Aquaculture improving?..The Fish Farm Thread

Despite the long list of long list of debatable "lies", those agains salmon farms can not identify one single correlation of a wild salmon run in BC being effected negatively via FF by return numbers alone. Not even in an area. And they continue to dodge the question: Why in areas where there are no salmon farms on migration routs are wild salmon returns suffering equally? Areas like the Skeena.
 
I never really expected a responsible, mature, professional acknowledgement of lack of trust and accountability issues from any FF pundit – but thanks for demonstrating the expected industry response of attempting to delegitimize critiques of their industry so that those unresolved issues are kept unresolved and the battle is in the venue of a PR war – rather than taking oversight seriously and responsibly. That’s why each and every site should go thru an environmental assessment where that skanky trick can’t be used.

And I believe I understand why any industry pundit would wish to not challenge any critiques - better to let that sleeping dog lie and not allow the conversation about lack of trust and accountability to happen - but instead play the poor corporate victim.

And as far as correlations go – this has been done time and time again wrt the sea lice issue. As far as introduced diseases go – one needs to know where and when an outbreak is happening so independent researchers can go out and sample wild stocks. But the industry knows where this will lead so their protectors and regulators are complicit in hiding these details, thereby protecting the industry.

This has been going on for years – along with the denials. Thanks for demonstrating that as well. That’s why the feel sorry for you boat sailed many years ago wrt pulling the farms. The industry is the masters of their own demise and the open net-pen technology is unsustainable. And maybe this court case will backfire, as DFO may be forced to bring-out data they have been hiding for years.
 
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aa, put aside salmon farms for a moment and consider answering the question Birdnest's put to you ... how do you explain low returns to the Skeena, Nass, Stikine, Yukon and Alaskan rivers?
 
It sure gets way beyond tiring hearing the same old and occasionally a new lie claimed by the industry, their PR machine, and their supporters. For me - it is irresponsible, and only confirms that we should not listen to their claims. They are not reliable, and have an extensive history of both lying and being mistaken - often purposely so.

Remember HMSI? Ya the industry claimed for years that PRv doesn't cause HMSI - until Kristi Miller and her team got involved in that longitudinal study that showed that the industry vets never tested @ the right time to find PRv - as the lesions develop after the virus was cleared in the host Atlantic.

sea lice? no problems there - no effects on juvies.

resistance to slice? no that will never happen.

ISAv? ya - that'll never transfer to wild stocks.

Escapees? Ya, they will never escape? oh they did? wasn't us.

cages? They won't fall apart. Oh they did? Ya that was the eclipse - not us.

Disease? no disease - just disease vectors. No - disease vectors can't cause disease.

ISAv and PRv - no they aren't Norwegian/European despite what the genetics says. They were always here.

Sea lice chemicals. No they don't kill anything than sea lice. No we didnt kill your lobsters.

trust us to look after your resources - and no we won't let anyone know if/when/where there are any outbreaks so you can't check-up on us.

Quite the cartel.

I think if i was a anti FF guy my biggest grip would be all of the things you listed above were not cited as a reason for the removal of fish farms it was consultations with first nations or as you put it honoring s35.
 
Well - I believe that the FNs in that area already well know the issues and the science that has been generated detailing the effects and impacts of open net-pen FF operations.

So, when this goes to court - I believe this will backfire on the industry in numerous ways:
1/ s. 35 and UNDRIP and the Crown's fiduciary duty to consult that should have happened before the farms went in,
2/ the foreign-owned corporate companies do not own the seabed nor the waters, and
3/ DFO will now be forced into a more adversarial role w the industry rather than the normal conflict of interest they had been put in by Yves Bastion years ago and may have to admit some of the science they have been hiding while protecting this industry.

And the discussion about the Skeena and other areas - we have already discussed a few times already on a few threads. Shortened version: death by a thousand cuts, but does not release FFs from their impacts. FFs do contribute to early life-history mortality, esp. wrt sea lice, and possibly disease vectors. Foreign disease vectors (ISAv and PRv) have been found in stocks that have crashed - like Oweekeno. Short distance (~300m) benthic impacts. Much longer (10s of kms) transport of disease and parasite vectors and reductions in WQ for things like sea lice bath treatments. So effects are more localized and harder to estimate due to lack of accurate escapement estimates (i.e. fish fences and the like), as well as the fact that we are unable to know when/where outbreaks are happening. That last fact should be highly illegal, but DFO/CFIA cover it up citing the Privacy Act. Siting criteria is NOT a substitute for an environmental assessment - something the industry has avoided for years despite being one of the few industries actually located within the water. Increases in disease and parasite vectors that have mortality attached are WQ/habitat impacts under the reestablished Fishery Act - and this industry has avoided those charges, as well.
 
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I'm not familiar with our trade agreements so perhaps there is some liability here?
Possibly. Wrong venue for that claim, tho. DFO licences operations, the province the site. What they do with their produced product is up to them.
 
Agreed WMY - and they were told no. That should be the finality they need. But they aren't used to being told no. This is a temper tanty. And they have operated for years w only 1 yr re-occurring lease approvals - and they operated fine. So - again - this will backfire on them. But I don't believe that this is the issue. It is instead about reassuring their shareholders - that's all.
 
Just had the pleasure of having to read through the latest nonsense, which is the same nonsense we have been through too many times in the past, and don't have time to remove the posts that deserve to be, so this will be another blanket warning. If posts are not on topic, aquaculture/FF, they will be removed without explanation and persistence in this area will lead to bans. This means no more talk of Gish Gallop, reconciliation in broad terms (not specific to FF), regurgitated calls to "prove" your side is right (like that is possible anyway), derails into other topics such as sport fishing, etc.

Fingers are on the eject button.
 
If the removal happens we will finally have a valid comparator. If for example Fish Farms were the main cause of sea lice, then that population should show a dramatic reduction.
 
If we have the fine-scale stock assessment tools available, Ziggy (fish fences, DIDSON/ARIS, etc.).
 
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