Aquaculture improving?..The Fish Farm Thread

[wildmanyeah]

what does this tell you....fact...
the pink salmon returning to the Fraser River this summer are the first runs that migrated past the closed Discovery Islands farms from the river where they were born to the Pacific Ocean and now back to the Fraser to spawn.
“Those pinks that went out, they didn't have fish farms in their path,”

The average return of pink salmon Fraser is around 11.4 million.

While upgraded to 20 million from a preseason forecast of 6.5 million it has been down graded to 15 million and potentially will see another down grade as about 10 million pinks have now been accounted for in escapement + harvest.

Witch means we are potentially looking at an average pink return this year for the Fraser.

And below recent years like 2013.

 

[wildmanyeah]

going from 8 million in 2021 to 10-15 million in 2023 is not anything out of the ordinary, looks like it last happened between 2007 and 2009, that change actually being bigger. 2015-2017 being the warm water "blob"

"The Blob is a large mass of relatively warm water in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of North America that was first detected in late 2013 and continued to spread throughout 2014 and 2015.[1][2] It is an example of a marine heatwave.[3] Sea surface temperatures indicated that the Blob persisted into 2016,[4] but it was initially thought to have dissipated later that year."

​

Fraser River Run Size​

Year	Pinks
2021	8,108,000
2019	8,858,000
2017	3,563,000
2015	5,865,000
2013	15,898,000
2011	20,645,000
2009	19,936,000
2007	8,490,000
2005	9,870,000
2003	24,250,000

 

[Hardy Guy]

Farms in the water for many years with way better return numbers than this year. It just more complicated than remove the farms and get lots of fish.

 

[gone fishin]

Farms in the water for many years with way better return numbers than this year. It just more complicated than remove the farms and get lots of fish.

We all agree that just removing Fish Farms is not a final solution to rebuilding our salmon stalks.
BUT most (without a personal agenda) would agree it is a step in the right direction.

 

[SpringFever552]

What if they all do well next year and the year after too? Will that be just a coincidence?

Yes, bets on they dont?

 

[wildmanyeah]

 

[Dave]

Don't tell Almo!

 

[Hardy Guy]

Yeah lots of high returns when fish farms were in place. I have no vested interest in fish farms but I wonder why activists get so vested protesting against something when evidence suggests otherwise. This includes: anti logging, hunting, fishing, gun control etc. They seem to have more interest than the average citizen. Maybe I'm an anti anti. I wonder what funding that might get me.

 

[gone fishin]

Advocates press DFO to move faster on plan to phase out B.C. fish farms | Globalnews.ca
First Nation leaders tell new fisheries minister to shut down fish farms
“there are 123 First Nations in B.C. that support the removal” (of fish farms”
“fish farms are certainly one of those biggest stressors and impacts that must be dealt with.”
The scientific connection between fish farms and the health of wild salmon remains hotly debated, with groups on both sides citing conflicting research and studies.
The B.C. salmon farming industry disputes any connection between aquaculture and the challenges wild salmon are facing.
“disputes any connection”
In the past the Fish Farm promoters claimed their impact was minimal and that’s debatable. Now they claim no impact what so ever.
You would think Fish Farm promoters could at least get their claims consistent!!

 

[agentaqua]

What's really and (for me) glaringly missing in these charts - is the tie-in between sea lice levels on outmigrating stocks of pink juvies and the numbers back on a watershed basis of that same cohort about 15 months later - esp for the stocks where their juvies hang-out around the pens. Comparing ocean survival rates - in other words - between watersheds adjacent to and far away from ONPSF sites. The rest is mostly noise, IMHO.

Salish Sea Marine Survival Project

Why are salmon dying in the Salish Sea? Over 60 organizations are working internationally to solve the biggest mystery impacting salmon recovery

marinesurvivalproject.com

And Brian's comments in the article GF posted made me chuckle: "We have the amazing amount of science...". Sounds like the language of the Orange Jesus from South of us has pervaded the BCSFA.

Well, if the BCSFA has "amazing" science that no one else does - how does the science from the PSF and their lead scientists compare? You know - esp. the cutting-edge science using fit chips and eDNA recording for history the release of pathogens like PRv and other diseases from the ONPSF industry? I guess that'd be "fake news" in the vernacular of the Orange Jesus?

 

[gone fishin]

You're a bright lady, ?

Is that post directed at Agentaqua?
If so, will you please share more information.
How is it you came across the identity?
Do you have a name?
or are you just throwing out more misleading information?

 

[agentaqua]

I edited and updated my last post with the data from the PSF on the Salish Sea survival rates. It's a similar approach - but doesn't deep dive into the Broughton watersheds - esp any of those with accurate stock assessment like fish fences and/or DIDSON/ARIS counts. And it doesn't look at correlations between lice loads and OSRs. But it's something to start with.

AND...

If the industry boosters are proudly claiming they haven't impacted any wild stocks - that'd be their responsibility to back-up their claims with data - as it is for any industry proponents. The onus is on them. But they constantly use the trick of reversing the burden of proof.

 

[agentaqua]

B.C. First Nations, commercial fishers and tourism groups urge federal government to phase out salmon farms

A group comprised of First Nations chiefs, leaders in the commercial fishing industry and tourism associations came together Wednesday to encourage the federal government to move ahead with a plan to phase out open-net pen salmon farms on the British Columbia coast by 2025.

bc.ctvnews.ca

 

[ship happens]

 

[agentaqua]

This is the reason that using only runs size graphs doesn't allow the fine-scale determination of local or regional impacts as those localized OSR differences are absorbed and hidden within a collective graph of coast-wide OSRs. And only a few watersheds have a dependable, long-term and accurate stock assessment that can be used to compare & contrast:

Fraser River pink salmon returns blow past forecast

Odd-year pink salmon are crushing it, to the detriment of other species

www.nsnews.com

https://www.int-res.com/articles/feature/m719p001.pdf

 

[agentaqua]

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0308597X21003018?via%3Dihub

 

[agentaqua]

46 escaped aquaculture salmon found in New Brunswick river

Since 2012, the Atlantic Salmon Federation has captured only 33 native Atlantic salmon but has handled 386 escaped aquaculture salmon.

www.bangordailynews.com

 

[agentaqua]

What the Rapid Rise of Norway’s Farmed Salmon Industry Means For the Rest of the World

In their new book, investigative journalists Simen Sætre and Kjetil Østli explore the environmental and social costs of the Norwiegan aquaculture industry’s global reach.

civileats.com

Sea lice dropped after salmon farms removed: study

Parasites on wild pink, chum salmon dropped 96% post salmon farm removal: Morton, Routledge

biv.com

Effect of government removal of salmon farms on sea lice infection of juvenile wild salmon in the Discovery Islands

In response to a federal government order, the number of salmon farms operating in the Discovery Islands region declined from eight in 2020, to one in 2022. Over this period, 1627 juvenile pink and chum salmon captured at sites throughout the study area were examined for sea lice. The average...

cdnsciencepub.com

Changes in growth and migration patterns of sea trout before and after the introduction of Atlantic salmon farming

Abstract. Marine growth has strong implications for reproductive potential and ultimate fitness of sea trout. Hence, the effects of anthropogenic factors on mar

academic.oup.com

https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.1752

 

[agentaqua]

Some more of the "amazing amount of science" NOT done by the industry in published peer-reviewed article weblinks posted below that confirm impacts to adjacent wild salmon stocks by the net-pen technology used by the industry:
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https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rsos.220853

"This result lends support to previous work demonstrating that warmer temperatures increase the connectivity of farms in the Broughton Archipelago [41], and supports the theory that in 2015 anomalously warm temperatures contributed to a failure of salmon farms to control sea louse outbreaks, which led to high sea louse numbers on wild salmon [49]. "
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Canadian Science Publishing

"our model predictions suggest that delayed treatment resulted in high louse abundance throughout the winter preceding the 2015 pink and chum out-migration (Figs. 2, 4), which may have increased louse transmission to other farms in the area. In other salmon-farming regions, farm clusters have been shown to act as connected metapopulations, with local farmed salmonid density influencing louse abundance on farms (Adams et al. 2012; Jansen et al. 2012; Kristoffersen et al. 2013). Because the Broughton Archipelago’s salmon farms contribute to regional sea louse infestation pressure (Stucchi et al. 2011), farms may infect and reinfect each other, indicating that a more coordinated area-based management approach is needed."
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Space-Time Modelling of the Spread of Salmon Lice between and within Norwegian Marine Salmon Farms

Parasitic salmon lice are potentially harmful to salmonid hosts and farm produced lice pose a threat to wild salmonids. To control salmon lice infections in Norwegian salmonid farming, numbers of lice are regularly counted and lice abundance is reported from all salmonid farms every month. We...

journals.plos.org

"...66% of the expected salmon lice abundance was attributed to infection within farms, 28% was attributed to infection from neighbourhood farms and 6% to non-specified sources of infection..."
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https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2022.1752

"There was a correlation between sea lice infestation pressure estimated from sea trout surveillance in the smolt migration route and the subsequent return rates of adult salmon, which we submit is a mechanistic correlation illustrating parasite spillback. This correlation suggests that from 2009 to 2018, years of low survival were driven by lice infestation pressure on out-migrating salmon smolts."

"The lice levels during the period 2009–2021 must be described as high, with the median number of lice varying from 2 to 78 lice per fish among years, and the median number of lice per gram varying from approximately 0.01 to 0.41 lice per gram of fish. These high infestation levels seen in most years are not normally observed in areas without fish farms [8]. The reduced return rates in salmon must be mainly attributed to the spillback effect of parasites originating on farmed fish."

This (above) is the type of study I was advocating for in assessing the impacts of removal of FFs from the Discovery Islands...

 

[agentaqua]

A tale of two coasts: How Canada’s approach to salmon farming differs from east to west

How can fish farming be winding down on one coast, and ramping up on the other?

www.nationalobserver.com

Fish farm giant Mowi suing fisheries ministers, taxpayers for Discovery Islands closures

The lawsuit appears to be the first tied to the Discovery Islands closures intent on making the federal government and taxpayers pay for decisions by ministers with the authority to protect Canadian fisheries and oceans, says a B.C. salmon conservation group.

www.nationalobserver.com