Alexandra Morton to speak in Qualicum Jan 30

[searun]

Alexandra Morton will be speaking at the Qualicum Civic Centre this Saturday Jan 30th at 2:00 on the disappearing Fraser Salmon and connection to salmon farming. Raife Maier will be introducing her. Sorry for late notice, I just found out about it today. Posting here on the Saltwater Forum where there will likely be more interest than under the Meetings Forum due to the short notice. Should be a very interesting and informative lecture. Enjoy and I hope to see a few guys from the forum there.


Searun

 

[Little Hawk]

Agreed Searun. There is more traffic here.
I used to post WSA/conservation stuff here but was 'politely-nudged' by the mods to keep my rants confined to the 'Conservation/Politics etc' forum.

So I do.

"Some could care less if there's any fish left for our kids!"

 

[searun]

Just back from the lecture. About 500 people in attendance. Very interesting indeed. She was very skillful in connecting her initial research in sea lice with salmon farms to the spread of IHN disease from one salmon farm to the next from ocean currents and vessels transporting salmon to/from the farms. She was able to point out the connection between the disappearing Fraser sockeye and diseases from the salmon farms as these fish swim by. She made an interesting if not profound observation. That is, when juvenile salmon leave their home rivers there are no disease carrying adults to spread disease like IHN from one generation to the next. Now that we have farms, the adult farmed fish are transmitting disease through the water as the ocean currents spread it quickly given the structure of the inside waters. So virtually all wild salmon juveniles are now exposed to adult disease at a fragile stage of their lives which likely resulted in an estimated Fraser Sockeye return of 10 million fish being infected and killed.

Worse, there is now a highly infectious disease now making the rounds to almost all the Atlantic Salmon farms in Europe and Chile. This disease has virtually wiped out the entire industry in Chile, and is currently spreading through Europe. We can only hope and pray its not too late here in BC.

We should be very worried about the future of wild salmon in BC unless this industry closes down ocean net pen operations and shifts quickly to closed containment on land.

Searun

 

[Steelhead S2]

Wish I had known a little sooner about the talk. Would have skipped out on today's skunking to take it in. Happy to hear there was such a good turnout. Any wackos?

 

[searun]

No wacko's. Very orderly, excellent presentation. The folks that were in attendance were very well informed.

Searun

 

[Cuba Libre]

500 in attendance-- that is incredible. "Well done" to the organizers. But I bet that none of the DFO aquaculture managers showed up--- right?

20ft Alumaweld Intruder

 

[Little Hawk]

Wish I could have been there.

Hopefully more and more people will wake up to the message Alex has been preaching for the last 10 yrs or more; she knows her stuff and is well connected to scientific academia.

As irrefutable evidence against the industry becomes increasingly widespread, it's only a matter of time before our collusive government will jump-ship and leave the net-penner's high & dry.

What I would pay to see is a judicial inquiry into exactly who in the Provincial & Federal hierarchy got 'paid' by the industry to let this mess promulgate for so long at the expense of Pacific Salmon and our coastal marine ecology.

If this sounds a little fetched to you, ask yourself the question: What's in the net-pen business for the average British Columbian?

Answer:
1) Not much more than 1000 lower paying jobs.

2) An unfathomable amount of untreated sewage & chemicals being dumped into some of our most pristine waterways 24/7.

3) Sea-lice transfer decimating our native salmon stocks while, as Searun learned at the conference, it's only a matter of time before other deadly diseases (IHN,BKD,etc) which have followed the industry around the globe, explode right here amongst our five species of Pacific salmon.

4) Escaping non-indigenous Atlantic salmon; the risk of colonization and the subsequent competition for food and spawning habitat with Pacific Salmon & Steelhead.

I know all of these things to be true and I believe it's high-time we hunt down those in Government who've been 'bought' and hang them out for all to see.

"Some could care less if there's any fish left for our kids!"

 

[highlights]

Compelling

 

[fish4all]

Thanks for the update. Would have liked to been there.

 

[Charlie]

quote:Originally posted by Little Hawk

Wish I could have been there.

Hopefully more and more people will wake up to the message Alex has been preaching for the last 10 yrs or more; she knows her stuff and is well connected to scientific academia.

As irrefutable evidence against the industry becomes increasingly widespread, it's only a matter of time before our collusive government will jump-ship and leave the net-penner's high & dry.

What I would pay to see is a judicial inquiry into exactly who in the Provincial & Federal hierarchy got 'paid' by the industry to let this mess promulgate for so long at the expense of Pacific Salmon and our coastal marine ecology.

If this sounds a little fetched to you, ask yourself the question: What's in the net-pen business for the average British Columbian?

Answer:
1) Not much more than 1000 lower paying jobs.

2) An unfathomable amount of untreated sewage & chemicals being dumped into some of our most pristine waterways 24/7.

3) Sea-lice transfer decimating our native salmon stocks while, as Searun learned at the conference, it's only a matter of time before other deadly diseases (IHN,BKD,etc) which have followed the industry around the globe, explode right here amongst our five species of Pacific salmon.

4) Escaping non-indigenous Atlantic salmon; the risk of colonization and the subsequent competition for food and spawning habitat with Pacific Salmon & Steelhead.

I know all of these things to be true and I believe it's high-time we hunt down those in Government who've been 'bought' and hang them out for all to see.

"Some could care less if there's any fish left for our kids!"

X2

 

[searun]

I concur. The really remarkable thing for me was she was able to link in the spread of disease from one fish farm to the next with the transmission agent being the water. She has the evidence to prove without a doubt that these diseases are easily transmitted through the water - which is a huge risk to wild salmon juveniles who migrate past these open pens which are spreading killer diseases. Little wonder 10 million Fraser sockeye vanished - they all caught a fatal disease.

The other very interesting thing is she has proven that the effluent from these operations is drifting along the ocean floor and collecting in pockets on the sea bottom. She is now collecting mud like samples of fish effluent, un-eaten fish food and drug/disease infested debris. These farms will continue to pollute our waters for a long time after we eventually get rid of them.

Her request of each person in attendance was for everyone to start writing their M.P. (Fed Gov't now has responsibility to manage fish farming not the Prov Gov't per her court case). She asked that we each continue writing letter after letter demanding closed containment farming and no open net pens. Bottom line is we are not against this industry, we are against the way in which they do business and the fact (yes...FACT) that it is killing wild B.C. Salmon and may push many of our runs to extinction.

She even traveled to meet with the Norwegian owners and CEO's of the company's who are killing our fish to tell them personally about her research findings and ask them to stop open net farming and move to closed containment. Their answer was....NO, and NO....We are not going to leave BC, we have it too good there (basically we can do almost anything we want). These foreigners are doing business getting risk off the backs of BC and Canada at the expense of our wild salmon. When they can no longer farm fish due to disease outbreaks they will pack up and leave.

I would urge everyone to write your Member of Parliament, demand a total closure of this fish farm fiasco.

Searun