Aquaculture improving?..The Fish Farm Thread

[agentaqua]

And the industry has improved it's PR maybe - but it's STILL the same old open net-pen technology. Water still flows in, water still flows out. Diseases and parasites still go both ways. With respect to outmigrating wild salmon juvies - they receive sea lice loading in areas/times/densities that they wouldn't if the farms weren't there.

So, no - the industry really hasn't improved wrt impacts to wild stocks. They can't - unless they go to closed containment.

 

[SpringFever552]

These farm operations will move to fn areas that want them,, some just around the corner from where they are now, and some fn will start their very own ff...dont think for a second that all fn want them out of " their" areas.

many fn that want them,
just like many fn want to buy a pipe line

 

[agentaqua]

I know in the glossy brochures of the BCFSA they'd want us to believe otherwise; but of the 200-odd FN in BC, only a small handful "want" or have agreements w FF companies to operate within their territories. Even within those communities - there is considerable debate about whether they should continue operating w FFs. The time has long passed for FF companies to get approval to operate in new territories. I think they know that, as well.

They may wish to try to add biomass within their existing sites - but even that would be a battle, as would developing new sites. The industry in BC has reached and surpassed their zenith despite all the PR firms & DFOs communication Branch pumping out the words "sustainable", and ""blue revelation", and the like.

But I understand why they want to tell their shareholders another story to keep them from bailing...

 

[SpringFever552]

^^^
You know not what you say, keep on believing it though

 

[agentaqua]

Guess I could say the same thing back... along with thanks for giving us the narrative that the industry would like us to believe.

 

[seascene]

DFO stated after the 9 Risk assessments were completed that there was no more than a minimal risk to Fraser sockeye. The Minister stated that the decision to phase out the farms in the DI was because the 7 FN all opposed them being re-licensed .................... no other reason (and that this decision was very very difficult). I'm fine with the decision but I worry about the precedent it sets with future licensing decisions and not just finfish aquaculture licence decisions. I have no skin on the FF business but that was a blow from left field especially when many FF sites had BC tenures with many years left. I also get how the FF jobs are important to the economy on the North island. I also have seen how the industry has got better since the 1980's much like logging practices have evolved.

...sorry just had to reply not about ff but logging practices...I live near Comox main logging truck expressway.... a google earth comox main at somers rd port alberni..... nuclear blast would be kinder.... clear cut to the lakes we used to visit ...to the horizon.... limited future jobs in forestry.... black tail deer driven from abundance to remnants.... fish, forests, wildlife ....remnants (BC & globally).... the issue is so huge that "money" needs to be reviewed as a concept... how we live... some boats triple outboards on a transom in pursuit of a fish etc etc etc .... (not a rant ...an observation).

 

[agentaqua]

90 Percent Of Fish We Use For Fishmeal Could Be Used To Feed Humans Instead

Currently, one-fourth of all fish caught globally goes to produce fishmeal and fish oil for farmed seafood, pigs and chickens. A lot of it is "food grade" and could be feeding the world's hungry.

www.npr.org

 

[agentaqua]

The Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) is pleased to announce new findings from its multi-year Strategic Salmon Health Initiative (SSHI), published this week in Scientific Reports. The paper, titled ‘Descriptive multi-agent epidemiology via molecular screening on Atlantic salmon farms in the northeast Pacific Ocean,’ was led by Dr. Andrew Bateman, Salmon Health Manager of the SSHI, and co-authored by other scientists from PSF and Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). Their findings conclude that numerous infective agents are present in the millions of fish held in open-net salmon farms.

The paper reports results from a multi-year infectious-agent screening program of farmed Atlantic salmon in British Columbia, Canada. Conducted in collaboration with salmon-farming companies MOWI Canada West and Cermaq, and funded in part by Genome BC, the study provides information for salmon farm managers, regulators, and conservationists while enabling further work to explore patterns of multi-agent infection and farm/wild transmission risks. The scientific research examined 2,931 Atlantic salmon from four salmon-farm cohorts in the Broughton Archipelago and Discovery Islands regions. Findings provide some of the most detailed information to date showing that farmed salmon harbour a diversity of infective agents that can change over a farm’s production cycle. Of particular interest, the authors showed that PRV infections increase quickly over the first several months in Atlantic salmon on farms, and that Tenacibaculum maritimum - a bacterial agent that can cause substantial losses on farms if left untreated - appears at higher levels in dead or dying fish for many months.

The research outlined in this paper reaffirms PSF’s support for DFO’s decision to phase out open-net-pen salmon farms in the Discovery Islands, in consultation with First Nations, as well as the Federal Government’s promised transition – by 2025 – away from open-net salmon aquaculture in BC. It also reaffirms PSF’s support for the Provincial Government’s decision that effective June 2022, land tenure decisions about salmon aquaculture will be decided based on the health of salmon in consultation with First Nations. PSF is optimistic that the research released this week will aid in the transition to closed-containment salmon farming for the benefit of restoring and sustaining Pacific salmon populations on our coast for generations to come.

Additional Resources:

Scientific Reports: ‘Descriptive multi-agent epidemiology via molecular screening on Atlantic salmon farms in the northeast Pacific Ocean’

 

[agentaqua]

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

dfo-mpo.gc.ca

 

[cuttlefish]

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Thanks for the link, aa. I will definitely send in my two cents.
Still, it’s getting harder by the day to position BC as a global leader considering today’s editorial in Salmon Business: https://salmonbusiness.com/this-will-change-the-salmon-farming-supply-industry-over-the-next-decade/

 

[gone fishin]

Report says pollution, parasites and fish mortality rates cost an estimated $50bn globally from 2013 to 2019

Global salmon farming harming marine life and costing billions in damage | Marine life | The Guardian

 

[gone fishin]

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

Public engagement on the transition of open-net pen aquaculture in British Columbia

dfo-mpo.gc.ca

Read and submitted my reply.
What a pile of ****.
You are not going to get a clear path to resolution with that survey.
No wonder we are where we are!

 

[agentaqua]

Ya, I know GF. The Communications Branch has been burning the midnight oil again. I was thinking of doing up BS Bingo cards with the words "sustainable", "blue revolution", "conserve and protect", "responsible transition", "effective regulatory system" among other overused motherhood PR words. Maybe that'd be a great way to raise funds for the Public Fishery Alliance?

 

[agentaqua]

Mowi opts for fewer farms, denser volumes in Canada West recovery

Another difficult year is expected for Mowi’s Canadian operations, but the salmon farmer insists it has plans in place to return both halves of its operation to record volumes

www.undercurrentnews.com

not a surprise at all:

How a Minister Tried to Protect Salmon but We Lost a Generation of Fraser Sockeye

The document below was sent to DFO's new Senior Aquaculture Management Coordinator. This is the story of what happened when the Minister of Fisheries told DFO to make fish farm sea lice regulations stronger and they got weaker. Below are DFO's own words taken from 2,500 pages of internal...

alexandramorton.typepad.com

 

[wildmanyeah]

Fact checking Morton’s diatribe about BC salmon farms

seawestnews.com

 

[Hardy Guy]

A person has to give her credit, as AM consistently sticks to her story and won't let any other facts or science interfere with her personal views. The conspiracy theory that all of DFO is on the take has to be hard for the vast majority of people to believe.

 

[Dave]

Morton is indeed becoming Trump - like. A very bad look but typical of her kind.

 

[agentaqua]

Fabian Dawson with SeaWestNews. Yup. Figures. Expected that. He's consistently been a defender for the industry speaking of omitting & ignoring facts. Now he wants us to shift the focus away from collusion and corruption in the federal government and instead shoot the messenger. Very typical and transparent response.

Whether or not one likes or agrees with AM's commentary - keep in mind those FoI responses are from the federal government - not AM. And that's after much had already been deleted by the DoJ lawyers.

So I know that does not demonstrate any responsible oversight, good governance, or transparency and simple honesty to me from our top-end DFO regulators. This post by AM is simply the tip of a extremely dirty iceberg - which has always been there since the days of Yves Bastion.

Justice Cohen also recognized this way too obvious conflict of interest as did Kristi Miller. Yet the industry pundits would like to have us ignore this unfortunate reality and government accountability.

And speaking of transparency, honesty and conflicts of interests - maybe Fabian would like to clarify that he is not just a reporter, but instead involved with PR firms that have the BCSFA as one of a number of clients, and he isn't simply performing "Media Management" as the advertisement for his services include:

Clients | Fabiandawson.com

We are a high-impact media agency with global links. We work closely with our clients to develop media strategies.

www.fabiandawson.com

And...

Sea West News is not a member of the News Media Council of Canada and is not bound by their complaints process. So, Sea West News is not an accredited, responsible, accountable news source. How convenient for someone who wishes people to think they are reading news instead of a PR firms release that they get paid to do from their clients - the BCSFA in this case. Not honest, professional, dependable, nor transparent at all IMHO - which is what I expected. Misleading and skanky IMHO.

 

[terrin]

Mowi opts for fewer farms, denser volumes in Canada West recovery

Another difficult year is expected for Mowi’s Canadian operations, but the salmon farmer insists it has plans in place to return both halves of its operation to record volumes

www.undercurrentnews.com

not a surprise at all:

How a Minister Tried to Protect Salmon but We Lost a Generation of Fraser Sockeye

The document below was sent to DFO's new Senior Aquaculture Management Coordinator. This is the story of what happened when the Minister of Fisheries told DFO to make fish farm sea lice regulations stronger and they got weaker. Below are DFO's own words taken from 2,500 pages of internal...

alexandramorton.typepad.com

Senior management clearly sided with industry, removed the farm threshold, removed the mandatory fallow, and production cuts and allowed the industry to repeatedly exceed the current lice limits as many times as they wanted as young wild salmon coastwide tried to make it to sea past the farms. As a result, in the spring of 2020 half the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands exceeded the 2013 lice limit considered safe for wild salmon, 99% of young sockeye were infected at levels that DFO’s own science stated would have caused them acute and profound damage, it was the worst sea lice outbreak recorded since 2004 and Canada lost the majority of young Fraser sockeye, as well as, most of the pink and chum salmon that migrated through Okisollo Channel in the Discovery islands that year.

This record informs us that DFO field staff tried to honour the intent of Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to open the salmon farming Conditions of Licence two years early and insert strong protection measures, but their efforts were discarded in favour of industry-friendly Conditions that resulted in the loss of the generation of Fraser sockeye salmon that migrated to sea through the Discovery Island in 2020. Ultimately this contributed to the industry’s loss of 19 farms in the Discovery Islands.

 

[terrin]

Senior management clearly sided with industry, removed the farm threshold, removed the mandatory fallow, and production cuts and allowed the industry to repeatedly exceed the current lice limits as many times as they wanted as young wild salmon coastwide tried to make it to sea past the farms. As a result, in the spring of 2020 half the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands exceeded the 2013 lice limit considered safe for wild salmon, 99% of young sockeye were infected at levels that DFO’s own science stated would have caused them acute and profound damage, it was the worst sea lice outbreak recorded since 2004 and Canada lost the majority of young Fraser sockeye, as well as, most of the pink and chum salmon that migrated through Okisollo Channel in the Discovery islands that year.

This record informs us that DFO field staff tried to honour the intent of Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to open the salmon farming Conditions of Licence two years early and insert strong protection measures, but their efforts were discarded in favour of industry-friendly Conditions that resulted in the loss of the generation of Fraser sockeye salmon that migrated to sea through the Discovery Island in 2020. Ultimately this contributed to the industry’s loss of 19 farms in the Discovery Islands.

Pretty much makes the case for sea lice killing all the Wild Salmon smolts. Big money just keeps getting their way. No wonder the Sport Fishers are not allowed to catch a Fish.