Improved perhaps on the top side wrt cage structure, and in the vertical integration and Annual reports to shareholders, perhaps. But nothing substantial has changed in the water wrt wild/cultured stock interactions. Same open net-cage technology being used there despite the new paint on the walkways. Same problems with siting and lack of defensible environmental assessment. Some of the same problems with pathogen amplification and transfer to wild stocks but now more is known especially on disease introduction and transfer - and the substantial PR denial machine has responded as predicted. And our regulators are still compromised.
Aquaculture improving?..The Fish Farm Thread
- Thread starter islandboy
- Start date
Government of Canada takes action to protect wild Pacific salmon migrating through the Discovery Islands - Canada.ca
Pacific salmon have significant cultural, social, and ecological importance to First Nations and British Columbians, however, they are in serious, long-term decline, with many runs on the verge of collapse.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
Government of Canada takes action to protect wild Pacific salmon migrating through the Discovery Islands - Canada.ca
Pacific salmon have significant cultural, social, and ecological importance to First Nations and British Columbians, however, they are in serious, long-term decline, with many runs on the verge of collapse.www.canada.ca
half full or half empty?
G
gone fishin
Guest
"her decision not to renew licences for fifteen open-net pen Atlantic salmon aquaculture sites in the Discovery Islands.Government of Canada takes action to protect wild Pacific salmon migrating through the Discovery Islands - Canada.ca
Pacific salmon have significant cultural, social, and ecological importance to First Nations and British Columbians, however, they are in serious, long-term decline, with many runs on the verge of collapse.
As noted by the Cohen Commission, the Discovery Islands area is a key migratory route for wild Pacific Salmon, where narrow passages bring migrating juvenile salmon into close contact with salmon farms."
GREAT NEWS
Next I expect we will see appeals and court cases.
Agentaqua, your knowledge and posts are highly regarded and appreciated by so many SportFishing BC members. Thankyou!
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
I don't think so the FF companies already fallowed the area awhile ago. There was only two farms left with fish in them.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
“The state of wild Pacific salmon is dire, and we must do what we can to ensure their survival. This was a difficult but necessary decision. By taking an enhanced precautionary approach in the Discovery Islands area, the Government of Canada will help ensure the well-being of wild Pacific salmon for our children and grandchildren."
- Many First Nations along the Fraser River were unable to access wild salmon needed to sustain their FSC needs.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
these are all statements that will be used for things like SRKW, recreational fishing proposals.
G
gone fishin
Guest
I prefer to see the bright side and not anticipate what might or might not be the other side of the coin.
Breaking: Fisheries Department to shut 15 salmon farms off B.C.’s coast to protect wild fish
Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray says recent science indicates uncertainty over the risks posed by the salmon farms to wild salmon.
wildmanyeah
Crew Member
- The Minister also announced her decision to renew the licence for Saltstream Engineering, a small producer of native chinook salmon.
That means the minister doesn't want to admit that dfo management has been trying to cover up the science and risks that open net fish farms cause for years, and that saying these farms are causing disease and lice to be spread would open the door for the industry to respond with dfo science says they are safe and sue the government and deny the truth further at the expense of wild salmon.
SpringFever552
Well-Known Member
Smoke and mirrors, some farms have moved, and new ones going in elsewhere, while the antis are dancing in the streets
Exactly, Steeler. She could have left the "enhanced" off and instead stated that DFO will now use the "regular" Precautionary Approach as is often used in other industries - but that the ONP industry has been exempt from until now. But that would be admitting the all too obvious and all too embarrassing. I assume the Communications Branch agrees.
As I've said for years - proponents of the ONP industry don't seem to understand what an actual environmental assessment is and how "special" they have been treated since they have always been exempt from this risk assessment and mitigation process. This is due to Yves bastion's collusion and interference taking them out of that process in the late 1990s. - and subsequently derailing DFOs primary fiduciary duty to protect wild stocks and instead promote the ONP industry - the legacy institutionalized within the DFO Aquaculture Department. Something Cohen noted, as well.
Painfully and slowly - the pendulum is now swinging back to DFOs primary duty. And it seems an unpleasant change for industry proponents. They are losing their political clout within DFO - at least on the top end with the Minister.
Instead DFO aquaculture inherited the Province's siting criteria and kept their heads low and ran with it anyways. They didn't want to kick any sleeping dogs because if they admit that there are dependable - often species-specific - critical marine foreshore juvenile rearing areas for wild juvenile salmon that are impacted by ONP operations - specifically the locations and extent of plumes of enhanced and sometimes introduced pathogens from the ONP operations- that game is up.
The doubt game. The game of we (DFO) know - but you can't find out. You cant find the impacts in time because we (DFO Aquaculture) use the Privacy Act (and our unchallenged interpretation of it) to hide timing and locations of disease outbreaks so any independent researchers can't arrive in time/space to benchmark these impacts. Thank you to the DoJ lawyers for that strategy - protecting the feds from a class action lawsuit.
Instead, the industry is required to send guys out to check if there is fish in any adjacent freshwater creeks - a complete waste of time and focus. Any creek open to the ocean has fish in it - and many of those with waterfalls as well (resident trout). And we already know those baselines - known them for years.
What isn't as well known and researched in a risk assessment and reduction process is those critical wild/cultured stock interactions - especially in the marine nearshore and wrt impacts to juveniles. Get this - DFO Aquaculture still DENIES that critical and dependable habitat exists for outmigrating juveniles DESPITE a large body of evidence/science that disproves that conflicted and unsupported theory. And they are uninterested and/or conflicted in updating either the siting criteria into an actual assessment and/or applying conditions to the Conditions of Licence to cover this off - UNLIKE what has happened to the Commercial Fisheries.
AND DFO does not do any monitoring for impacts to adjacent wild juveniles for diseases.
Juveniles are small and susceptible to lice loading. That much is known and even now admitted by the industry after like 20 years of denials. And yes - due to independent research in BC, Canada and the rest of the World - we know about those impacts despite the continual denials from industry proponents about how bad that isn't and that it wasn't their farms that contributed to that loading.
And yes - due to those research projects and political pressure - the industry has been forced by DFO to try and manage the lice on their farms - if for no other reason - the quality of their product is affected. We can argue the effectiveness of the Conditions of Licence and enforcement and reporting - but at least finally "lice are on the menu, boys" to borrow a phrase from Lord of the Rings.
What is still denied by industry and even a few in DFO Aquaculture - much like the early stages of the lice debate - is that diseases are not an impact. The phrase "Minimal" impact is instead brandied about like scaring off a vampire with garlic with no actual substance or scientific validation to that phrase since adjacent wild juvies are not monitored especially during disease outbreaks.
And DFO can simply declare a pathogen "NOT" a pathogen like they did with PRv after spending years denying the involvement of PRv in HMSI:
The Virus that Makes DFO Put Its Head in the Sand | The Tyee
PRV must be taken more seriously, says a judge, again.
Federal Government unjustifiably withholds scientific report for 10 years
Working towards the recognition, implementation and exercise of our inherent Indigenous Title, Rights and Treaty Rights
www.ubcic.bc.ca
Environmental DNA from multiple pathogens is elevated near active Atlantic salmon farms | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
The spread of infection from reservoir host populations is a key mechanism for disease emergence and extinction risk and is a management concern for salmon aquaculture and fisheries. Using a quantitative environmental DNA methodology, we assessed pathogen ...
royalsocietypublishing.org
And the commonly used processes that are familiar & routine in an actual environmental assessment are also not used in any siting process (scoping, mitigation of risk, Major Project Criteria, thresholds for Authorizations, etc). Nor are the Fish Habitat Protection and Pollution Prevention Provisions of the Fisheries Act applied DESPITE serious harm in that Act defined as “death of fish or any permanent alteration to or destruction of fish habitat”.
Information archivée dans le Web | Information Archived on the Web
Fisheries Act Registry: pollution prevention - Canada.ca
contains two key provisions on conservation and protection of fish habitat essential to sustaining freshwater and marine fish species. The Department of Fisheries and Oceans administers section 35, the key habitat protection provision, prohibiting any work or undertaking that would cause the...
And up until now - neither has the Precautionary Approach been used. Must be a scary time to witness a change from being the Golden Child by DFO to just another member of the Coastal family who has to play by the rules.
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Bryan Allen
Well-Known Member
Now wouldnt it be amazing if DFO actually applied the "precautionary principle " to Fraser River and tribs steelhead ? 
Well, purportedly - that is "in the works" along with all the other fish species/stocks in Canada under the newest version of the 2019 Fisheries Act and the Fish Stock Provisions (S.6) contained within (https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/acts/f-14/page-2.html#h-1175547). It is my understanding that eventually all many hundreds of commercially fished fish stocks will be subject to developing a provisional Limit Reference Point (LRP) and an Upper Stock Reference (USR):Now wouldnt it be amazing if DFO actually applied the "precautionary principle " to Fraser River and tribs steelhead ?
Supposedly, DFO incorporated the Sustainable Fisheries Framework (https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/reports-rapports/regs/sff-cpd/overview-cadre-eng.htm) and DFO’s Fishery Decision-Making Framework Incorporating the Precautionary Approach (https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/reports-rapports/regs/sff-cpd/precautionary-precaution-back-fiche-eng.htm) in 2009.
I think it is fair to state that these policies were not fully implemented; and it is likely that the easiest and least contentious species/stocks will likely be the 1st ones to have the LRPs and USRs finalized.
I'm no lawyer - but I believe that federal "policies" don't apply to Provincially regulated fish (i.e. steelhead) - while this new Fisheries Act and s. 6 would apply.
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More on the siting criteria and the failure of DFO Aquaculture to protect wild stocks and fulfill their mandate:
Spawning trouble: A criminological examination of salmon aquaculture in coastal British Columbia:
Precaution, sub-delegation and aquaculture regulation: Morton v. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans):
Are new industry policies precautionary? The case of salmon aquaculture siting policy in British Columbia:
S.5.3.1 p.529 - "While ecosystems are dynamic, constantly changing and inherently complex, the typical managerial approaches of industrial aquaculture assume a world of simple rules. This results in siting criteria that considerably disregard ecological questions full of uncertainty (i.e., genetic effects and disease transfer, wild fish migration patterns, wastes and water quality, deleterious effects on marine mammals, cumulative impacts and so forth), and the overall ecological footprint of each site on a variety of faraway ecological and social systems."
Incorporating cumulative effects into environmental assessments of mariculture: Limitations and failures of current siting methods:
S. 5.2. A failure to uphold regulatory responsibility p.584 - "Enforcing mitigation as opposed to protection and avoidance of endangered species and critical fish habitat not only undermines conservation efforts, but places many mariculture sites in the Bay of Fundy in potential contravention of two major federal acts: the Species at Risk Act and the Fisheries Act."
S. 6. Conclusions p. 584 - "An all too common problem with the environmental assessment process is its failure to properly address regional and cumulative environmental impacts. Finfish mariculture siting in the Bay of Fundy has been no exception, and with the interactions of an intensive industry with natural stressors and a long history of exploitive resource extraction (Lotze and Milewski, 2004), the need to consider these impacts has become even more necessary. Presently, the use of a DSS in the site evaluation process forces some consideration of ecosystem variables through the use of far-field information. However, farms are still assessed on a site-by-site basis and consideration is not given to ambient conditions and the impacts on natural fluxes and processes, providing an incomplete picture of the range of potential impacts associated with new farms or added production on site."
A value-based framework for risk management decisions involving multiple scales: a salmon aquaculture example:
s.2.1 p. 425 - "Turning to existing frameworks for risk management decisions, a review of Canadian and British risk management guidance documents indicated little or no discussion regarding linking risk management decisions across multiple scales."
s.6.1 p. 435 - "Many of the scientific uncertainties surrounding this industry involve its long-term environmental impacts. Scientists do not know how the cumulative impacts of many farms along the coast of BC will affect other marine life forms and natural ecosystems in the future (McDaniels et al., 2005). Perhaps one of the most significant uncertainties involves potential disease transfer between farmed and wild salmon stocks. Salmon farming is sometimes blamed for causing sea lice outbreaks in wild salmon populations (Krkosek et al., 2005)."
Potential ecological and economic impacts of sea lice from farmed salmon on wild salmon fisheries:
1. Introduction p. 1746 - "The collapse of sea trout populations along the coast of Scotland was caused by heavy infestation of sea lice (Butler, 2002; Gargan et al., 2002). On the west coast of Canada, sea lice production within a farm has been observed to reach four orders of magnitude (~30,000×) higher than ambient levels, triggering infection rates of wild juvenile salmon that is 73 times higher than ambient levels near the farm and a greater than normal infection level up to 30 km away (Krkošek et al., 2005). This increased infection pressure has been shown to potentially induce 9– 95% mortality in exposed pink and chum salmon populations (Krkošek et al., 2006)."
Farming the Sea, a False Solution to a Real Problem:
CONCLUSION p.60-61 - "Instead of downgrading paragraph 56(b) of the FGR, as suggested by DFO’s Notice of Intent, the regulation on fish transfer should specifically require proof that a disease or disease agent is not harmful to the protection and conservation of fish and marine ecosystems before a licence can be issued. Furthermore, the absence of conclusive scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful effect of a particular disease or disease agent should not be taken as proof that a transfer is safe."
"to minimize the risk of contaminating wild fish populations, sensitive fish habitat zones that are off limits to aquaculture operations should be identified and established by regulation. Data on fish health, aquaculture pollution, and related scientific research (e.g. on GE salmon) should be publicly available to enhance transparency and increase knowledge and information sharing."
Spawning trouble: A criminological examination of salmon aquaculture in coastal British Columbia:
Precaution, sub-delegation and aquaculture regulation: Morton v. Canada (Fisheries and Oceans):
Are new industry policies precautionary? The case of salmon aquaculture siting policy in British Columbia:
S.5.3.1 p.529 - "While ecosystems are dynamic, constantly changing and inherently complex, the typical managerial approaches of industrial aquaculture assume a world of simple rules. This results in siting criteria that considerably disregard ecological questions full of uncertainty (i.e., genetic effects and disease transfer, wild fish migration patterns, wastes and water quality, deleterious effects on marine mammals, cumulative impacts and so forth), and the overall ecological footprint of each site on a variety of faraway ecological and social systems."
Incorporating cumulative effects into environmental assessments of mariculture: Limitations and failures of current siting methods:
S. 5.2. A failure to uphold regulatory responsibility p.584 - "Enforcing mitigation as opposed to protection and avoidance of endangered species and critical fish habitat not only undermines conservation efforts, but places many mariculture sites in the Bay of Fundy in potential contravention of two major federal acts: the Species at Risk Act and the Fisheries Act."
S. 6. Conclusions p. 584 - "An all too common problem with the environmental assessment process is its failure to properly address regional and cumulative environmental impacts. Finfish mariculture siting in the Bay of Fundy has been no exception, and with the interactions of an intensive industry with natural stressors and a long history of exploitive resource extraction (Lotze and Milewski, 2004), the need to consider these impacts has become even more necessary. Presently, the use of a DSS in the site evaluation process forces some consideration of ecosystem variables through the use of far-field information. However, farms are still assessed on a site-by-site basis and consideration is not given to ambient conditions and the impacts on natural fluxes and processes, providing an incomplete picture of the range of potential impacts associated with new farms or added production on site."
A value-based framework for risk management decisions involving multiple scales: a salmon aquaculture example:
s.2.1 p. 425 - "Turning to existing frameworks for risk management decisions, a review of Canadian and British risk management guidance documents indicated little or no discussion regarding linking risk management decisions across multiple scales."
s.6.1 p. 435 - "Many of the scientific uncertainties surrounding this industry involve its long-term environmental impacts. Scientists do not know how the cumulative impacts of many farms along the coast of BC will affect other marine life forms and natural ecosystems in the future (McDaniels et al., 2005). Perhaps one of the most significant uncertainties involves potential disease transfer between farmed and wild salmon stocks. Salmon farming is sometimes blamed for causing sea lice outbreaks in wild salmon populations (Krkosek et al., 2005)."
Potential ecological and economic impacts of sea lice from farmed salmon on wild salmon fisheries:
1. Introduction p. 1746 - "The collapse of sea trout populations along the coast of Scotland was caused by heavy infestation of sea lice (Butler, 2002; Gargan et al., 2002). On the west coast of Canada, sea lice production within a farm has been observed to reach four orders of magnitude (~30,000×) higher than ambient levels, triggering infection rates of wild juvenile salmon that is 73 times higher than ambient levels near the farm and a greater than normal infection level up to 30 km away (Krkošek et al., 2005). This increased infection pressure has been shown to potentially induce 9– 95% mortality in exposed pink and chum salmon populations (Krkošek et al., 2006)."
Farming the Sea, a False Solution to a Real Problem:
CONCLUSION p.60-61 - "Instead of downgrading paragraph 56(b) of the FGR, as suggested by DFO’s Notice of Intent, the regulation on fish transfer should specifically require proof that a disease or disease agent is not harmful to the protection and conservation of fish and marine ecosystems before a licence can be issued. Furthermore, the absence of conclusive scientific evidence demonstrating the harmful effect of a particular disease or disease agent should not be taken as proof that a transfer is safe."
"to minimize the risk of contaminating wild fish populations, sensitive fish habitat zones that are off limits to aquaculture operations should be identified and established by regulation. Data on fish health, aquaculture pollution, and related scientific research (e.g. on GE salmon) should be publicly available to enhance transparency and increase knowledge and information sharing."
B.C. fish farm licences outside Discovery Islands renewed until at least spring 2023 - Campbell River Mirror
Atlantic salmon facilities around Discovery Islands not being renewed, final decision in January
Here's a great one fresh off the press:
"Sea lice are a threat to the health of both wild and farmed salmon and an economic burden for salmon farms. With a free-living larval stage, sea lice can disperse tens of kilometres in the ocean between salmon farms, leading to connected sea louse populations that are difficult to control in isolation."
"Sea lice are a threat to the health of both wild and farmed salmon and an economic burden for salmon farms. With a free-living larval stage, sea lice can disperse tens of kilometres in the ocean between salmon farms, leading to connected sea louse populations that are difficult to control in isolation."
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