Disappearing Fraser River sockeye salmon vs fish farms

Of the eight to ten million wild sockeye salmon predicted by Oceans and Fisheries Canada to return to the Fraser River this year, only about 7% are returning, leading to the closure of all sockeye fishing on the river for the third year in a row.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada scientists are expressing surprise. Alexandra Morton isn't surprised - she's been warning for 20 years that salmon fry passing through lice-infested open net fish farms become infested and up to 80% fail to return. She notes that both the provincial and federal governments have failed to apply existing Fisheries Act regulations to industrial salmon feedlots in B.C. :

The solution is so simple: Apply the laws of Canada contained in the Fisheries Act. If the Norwegians can’t comply they should leave. Give Canadian fish farmers who want to revamp their industry in closed tanks a break in getting set up. Market wild and farmed fish to raise the value of both. And restore wild salmon in a way that has never been tried by adhering to their biology—the natural laws that have caused them to thrive in the first place.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada rejects sea lice infestation as the cause of the collapse, preferring the climate change theory for which they cannot be held responsible. Meanwhile Fisheries Minister Gail Shea is heading a Fisheries and Oceans Canada delegation to an aquaculture conference, Aqua Nor 2009, in Norway later this month. Norwegian-owned companies control more than 90% of British Columbia's salmon farming production.

How can FOC adequately regulate and promote fish farming at the same time?

Morton also advises that new fish farm licences are being quietly granted and existing ones expanded. Map of factory fish farms operating in BC in 2008 here. As she said back in 2007 :

"Some see wild salmon as just too costly to protect - they require a long corridor of protection from the tops of the rivers all the way out to the ocean and this would "force the politicians to say no to all the hands that feed them."
As a result, "big industry [including logging and offshore drilling] fit well with salmon farms."

I guess once the wild salmon are gone, there will be no good reason to halt Campbell's off-shore drilling and private run-of-river projects.

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Fish 'N Flush Farming

Despite a recent scientific paper warning that parasitic sea lice infestations from fish farms could wipe out 99% of wild Pacific pink salmon within 4 salmon generations or 8 years, don't expect to see any radical mobilizing action from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans any time soon.

Not only is fishfarming part of the DFO mandate, the DFO deputy executive director of the Office of Sustainable Aquaculture expects fish farming to overtake industry fishing soon :

"While the salmon farming industry nearly doubled in size between 1997 and 2005, output from the wild commercial sector fell by more than 30%."

"They don’t believe their interests are in conflict."

"Fisheries scientists try to stay neutral"

"They want to avoid polarized debate."

"A transition to a floating closed containment system could possibly be phased in over 10 years."

Trouble is if this latest scientific paper is correct, the pink salmon don't have 10 years.

Last year, marine ecologist John Volpe of the UVic said that sea lice from fish farms kill up to 95 % of wild juvenile salmon that pass by the open net fish farms.

Yet according to independent researcher Alexandra Morton , "some see wild salmon as just too costly to protect - they require a long corridor of protection from the tops of the rivers all the way out to the ocean and this would "force the politicians to say no to all the hands that feed them."

As a result, "big industry [including logging and offshore drilling] fit well with salmon farms," she says "

So there ya go.

Pink salmon routes and fish farms in Broughton archipeligo, BC.

Fish 'n Flush farming

This all seems rather fishy.

CBC : Environmentalist defamed B.C. fish farm company: judge
"A judge has ordered a former B.C. environmental campaigner to pay $15,000 plus costs to a Vancouver Island aquaculture company for maliciously defaming it in 2005.
The B.C. Supreme Court judge said the language Don Staniford used in two press releases he prepared for the group Friends of Clayoquot Sound was inflammatory and his claims were untrue — and he knew it.
Staniford had falsely claimed that the Tofino-based Creative Salmon Company used antibiotics and another chemical, malachite green, on its farmed Chinook salmon."

Not too much background there, CBC. Let's go back to 2005.

Canadian Press, June 2005 : Organic fish farm halts salmon sales after tests find cancer-causing chemical
"The cancer-causing chemical malachite green has been found in a second Vancouver Island salmon farm, an industry spokesman said on Friday.
Creative Salmon, located near the west coast tourism village of Tofino, voluntarily suspended sales of its organically raised Chinook salmon after federal scientists found malachite green in tests it conducted last month, company manager Spencer Evans said.
Health Canada has a zero tolerance level when it comes to malachite green, a cancer-causing chemical once used to kill fungus in fish eggs. It was banned in Canada in 1992.
Evans said he's dumbfounded how malachite green appeared in his company's fish."

At which point, Staniford, working for "Friends of Clayoquot Sound", called Creative Salmon "a liar" and their claims to being organic "a scam".

Back to CP : "Staniford said he doesn't hold much sympathy for Evans when he says his company doesn't use malachite green and doesn't know how the chemical turned up in the fish.
"From a consumer safety point of view, the fact is that B.C. farmed salmon is once again contaminated with a carcinogenic chemical," he said."

And Creative Salmon took him to court for it.

In her decision, the BC Supreme Court judge explained that Staniford knew that the malachite green could have accidentally gotten into the fish farm naturally via polution in the water from smelters, and not necessarily due to being intentionally administered by Creative Salmon.

Lady, we don't really care how the carcinogens got into the goddamn fish.
Staniford shouldn't have called an "organic fish farm" selling carcinogenic fish "a liar".
But "a scam"? What the hell else would you call it?

And yes, a Fish 'n Flush is a real toilet you can buy with an aquarium for a tank.
Pretty "creative", huh?

UPDATE : From Westcoaster:
"Unfortunately, the Staniford court case isn't about the pouring of antibiotics into the pens and oceans of Clayoquot Sound by Creative Salmon, although it should be. The issue is how you talk about that fact.
No matter how you talk about it, however, the fact isn't going away: Creative Salmon is using more than 500 pounds of antibiotics on their farms in the pristine ocean of a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve."