Strange things can happen when salmon eat chickens. Such a diet is unprecedented and bizarre, a violation of the biological order that has occurred over millions of years of evolutionary history. Nature, it seems, does the unusual when human ingenuity tampers with its traditions. And the consequences can be dire. But this is a complex subject that requires some context — an understanding of details first requires an understanding of principles.

Independent biologist Alexandra Morton has been busy during the BC election campaign, traveling the province to raise the issue of protecting wild salmon from fish farms and viruses. Here, as voters prepare to go to the polls, she offers her frank assessment of what is in the best political interests of her beloved wild salmon: "Individually, most NDP candidates I spoke to know salmon feedlots have to be removed from wild salmon migration routes. As environment critic Rob Fleming stated this on CBC on March 23, he knows this. Therefore, I think wild salmon have the greatest chance for survival with an NDP government, with Greens in seats."

Piscine reovirus (PRV), known to cause heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI), is a disease that so weakens wild salmon that they may be unable swim the oceans or migrate to their spawning grounds. The presence of PRV-HSMI in BC's wild salmon was not revealed by the provincial government or the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), the two agencies that are supposed to be monitoring the condition of marine health. Once again disclosure of PRV-HSMI came from independent biologist Alexandra Morton. The credibility of her April, 2012, findings were supported by Professor Rick Routledge, a Simon Fraser University fish population statistician, whose research team found the piscine reovirus in 13 of 15 Cultus Lake cutthroat trout, a salmonid species.

Read this story from the Kamloops Daily News on the upcoming screening of the new documentary film Salmon Confidential,  which screens Tuesday evening in that community. (April 25, 2013)

When biologist Alexandra Morton discovered B.C.'s wild salmon were testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses she set off a chain of events she alleges led to a government coverup.

The documentary that filmmaker Twyla Roscovich made about Morton's investigation is a detective story with an important environmental message, Morton said Wednesday.

"There's a lot of surprise that the government is treating wild salmon this way," she said. "Audiences are going to see a coverup and they are going to see a detective story."

Salmon Confidential screens Tuesday in the Alumni Theatre at Thompson Rivers University at 7 p.m. Roscovich will be in attendance.

Morton was a participant in the Cohen Commission, a three-year, $26-million inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon run.

She said bureaucrats with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and key scientists withheld crucial documents from the commission. Outraged, she contacted Roscovich and asked her to make the film.

"I was concerned that all the testimony and all that we learned would be lost to the public," she said.

Salmon Confidential shows rare footage from the commission and follows Morton as she travels from the courtroom to some of the province's most remote rivers, the grocery store and even sushi restaurants.

She discovered farmed salmon in B.C. have fallen victim to three European viruses — Infectious Salmon Anemia, Piscine Reovirus and Salmon Alpha Virus. Morton even taught herself how to test for these viruses.

When the fisheries industry wouldn't let her test farmed fish, Morton went to the supermarket and tested the salmon on ice there. She said fish sold in the grocery store have all three European viruses.

"All three of these are causing lawsuits in the Norwegian salmon farming industry and nobody knows what they are going to do to wild Pacific salmon in British Columbia," she said.

The federal government suppressed a paper revealing Infectious Salmon Anemia was found in 100 per cent of the sockeye stocks in Cultus Lake, claimed Morton.

Morton has been to more than 25 showings of Salmon Confidential and people are consistently shocked. She said the documentary has its lighter moments, but it's serious stuff.

Read more: http://www.kamloopsnews.ca/article/20130425/KAMLOOPS0101/130429918/-1/kamloops01/documentary-explores-plight-of-farmed-salmon

 

Let's turn to the notion that BC has no jurisdiction over salmon farms as a result of a recent lawsuit which saw the Federal Government assume much of the oversight of the industry. While this is essentially true, there is in fact a little known clause that exists in the agreements the Province holds with each and every fish farm. It is an exit clause in their tenures which can be exercised within 60 days - with no compensation - that revokes the license for them to operate, if it is in the public interest.

Read this story by Mark Hume in The Globe and Mail on Ottawa's refusal to make public several key reports on the health of wild salmon in BC, holding back the implementation of DFO's Wild Salmon Policy as a result. (April 14, 2013)

Key scientific documents needed before the department of Fisheries and Oceans can implement its plan to save British Columbia’s wild salmon have been held up in Ottawa for a year.

The documents, concerning sockeye conservation units on the Fraser River, were withheld from the Cohen Commission even though they were substantially ready for release at the time the federal inquiry was under way.

Fisheries managers planning catch limits for the 2013 season, which has yet to start, have had to do so to this point without knowing what the reports contain.

The reports, confidential draft copies of which have been obtained by The Globe and Mail, show that seven of the 24 conservation units in the watershed have been designated as “red zones” with another four rated red/amber. That classification means the salmon populations in those areas are considered at risk of extinction.

The reports show most of those red zones are located at the heads of distant tributaries, indicating the salmon that travel the farthest in the Fraser River system are having the hardest time surviving. That raises questions about the impact of climate change because the salmon that are in trouble are exposed to the warmer river temperatures longer.

Only five of the conservation units got “green zone” status, which means they are healthy, and six were amber or amber/green, at low risk, but of concern. Two populations weren’t rated because of a lack of data.

The stocks were rated when 34 top fisheries scientists and managers retreated for a three-day workshop in November, 2011. They analyzed a variety of ways to assess the status of conservation units and came up with a method that would allow DFO to evaluate all salmon conservation units in the province. The approach leads to long-term projections of stock health, not just immediate snapshots.

The documents are considered to be one of the final pieces that need to be in place before DFO can implement its wild salmon policy, a strategy that has been in development for nearly 10 years.

DFO has refused to release the documents, saying they are still in draft form – even though the reports were effectively completed in the spring of 2012.

“We only release final copies of reports. At this time, I have no indication of when they will be finalized,” Tom Robbins, a spokesman for DFO, stated in an e-mail last week, when asked for the documents.

A fisheries researcher, who didn’t want to be named, said scientists suspect the government is delaying the release because it doesn’t want to have to respond to the red-zone ratings.

“It’s clearly political,” he said of the delay. “I know they are not held up by scientific discussion. I can only guess that recognition several of these units are in the red zone – and therefore require recovery plans – is giving people angst.”

He said the government’s wild salmon policy can’t be implemented until the documents are finalized and the analytical method outlined in them is adopted by managers.

“It’s a real loss to have these documents delayed,” he said. “It means we’ve lost another year in responding to what these documents show [about red zone stocks].”

He added “it is debilitating … it is so frustrating” for scientists to see important research tied up in the bureaucracy.

Read more: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/ottawa-withholding-reports-on-bc-wild-salmon/article11193115/?cmpid=rss1

As the BC election approaches, the Norwegian-dominated aquaculture industry suddenly finds itself swimming upstream. From the provincial Liberals and NDP vying to out-do each other in tough talk on salmon farms, to an unprecedented new virus research program led by the federal government, the tide finally appears to be turning against the controversial industry. With renewed public and media interest in the issue, on the heels of a judicial inquiry that scrutinized aquaculture's impacts on wild salmon, a regulatory crackdown may well be in the offing.

I was recently asked by a reader what it is I want, presumably in the way of government. I want a government committed to the preservation of farmland - not one that gives it away in Delta and destroys it the Peace River country. I want a government that is committed in fact to the concerns of First Nations. I want a government that does not spend public money on party business. I want a different attitude than expounding tenets of the Fraser Institute where help for people is given grudgingly and then only because they must; I want a government that looks after people because it is the right thing to do.

Anyone who has been following the sorry saga of inexplicable diseases and unusual mortality in BC's wild salmon will not be surprised that the information in Twyla Roscovich's documentary, Salmon Confidential, links the source of this trouble to the salmon farming industry. The surprise, however, is the impact of such information when its complexity is condensed to an intense 70 minutes.

Read this story from CBC.ca on the BC Liberals' vow to implement some the recommendations of the Cohen Commission into disappearing Fraser River sockeye, beginning with capping farmed salmon production in the contentious Discovery Islands area off central Vancouver Island. (March 22, 2013)

Six months after the release of the Cohen Commission's final report on the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon, the B.C. government says it accepts the intent of a number of the report's recommendations, including putting a cap on future open-net fish farms along a critical migration route.

In October, Justice Bruce Cohen suggested a freeze on new open-net salmon farms in the Discovery Islands, near Campbell River, until September 2020.

Cohen said dozens of salmon farms along the sockeye migration route have the potential to introduce exotic diseases and to aggravate diseases endemic to the wild fish.

Cohen's 1,000-page report said a string of cumulative factors likely played a role into why nearly 10 million salmon failed to return to spawn in 2009. He laid out 75 recommendations regarding the policies and practices for both the federal and provincial governments.

On Friday, the B.C. government said it would accept, or at least accept the intent, of eight recommendations — including a cap on the open-net farms — from the Cohen Commission that fell under provincial jurisdiction.

The government said it has "no intention of issuing any further or expanded tenures for net-pen salmon farms in the Discovery Islands until at least September 30, 2020." But it will continue to consider applications to amend existing boundaries of current open-net salmon farms for reasons other than increasing production, it said.

B.C. Agriculture Minister Norm Letnick says he agrees with the Cohen's finding that a moratorium on new fish farms in the Discovery Islands will help determine whether fish farms are impacting wild salmon.

"He basically says we should use the precautionary principle and what we're doing today as a government is agreeing with him," Letnick said.

But NDP environment critic Rob Fleming said he was disappointed with Friday's news.

"They've been missing in action on this file for so long," Fleming said.

"To say on a Friday afternoon, six months after Justice Cohen delivered his report, that they deign to agree with his recommendations, just shows that they have not paid considerable attention to this."

Read original story: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2013/03/22/bc-fraser-salmon-cohen-report.html