Aquaculture; improving????

islandboy

Well-Known Member
Don Noakes has always promoted Fish Farms with no concern for wild salmon!
In the Globe story above he was quoted saying...
"As you can likely tell, I'm a little frustrated with this crap," .
As a sports fisherman I feel the same way as he and SeaWest spew their bias self serving propaganda!
“Aquaculture provides oceans of opportunity for Canada”

https://seawestnews.com/aquaculture-provides-oceans-of-opportunity-for-canada/
 
Yes, aquaculture practices are improving, especially on the Pacific coast. It seems some can't get their heads around this, or , they simply ignore the facts.
Noakes may well have been the head of the aquaculture department, but he was also the Director at PBS.

Agent, your suggestion Noakes was let go was not the scuttlebutt when it happened; it was more like the situation of Brian Riddell leaving DFO because he felt ( and rightfully so) he could do more in the private sector.
 
Yes, aquaculture practices are improving, especially on the Pacific coast. It seems some can't get their heads around this, or , they simply ignore the facts.
Noakes may well have been the head of the aquaculture department, but he was also the Director at PBS.

Agent, your suggestion Noakes was let go was not the scuttlebutt when it happened; it was more like the situation of Brian Riddell leaving DFO because he felt ( and rightfully so) he could do more in the private sector.
This kind of improvement? Its killing the Wild Salmon runs into near extintion. Time to remove from Pacific Coast.
tavishcampbell.ca-22.jpg
 
Yes, aquaculture practices are improving, especially on the Pacific coast. It seems some can't get their heads around this, or , they simply ignore the facts.

Are you kidding? The sea lice issue, 2 years running in Clayoquot Sound has all but nearly wiped out the wild salmon runs in the last 2 years. There are some very good people/groups doing their best to get the Farms out of there before the Wild Fish are no more. Sorry, but that was a dumb comment, or uninformed.
 
Are you kidding? The sea lice issue, 2 years running in Clayoquot Sound has all but nearly wiped out the wild salmon runs in the last 2 years. There are some very good people/groups doing their best to get the Farms out of there before the Wild Fish are no more. Sorry, but that was a dumb comment, or uninformed.
https://biv.com/article/2014/09/sockeye-season-good-it-could-have-been-better
Don Noakes, former head of the Fisheries Department’s Pacific Biological Station, current dean of science and technology at Vancouver Island University and one of the experts called on by the Cohen Commission, said most “good scientists” never did give much weight to the sea lice theory:

http://www.animaladvocates.com/watchdog.pl?md=read;id=3973
Donald J. Noakes

Why was a guy with a degree in computer science (not biology) and only six first-author publications appointed director of what was once the most highly regard fisheries research institute in the world? This is highly unusual in science.

The most reasonable explanation is that Dick Beamish, the director of PBS before Noakes, didn’t want to be in the position of having to feed the public a lot of baloney about salmon farming, so, around 1992 he stepped down and let Noakes take his place. Noakes was Beamish’s friend; they cultivated rhododendrons and collected beanie babies together.

Noakes had gone straight into DFO from graduate school in engineering, so he was never part of an organization that valued scientific integrity. What he understood was sales engineering, in which you use the science you know to sell your product. He was a sales engineer for salmon farming.

https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/...ure-s-advisory-council-on-finfish-aquaculture
Minister of Agriculture's Advisory Council on Finfish Aquaculture
Dr. Don Noakes

Dean, Faculty of Science and Technology, Vancouver Island University
Dr. Donald Noakes is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Science and Technology at Vancouver Island University. He has been actively involved in research on Pacific salmon and interactions between wild and farmed salmon for 30 years. His career includes 19 years working for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and teaching and academic administration appointments at Thompson Rivers University (Kamloops) and Vancouver Island University (Nanaimo).
 
Are you kidding? The sea lice issue, 2 years running in Clayoquot Sound has all but nearly wiped out the wild salmon runs in the last 2 years. There are some very good people/groups doing their best to get the Farms out of there before the Wild Fish are no more. Sorry, but that was a dumb comment, or uninformed.

Pray tell what stocks have been nearly wiped out by sea lice? Ah, don't bother ... this will only escalate and be shut down.
 
There is no shortage of information on the issues in Clayoquot sound. I have read reports of up to 50 Lice per farmed fish. If you truly would like to catch up Dave, here is a good local artice to read. Otherwise you can google it for yourself and you will see its not much of a secret.

https://thetyee.ca/News/2019/06/11/Sea-Lice-Plagues-Return/

yeah but what runs are going to be wiped out in couple of years, Just so we can review this in two years from now. What are there current levels now? so we have a baseline to measure this claim against.

"“If this happens for a couple more years we won’t have any wild salmon left in Clayoquot Sound,” she added. “"
 
So you are quite happy to sit on the sidelines and watch? Then in 2 years what?

I think your answer is right in the text you've copied and pasted.
 
Are you trying to insinuate that this is false? All you gotta do is read..

How many times over the years have claims be made over the years that if we don’t do something about fish farms there will be no salmon in the ocean in a few years.

After Fraser sockeye collapse in 2009 fish farms were suppose To wipe out all the sockeye within a few years and then in 2010 sockeye on the Fraser had one of its biggest returns ever. Pink salmon in the Brighton collapsed and then fish farms were to blame and no pink salmon were suppose to return and then a few years later again one of the biggest returns happened.

If you look at the charts for Fraser river chinook they have actually been steadily increasing since the early 1980s..

Fraser rive pinks had one of their worst returns ever in 2017 and again claimed were made that fish farms were to blame and then this year they Have bounced back and 9 million returned way above estimates of 5 million.

Fish farms impact whiled salmon yes, seal lice impacted salmon yes but are they the silver bullet that’s going to wipe out salmon in two years.

Nope
 
I think that's where your thinking is flawed. You are looking for a silver bullet, but you wont find it. Too many issues at play here. I believe fish farms have a much bigger impact to wild stocks than what people, such as you believe. I spend a lot of time reading on this subject.
However, I strongly believe that there are other factors at play such as habitat loss, water quality from encroaching human pops, overfishing etc. An easy start to helping our wild fish is removing these farms. They only employ 600 people, a drop in the bucket. If our fish return those 600 jobs would easily be absorbed into the growth of the rec sector which currently employs over 10,000 people.
Each problem presents its own set of challenges. We don't benefit much from the farms. We remove protein from the ocean to grow protein at a loss, doesn't make any sense. Not to mention all the problems we have with the farms from disease and mass culls, to sea lice issues, escapes, BC tax payer payouts, wild forage fish for feed and there is more.....all for a measly few hundred jobs? Not worth the risk in my opinion.
anyways, rant over I'm out.....
 
I think that's where your thinking is flawed. You are looking for a silver bullet, but you wont find it. Too many issues at play here. I believe fish farms have a much bigger impact to wild stocks than what people, such as you believe. I spend a lot of time reading on this subject.
However, I strongly believe that there are other factors at play such as habitat loss, water quality from encroaching human pops, overfishing etc. An easy start to helping our wild fish is removing these farms. They only employ 600 people, a drop in the bucket. If our fish return those 600 jobs would easily be absorbed into the growth of the rec sector which currently employs over 10,000 people.
Each problem presents its own set of challenges. We don't benefit much from the farms. We remove protein from the ocean to grow protein at a loss, doesn't make any sense. Not to mention all the problems we have with the farms from disease and mass culls, to sea lice issues, escapes, BC tax payer payouts, wild forage fish for feed and there is more.....all for a measly few hundred jobs? Not worth the risk in my opinion.
anyways, rant over I'm out.....
Well said Sino. Not worth the risk.
 
Better not vote for the Liberals then if you want fish farms gone.!!! Hes actually starting to grow on me now that every sector including first nations hate him. Maybe he is doing something right.


By Jonathan Wilkinson

We’re all familiar with the saying “an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”. Beginning in the 1980s, policy makers began using these aphorisms to describe a “precautionary approach”.

It’s a concept at the heart of many applications of science and is something that will increasingly underpin how Canada will manage aquaculture.

It is the cornerstone of a suite of measures I announced in December to ensure Canada’s aquaculture industry is economically successful and environmentally sustainable.

Over 90 percent of the planet’s wild fish stocks are either fished to the maximum or overfished, yet demand for healthy sources of protein is increasing. Nearly half of fish consumed by humans now comes from aquaculture. It is clear the world needs aquaculture.

Over two-thirds of Canada’s farmed salmon production occurs in B.C.—the economic opportunities for coastal and Indigenous communities in B.C. are significant. However, concerns about the potential impacts have become divisive.

The good jobs and economic prosperity from aquaculture will only be realized if Canadians know that aquaculture is being undertaken in an environmentally sustainable manner.

It’s time to refresh the federal government’s approach to aquaculture by emphasizing more fulsome implementation of the precautionary approach. We must move forward in ways that address and don’t ignore areas of concern.

This means asking: if those with concerns about environmental impacts were eventually found to be correct, which concerns would be most damaging to the environment and what can we do to mitigate?

For example, one area of significant debate has been whether a specific virus could harm wild juvenile salmon near open-net farms along migratory pathways. There is disagreement on this topic. In the new federal framework, this means moving towards an area-based approach to managing aquaculture—an approach that takes into consideration environmental, social, and economic factors when identifying potential areas for new aquaculture development.

This is a discussion that has recently taken place here in B.C. regarding the Broughton Archipelago where the DFO will be working with B.C., industry and First Nations—listening to concerns and moving to an area-based approach.

Another element of our new approach is a focus on emerging technologies—including closed-containment. Recently, we announced an expedited technical and economic study. Results will inform technology development efforts and broader public policy considerations.

Over the past several years we have witnessed a sometimes acrimonious debate regarding aquaculture. It’s important that we move beyond this unproductive conversation—to better engage people of good intent in working to enhance sustainability.

To do this, all interested parties—including DFO—will need to reach out to those with other perspectives to engage in a more productive conversation. In this regard, DFO recently committed to creating a new position of “Science Advisor” and to creating an advisory committee to provide external perspective on aquaculture science priorities.

Having more constructive discussions will however require that we are forthright in our use of information. Too often over past years has one side or the other misconstrued information for the purpose of making their point.

For example, in an article that ran on this website (Georgia Straight) earlier this month, a noted environmental activist asserted that (if not appealed) a recent Federal Court decision regarding piscine orthoreovirus (PRV) requires, by law, that, as of June 4, smolts be tested for PRV before being transferred to open-net pens.

In fact, what the court actually found is that DFO’s current policies set the threshold for “harm” to wild stocks too high and should be revisited. The court also said that upon revisiting this matter, “it is possible that the Minister will still conclude that it is appropriate to maintain the PRV Policy,” i.e. that it is not necessary to test for PRV.

This is simply an example but one that I think highlights an important issue and underlines that we collectively need to be working to ensure we can have a thoughtful, forthright discussion founded on science and evidence.

I believe that folks on all sides of these issues are people of good intent—the vast majority of whom care deeply about the natural environment and about wild salmon. I do however believe we all need to be judicious in our use of facts and that we should all be striving to find ways to speak with each other in more effective ways.

I trust the vast majority of British Columbians do not think that we must choose between growing the economy and protecting the environment—I am one of them. That is why I firmly believe our new science-based approach to aquaculture will support a healthy ocean, good jobs, and economic prosperity on our coasts.

Jonathan Wilkinson (pictured) is the minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.
 
as bad as Wilkinson is - Gail Shae was even worse (her statements below):

Fisheries and Oceans May 11th, 2015

"Mr. Speaker, Canada's aquaculture system is one of the most rigorous in the world. Fish-farming licences are subject to thorough review and oversight as well as stringent regulations to protect our aquatic species."

She was a Conservative and went to all the pro-aquaculture industry expos and conferences where she got spoon-fed all the industry PR. And her boss Harper also was a Conservative who gutted the Fisheries Act & numerous other legislation.

A 2009 www.courierislander.com poll: Do you think Fisheries Minister Gail Shea is a secret agent working for the Norwegian government?

Yes: 81.48 % No: 18.53%

Wonder what the same survey would say wrt Wilkinson?
 
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