There is no value to Salmon says Ottawa.

[OldBlackDog]

Salmon are so important to all the people of B.C. and to our wildlife that
this information needs to get out to as many people as possible including
across Canada. Please send to everyone on your lists. Will the media
truly ignore this or cover this matter in a manner that minimizes the
significance of this ?



----- Original Message -----
From: Rafe Mair
To: Rafe Mair
Sent: Friday, December 11, 2009 8:58 AM
Subject: IMPORTANT BLOG


RAFE HERE. BELOW IS AN IMPORTANT BLOG FROM-
IVAN DOUMENC WHICH CAN BE FOUND AT
grassstruggle.blogspot.com
BECAUSE THE MEDIA WILL IGNORE THIS, I ASK ALL OF YOU TO PASS THIS ON TO YOUR
ADDRESS BOOK AND OTHERS
Scientists blast DFO over sockeye collapse

Last night, Simon Fraser University hosted a panel presentation on the
Fraser sockeye collapse of 2009.

A group of scientists and field experts had gathered for two days to discuss
the causes, impacts, and possible solutions to the salmon crash, and they
were now presenting some of their findings to the public.

I was expecting a polite and slightly sedate discussion among members of the
scientific and bureaucratic elite, which I somewhat felt were part of the
problem rather than the solution in the salmon tragedy.

I changed my mind. To my surprise, I found myself participating in a
powerful and genuine moment of reckoning.

A chart of the sockeye collapse (see figure below) was projected on the wall
which demonstrated that the salmon's demise, although particularly
devastating in 2009, really started 15 years ago in the early nineties.

One after the other, the panel's scientists and members of the public stood
up in front of that chart of almost totemic significance and delivered the
same message: how in the world did we let this happen?

Particularly powerful was an exchange between former MP and Minister of
Fisheries John Fraser, and former DFO top scientist Brian Riddell who
recently resigned from the Department over fundamental policy disagreements.

Fraser, who is retired, was not on the panel but talking instead as a member
of the public. All this information about the sockeye, he said, was
available to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans since day one. Why did
this not set any alarm bells, why did this not trigger more research? It
poses the essential question of who is in charge at DFO, Fraser commented.
It is incredible that a vast department like this could not explain that
something was going wrong. Someone at the Department didn't do anything, he
concluded.

Riddell responded for the panel. He said that there was no question DFO knew
early on about the collapse. As years went by, he added, I asked myself: can
I do more inside or outside of DFO over my career's remaining 10 years? And
so I left. Ottawa was asking me: why should we give you more funding for
your salmon research when there is no value in the salmon? (At this point,
the room went: gasp.) Ottawa has lost understanding of the value of the
salmon, Riddell concluded. The people of BC carry great weight in delivering
the message back to Ottawa about the salmon's value, but you are not there
yet, he warned.

(Dr Riddell qualified this statement but it was not the fault of DFO and
that he resigned because of the failure of Ottawa to take action.) ( My
addition to the blog)

Mark Angelo, the chair of the panel, pointed out that DFO was invited to
participate in the panel's work sessions but had declined the invitation,
invoking the ongoing judicial review over the sockeye collapse. Angelo
commented that DFO's decision was "unfortunate". He did not use the word
stonewall, but his eyes said precisely that.

A member of the public described DFO as a "moribund" administration.

Many questions of the public were directed at salmon research and why more
of it wasn't being done. Angelo's response was yet another ballistic missile
fired at DFO: it bothers me, he said, that we don't have specific parameters
in place right now to monitor the Fraser sockeye populations. Riddell jumped
in: if we had the proper funding, we could get started on the research right
away. We could take concrete steps such as tagging the fish. We can work
with a lot of bright people across various organizations. But we need the
cooperation of DFO on this. For example, the data on the salmon is a public
resource, yet DFO will not release that data for 2009.

Translation for those not fully versed in bureaucratic lingo: DFO, you
malfeasant *****, either help us or step out of the way!

Alexandra Morton, who was not on the panel but participated in the two-day
work sessions, best captured the spirit of the evening when the panel
invited her to answer a question about the impact of fish farms on the
Fraser sockeye collapse. We simply don't know, she said. Fish farms and sea
lice could be part of the Fraser collapse or not, and there could also be
many other factors involved such as viral infections. But what matters, she
said, is that - finally - we are talking about this in the open and the law
of silence has been broken.

I had come to this evening expecting a pasteurized lecture by the scientific
and bureaucratic establishment of why it's okay to continue salmon business
as usual. Instead, I found myself in the middle of a scientists' open revolt
against the system. Life is like a box of chocolates, Forrest Gump used to
say.

My particular admiration goes to Brian Riddell who could have decided to
finish off his baby boomer career on a rather tranquil note, waiting for
retirement in a DFO corner office and then taking off on an uninterrupted
string of oblivious Alaska cruises or whatever else it is that baby boomers
do. Instead, he chose to step down, which in his world is the most direct
form of civil disobedience.

What we need here is more Brian Riddells.

 

[Charlie]

Yep, sure can tell it is winter and cold! This is the third time this was posted!
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13935
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8847&whichpage=60

Dr. Riddell’s exact comment:

quote:
1 comments:
Dr. Brian Riddell said...
Thank you for your support but I have to take exception to one of your primary
points. My decision to leave DFO was not about DFO but the commitment of the
central government to salmon. DFO staff are exceptionally dedicated and we have
excellent scientific staff. But the resources required were not coming from our government.
DFO should not be your focus, it has to be central government.

Also, DFO did not foresee the collapse ... We were monitoring the declining productivity of
of Fraser sockeye. Unfortunately, when the present is not like the past, forecasting becomes highly uncertain as you have no way of knowing how much the decline will continue or how fast. It is easy to say post season that DFO error but really the forecast was wrong but the correct management actions were taken to protect the stocks ... The latter point is the essence of management.

 

[fishingbc]

quote:Originally posted by Charlie

Yep, sure can tell it is winter and cold! This is the third time this was posted!
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=13935
http://www.sportfishingbc.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=8847&whichpage=60

Dr. Riddell’s exact comment:

quote:
1 comments:
Dr. Brian Riddell said...
Thank you for your support but I have to take exception to one of your primary
points. My decision to leave DFO was not about DFO but the commitment of the
central government to salmon. DFO staff are exceptionally dedicated and we have
excellent scientific staff. But the resources required were not coming from our government.
DFO should not be your focus, it has to be central government.

Also, DFO did not foresee the collapse ... We were monitoring the declining productivity of
of Fraser sockeye. Unfortunately, when the present is not like the past, forecasting becomes highly uncertain as you have no way of knowing how much the decline will continue or how fast. It is easy to say post season that DFO error but really the forecast was wrong but the correct management actions were taken to protect the stocks ... The latter point is the essence of management.

no kidding this Old Black Dog must have cataracts

 

[GLG]

Fishing BC said

quote:no kidding this Old Black Dog must have cataracts

Fishingbc you just don’t get it. Show some respect and maybe some will be show to you.
If you haven’t noticed others have taken the high road and are simply ignoring your insults. When you mix your demands with half truths and insults how is anyone here in area 14 going to take you seriously? I challenge you to setup and act like a responsible member of our community. Start a thread with what you would like to see changed and word it without sounding like your some kind of schoolyard bully.
GLG

 

[IronNoggin]

More:

Where did the fish go?
Panel unable to pinpoint where Fraser salmon returns went
JEFF HODSON
METRO VANCOUVER
December 10, 2009 4:02 a.m.

B.C. should be prepared for fisheries closures and even the removal of fish farms from sockeye migration routes, a panel of top fish scientists warned yesterday in Vancouver.

The scientists didn’t pinpoint why the Fraser River sockeye returns collapsed, but did agree that climate change was a key factor.

The number of Fraser River sockeye salmon has been declining since the mid-90s and is now at the point where the salmon are in danger of disappearing, meaning that precautions like the closure of fisheries could be the new norm.

This year’s Fraser River sockeye returns were the lowest in 52 years. Only 1.4-million fish came back to spawn in the tributaries of the Fraser, a fraction of the expected number.

A think-tank symposium with 22 scientists and researchers met in Vancouver this week to discuss reasons for the collapse. A federal judicial inquiry has also been called.

SFU professor John Reynolds compared studying the collapse with figuring out a plane crash.

The symposium wasn’t sure why the number of sockeye was so low, but did say the collapse was not due to fishing, which was greatly restricted in 2009.

The problem, they think, occurred as the vulnerable juvenile salmon made their way to Georgia Strait in 2007. One point of consensus, Reynolds said, was that changes in the seas that affected the young salmon were likely the result of climate change.

“Climate was seen as sort of an overarching issue, but the exact ways it was affecting survival are still a bit of a mystery simply because there is not enough research in the coastal marine environment.”

Blocked by feds
Scientists with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (the federal agency responsible for salmon) were invited to take part in the symposium, but the Conservative government did not allow them to participate.

 

[Charlie]

Here is Alexandra Morton's take:

12/13/2009
Two Meetings
On December 7, 2009, I joined a group of scientists to pool our knowledge and try to figure out what happened to the Fraser sockeye that did not return this fall. The group did not include DFO, the province or any industry representatives. It was not a stakeholder meeting and the difference became apparent as ideas flowed easily and uninterrupted by confounders.

The people tasked to forecast Fraser sockeye returns said there are new variable/s that have come into play in the past 10 years. Because they don't know what they are, they cannot factor them in and this is causing the enormous uncertainty in predicting how many Fraser sockeye will return. What we know is that fewer sockeye are surviving since a high in the early 1990s. We know the 2009 sockeye left the lakes in 2007 in very large numbers and that these smolts were exceptionally large. We know the ocean conditions that were measured were favourable for sockeye. Because the collapse was detected before commercial fishing was opened, the closure of commercial and sportfishing, was the right thing to do and this put enough sockeye on the spawning grounds that survival is possible, but only if we can figure this out and protect them from the same fate. We could see a better Adam River sockeye return but it is essential people realize this would not mean the Chilko, Quesnel or other stocks are fine, each has to be considered individually.

The remarkable pattern of collapse was considered as southcoast sockeye that did not enter the Strait of Georgia such as the Okanagan, Columbia, and Somass did exceptionally well. In addition, the Harrison rapids sockeye with a different "childhood" also did very well within the Fraser River. This information pulled our focus onto the area from the north tip of Vancouver Island to Chilko Lake as the probable zone of greatest impact.

While everyone recognized that Climate Change is a looming all important threat that absolutely must be reversed, there was no measurement that pointed to climate change as the primary impact on this run of sockeye. At this point we considered the 60 Atlantic salmon farms between the Fraser River and the Pacific Ocean, but we had no data to review. The companies raising salmon on the Fraser sockeye migration route are unwilling to reveal what diseases their fish have. If we had this information the forecasters could factor in the areas of infection and what we know about how wild salmon survive these diseases. Unfortunately we were left to guess.

When salmon enter the ocean there many things we have to guess about, but this is not one of them. The fish farmers know and since they are in public waters in an area of extremely large and negative public resource impact it seemed very clear this information must be released. The meeting highlighted many information gaps and we hope funding will be applied so that we can simply follow the young sockeye as they begin their migration along our coast. There are some remarkable techniques that could be used and in even one season I am sure we would know much more and be better able to reverse this decline.

However, we recognized that research was not enough and so we called for an experimental clearing of fish farms on the Fraser sockeye northern migration route. This would serve the dual purpose of teaching us about the impacts and also, if this is one of the problems this would give the fish immediate relief. Here is our Download FraserSockeyeThinkTankStatement

There was unanimous call to Act NOW. There was a clear message from some participants that Ottawa has lost interest in wild salmon, that they think their only value comes from commercial revenues. Since this is shrinking Ottawa is abandoning wild salmon.

Next I attended the National Aquaculture Strategic Action Plan Initiative meeting in Campbell River. I learned two very important things.

First, Grieg Seafood stated that they cannot release disease information because it could threaten the share value of their stocks. This simple revelation brings the entire conflict into focus. Privatization of our oceans means we lose our right to protect our fisheries. The Fraser River and U.S. Lake Washington sockeye collapsed while other southcoast sockeye, the Okanagan, Columbia, and Somass sockeye did much better than forecast. This means it was specifically the southcoast stocks that passed through Norwegian fish farm waters that failed. It is completely unacceptable that we are left to guess about potential impact of disease transfer from millions of Atlantic salmon simply to protect the interests of European shareholders.

Second at this meeting we heard repeatedly from the association of Canadian land-based salmon farmers website. In operation for 60, years this family run industry does not impact our wild salmon, does not dump its manure into public waters, creates jobs and is successful and yet they cannot even get a meeting with the provincial government!

Is this Canadian industry being suppressed by our provincial government because it makes the massive Norwegian net pen industry irrelevant? I realized I am not trying to protect wild salmon from aquaculture, I am trying to protect our coast from three Norwegian companies called Marine Harvest, Grieg and Cermaq (Mainstream).

Minister Steve Thompson MAL, your first commitment is to Canadians. Contact the Canadian salmon farmers, meet with them and given them a chance to resolve this issue. Otherwise, when you look at the entire situation, “corruption” is the word that comes to mind.

So at the closure of this turbulent year the task before us is very simple. If you want wild salmon, if you see their role in building the forests to protect us from climate change, their role in the 2 billion dollar BC wilderness tourism industry and their role in making us who we are, you must do everything you can to make Ottawa see this.

We have come a long way. Regulation of salmon farming is being entirely rewritten, we have a Canadian industry willing and able to respond to our concerns while benefiting the economy, we have a remarkable team of scientists prepared to do the detective work to find the cause of the Fraser collapse, we have the Judicial Inquiry to help us and we have you. 20,500 people have signed the letter at www.adopt-a-fry.org to the Minister of Fisheries. We are becoming a political force.

We need to really examine the Norwegian salmon farming industry. The ISA virus in Chile has destroyed their profit margin, now the resistant lice in Norway have caused the Norwegian government to consider culling the fish farms there. BC is the last area where mother nature has not closed the door in revolt at the unnatural practices of this industry. We all know we can't pour an unlimited number of salmon into the ocean, Nature will deal with this, but would be in our best interests to intervene before that point is crossed.

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

 

[Rum Buddies]

you forgot to drop a link to your auction site rob.

http://www.fishingvancouverisland.org - Charter Draw Dec. 20th

 

[Rum Buddies]

oh behave Rob [:X]

http://www.fishingvancouverisland.org - Charter Draw Dec. 20th

 

[Whole in the Water]

Well, finally we have a credible person in Dr. Brian Riddell confirming what we have suspected for a long time. The politicians and high level bureaucrats in Ottawa have little value for BC's wild salmon. In my opinion, neither do our provincial politicians and top bureaucrats. This is intolerable and it must change!

To me and many others the outcome for wild BC salmon is clear. There fate will be similar to the East Coast Cod if nothing is done to change the current situation. I encourage all of us fisherman (sporties, commericial and guides) to start to work in our communities to make this a higher profile issue to our govt. before it is too late! Now is the time to act while there are still large, viable salmon runs! I think of guys like Little Hawk of examples of what the average guy CAN do to make postive change for salmon.

I don't what a future where I can only take my grandson to the market to buy a farmed salmon because there are too few wild ones left! Think about it!

Long live wild salmon!!!