In a first, deadly disease diagnosed in B.C. salmonToday's Times Colonist has given some more bad PR to the Fish Farms.
I do wonder if the noose is slowly tightening? See page 4...will try and get just the story
http://digital.timescolonist.com/epaper/viewer.aspx?noredirect=true
Nice sincere video. I'll bet none of them have investigated the changing water chemistry that has been happening to coastal salmon streams. Chemistry issues are notably effecting some interior lakes. The rise in ph that might be detrimental in some waters will benefit other waters. Just my opinion.
Nice sincere video. I'll bet none of them have investigated the changing water chemistry that has been happening to coastal salmon streams. Chemistry issues are notably effecting some interior lakes. The rise in ph that might be detrimental in some waters will benefit other waters. Just my opinion.
I think the issue of impacts to wild salmon stocks is in a far larger context than just potential impacts through pH changes. Other posters have correctly characterized those impacts as: "death by a thousand cuts".Nice sincere video. I'll bet none of them have investigated the changing water chemistry that has been happening to coastal salmon streams. Chemistry issues are notably effecting some interior lakes. The rise in ph that might be detrimental in some waters will benefit other waters. Just my opinion.
Is your comment based on in-depth knowledge / research of the changing chemistry of water in BC? or just, as you say at the end, you opinion?
I can say that while some of the dialogue we get into here on SFBC forum as it relates to science & research can be extremely useful as there are some very knowledgeable members on here, there are also those who 'just have an opinion' and that opinion could very well be completely baseless. I am not a scientist nor to do I conduct research for a living but I do get the chance to speak with scientists (many in that video in fact) who do this full time and have dedicated decades of work to their research. The ones I speak with are very hesitant to overstate their findings and when they do 'speak out' like in the video above they are doing so on very solid grounds (ie they have ample research/evidence to support what they say). As it relates to the protection of wild salmon (the point of the video) I can safely say these scientists have considered and are very well aware of changes in the chemistry in BC waters.
When scientists and researchers speak out like this I think the public needs to realize that they are doing do so because there are major issues/problems that are not be dealt with by gov't/industry and they have finally gotten to the point where they feel the need to go public. Not an easy thing to do for most of them but good on them and we should be supporting them when they do so. just my opinion.
I think the issue of impacts to wild salmon stocks is in a far larger context than just potential impacts through pH changes. Other posters have correctly characterized those impacts as: "death by a thousand cuts".
However, it you had wanted to follow the link I gave, Fishmyster (http://www.sfu.ca/coastal/research-series/listing/SpeakingfortheSalmon.html) - you would have found abundant peer-reviewed references and "Associated Resources" from past years series/workshops - some of which do mention water quality impacts in the context of climate change.
The link that corresponds most closely to the topic this thread discusses is: http://www.sfu.ca/coastal/research-series/listing/SpeakingfortheSalmon/PathogensAndDisease.html
Is your comment based on in-depth knowledge / research of the changing chemistry of water in BC? or just, as you say at the end, you opinion?
I can say that while some of the dialogue we get into here on SFBC forum as it relates to science & research can be extremely useful as there are some very knowledgeable members on here, there are also those who 'just have an opinion' and that opinion could very well be completely baseless. I am not a scientist nor to do I conduct research for a living but I do get the chance to speak with scientists (many in that video in fact) who do this full time and have dedicated decades of work to their research. The ones I speak with are very hesitant to overstate their findings and when they do 'speak out' like in the video above they are doing so on very solid grounds (ie they have ample research/evidence to support what they say). As it relates to the protection of wild salmon (the point of the video) I can safely say these scientists have considered and are very well aware of changes in the chemistry in BC waters.
When scientists and researchers speak out like this I think the public needs to realize that they are doing do so because there are major issues/problems that are not be dealt with by gov't/industry and they have finally gotten to the point where they feel the need to go public. Not an easy thing to do for most of them but good on them and we should be supporting them when they do so. just my opinion.
IHN virus outbreak forces fish kill at Robertson Creek Hatchery
A virus outbreak has killed 60,000 juvenile steelhead at Robertson Creek Hatchery and prompted the involvement of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.
Many here have expressed that fish farms are the major cause of our diminished wild salmon populations. If there is now a crash in SE Alaska's wild salmon runs. Where are the Alaskan salmon farms located that would cause their wild stocks to be infected by sea lice and disease? I could not find any info by google searching?
Perhaps this is what scientists were warning us about when the said the "blob" would have consequences to salmon.
So are you implying that perhaps fish farms have nothing to do with the coastal dye off of salmon and it is the "blob" that caused it?
I don't think it needs to be presented as an "either/or" choice between potential impacts to wild stocks from numerous sources such as low pH or fish farm impacts. It think it is instead an "and" inclusion from all those potential many sources - and that the potential and realized impacts from any single sources (such as introduced diseases from farms) does not need to be invalidated in order for a hypothesis that climate change and associated changes in water quality (such as lowered pH) be successful.
I think every year/season there are a suite of interacting variables that often work synergistically and reflect the compound of all those variables - it is complicated - and as many have suggested - is "death by a thousand cuts". There are statistical methods available to make inferences about the scale and scope of any one impact in relation to the rest of the impacts - but it is a moving target - and environmental variables change often over the course of time, and there are different geographic scales and time frames in play.
The question instead for me - is what variables do we have any measure of control over? Obviously, the open net-cage technology and interactions with the wild stocks is one of the things we can change.