There is so much contradictory speculation and science for the decline of salmon stocks. Everything from climate change to nature.
Let's just do away with all the distractions and make an attempt at saving the salmon now.
If it is fish farms then it is easily tested and immediate results, well as immediate as a salmon generation or two.
Simply stop the salmon farms for 10 years. The Salmon farms should embrace his idea especially if there were guarantee's of a return if there is no improvement.
This can done now and have an immediate effect.
Lets look at the seal population explosion.
Again they are not an endangered species and they were hunted by First Nations as a supplemental food and clothing source, so starting a seal cull would also have an immediate effect.
Yes they are cute little things with a bite that would take your arm off like a shark, but they look cute.
Culling 60,000 seals would not even be half the population but it would have an immediate effect.
Climate change, a global effort is required and the effects may not be seen for centuries, that doesn't mean don't do all that can be done to reverse the situation, it is just that there will not be an immediate effect on the salmon populations.
Our endangered southern Orca population does not eat seals, they eat salmon, seals are there competitors.
So much is made of their declining populations by various political groups, they would like everything from eliminating tankers due to sound, although the population was stable for decades with nosier and more polluting engines in big metal ships to stopping fishing for wild salmon (I think)
These groups use the Orca decline as a political weapon and they are not interested in trying to do things that can reverse the decline and be done locally and have an immediate effect. More food, more births, starving mothers don't have healthy calves.
Both ideas listed could/would leave more wild salmon for the endangered Orcas starting the day after in the case of a cull.
I don't need to be a scientist to be able to read and I am certainly not going to start creating mysterious reasons for what is happening. Okay there is a global event taking place, I'll buy that but there are things that have happened locally over the last 20 years and it is in the last 20 years that here have been massive changes in salmon populations.
My solutions, stop free water salmon farms for at least 10 years, a total moratorium, it won't hurt the income from taxes much, see what happens to salmon stocks.
Have a seal cull, hunt them for their skins and meat for fertilizer, food, off shore sales, take the seal population down to 90,000 or less or so for a couple of years, maybe two salmon generations.
See what happens to the southern Orca population.
These are things that can be done locally now, immediately, by the province and the results could be measured within days to a few years.,
The reason I say salmon generations is the Norwegian virus may need two generations to be eliminated from the wild stocks.
With all the "scientists" going one way or the other on the subject of this mysterious virus, have there been any studies or investigations to see if constantly being exposed to the virus, eating infected salmon, crosses over in a muted form? Or causes other symptoms? Could a whale's system being fighting symptoms caused from the newly introduced virus and end up compromising them? Pretty sure if there is a correlation of the salmon virus causing the whales a problem the farms would be shut down immediately without decades of studies.
Maybe that is why the aquarium is not allowed to nurse whales back to health or not have the ability to investigate whale and seal deaths. Politics.
And, how much money does the province make from the salmon farms, how much money do the salmon farms and their employee's donate to political parties?
Let's just do away with all the distractions and make an attempt at saving the salmon now.
If it is fish farms then it is easily tested and immediate results, well as immediate as a salmon generation or two.
Simply stop the salmon farms for 10 years. The Salmon farms should embrace his idea especially if there were guarantee's of a return if there is no improvement.
This can done now and have an immediate effect.
Lets look at the seal population explosion.
Again they are not an endangered species and they were hunted by First Nations as a supplemental food and clothing source, so starting a seal cull would also have an immediate effect.
Yes they are cute little things with a bite that would take your arm off like a shark, but they look cute.
Culling 60,000 seals would not even be half the population but it would have an immediate effect.
Climate change, a global effort is required and the effects may not be seen for centuries, that doesn't mean don't do all that can be done to reverse the situation, it is just that there will not be an immediate effect on the salmon populations.
Our endangered southern Orca population does not eat seals, they eat salmon, seals are there competitors.
So much is made of their declining populations by various political groups, they would like everything from eliminating tankers due to sound, although the population was stable for decades with nosier and more polluting engines in big metal ships to stopping fishing for wild salmon (I think)
These groups use the Orca decline as a political weapon and they are not interested in trying to do things that can reverse the decline and be done locally and have an immediate effect. More food, more births, starving mothers don't have healthy calves.
Both ideas listed could/would leave more wild salmon for the endangered Orcas starting the day after in the case of a cull.
I don't need to be a scientist to be able to read and I am certainly not going to start creating mysterious reasons for what is happening. Okay there is a global event taking place, I'll buy that but there are things that have happened locally over the last 20 years and it is in the last 20 years that here have been massive changes in salmon populations.
My solutions, stop free water salmon farms for at least 10 years, a total moratorium, it won't hurt the income from taxes much, see what happens to salmon stocks.
Have a seal cull, hunt them for their skins and meat for fertilizer, food, off shore sales, take the seal population down to 90,000 or less or so for a couple of years, maybe two salmon generations.
See what happens to the southern Orca population.
These are things that can be done locally now, immediately, by the province and the results could be measured within days to a few years.,
The reason I say salmon generations is the Norwegian virus may need two generations to be eliminated from the wild stocks.
With all the "scientists" going one way or the other on the subject of this mysterious virus, have there been any studies or investigations to see if constantly being exposed to the virus, eating infected salmon, crosses over in a muted form? Or causes other symptoms? Could a whale's system being fighting symptoms caused from the newly introduced virus and end up compromising them? Pretty sure if there is a correlation of the salmon virus causing the whales a problem the farms would be shut down immediately without decades of studies.
Maybe that is why the aquarium is not allowed to nurse whales back to health or not have the ability to investigate whale and seal deaths. Politics.
And, how much money does the province make from the salmon farms, how much money do the salmon farms and their employee's donate to political parties?