Whole in the Water
Well-Known Member
The sooner these salon net pen farms get put on to land the better to manage their negative environmental impacts - can't happen soon enough IMHO, especially for our wild fish populations!!!
Part 1 of 2:
https://thenarwhal.ca/highly-contag...s-report/?mc_cid=0ee68be033&mc_eid=40977b7a71
Norwegian strain of piscine orthoreo virus, which is strongly associated with death of Chinook salmon, was identified at 14 out of 15 farms tested
Sarah Cox Feb 5, 2020
Salmon at a majority of Clayoquot Sound fish farms are infected with the Norwegian strain of a highly contagious virus, according to an investigative report released Wednesday.
The report by Clayoquot Action, a Tofino-based conservation society, says feces, flesh and scale samples from 14 out of 15 farms tested positive for the piscine orthoreo virus, a disease that gained notoriety after a video of bloody discharge from packing plants in Tofino and Campbell River went viral in December 2017.
Laboratory testing by the B.C. government showed the underwater effluent was contaminated with piscine orthoreo virus, a disease found in 80 per cent of farmed Atlantic salmon that is linked to a host of fish health problems, including heart and skeletal muscle inflammation and haemorrhages in internal organs.
Clayoquot Action campaigns director Bonny Glambeck said it’s particularly concerning to find piscine orthoreo virus on Chinook salmon farms located along wild salmon migratory routes in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Four of the active farms the group tested are owned by Creative Salmon, the only company raising Chinook on a large scale in open net pen farms in B.C. Most B.C. open net pen operations — including 11 other active farms tested for the study, which are owned by Cermaq, a Mitsubishi subsidiary headquartered in Norway — produce Atlantic salmon, a species not native to the Pacific Coast.
“Wild Chinook salmon in Clayoquot Sound are on the brink of extinction,” Glambeck told The Narwhal.
“This is just the final nail in the coffin with all the stresses that the wild salmon are undergoing right now.”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says a B.C. strain of piscine orthoreo virus has been found in salmonids off the B.C. coast since 1987 or 1977 — about the time salmon farming began — and has a “low ability” to cause disease.
Laboratory testing commissioned by Clayoquot Action found the strain in Clayoquot Sound fish farms is a Norwegian variant of the disease, known as PRV-1a.
Atlantic salmon eggs — 30 million of which were imported to B.C. — are the most likely source of contamination, according to the report, Going Viral: Norwegian Salmon Farm Virus Threatens Clayoquot Chinook.
“It’s very, very concerning,” Glambeck said.
“They are essentially denying the existence of this Norwegian variant in British Columbia waters … It’s just shocking to me that they continue to deny that it is damaging and dangerous to wild salmon, pretending that it’s not happening.”
Terry Dorward, a Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation councillor, said the federal government is spreading “disinformation” about the piscine orthoreo virus variant found on salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound, whose biodiverse rainforest islands support many species dependent on wild salmon.
“This is similar to what my people — Indigenous people — experienced when we were given smallpox blankets,” Dorward told The Narwhal. “We were nearly wiped out. And I believe the same thing is happening to our wild salmon.”
There is scientific evidence that piscine orthoreo virus is harmful to salmon. A June 2018 DFO study confirmed that piscine orthoreo virus in Pacific Chinook is strongly associated with the rupture of red blood cells, resulting in jaundice, organ failure and death.
The findings suggest that “migratory Chinook salmon may be at more than a minimal risk of disease from exposure to the high levels of PRV occurring on salmon farms,” according to the study.
Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said there is “nothing new” about information in the Clayoquot Action report.
Hall said the same variant of the virus is present in both B.C. and Norway and “is not virulent. It doesn’t make fish sick.”
“Our fish go into the ocean without PRV, from land-based hatcheries which are based here in B.C.,” Hall said.
“We’re not importing anything. Our fish are raised from local brood stock in local hatcheries. They go into the water without PRV and they pick it up in the ocean just as wild fish do … the strain that they found is the strain that we knew was here and it’s not causing significant issues.”
Hall pointed to a study conducted in 2018after fears were raised, following the video of bloody discharge at the packing plants, that wild salmon could be harmed by piscine orthoreo virus.
The study notes that piscine orthoreo virus is a causative factor to the disease Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), that fish infected with the virus may not exhibit any symptoms and that the virus appears to have far less of an impact on fish in B.C. than it does on salmon in Norway.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and UBC, also notes research gaps that need to be addressed “as PRV is a recently discovered virus and its pathogenicity to salmonids is still a mystery.”
Wild salmon smolts swim past the open nets of a fish farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Tavish Campbell
Dorward said an agreement the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation signed with Creative Salmon has been “in limbo” since the chief and council voted last year to ask the company to remove open net pen farms from the nation’s traditional territory.
The vote followed a visit to salmon farms last summer, when Dorward said he and others saw deformed farmed fish and wild salmon swimming through open net pens.
“Over the years we’ve witnessed the collapse of the fisheries and the negative impacts it has to our coastal communities … We know there’s other factors involved, [like] climate change … Some things we can’t stop. But we can stop this particular issue of open net salmon farms,” he said.
“These organisms are extremely successful viruses that can mutate and spread. The protection of our wild salmon is at great risk here.”
In 2018, the state of Washington announced that open net pen Atlantic salmon fish farms would be phased out by 2025. The state also stopped hundreds of thousands of salmon infected with an Icelandic strain of piscine orthoreo virus from being transferred to the farms, saying wild salmon could be at risk.
A map showing the location of fish farms in Clayoquot Sound. Sites where the piscine orthoreo virus was found are denoted in red. Map: Wilderness Committee
Part 1 of 2:
https://thenarwhal.ca/highly-contag...s-report/?mc_cid=0ee68be033&mc_eid=40977b7a71
Norwegian strain of piscine orthoreo virus, which is strongly associated with death of Chinook salmon, was identified at 14 out of 15 farms tested
Sarah Cox Feb 5, 2020
Salmon at a majority of Clayoquot Sound fish farms are infected with the Norwegian strain of a highly contagious virus, according to an investigative report released Wednesday.
The report by Clayoquot Action, a Tofino-based conservation society, says feces, flesh and scale samples from 14 out of 15 farms tested positive for the piscine orthoreo virus, a disease that gained notoriety after a video of bloody discharge from packing plants in Tofino and Campbell River went viral in December 2017.
Laboratory testing by the B.C. government showed the underwater effluent was contaminated with piscine orthoreo virus, a disease found in 80 per cent of farmed Atlantic salmon that is linked to a host of fish health problems, including heart and skeletal muscle inflammation and haemorrhages in internal organs.
Clayoquot Action campaigns director Bonny Glambeck said it’s particularly concerning to find piscine orthoreo virus on Chinook salmon farms located along wild salmon migratory routes in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, off the west coast of Vancouver Island.
Four of the active farms the group tested are owned by Creative Salmon, the only company raising Chinook on a large scale in open net pen farms in B.C. Most B.C. open net pen operations — including 11 other active farms tested for the study, which are owned by Cermaq, a Mitsubishi subsidiary headquartered in Norway — produce Atlantic salmon, a species not native to the Pacific Coast.
“Wild Chinook salmon in Clayoquot Sound are on the brink of extinction,” Glambeck told The Narwhal.
“This is just the final nail in the coffin with all the stresses that the wild salmon are undergoing right now.”
Fisheries and Oceans Canada says a B.C. strain of piscine orthoreo virus has been found in salmonids off the B.C. coast since 1987 or 1977 — about the time salmon farming began — and has a “low ability” to cause disease.
Laboratory testing commissioned by Clayoquot Action found the strain in Clayoquot Sound fish farms is a Norwegian variant of the disease, known as PRV-1a.
Atlantic salmon eggs — 30 million of which were imported to B.C. — are the most likely source of contamination, according to the report, Going Viral: Norwegian Salmon Farm Virus Threatens Clayoquot Chinook.
“It’s very, very concerning,” Glambeck said.
“They are essentially denying the existence of this Norwegian variant in British Columbia waters … It’s just shocking to me that they continue to deny that it is damaging and dangerous to wild salmon, pretending that it’s not happening.”
Terry Dorward, a Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation councillor, said the federal government is spreading “disinformation” about the piscine orthoreo virus variant found on salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound, whose biodiverse rainforest islands support many species dependent on wild salmon.
“This is similar to what my people — Indigenous people — experienced when we were given smallpox blankets,” Dorward told The Narwhal. “We were nearly wiped out. And I believe the same thing is happening to our wild salmon.”
There is scientific evidence that piscine orthoreo virus is harmful to salmon. A June 2018 DFO study confirmed that piscine orthoreo virus in Pacific Chinook is strongly associated with the rupture of red blood cells, resulting in jaundice, organ failure and death.
The findings suggest that “migratory Chinook salmon may be at more than a minimal risk of disease from exposure to the high levels of PRV occurring on salmon farms,” according to the study.
Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said there is “nothing new” about information in the Clayoquot Action report.
Hall said the same variant of the virus is present in both B.C. and Norway and “is not virulent. It doesn’t make fish sick.”
“Our fish go into the ocean without PRV, from land-based hatcheries which are based here in B.C.,” Hall said.
“We’re not importing anything. Our fish are raised from local brood stock in local hatcheries. They go into the water without PRV and they pick it up in the ocean just as wild fish do … the strain that they found is the strain that we knew was here and it’s not causing significant issues.”
Hall pointed to a study conducted in 2018after fears were raised, following the video of bloody discharge at the packing plants, that wild salmon could be harmed by piscine orthoreo virus.
The study notes that piscine orthoreo virus is a causative factor to the disease Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), that fish infected with the virus may not exhibit any symptoms and that the virus appears to have far less of an impact on fish in B.C. than it does on salmon in Norway.
The study, conducted by researchers at the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and UBC, also notes research gaps that need to be addressed “as PRV is a recently discovered virus and its pathogenicity to salmonids is still a mystery.”
Wild salmon smolts swim past the open nets of a fish farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Tavish Campbell
Dorward said an agreement the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation signed with Creative Salmon has been “in limbo” since the chief and council voted last year to ask the company to remove open net pen farms from the nation’s traditional territory.
The vote followed a visit to salmon farms last summer, when Dorward said he and others saw deformed farmed fish and wild salmon swimming through open net pens.
“Over the years we’ve witnessed the collapse of the fisheries and the negative impacts it has to our coastal communities … We know there’s other factors involved, [like] climate change … Some things we can’t stop. But we can stop this particular issue of open net salmon farms,” he said.
“These organisms are extremely successful viruses that can mutate and spread. The protection of our wild salmon is at great risk here.”
In 2018, the state of Washington announced that open net pen Atlantic salmon fish farms would be phased out by 2025. The state also stopped hundreds of thousands of salmon infected with an Icelandic strain of piscine orthoreo virus from being transferred to the farms, saying wild salmon could be at risk.
A map showing the location of fish farms in Clayoquot Sound. Sites where the piscine orthoreo virus was found are denoted in red. Map: Wilderness Committee
