmon and all that depend on them.

X2

A gread thread, guys. Thanks for the research and awareness-building.

All factory farming depends on (un)economic externalities to be profitable. If we were to accurately account for the costs of damaged eco-systems, pollution of land, air and water as well as the massive inputs of fossil fuels and fertilizers, hormones, pesticides and herbicides, factory farming would be far from efficient or profitable. This inefficiency is compounded by the economic distortions created through government subsidies to factory farming operations.

Regarding the argument from Trendsetter that wild salmon may expend more energy than feedlot fish:
1) Wild salmon have proven themselves sustainable over millenia by responding efficiently to natural cycles.
2) Wild salmon forage, contributing to the robustness of diverse prey stocks through selective targeting.
3) Wild salmon also contribute to the natural ecology, returning to provide food for land-based carnivores and fertilizer for trees and plants, depositing their carcases on stream banks after spawning.

Farmed salmon, meanwhile:
1) Are not sustainable without constant human intervention at all stages of their life cycle
2) Depend on human foraging at great environmental expense and through enormous consumption of unsustainable fossil fuels.
3) Destroy natural eco-systems and contribute nothing but parasites and disease.

Factory farms export profits and localize the true costs of government subsidy and economic distortion, along with the environmental havoc they leave in their wake.

 

[Gunsmith]

Factory farms, feedlots are mutations of what used to be a sustainable way of making a living and providing food for a population. The result is more money to less people.
Not acceptable.

 

[Seafever]

Got a question:-

Who in the world eats the most fish per capita?

Which country consumes the most fish for food?

What species are the most heavily consumed?

Who consumes the most salmon such as Chinook?

Who consumes the most Halibut?

Who consumes the most farmed salmon?