Aquaculture improving?..The Fish Farm Thread

In not sure how navigating on the ocean has anything to do with what I said

Nice defection
You really don't need me to lay it out for you do you? You're just kidding - right? Boat - ocean - sampling - fish - sea lice - you get the picture?
 
What about DFO credibility in other matters ? The FN pointed out issues related to no aquaculture DFO staff like Diana and Wilfe ....... what can be done about DFO credibility for all other fisheries? Is the only issue you see AA with aquaculture? Or does DFO need to clean up other sectors like stock assessment or fisheries management?
Great, great question HG!

Well the aquaculture regulation is as I see it - complex - but consistent under one roof and one focus for that science under PBS Nanaimo purview.

Stock assessment on the other hand - where it happens and under what "science" or methodology used - is very diverse and spread-out. Then the fishing management processes - if they even exist - are very, very diverse and similarly spread out but also are in varying degrees of intensity & commitment. Then very few assessment processes have an inseason adaptive fishing management process attached and feeding off of real-time escapement data. There are something like 22 separate Pacific Region IFMPs for the various fisheries (4 for salmon alone) - but only 1 IMAP for Aquaculture:

And then there is the Pacific Salmon Treaty over top of all of that or maybe the IPHC. Definitely, not a one-stop shopping at all - nor a one answer fits all.

AND... the title of this thread is "aquaculture-improving" as well - the place to place critiques of how aquaculture is regulated - or not. Maybe another thread should be started for that topic you mention.
 
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You really don't need me to lay it out for you do you? You're just kidding - right? Boat - ocean - sampling - fish - sea lice - you get the picture?

You still don’t get it.

One could take samples from one area and say they were from all these different area.

One could take samples when they known high rates of natural occurrence happen and simply say they from other times.

But someone like elmo with a fake science degree and a fake aboriginal title wouldn’t possible do any of that.

Only the best science for her group everything else fake.

So you don’t get it ,

So yes let’s see Elmo take her fake samples and staged pictures

Third party observers for the industry and DFO but only gospel from ENGaos like Elmo
Wild salmon defender sure lol lololooloooo
 
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I’m not saying sea lice see not an issue we all no they can be.

I just think the whole we need to remove fish farms to increase wild salmon numbers is just so disengunuois.

When really the underlying statement is really we want more wild salmon salmon so we can kill them.

I think the really question is the harm fish do offset by how much food they produce.

And perhaps that’s why the government is peavibf it up to First Nations to decide if they think it’s worth in.
 
Well I think that brings us back to the conversation around reproducibility & accountability - and publishing. There are checks and balances in the non-DFO non-CSAS peer-review publishing World with mostly anonymous reviewers. Then there is the fact that anyone can go out and resample in the places that Alex has and check on what she is reporting besides following her in a boat. And World-wide many dozens of independent peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated impacts to wild stocks from sea lice on ONP industry farms.

What independent researchers CANNOT do is sample the farmed fish. DFO has done some follow-up sampling and have found that the industry underrepresents sea lice levels.

Another VERY important thing independent researchers CANNOT do is respond in a timely way to disease outbreaks on the farms that may be impacting adjacent wild stocks that they don't know are happening or where. All of this is totally hidden by DFO. Purposely.
 
I hope you didn't post that link to try to float the narrative that we can't (generally) trust science, WMY - or maybe more specifically just the science journals that Alex Morton has published in (and there have been numerous studies/publishers).

Generally - science gets it right - including all the science that has allowed us to develop the technology that we are currently debating with and living with.

I won't claim that all science is either non-biased or non-political. Who funds the studies sometimes have a vested outcome in the science.

But it is over time - the "weight of evidence" that kicks in as science develops and evolves and adds depth to our understanding of issues. The "weight of evidence" World-wide is that the operations and ONP methodology of the ONP industry and the inability to separate wild and cultured stocks leads to negative impacts to adjacent wild stocks over time. The scope and consequences of those impacts is what is under debate - and that debate has evolved along with the increase in the available science DESPITE the reluctance, gatekeeping and collusion of our regulators.

Alex is just 1 independent researcher in a mix of literally hundreds of researchers and perhaps thousands of peer-reviewed articles describing those impacts.

What we need and require and demand from our public regulators is honesty and data for good governance - and frankly - we are not getting this from certain key people within the Aquaculture Branch of DFO.
 
I’m not defending the regulators they can always do a lot better.

What I’m defending against is the notion that we should up and remove this industry over its impacts to salmon.

I’ve posted many examples of the the same tactics being used to remove fish farms are also being used to remove sports fishing. Including all the work wilfe did to get Thoes sports fishing proposals togeather only to have him be accused of bias and working for industry.

If wilf didn’t work on all that data we would not have areas open.

Going down this path of oh fish farms harm wild salmon remove them or sports fishing cause harm remove them too.

It’s not a coincidence that the discovery farms and Brighton farms got removed at the same time they shut down sports fishing In southern bc.

And you have failed to acknowledge that a good number fish farms have been removed, if so that should be creating lots more wild salmon.

But nope just remove them all DFO can’t be trusted. You made up your mind years ago that you wanted fish farms gone and that’s that. I sure hope people that think the same thing about sports fishing are not the same.
 
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I’m not defending the regulators they can always do a lot better.

What I’m defending against is the notion that we should up and remove this industry over its impacts to salmon.

I’ve posted many examples of the the same tactics being used to remove fish farms are also being used to remove sports fishing. Including all the work wilfe did to get Thoes sports fishing proposals togeather only to have him be accused of bias and working for industry.

If wilf didn’t work on all that data we would not have areas open.

Going down this path of oh fish farms harm wild salmon remove them or sports fishing cause harm remove them too.

It’s not a coincidence that the discovery farms and Brighton farms got removed at the same time they shut down sports fishing In southern bc.

And you have failed to acknowledge that a good number fish farms have been removed, if so that should be creating lots more wild salmon.

But nope just remove them all DFO can’t be trusted. You made up your mind years ago that you wanted fish farms gone and that’s that. I sure hope people that think the same thing about sports fishing are not the same.
How many Fish Farms have been removed and how many remain?
 
I made up my mind years ago that you cannot mitigate or insulate wild/cultured stocks using the open net-pen technology. The best one can do is to decrease the number and severity of those interactions if one accepts 1st that those impacts happen and dissect how they happen (pathogens, especially) by allowing independent science to assess those impacts and then adjust your management based on that science.

Ultimately those tradeoffs are a societal decision after that.

Its a friken tragedy that DFO at the top end have done everything they can think of to stop this process from happening because they are compromised as detailed in the previous posts. criminal, actually
 
I made up my mind years ago that you cannot mitigate or insulate wild/cultured stocks using the open net-pen technology. The best one can do is to decrease the number and severity of those interactions if one accepts 1st that those impacts happen and dissect how they happen (pathogens, especially) by allowing independent science to assess those impacts and then adjust your management based on that science.

Ultimately those tradeoffs are a societal decision after that.

Its a friken tragedy that DFO at the top end have done everything they can think of to stop this process from happening because they are compromised as detailed in the previous posts. criminal, actually
The best one can do is get rid of them. We stopped using lead paint, Asbestos shingles and mostly don’t use creosote piles anymore as an example.
In all these examples we still use paint, still use shingles and use piles made from different material.
It’s time fish farmers got into the 21st century and used different technology as commingling these feedlots with Wild Salmon is having a devastating effect similar to what creosote piping’s do to herring roe.
 
The best one can do is get rid of them. We stopped using lead paint, Asbestos shingles and mostly don’t use creosote piles anymore as an example.
In all these examples we still use paint, still use shingles and use piles made from different material.
It’s time fish farmers got into the 21st century and used different technology as commingling these feedlots with Wild Salmon is having a devastating effect similar to what creosote piping’s do to herring roe.

You believe ff is like it was back in early days?
That technology and practices hasnt changed ?
As in any industry they have evolved to be much better , logging still cuts trees down but not like in early days,

Generally - science gets it right - including all the science that has allowed us to develop the technology that we are currently debating with and living with.

I won't claim that all science is either non-biased or non-political. Who funds the studies sometimes have a vested outcome in the science.

Alex is just 1 independent researcher in a mix of literally hundreds of researchers and perhaps thousands of peer-reviewed articles describing those impacts.

There you go, who funds the studies and in this case almo HAS a vested interest and want a certain outcome, and I'll add will do anything to achieve THEIR desired outcome in their "science "
 
You believe ff is like it was back in early days?
That technology and practices hasnt changed ?
As in any industry they have evolved to be much better , logging still cuts trees down but not like in early days,



There you go, who funds the studies and in this case almo HAS a vested interest and want a certain outcome, and I'll add will do anything to achieve THEIR desired outcome in their "science "
Logging hasn't gotten much better. Still clear cutting instead of selective harvesting. https://news.mongabay.com/2022/09/b...mised-protections-as-old-growth-keeps-falling
 
I sure hope you do your part, stop sportfishing , stop driving your car and wiping your a$$ with tp
I'm not flying my private jet to take a vacation, use a trolling motor when i'm allowed to fish, and looking at Bidet's with curiosity but still insist it is past time to get Open Net Cage Fish Farms out of the Ocean.
 
And altho they have very successfully vertically integrated and made their operations more financially viable the open net pens are still that - open.
Open to water flow, pathogen vector amplification and transfer to/from adjacent wild salmon with sometimes serious consequences.

So no - they really haven't improved wrt wild/cultured stock interactions nor can they using that methodology.
 
For those who like to claim Fish Farms have come a long way since their early days of Sea Lice and Disease,
Just how far have they come since the Spring of last year?
Clearly they are going backward with their Sea Lice issues increasing!!
Time to get them out of our migration routes of our wild salmon.
sea lice.jpg
Drug-resistant sea lice an increasing problem for B.C. fish farms, new study finds

 
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Of course aquaculture is improving - it's an industry like anything else that has immense pressure from not only business realities, but activism and demarketing.

Internally, aquaculture will be constantly reducing costs through fuel efficiency, reduced feed intake, more effective fish health options.

Those changes reduce the impact of the operations continually through measurable criteria like usage, deposition, and mortality.

Healthy farmed fish pose little risk to wild fish when contained in properly sited infrastructure.

The fact that our technology and needs as society are being constantly pitted against the reality of nature and the economy means that there will be compromises made, using precautionary reasoning, which allow progress to occur.

The reality of the situation as always falls somewhere in the middle, as AA came close to recognizing here:

"The best one can do is to decrease the number and severity of those interactions if one accepts 1st that those impacts happen and dissect how they happen (pathogens, especially) by allowing independent science to assess those impacts and then adjust your management based on that science.

Ultimately those tradeoffs are a societal decision after that."

Unfortunately, prior to that came this:

"I made up my mind years ago that you cannot mitigate or insulate wild/cultured stocks using the open net-pen technology."

It is this absolutism that prevents a truly respectful and beneficial dialogue IMHO.

"And one of the most unfortunate biases that certain key people in DFO Aquaculture have are that they think that they have a duty to protect the industry rather than wild salmon - and they see themselves as equivalent to a private vet rather than a public employee who's primary duty as legislated is instead to protect the public resources (IMHO). It's an institutionalized bias."

"Don't forget they don't do any defensible environmental assessments including scoping - like other industries. In fact the regulators conveniently & frequently ignore their own science"

"AND they are in key positions to squish inconvenient research, deny data to make good management decisions and collude with industry and occasionally lie - and they do ALL of the above and have for too many years. That's the difference here.

Sort of like dirty cops planting evidence - something most people would be abhorrently against - especially honest cops."

I would suggest that instead of attacking the character of those working in DFO Aquaculture, I would instead focus on the reasons your science fails to line up with Nature.

Try to address the holes in your hypothesis you could drive a herring skiff through.

Ask yourself why the plume modelling doesn't match any observed trends of mortality or returns?

Why is it so hard to prove your case?

Consider that nature manages pathogens through predation and other means and there might be forces at work here that mean your accusations of wrongdoing and malfeasance are misplaced, and that by improving the quality of science regarding aquaculture overall - we may actually find that net pens with healthy, well managed salmon in them can coexist nicely with the healthy, well managed salmon that swim around them.
 
Best post on this topic for a long while.
James should know?
Mr. James Costello
2018 “Sustainability Officer for Mainstream Canada’s operations in Tofino on the west coast of Vancouver Island”-
Is this the same James Costello?
If so, knowledgeable yes, but
Could he possibly be a bit bias in his opinion on Fish Farms based on his employment history?
 
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