Peer Review concludes PRV transfer from Atlantic salmon farms poses minimal risk t

[patbay]

In all honesty Birdsnest, whenever I read anyone defending FF’s, it’s almost 100% someone who has some type of investment in the Farms. That’s why I asked because you are quick to discredit any science and you try to link the FF issue to sportfishers as a threat if the sportfishers continue to apply pressure on removing the farms. It’s a typical tactic which doesn’t hold a lot of water. Not saying you don’t know your stuff, I’m sure you do. But there’s a lot more going on under the pens than you think.
Here is a good article written by DC Reid. He always attaches links to various studies or science to support his articles.

https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/02/fish-farms-spread-viruses-around-world.html?m=1

I get it, probably a tough position to be in being an employee and having virtually everyone turn on your industry. But I’m sure you’ve seen enough to know, in your heart, that at a minimum these pens should be in closed containment. I don’t think anyone argues that anymore.

 

[Powerset]

Well a big public testing program would clear all this up right. An industry that has nothing to hide wouldn’t or shouldn’t want to stop public testing because it will completely exonerate FF’s. Testing will prove they pose no threat right? Seems like an easy solution to me

 

[Birdsnest]

Lets not forget the topic of this thread, PRV_minimal risk to fraser river socks.

In all honesty Birdsnest, whenever I read anyone defending FF’s, it’s almost 100% someone who has some type of investment in the Farms. That’s why I asked because you are quick to discredit any science and you try to link the FF issue to sportfishers as a threat if the sportfishers continue to apply pressure on removing the farms. It’s a typical tactic which doesn’t hold a lot of water. Not saying you don’t know your stuff, I’m sure you do. But there’s a lot more going on under the pens than you think.
Here is a good article written by DC Reid. He always attaches links to various studies or science to support his articles.

https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/02/fish-farms-spread-viruses-around-world.html?m=1

I get it, probably a tough position to be in being an employee and having virtually everyone turn on your industry. But I’m sure you’ve seen enough to know, in your heart, that at a minimum these pens should be in closed containment. I don’t think anyone argues that anymore.

But I feel its fair for me to respond to the above.

These polls suggest differently.

https://www.cheknews.ca/chek-point-...llowed-to-operate-along-the-b-c-coast-517255/
https://www.cheknews.ca/chek-point-...llowed-to-operate-along-the-b-c-coast-517255/

DC Ried the writer. Not a scientist or even a lawyer but more than willing to bend the facts. But that again is a good post given it contain endless hours of reading in order for me to rebut giving you the appearance of a winning argument yet much of the contents isn't about the title of the topic of this thread. Ill pass but if you are willing to sit down and do some lengthy reading I certainly can post some PRV science that shows risk is minimal.

 

[cuttlefish]

I am happy to wait for the release of the full CSAS report to view what research and data were reviewed by the invited team. This should be comprehensive enough.

 

[fogged in]

Lets not forget the topic of this thread, PRV_minimal risk to fraser river socks.
DC Ried the writer. Not a scientist or even a lawyer but more than willing to bend the facts.

Would you say the same about your Rob Fletcher and Fabian Dawson??

Tis a tangled web we weave!!
PRV..was it present before Fish Farms. Dr. Marty, the Fish Farm vet first said NO and then said Yes???
PRV... lets really confuse the issue...which strain are we talking about????
Fish Farm PRV which is openly admitted to be running rampant BUT the Fish Farm advocates state it poses a "minimal risk " to the Fraser River Sockeye and we are left to assume the minimal risk theory for Coho, Pinks and Chinook runs in other rivers.
Who can define "minimal risk" in actual numbers?
Then there is all the other damage to the sea floor and surrounding area Fish Farms create, but who cares if you can't smell or see it.
No one is talking about Sea Lice, which is also openly admitted to be out of control and DOES KILL wild salmon smolts (minimal or major, who knows cause as one poster has said MANY times, 'SHOW ME THE DEAD FISH" but that's off topic. SORRY
On and on it goes with;
The Fish Farm guys fighting for their livelihood.
The Fishing Guiding industry fighting for their livelihood.
The Natives fighting for their hereditary rights.
The DFO TOTALLY confused and bias.
The Politicians with their finger in the air trying to determine public opinion.
AND the average Sports Fishermen hoping to pursue, in my case, a life long hobby of taking a few salmon for food and sport.
It truly reminds me of the Donald Trump school of management.
Throw as much mud on the wall and see what sticks!!!
Continuing to draw on the USA "like" comparison..
We have on one side the CNN news "like" opinions and on the other the FOX news "like" opinions.
Both in total conflict of each other.
The only person who in my opinion who offers true, honest and common sense is Alexandra Morton.
Opps..a very bad person in the eyes of the Fish Farm industry!!
I wonder why![/QUOTE]​

 

[seascene]

Social media (example forums) are big target item for corporate talking points This is the realm of Public Opinion. Billions of dollars are at stake dependent on favourable public opinion. Corps harvest money. Tobacco is still killing people and a whole new industry (vaping) added to the body count. My house fronts a logging truck expressway in the Alberni Valley which is not being logged ...it is being annihilated. Google earth Comox Main / Somers road and pan up for a “forest” version of Hiroshima. Nobody today can claim BC is Super Natural any longer but Super Depleted in all things fish, forests and wildlife. I retired to sail. I have seen all of the fish farms on the mainland coast and islands. They transform pristine coastal health into reeking, dead zone, sterile water. Personal year to year experience with knowing intimately the Ahta River Valley is now a shadow of past abundance and I mean from just 12 years ago. I am grateful for those fighting on here against the biggest addiction of them all ...greed. One wild salmon can produce 5000 eggs. Canneries of old reported dumping tons of salmon in the bush because nature’s production was so vast early 1900’s 30 canneries could not handle it all. I get needing a job. History has shown that nothing comes close to nature’s ability to generate abundance from bison herds to fish and forests... means more jobs. Why risk it all for minimal employment and wealth hoarding clique of corp FF owners. The unthinkable risk knocking at the door is a virus plagued FF industry spawning a drug resistant lethal infestation ending it for all wild fish in our waters. Take FF ashore.

 

[terrin]

Social media (example forums) are big target item for corporate talking points This is the realm of Public Opinion. Billions of dollars are at stake dependent on favourable public opinion. Corps harvest money. Tobacco is still killing people and a whole new industry (vaping) added to the body count. My house fronts a logging truck expressway in the Alberni Valley which is not being logged ...it is being annihilated. Google earth Comox Main / Somers road and pan up for a “forest” version of Hiroshima. Nobody today can claim BC is Super Natural any longer but Super Depleted in all things fish, forests and wildlife. I retired to sail. I have seen all of the fish farms on the mainland coast and islands. They transform pristine coastal health into reeking, dead zone, sterile water. Personal year to year experience with knowing intimately the Ahta River Valley is now a shadow of past abundance and I mean from just 12 years ago. I am grateful for those fighting on here against the biggest addiction of them all ...greed. One wild salmon can produce 5000 eggs. Canneries of old reported dumping tons of salmon in the bush because nature’s production was so vast early 1900’s 30 canneries could not handle it all. I get needing a job. History has shown that nothing comes close to nature’s ability to generate abundance from bison herds to fish and forests... means more jobs. Why risk it all for minimal employment and wealth hoarding clique of corp FF owners. The unthinkable risk knocking at the door is a virus plagued FF industry spawning a drug resistant lethal infestation ending it for all wild fish in our waters. Take FF ashore.

Well stated.

 

[Fishmyster]

So if I am reading your words on your post #10 above, FM - you accuse me of being a poacher - on crab - and somehow that is to be extrapolated as a reason why it is ok for FFs to amplify and release novel pathogens and parasites (like PRv) onto naive wild fish stocks?

You're not actually expecting anyone to take that suggestion seriously are you?

As far as your post #11 - your belief or lack thereof has nothing to do with generating data nor does it affect any other scientists and researchers from investigating the effects and risks from the open net-cage industry.

It appears to me that you posted 2 consecutive, irrelevant posts.

OMG! How did you interpret that last post as calling you a crab poacher? You must have been having a AFD attack or something!

I implied that you, me or anyone who has discarded fish waste or used a fish carcass for crab bait has probably unknowingly broken the law under section 56 of the fisheries act where it is illegal to put fish in the water containing a disease agent. Viruses and diseases are common in wild fish too so if anyone catches a fish in the ocean that has PVR or H1N1 or some other virus then uses that fish for bait they would be breaking that said law. Would they not?

I still feel IMHO the ENGO's have done a masterful job infecting so many peoples minds and making such patriots to their causes.

 

[agentaqua]

Thanks for the clarification, FM - it wasn't clear what your point was on that last post. Thanks also for the respectful tone in your posts.

To be clear - the court ruling applies to fish stocked in a new environment as licenced by DFO, and not catch and release. But going along with the speculation of potential impacts vis-a-vis disease transfer: Prv and ISAv and other introduced diseases may well be here to stay - whether we want it or not.

Once those ponies fly after DFO and the industry opened the barn door - you're not getting them back. That's the criminal aspect I see here w failure of fiduciary duty by key bureaucrats in DFO. That opens them up for a class-action lawsuit - which is why DoJ lawyers, industry lawyers and key upper-level bureaucrats have been hiding this for so long, IMHO.

But if you know what you are doing is wrong - it is wrong to keep doing it - simply put - as the judge ruled. Pretty simple common sense. That's where at least a mandatory risk assessment associated with siting criteria would come in - something yet again the industry has refused and DFO has yet again accommodated.

Look at the Foreman's CSAS IHNv risk assessment in the Discovery Island s as an example:
https://www.researchgate.net/public...er_from_Atlantic_Salmon_farms_in_the_Discover

Not implemented nor did they want to open-up that agent-based model to ISAv, Prv or any other introduced diseases, neither. That way they would have to admit the problem and possibly find new sites for the industry.

That's my answer - one needs to look at the risk. Risk is a combination of frequency x consequence. More hosts releasing more disease vectors in key migratory routes would substantially increase the risk. Maybe read the article...

 

[Fishmyster]

If half the efforts to study viruses and diseases was put into the study of WHY fish have compromised immune systems we could have a better understanding of why salmon stocks have collapsed. While scientists have their efforts focused in the labs they continue to see the big picture IMHO.

Sorry if my tone is offending you and others but it comes from frustration. I continue to hear the same tone from ENGO zombies who direct all their attention to industry effects. If ENGO supporters are going to continue soliciting ENGO mentality then it is only fair for other people to share the other side of the story being the real life situation going on in the environment.

 

[Birdsnest]

I think your missing some points agent. fish master isn't talking about catch and release, It could be included however what he is getting to is taking sport caught fish and cleaning them at the dock, or using the guts as bait whereas those materials released(blood/ fluid/ guts) may(likely will) test positive for a fair number of viruses and or bacteria.
NGO's and concerned citizens etc are clearly looking at the farm issue through a tube ignoring related issue outside of their view.
What is important for individuals and individual interest groups (fishing loges, guides, sport fishers) is to look closely at the issue but with a wider perspective. Look at how rules over there(fish farms) could be applied to rules over here(fish hatcheries, sport fishing) as well as really looking at the science assessing the risks of release of pathogens via blood water and hatchery release scenarios.
Agent and others seems to refuse to respond to the question about pathogens in hatchery production and how that should be handled under the same rules. This is clearly telling to me.
So lets say that NGO's successfully get the farms to stop putting stock in the water that test positive for PRV and include the release of blood water restrictions.
My question would be what makes hatchery production and sport fishing immune to the same protocols? The science on prv at the very worst is only tagged as a "maybe there is a risk" and this only applies to spring salmon all of the other species seem to be unaffected. The risk needs to be assessed of course but the smaller the amount of "maybe" that gets empowered in one sector makes the other sectors completely vulnerable to that same small level of "maybe". This gives governments a frightening amount of control essentially having the ability to remove sport fishing from the hands of the average dude.
What I also would find ironic and telling is how the Alaskan salmon ranching programs seem to see absolutely minimal amount of pushback on the exact same issues in terms of release of pathogens via fry smolts released and blood water. Hmmm. Like agent says follow the bread crumbs.

 

[Fishmyster]

Correction from my last post.
"While scientists have their efforts focused in the labs they continue to MISS the big picture IMHO."

 

[california]

I think your missing some points agent. fish master isn't talking about catch and release, It could be included however what he is getting to is taking sport caught fish and cleaning them at the dock, or using the guts as bait whereas those materials released(blood/ fluid/ guts) may(likely will) test positive for a fair number of viruses and or bacteria.

It is absolute nonsense to equate the release of a small amount of blood and offal cleaned from a dock vs the discharging of infected effluent, or the discharge of waste products from hundreds of thousands of infected fish per site, and tens of millions of farmed fish overall. Basic Virology has some important concepts you are completely ignoring, which includes the multiplicity of infection (MOI) , the number of virus particles present per cell. The other issue is concentration, when the concentration of virus particles is very low, attachment to cells will take a very long time. This is because virus attachment is governed by the concentrations of free virions and host cells. The result is infection is much less likely when virus concentrations are low, and therefore MOI is low.

Sport fisherman catch about 150,000 Chinook per year, spread out along the coast. Wild fish infection rates are far lower than farmed salmon as well. So compared to the processing plants discharging the blood and waste from millions of farmed salmon in high concentrations, and the high concentrations of feces around net pens containing the virus, the chance of transmission assuming basic virology concepts is much much higher for the fish farm operations.

 

[agentaqua]

1/ Other researchers do get out - quite a bit actually - and test many things - including disease prevalence and WQ. It would arrogant and ignorant to believe that everyone of the researchers should either buy into it's all about the pH or dismiss their science simply because they may not agree that pH is the biggest culprit wrt mortality.
2/ pH is only one aspect of WQ.
3/ It has been demonstrated that marine survival is the single biggest area of mortality on most wild salmon stocks.
4/ It should be noted that there significant differences in what Alaska does verses the open net-cage industry - where "ranching" is holding wild stock (juveniles) at or near the mouth of their natal stream (where they have already been exposed to the diseases that may be inherent there) for a couple weeks as opposed to the open net-cage industry that often has millions of fish - sometimes at adult stages that have been in the water 18 months or so - and interacting with both outmigrating smolts and inmigrating spawning adult salmon - often at key migratory areas like the Broughtons and the Discovery Islands.

 

[agentaqua]

well said, California!

 

[wildmanyeah]

https://www.ctvnews.ca/video?clipId...H9bM5HRle-c-VpB8HdP4hErzHlphvrYHIQV0GeUfwUov8

*Chinook stocks are facing imminent extinction"

Time to put away the rods

 

[Birdsnest]

It is absolute nonsense to equate the release of a small amount of blood and offal cleaned from a dock vs the discharging of infected effluent, or the discharge of waste products from hundreds of thousands of infected fish per site, and tens of millions of farmed fish overall. Basic Virology has some important concepts you are completely ignoring, which includes the multiplicity of infection (MOI) , the number of virus particles present per cell. The other issue is concentration, when the concentration of virus particles is very low, attachment to cells will take a very long time. This is because virus attachment is governed by the concentrations of free virions and host cells. The result is infection is much less likely when virus concentrations are low, and therefore MOI is low.

Sport fisherman catch about 150,000 Chinook per year, spread out along the coast. Wild fish infection rates are far lower than farmed salmon as well. So compared to the processing plants discharging the blood and waste from millions of farmed salmon in high concentrations, and the high concentrations of feces around net pens containing the virus, the chance of transmission assuming basic virology concepts is much much higher for the fish farm operations.

I completely agree with this for I am aware of what you are saying about viruses however once the farms has stopped with the blood water, and they will, then what remains for viral transmissions to the ocean. And don't shift the goal post on the infection rate of PRV. You seem to be applying a different standard where all of the sudden which is not the narrative(promoted by NGO's) that PRV is a highly infectious and deadly disease causing agent.

 

[wildmanyeah]

Refresh my memory was Almo's fraser river sockeye study PRV, Euro PRV or BC PRV?

 

[california]

I completely agree with this for I am aware of what you are saying about viruses however once the farms has stopped with the blood water, and they will, then what remains for viral transmissions to the ocean. And don't shift the goal post on the infection rate of PRV. You seem to be applying a different standard where all of the sudden which is not the narrative(promoted by NGO's) that PRV is a highly infectious and deadly disease causing agent.

It seems to me stopping the dumping of virus infected blood into the water is a no brainer to help with viral concentrations around the sites dumping it. What will remain of viral transmission to the Ocean? Net pens with millions of infected salmon shedding the virus through their skin, gills and feces. The area around a fish farm will continue to be an area with high concentrations of viral load. Pointing out some basic principals of virology in no way insinuates the virus is not contagious or potentially deadly. I don't think how contagious it is, or what concentration of virions are needed to initiate infection is known. However what is clear is the potential area of transmission around a cleaning table is going to be much smaller than that around a blood outflow, or a fish farm itself.

 

[Fishmyster]

1/ Other researchers do get out - quite a bit actually - and test many things - including disease prevalence and WQ. It would arrogant and ignorant to believe that everyone of the researchers should either buy into it's all about the pH or dismiss their science simply because they may not agree that pH is the biggest culprit wrt mortality.
2/ pH is only one aspect of WQ.
3/ It has been demonstrated that marine survival is the single biggest area of mortality on most wild salmon stocks.
4/ It should be noted that there significant differences in what Alaska does verses the open net-cage industry - where "ranching" is holding wild stock (juveniles) at or near the mouth of their natal stream (where they have already been exposed to the diseases that may be inherent there) for a couple weeks as opposed to the open net-cage industry that often has millions of fish - sometimes at adult stages that have been in the water 18 months or so - and interacting with both outmigrating smolts and inmigrating spawning adult salmon - often at key migratory areas like the Broughtons and the Discovery Islands.

1. There has been lots of documentation that pH is a very important factor in salmonid productivity and survival. It is both ignorant and foolish to only believe the documentation that doesn't include the pH wrt salmon stock collapses.

2. pH is the most important WQ aspect as it has compounding effects to the dissolvability of heavy metals. Again, only believing science that doesn't include pH is week and narrow minded.

3. Only in the minds of ENGO robots who suffer AFD is the ocean the biggest area of mortality on most wild salmon stocks. People who read deeper into survival studies rather that jump strait to the authors incorrect conclusions can easily see that FW has a far greater variable of success in productivity.

4. It should be noted that all you internet scientists are just pushing the ENGO science and do not actually do any science yourselves or ever look outside the computer screen for answers.

Agent, you just went off on me that pH isn't having an effect on our coastal salmon productivity but when I play your game of copy and post studies that document pH has major effects you pull a Houdini with the disappearing act! I would not consider this to be a stand up practice. Please man up and be accountable for you own actions by responding to the pH thread.