fish farm siting criteria & politics

[agentaqua]

Sokeyefry - you're back. Missed your come-backs.

You stated:

quote:You cannot place the blame for the fish meal woes all on salmon farming, when half the supply is used for other animal feeds, and fertilizer.

I did not try to blame "all" of the fish meal woes on salmon farming alone (please reread my postings if in doubt). Are there other significant users of that resource - yes. Do those issues also need to be addressed - yes.

That wasn't my focus, however, since we were focused on and discussing salmon farming impacts. We can also talk about those pesky chicken farmers, if you want - as well. Then we would also need to talk about all the fuel used-up to capture those forage fishes, and then talk about the fuel used in the transport, and then about the energy needs in rendering them into to fish meal and fish oil, and then the talk would lead to global warming, and then onto carbon credits, and so-on.

It's just that I was pointing-out the hypocrisy of PR boosters stating that salmon farming was "helping to feed the world's poor", by using-up a significant source of fish protein through trophic level transfer - and being disingenuousness by then blaming those pesky chickens. That fish protein could instead be used DIRECTLY to feed humans, at a much greater efficiency. GET IT?

No matter what else is going on - those hundred of thousands of tons of farmed, carnivorous salmon use-up significantly more forage fish to feed those salmon - to suggest anything else is being truly dishonest.

While we are on the topic - I think I know one of the reasons salmon farmers do not want to give-up the open net-cage technology...their farmed salmon would lose a significant, alternative food source that swims into the salmon pens - local stocks of herring and salmon smolts. Thinks those lights used to night feed don't attract other food?

When your feed costs for a single site are something like 60% of your total costs (you can give me more accurate numbers if you want), then it's millions of $$$ a year in just feeding these fish. If they succeed in reducing that by only 10%, then - no - I guess they wouldn't want to be forced into closed technology.

That leads nicely into your next point:

quote:Surely as informed on salmon farms as you are you know that every on land farm has failed. I am not going to go into all the reasons why on land farming is worse than current practises, nor am I going into why it doesn't work.

Well - lets, then. How about there is no political will to make it happen, and everyone is happy with the status quo.

We have all sorts of alternative energy sources that could be used for pumping water, here on the BC coast - like rain i.e. hydro), wind, and even solar. Wind-generated air pumps have been used in the southern US catfish pond aquaculture for generations. That could be used to offset the reduction in oxygen by going closed containment. Also, in Norway they use big, open blasted ponds to raise halibut. I guess it would be too "simple" to do the same here in BC, even though that technology is available.I guess all that technology is too "simple" for the currently permitted dense cage-culture?

you then mouth the industry rallying-cry by declaring:

quote:These are significant natural sources which are contributing to the lice loads. These loads must be understood before you can make any recommendations regarding fish farm impacts.

First-off that work has been done, and been published in peer-reviewed journals, and the industry and DFOs best response has been to try to sell the public doubt about the findings. The science is in on this topic, sockeyefry - and the reason the salmonfarmers don't like it - is because it doesn't paint a very pretty picture of their impacts.

Lets go back to the start for this - okay...

Salmon farms stock their pens with Atlantic salmon smolts from FRESHWATER hatcheries. They then get SEA lice. They get sea lice through the mechanism of the open net-pen, which allows the free flow of water that contains the free-swimming forms of sea lice, as well as other disease and parasite vectors. No apparent hubbablou in getting the salmon farming industry to understand this one.

This proves that the open net-cage technology is INEFFECTIVE in containing the interactions between wild and cultured stocks - and that sea lice move through the cage. Get this so far?

The we have some 27-29 operating farms in the Broughton with from 600,000 to 6 MILLION farmed fish, each (depends upon whether they are smolts, or nearing market size). Maybe an average of what - 2 MILLION each, say? You can give me better numbers, here sockeyefry - if you have them - but ballpark - how many farmed salmon in the Broughton - 50 MILLION seem ball-parky?

That's not a significant potential source of lice, sockeyefry? What? Why are you even trying to say it's probably not the single, most likely source of the lice source in the Broughton? Let's explore this one more. I don't have the time to look-up the references right now - but we will return to this.

I very much agree with your statement:

quote:If the farms are contributing to the loadings, (papers on this to date has been more opinion than fact on both sides) then ways to mitigate the impact must be found. The first step is identifying the impact.

And do you know why the papers can only suggest this - the farmers refuse to release their sea lice data on a site-by-site basis - claiming "intellectual property rights". The truth is they don't want anyone to know.

quote:I call BS on your calling BS on safe anchorages. They are not all taken up by farms.

That is not what I said. I said there are conflicts that you were not admitting.

We'll pick the rest of this thread up later. Looking forward to your response.

 

[Nimo]

It may be time to take a pole. How are they doing? Scale of 1 to 10, 10 being the best - Sockeye fry killer? Agentaqua keeper of the open seas and Saviour of the Wild Salmon? No biases here, what do you guys think?

Let me be the first: I think Sockeye fry is the best thing to happen to the anti-farm lobby so far. Believe it or not I've tried to maintain an open mind through my readings and have once or twice started to sway. However, the replies to the debate by the likes of Agentaqua have definitely convinced me that the farms have to go, the risk is simply far too great!

If I was voting on this, and I will be soon... the farms will be gone. I'd give a 10 to Agentaqua.

 

[agentaqua]

Nerka, great reply:

quote:
Everyplace, from Puget Sound to Alaska that people have looked for lice on fry during early marine residence (i.e. April/May) there are few if any L. salmonis (i.e. 0-5% prevalence) yet we have routinely seen an order of magnitude (i.e. 20-100%) higher prevalence on fry in the Broughton since 2001 when we started looking (and to be fair this has varied depending on the location of active farms). To say that these lice MAINLY come from natural sources is plain BS. First it was the huge aggregations of highly infected sticklebacks that were the source, but after looking at tens of thousands of lice form sticklebacks DFO could not find a single reproductive female and we now know that stickleback are actually eating the lice!. Then it was overwintering subadult coho and chinook, but after spending millions of dollars trolling in the Broughton over the winter DFO could not find them and was forced to ask the locals where to look for fish, to which they were told there are not any anymore.

There's 1 more possibility not yet looked-at...Aliens are infiltrating our planet - cleverly disguised as sea lice. They just use net-cages as convenient landing pads. Just like DFO - I'm going too float this idea that aliens MAY be the source of overwinter lice. Hope Norther Aquaculture picks-up on this one, too.

 

[sockeyefry]

Agent,

The global issue of the sustainablity of the fish meal fishery are real and I agree with you on that one. These fisheries must be carefully maintained below their exploitable levels. And yes, salmon do eat feed made from these products. However, the transportation arguments can and have been made about every human endeavour, such as the food we eat, to the goods we buy. Basically anything not made or grown locally has a cost associated with the transport of the product, which you correct in pointing out involves the "carbon" usage.

I haven't heard farm people claim that they were feeding the world's poor. Salmon farming has however made it affordable and available to more people. The reference to chicken farmers is to illustrate the fish meal is used by other industries, and your ire should be taken out on them as well. Also I have never heard of someone eating these fish. They are oily strong flavoured small bony fish, and to suggest or intimate that they are in the same class as halibut is misleading. The one that really gets me is the use of fish meal for fertilzer?

Have you actually seen a salmon in a pen eat herring? If not then it is simply hearsay if someone told you, or you are making an opinion sound like fact.

Many salmon farming companies over the past 20 years have tried to develop on land technology, and have failed. On land technology would be preferable to a net pen because of the better control over the rearing environment. However, it is the increased costs associated with the creation of an aquatic environment on land that has made every attempt so far fail. I do not know if you fully understand the amount of energy required to pump the large volumes of water. One pumped ashore farm in Nova Scotia has six 200 hp vertical shaft turbine pumps to supply water to a farm that in its best year produced 500 tonnes of product. By the way 5 different companies over 20 years tried to make a go of it and failed. I think that the production of electricity to operate this small farm would be beyond the scope of you alternate enegry sources,a nd would require the operation of a diesel generation plant. Therefore, if we put it in perspective on a global scale, the carbon footprint of a land based farm is far in excess of any environmental impact ever created by a net pen farm. If you could solve these problems, you would have salmon farming companies lining up at your door to buy your technologies. Most of the research that has gone into alternate rearing technologies has been by the salmon farming companies. If it was possible they would do it, however it currently is not.

Where in Norway are the farming halibut in a large pond?

I do not believe the "science is in" on the lice issue. Neither dooes the PSF in their latest report. Funny how the media didn't pick it up, I gues it wasn't sensational enough.

I do understand how math works, and if that is all you have to prove an impact, then try again. Mathematically I could prove someone is going to get hit by a bus tomorrow, but that doesn't make it so.

However, I am not saying that there is or isn't a possible impact, all I am saying is lets find out what it is and solve it if possible. To suggest otherwise is simply a lynch mob mentality, from which there are all kinds of examples of people wrongfully convicted of crimes. I would not like to see a repeat here with the salmon farms, which may be possible especially with the attitudes I have seen displayed here on these forums.

BTW Don't DFO and the province have access to all farm records, which I belive are published on the Provinces website?

 

[sockeyefry]

Fin,

The water doesn't add energy to the feed, it adds weight to the fish. You are comparing the dry weight of the feed to the wet weight of the fish. FCR's of 1.1 to 1 are well documented, and in freshwater hatcheries that can approach .5 lbs of feed to 1 lb of fish.

 

[sockeyefry]

Nimo,

You have to be careful that you don't have such an open mind that your brain falls out.

 

[herring]

Sockeyefry you wrote:

quote:By the way 5 different companies over 20 years tried to make a go of it and failed. I think that the production of electricity to operate this small farm would be beyond the scope of you alternate energy sources, and would require the operation of a diesel generation plant. Therefore, if we put it in perspective on a global scale, the carbon footprint of a land based farm is far in excess of any environmental impact ever created by a net pen farm.

It think what you are really saying is that if fish farms were required to put a monetary value on the public resources that they currently use for free, they would be out of business...

Do you truly believe that the environmental footprint of a fish farm is as small as the fish farming industry wants you to believe? Or rather, is it that canadian industries do not recognize environmental destruction as a currency (ie destruction of public resources is not accounted for in the price of the sold product because current legislation does not put a monetary value on allowing such destruction).

 

[agentaqua]

sockeyefry, you write:

quote:
I haven't heard farm people claim that they were feeding the world's poor.

well, then you haven't been paying attention to the glorious chest-pounding from the pro-industry pundits. I turn you to Positive Aquaculture Awareness website at: http://www.farmfreshsalmon.org/F33.cfm


they state (as MYTH #1): "supporting the salmon farming (aquaculture) industry can help take pressure off wild salmon stocks." AND "the amount of wild fish available for human consumption on a sustainable basis will be no more than 100 million tonnes. The future shortfall in supply will have to come from sustainable aquaculture."

How about our old friend Patrick Moore at: www.ontarioaquaculture.com/pmoorehealthy.pdf
where he states: "If anything, the salmon farms allow some of the fishing pressure to be taken of the wild stocks so that they might rebuild".

quote:
Also I have never heard of someone eating these fish.

you've never heard of people eating any of the forage fish used in making salmon feed? Never heard of people eating Peruvian anchovy, Japanese anchovy, blue whiting, sandeels, capelin, Atlantic herring, chub mackerel, Chilean jack mackerel, European pilchard, European sprat, gulf menhaden, Californian pilchard, Atlantic horse mackerel, Norway pout - none of these?

The you don't know that pickled or smoked herring or mackerel is a delicacy in most European diets? You still never answered by question as to whether or not it would be a better idea, and a much greater return on the protein source to feed these fish to consumers directly.

quote:
Have you actually seen a salmon in a pen eat herring?

Let me counter with - Have you done stomach analysis? Has the fish farmers? Why not?

Also, Atlantic salmon - although cultivated - are still fish. They still have the same reaction to going after any small thing that flashes - that looks like small fish - like fishing spoons. And yes - I have used this method to capture farmed Atlantic salmon.

quote:
Where in Norway are the farming halibut in a large pond?

try: http://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...serid=10&md5=b7d2cda10c2da08d76a6c6700c894030

"Larval production of Atlantic halibut is performed in 75 m3 large floating units in a pond in Western Norway. The production and supply of larval food are based mainly on the regular Zooplankton production starting with the dormant eggs of copepods hatching in March. At the time of metamorphosis in June, Zooplankton production is declining, possibly due to the seasonal increase in temperature. Artemia is supplied until metamorphosed juveniles are transferred for weaning in land-based tanks near the pond, at the end of June. The 1994 production was 315 000 juveniles at metamorphosis, with an average survival rate of 35% from first feeding to metamorphosis, and a production of more than 200 000 juveniles for further ongrowing. The considerable weight variation at metamorphosis is probably due to individual variations in larval growth conditions in large outdoor tanks where the light regime might cause great patchiness and variability both in larval and Zooplankton distribution. Growth can further be restricted by the size of the prey, especially in periods with a dominance of small developmental copepodid stages. In larviculture production faculties like this, continuity in production is maintained by the existence of a regular cycle of Zooplankton abundance. A low production cost is assumed possible by combining weaning and ongrowing facilities at one site."

quote:
I do not believe the "science is in" on the lice issue.

There is a flat-earth society. I believe they are still accepting memberships. Interested?

quote:
BTW Don't DFO and the province have access to all farm records, which I belive are published on the Provinces website?

No they don't - and only recently are they are now published by area - not by site - so that these infection dynamics cannot be investigated.

 

[agentaqua]

quote:Originally posted by agentaqua

Let’s just believe for the minute that salmon farmers truly wanted to prove or more importantly – disprove – that their farms were releasing lice; or prove that their farms were releasing lice in quantities too small to have an effect on adjacent wild salmonid stocks.

They then would develop a study where there could be 3 parts to the null hypothesis, and these would be that:

1/ their farms are not releasing lice,
2/ the lice levels of the adjacent wild stocks were not increased due to the presence of the salmon farms, and
3/ lice levels of adjacent wild salmonids were not increased enough to cause population-level effects on the adjacent stocks.

One would then capture and count lice on outmigrating wild salmonids, and correlate these lice levels to site-by-site lice levels on adjacent farmed fish, specifically looking at levels of gravid female lice. Maybe plankton tows would also be used.

Then after finding that your farms were not affecting adjacent wild stocks - you could then proudly declare to an anxious public that your farms were not the source of lice.

And remember - this is an important point - it is any industry's job to prove that they are not having an impact.

They’ve had well over 30 years to do these studies and submit their findings to peer-reviewed science. Ever wonder why it was not done, or maybe not published? All they can do is to try and create doubt in the public's mind about studies that do not put open net-pens in a good light.

Think about it. If there was a single case – in the world – where the open net-cage industry did not have a serious, negative, population-level effect on the local, adjacent salmon (where they exist, which excludes Chile) – do you not think that the PR firms and industry associations wouldn’t be singing the praises of their industry loud and clear?

Yet – every jurisdiction in the world reports significant problems with sea lice and other parasites, and diseases transmitted back-and-forth with the wild stocks.

I have thought about this, and let me tell you why it has not been done….

It’s embarrassing to the fish farmers. So embarrassing, in fact, that they have taken special efforts to cover it up.

Fish farmers are on all the non-NGO funding boards – the same funding sources that DFO-types tap into for sea lice research. Their job is to block embarrassing research, even if applicants get past the industry partnership prerequisite. Aquanet, Innovation BC’s aquaculture funding, the ACRDP program, and other’s all stipulate that in order to get any funding – you need to get an industry partner.

This industry partner prerequisite is there for federal funding sources as well. Think that is right? (see previous postings about the public resources and their management by industry).

Look at Odd Grydeland, for example. Listed as: Consultant to the aquaculture industry; principal of Odd Grydeland Consulting, Division of Namsos Invest Ltd; .director of BC Salmon Farmers Association; Heritage Salmon executive; Strategic Development Manager Nor Am Aquaculture Inc.; member of Positive Aquaculture Awareness; member of the WCVI Aquatic Management Board; Member of the regional steering committees of the federal Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP), member of the B.C. Aquaculture Research and Development Committee and the Pacific Committee of the Aquaculture Collaborative Research and Development Program (ACRDP), Vice-Chair Aquanet.

He has consistently defended the besieged industry in many newspapers.

Think it is in his best interests to facilitate research on issues that are truly embarrassing to the open net-cage industry? Yet – he’s there on the same funding boards. Why?

When any board gets many funding requests and only a portion that make it past the review panel - it only takes 1 person saying "no" to cause a rejection to the request for funding by that board. That's all it takes - is 1 pro-industry watchdog to keep funding from going to researchers looking at the sea lice problem. The researchers most often include DFO.

How long have we been studying the problem in Canada?

The federal government started by looking at the sea lice issue, but then quietly backed-out circa 1998. In fact, the federal government was so concerned about the issue that a working group spearheaded by the Pest Management Regulatory Agency, was convened in February 1996 in Ottawa, comprising federal and provincial government officials, salmon producer groups, pesticide and drug manufacturers and researchers.

Delegates were then sent by Canada to one of the first workshops on sea lice control in Trondheim Norway in November 1997 (http://www.ecoserve.ie/). It is unclear what progress this group has achieved in the nearly 10 years to date, as it may have been decommissioned since the Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development was created on December 17, 1998.

Did all the sea lice in the world suddenly die? Or were the findings too embarrassing for the industry to continue looking at?

 

[sockeyefry]

Agent,

No where in the link could I find a claim to feed the worlds poor. I found statements which claimed that in order to maintain fish consumption any shortfall would have to come from aquaculture. This of course you twist to say salmon farms claim to feed the poor.

Herring are caught mostly for the roe, Mackeral are caught for bait to catch higher valued species, and other than the anchovy and jack mackeral the rest of the species are from northern waters, and not from Chile or Peru. Yes there is a small market in Europe for some specialty items, but you are not talking about feeding the poor either.

That halibut reference is quite dated.

With regard to the sea lice science, have your read the article by Dr. Harvey? You'll find it on the PSF website under sea lice and science , What do we know?. Here is an excerpt you might find interesting:

"The question of sea louse transmission in the Broughton Archipelago is, scientifically speaking,
the kind any beginning graduate student would die for. It covers salmon biology, sea louse
biology, parasitology, epidemiology, oceanography and meteorology and, until someone
manages to develop a forensic test of the origin of the lice found on wild juvenile salmon, the
evidence is largely circumstantial. It makes excellent sense that sea lice from farmed salmon
would hitchhike onto wild salmon, make them sick, even drag down their populations over the
years – it’s just that the evidence is infuriatingly indirect, and scientists can’t agree on the
importance of infections from farmed salmon compared to infections from wild sources. The
scientific challenge is so daunting that, in 2006, the Pacific Salmon Forum took the unusual step
of commissioning peer-reviewed technical guidelines for scientists tackling the subject, covering
technical matters as wide-ranging as field sampling and identification, assessment of heath
effects, louse treatment and methods for estimating the size of salmon populations."
It seems that the people at PSF agree with me also.

 

[Nimo]

Sockeye fry: You seem very well tuned in to the lyrics of the fish farmers and give an equally slippery response to questions about your personal agenda. As well presented as they are, if your responses are all the FFFF's have to offer, the situation is more dire than we imagine.

How about we leave all that feed fish in the water where it belongs to nourish that which we value - wild salmon, cod stocks, whales...

This isn't just about a fish for a fish, it's about the entire marine eco system which is being devastated by all sectors.

What happened to Supernatural BC? That's where the value is...End of story.

(added an F for filthy)

 

[chris73]

It is nothing but disgusting to see that some people have no scruples putting our wild salmon at serious risk for a few dollars profit. What a shame even to defend this! They should be stripped off their Canadian citizenship and thrown out of the country.

 

[agentaqua]

Sea Lice: The truth is facing the fish farms; [Final Edition]
Ray Grigg");Ray Grigg. Courier - Islander Campbell River, B.C.: Jul 27, 2007 . pg. 9

Copyright Courier-Islander (Campbell River) 2007)


At some point in the accumulation of incriminating evidence, denial sounds just plain silly. This is the point the BC's salmon farming industry has reached with respect to the transfer of sea lice from its open net-pens to migrating wild juvenile salmon. The evidence is now so overwhelming that the industry should just admit culpability and take the measures that will mitigate damage to wild stocks. Further delays could do irreparable damage to these stocks while leaving the industry with a reputation akin to the tattered ethics of cigarette manufacturers.

The bad news keeps getting worse for the salmon farming industry. It can probably be excused for the skulduggery being revealed at the criminal trial of Liberal aides Dave Basi and Bobby Virk in which a heckler was allegedly paid $100 to disrupt an anti-aquaculture protest in Victoria. Aquaculture didn't likely expect such devious expressions of loyalty for its generous contributions to Liberal campaigns.

Nonetheless, the allegations taint the image of salmon farming, making it seem devious, if not by intention, then at least by association.

The shady dealings revealed through the courts are bad enough. But the worst news comes from two provincial-government funded organizations, the BC Wild Salmon Forum and the Pacific Salmon Forum.

An audit of salmon farming, commissioned by the BC Wild Salmon Forum, gave BC's industry only 41 out of 80 possible marks when comparing it to the rest of the world's salmon farming nations (Courier-Islander, June 29/07). Among other failings, the audit faulted BC's industry -- giving it only 1 mark out of 10 -- for siting its farms within a kilometre of the mouth of salmon streams. In the Broughton Archipelago, the audit noted that of 25 farms, 16 were located "directly on wild salmon migratory passages to and from the sea."

The evidence from the Pacific Salmon Forum is more damning. A 2006 report, written for the Forum by Craig Orr of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, cites a "precipitous decline" of pink salmon stocks on BC's Central Coast near salmon farms, compared to thriving stocks on the North Coast where no salmon farms exist. The report concludes that salmon farms are "the main source of lice on juvenile salmon", with infections "70 times greater on migrating wild salmon captured within 30 kilometres of farms compared to those captured at a greater distance" (Ibid. July 4/07). The report also found that "90 to 98 per cent of wild salmon captured near fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago each bore at least six lice, compared to 0.3 and 3 per cent of fish captured at remote distances...". These levels of infection can be fatal for young salmonids.

But all this is simply a collation of findings from many scientific studies. What's new about the report is that it was government funded, confidential and never published -- The Vancouver Sun somehow "obtained" a copy. Furthermore, Orr notes difficulties getting the most current studies because the government would not release that research data.

This is the kind of secrecy and obstruction that smells of the devious expressions of loyalty suggested in the Basi and Virk affair.

The reputation of salmon farms is not helped when Brian Riddell, a veteran researcher with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, concedes an infection problem when he says that, "There isn't any question that farms need to be managed for this risk of sea lice" (Ibid.). He acknowledges that individual fish are infected but expresses uncertainty that this could pose a risk to entire populations -- as if entire populations are not made up of individual fish. Such an exercise in analytical hair splitting sidesteps DFO's mandate to protect wild salmon. It also sounds like a tobacco executive arguing that, although more cancers occur in people who smoke than don't smoke, no individual cancer can be attributed to smoking. While this may be technically correct, the statistics are condemning. Similarly, salmon farming can no longer deny it spreads sea lice to wild stocks.

But the most damning evidence against salmon farming comes from the industry itself -- not from what it has done but from what it won't do.

The Pacific Salmon Forum had asked the salmon farming industry to help in a new scientific study that would examine the correlation between sea lice infections in net-pens and infections in wild stocks. "Much of this project required the assistance and co- operation of the industry," said Dr. Dill, one of the three scientists attempting the study (Globe & Mail, June 11/07). "We needed to know from them how many fish were in their pens and how much lice they had and how much chemicals they'd been using to treat them." The industry refused to co-operate.

This refusal leads to only one conclusion: the salmon farming industry only wants the evidence that suits its purposes, otherwise it will keep the science as vague as possible by stalling inquiry. "Really," said Dr. Dill, "the farms don't want us to find an answer, let's be honest about that. The answer is one they don't want to hear" (Ibid.).

Perhaps the study proposed by Dr. Dill and his colleagues would be too illuminating, leaving the salmon farming industry with no hiding in the shadows of uncertainty. Scientists working from hypothesis to a definitive conclusion with the aid of data provided by the salmon farming industry would produce incontrovertible evidence linking fish farms to the spread of sea lice, precisely what the industry does not want. Or, perhaps, Dr. Dill already knows too much. "As a scientist," he said, "I have absolutely no doubt that the farms are causing a [sea lice] problem. And I think all the scientific data that I've seen is virtually unanimous on that point" (Ibid.).

The salmon farming industry has long professed an objective of peaceful co-existence with wild salmon.

If it is serious about this objective, it knows what to do.

So it should start now, while it still has a reputation worth saving.

Credit: Courier-Islander

 

[sockeyefry]

Agent,

Now your are into conspiracy theories. It's all a big conspiracy. How's the work on 911 coming? Facts are that after 30 years of salmon farming, there has not been the devsatation that was predicted. If there was, we would have documented evidence instead of maybes and mathematical models which say it might have occurred.

I was quite impressed with your sources of info that you place on the forum. There were some good points, but now you have hit rock bottom. Quoting Ray Grigg? Its a column of opinion. No difference that yours or mine. Theres no facts here.


Chris,

Pretty harsh sentence don't you think making everyone on the West coast leave the country, cause we all have an impact on nature.
It is this kind of post that ruins the discussion.

 

[chris73]

No, sockeyefry, it's not this kind of posts that ruin anything - it's your kind of attitude that ruins one of the greatest Canadian resources. And not everyone who has an impact should leave but the ones who knowingly and regardlessly ruin this country for simple greed and profit reasons. Shame on you! Denial may work great for your own conscience but I am sure your kids and grandkids will judge your todays opinion differently. And so does any normal thinking person.

 

[sockeyefry]

Chris,

My denial. No where has anyone put forward a concrete proof that salmon farms hurt wild salmon. All the so called proof is maybes, opinions and math models, which prove nothing. In fact the best runs of pinks in the broughton have occurred after salmon farms entered the area. Salmon populations in the entire Pacific region have gone up and down irregardless of the presence of salmon farms. We can play dueling scientists all day long, but the burden of proof does not lie with the accused in this country but the accuser no matter what the anti farm people think.
Many dire predictions have been put forth in the last 30 years with NONE of them coming true. The only reason there is oposition to salmon farms is because NGO's know there is money to be made, plain and simple.
So you make accusations about my ethics and you do not even know me. Shame on me? Shame on you for being hoodwinked by the anti lobby.

 

[Nimo]

quote:Originally posted by Gypseas

 

[chris73]

There is your proof and we all know the negative impacts of this industry. It has been discussed and outlined in much lengths in some threads here. And by the way, the worst predictions of many wise men have come true and our salmon - and especially the stocks near net pen farms in esturaries - are in alarming decline. Therefore this redundant and unwelcome risk factor must leave our waters. And it would be pretty easy - go to land based facilities and implement proper water and waste management procedures. Shame on you again for jeopardizing Canadian heritage, culture, and a great natural wonder for some tainted money!

 

[finaddict]

quote:Originally posted by sockeyefry

Chris,

My denial. No where has anyone put forward a concrete proof that salmon farms hurt wild salmon. All the so called proof is maybes, opinions and math models, which prove nothing. In fact the best runs of pinks in the broughton have occurred after salmon farms entered the area. Salmon populations in the entire Pacific region have gone up and down irregardless of the presence of salmon farms. We can play dueling scientists all day long, but the burden of proof does not lie with the accused in this country but the accuser no matter what the anti farm people think.

Correct. And the preponderance of evidence is substantially in the corner of the scientific community and the anti's. Hell even DFO acknowledges that the preponderance of the evidence is against the BCSFA.

quote:Many dire predictions have been put forth in the last 30 years with NONE of them coming true.

One of those dire predictions made about 15 years ago by the Irish and Scottish fisheries agencies was that sea lice infestations would soon bring about the destruction of the wild salmon populations in B.C. Did that one not come true? I guess if you stuff your head deep enough into the sand then nothing comes true

quote: The only reason there is oposition to salmon farms is because NGO's know there is money to be made, plain and simple.

Huh? Please sock, enlighten me why NGO's don't like money

Sorry Sock, I have read this entire thread, from start to finish, and you fail to convince me that all is well in the BCSFA. 20 years ago I was a member and believed in salmon farming. But I saw the damage that was being done, I was a part of that damage. I am not proud of it, but it was all about the money back then and NOTHING has changed no matter how much you try to sweep it under the oceanic rug. Its all about the money and damn the environmentalists, and anyone else who gets in the way. Been there.

 

[sockeyefry]

The decline of wild salmon populations have nothing to do with salmon farms. Any time you can point to a piece of evidence that they do, I can come up with one that says they don't. There is no smoking gun, and all evidence is circumstantial. The one piece that is not is that salmon populations fluctuate, and they have since there has been salmon. These fluctuations have never been the result of 1 root cause. Right now wild salmon poulations are in trouble in Oregon and California, where there are no salmon farms. What's causing the problem there? Wake up and realise that you have been duped by the anti farm lobby before it is too late.