Dr. Morton: New virus in farmed salmon...

Foxsea

Well-Known Member
In 1991, Pat Chamut Director General of DFO Pacific Region said: “Continued large-scale introductions from areas of the world including Washington State, Scotland, Norway and even eastern Canada would eventually result in the introduction of exotic disease agents of which the potential impact on both cultured and wild salmonids in BC could be both biologically damaging to the resource and economically devastating to its user groups” (Chamut former ADM, DFO, to Sarna, Director of Pacific Rim & Trade, Policy Division, International Directories, DFO, 1990)

He was right, but he was powerless as DFO is today to stop this runaway assault on wild salmon. I cannot figure out why government would do this to us, to their own families and our future. Please see my blog for information on yet another apparently Norwegian virus that we found in Atlantic farm salmon in supermarkets. This one weakens the fish's heart - how is a sockeye supposed to travel 800 km against the Fraser River with a virus attacking their heart muscle? Is this why so many salmon are dying en route to their spawning grounds? How is it no one knew about this during the Cohen Inquiry? Is government and industry blind to this disease? Or do they know it is here and just don't care?

Please consider emailing Premier Christy Clark to demand to know which of the Provincial Licences of Occupation these supermarket fish came from, so we can go there and see how this is spreading to wild salmon. DFO's own lab reported this disease at Cohen, but apparently they ignored their own lab and clearly nothing has been done because the supermarkets are stocked with fish carrying this virus. There are no bio-security warnings posted on them so every time someone washes these things before cooking and eating the virus is flowing down the drain into the ocean.

Sorry to continue with the bad news,
Alexandra Morton and the other three women with shopping carts, Nicole MacKay, Anissa Reed, Sabra Woodworth

“Attention to biosecurity in this case was also important to help limit spread to adjacent sites, as HSMI has been spreading throughout the Norwegian salmon farming industry. At a time when humans are being encouraged to eat fish to help combat a range of conditions including coronary disease, it seems somewhat ironic that heart disease seems to be such a problem in the fish themselves” (Ferguson et al 2005, 28)
 
From the FAO - United Nations:

ISA (Infectious salmon anaemia) - Orthomyxovirus Virus
Effects: Lethargy; appetite loss; gasping at water surface; pale gills & heart; fluid in body cavity; dark liver; haemorrhages in internal organs
Response: statutory controls; biosecurity; bloodwater treatment

VHS (Viral Haemorrhagic Septicaemia) Rhabdovirus
Effects: Bulging eyes and, in some cases, bleeding eyes; pale gills; swollen abdomen; lethargy
Response: statutory controls; vaccines being developed

IPN (Infectious Pancreatic necrosis) Birnavirus
Effects: Erratic swimming, eventually to bottom of tank where death occurs
Response: statutory controls; biosecurity; broodstock screening; vaccines being developed


http://www.fao.org/fishery/culturedspecies/Salmo_salar/en


Our governments have done nothing in terms of biosecurity!
 
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