A number of small, niggling items still left to respond to:
Thanks for your last post, Sockeyefry. I'm enjoying your input and debate on this forum.
Yes, I do understand the industry needs some hard numbers to actually see how profitable CC can be. Lets hope the Namgis do well. If everyone HAD TO go CC, then there wouldn't be any debate about whether or not CC can compete w open net-cages. There were a number of other positive benefits when using CC, including getting a premium for the product.
CK: Quite a number of rambling points still left hanging, but I'll try to wrap-up most of them:
Firstly, Cohen's mandate was very narrow, and focused on the Fraser stocks. He was not trying to prove or disprove whether or not stocks world-wide were affected by open net-pen aquaculture like Ford's peer-reviewed article – HENCE, Ford was not included in Cohen's references. It wasn't because Ford's article was invalid - as you like to claim.
Secondly – more on the peer-review process. I noticed you neglected to respond to my and Cuttlefish's queries about whether you were one of the “ANYONES” who get published in PLOS1. I can only assume you have never published, and are embarrassed to admit it - esp. after you were called on your "anyone" remarks by several posters.
For your information, the peer-review process can be quite stringent. For many Journals, only 10-20% of the articles submitted get published and only after a lengthy review and revision process – the rest are declined. Most peer-review editors farm the draft text out to 2-20 double-blind reviewers who are experts in their field for review and comments. The number of reviewers often depends upon how interdisplinary the study was. This review process often takes months – sometimes even years. Yes ANYONE can do it, but certainly not EVERYONE is successful. This is the same for PLOS1 as many other Journals. The same process for the antis and the pro-articles, as well.
IF you have legitimate scientific critiques on the paper in question you can submit a letter to the original editor about the article, and they publish these. The original authors can then respond back with explanations, and this process can go on for some time with back-n-forth and is quite enlightening. There were a series of letters by Stucci, and Jones over some of Krkosek's work (for example) and it was very informative to read the back and forths.
This is the scientific process, CK. It's not perfect, but reasonable – and certainly better than taking anybody's word for what they believe. The process (hopefully) builds on past work – eventually getting us to a better understanding of the issues.
There are sometimes some hard truths revealed in this process – and admitted and responded to when there is open, transparent, respectful dialogue. Many people are vested in their paradigms, and many are afraid of change.
Let me ask you this question: To what camp does stalling the issues with deflection and lies work better for? Who is afraid of changing from the open net-cage technology?
Certainly our coastal communities want to be able to take advantage of our natural resources – stalling is continuing to deny access and vitality to our communities. These communities bear the brunt of any negative effects – NOT Vancouver, Ottawa or Oslo. The shareholders of these companies only want to see the largest return on their investment as possible. They don't bear the burden of living with the negative effects.
Thirdly, thank you for your honest answer about what your aquaculture experience has been. From your answer – I would suggest that you are familiar with aquaculture in Clayoquot Sound, but not personally experienced with the effects of aquaculture in the Broughtons, in New Brunswick, in Ireland, in Western Scotland, or in Norway. I neglected to add Chile, since they have no natural stocks of wild salmonids to assess impacts against aquaculture. Unfortunately you also appear to not have read the literature, either.
BECAUSE if you had more experience or background – (being the conscientious professional you want to be) you would NEVER had made the statement that “opponents of aquaculture can't measure a negative impact from farms on wild salmon populations”. It's NOT just the Ford study, CK. It's been the experience world-wide, INCLUDING the Broughtons, New Brunswick, Ireland, Western Scotland, and Norway.. Different problems for different areas sometimes:
look-up just two examples (it's all the time I have for in my response right now) :
the impact of genetic pollution and escapees on the Maquadavic River in New Brunswick,
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/63/7/1263.full
http://icesjms.oxfordjournals.org/content/58/2/504.full.pdf
The impact of sea lice in Europe,
http://rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/early/2009/07/02/rspb.2009.0771.long
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-2109.2004.01102.x/abstract
Please note that Maggie MacKibbon did find the proximity and length/stage of production did affect numbers of sea lice, IN CONTRAST to your assertion that: “Temperature, time and salinity are the only things that have ever been shown to affect the prevalence and occurrence of lice on outgoing smolts - not farms.”.
Everywhere you look IN THE WORLD, there have been negative population-level impacts on wild adjacent salmon stocks from the open net-cage industry. Some years for some things – not too bad – especially if the wild stocks are at high enough numbers to take it. When the wild numbers drop – that additional environmental stress can and does have significant, severe population level effects. Over time – like playing the loto – you occasionally win, or in this case – LOOSE.
In the science, the argument is over how that effect happens, how significant that effect is, and what that risk is that we are subjecting the wild salmon stocks to – the debate in the literature (like climate change) is not over that it NOT happens.
Anyways that's all I have time for now....