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Alex Morton Launches Petition

I am surprised that anyone would take what The National Post and The Financial Post have to say about any environmental issue with an ounce of credibility. They are a business first newspaper (just look at the ownership) who over the years in editorial stance have denied the existence of global warming, support the Alberta oil sands and the new pipeline to the USA and if I recall correctly see nothing wrong with heavy oil tanker traffic along the BC coast. Seriously can we take what they say as an unbiased source for any fair review or potential criticism of the subject of fish farms? As for Ms Krause one has to just look at her blog to know where her agenda lies. On all of the above issues she takes the conservative, anti-environmental stance, she is well matched with The Financial Post, they are kindred spirits.
 
Alexandra Morton's submission to the Cohen commission:
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/Mort ... 318%29.pdf

The biology of the fluctuating Fraser sockeye returns is a pattern of exceptional clarity. With healthy sockeye runs occurring in the Columbia River, the sockeye of western Vancouver Island that migrate through Port Alberni Inlet, where there are no salmon farms, and even in the Harrison sockeye which originate from the Fraser River, but avoid the clusters of salmon farms by migrating to sea around southern Vancouver Island, our attention is drawn to the waters off eastern Vancouver Island. It is only the salmon that swim through those waters that are fluctuating unpredictably. The evidence herein suggests the unknown variable/s are salmon farm-origin pathogens.
Click to expand...
Alexandra presents a convincing argument in the 61 pages of data, excerpts from scientific literature, and emails.

There is a condensed version at
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alex ... ckeye.html
 
This and many other issues affect every trip that I take on the waters of the West Coast. As kayakers, we are close to the areas most at risk to damage from an oil spill. I do not trust even the best intentioned companies to protect these waters from being destroyed by a tanker spill. Without the pristene shores, the abundant wildlife and the nature all around me, I might as well stay home.

I support the posting of these issues wholehearedly but for those feeling overwhelmed, offended or don't share the views of those posting them, might I suggest a seperate discussion page titled " Causes affecting Kayakers", or simply " Petitions" .
 
If true, this is rather sad...


http://www.vancouversun.com/health/...ailing+protect+wild+salmon/5748331/story.html

Government agencies failing to protect wild salmon

By Ruby Berry, Vancouver Sun November 22, 2011

Recent reports of the presence of the deadly ISA virus in B.C. wild salmon seem to have alarmed everyone except those meant to be taking care of the wild salmon.

Rather than taking immediate measures to determine the extent of this threat, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency leaped to discredit the findings and assure international markets that all is well in Canadian waters. Unfortunately, their claim rests on inconclusive evidence and degraded samples.

Instead of launching an emergency investigation into this potential disaster, the federal government has announced a million dollar grant to the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance for international advertising. It appears that the health of B.C. waters, and the wild salmon is not the priority of the federal government after all.

Ruby Berry Georgia Strait Alliance, Nanaimo
 
Well considering the source I'd give it a 20% chance of this being true on the truth and the sky is falling gauge.. Seriously, whether people want to hear this or not, the majority are starting to roll their eye's whenever a "concerned" organization like this speaks out.

And can you blame people? The Foy's, Watsons and Suzuki's have been telling Lie's, half truths and on more than one occasion out right lied. Take Suzuki's recent lies about the wild salmon being infected from farmed salmon at 95% chance infection when the number was actually 5% to 95%,, meaning no one knew for sure, and than have a 100 year record salmon run and Suzuki quietly shredding and deleting his lies from his website. People notice this stuff. Gov. know and see this and they'll take the safe road everytime.

Want to get my attention, start telling the truth because as it sits right now even if they are i'd tend not to believe...
 
Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret
A decade before this fall's salmon-virus scare, a Canadian government researcher said she found a similar virus in more than 100 wild fish from Alaska to Vancouver Island. But Canadian officials never told the public or scientists in the United States about those tests.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... us30m.html

Front page headline of this mornings read caught my attention, read article to the end, dosen't seem as doom and gloom as the headline suggests.

Dave R
 
The article mentions a concern that has existed for some time:
"Environmentalists in Canada and some U.S. politicians worry that Fisheries and Oceans Canada may be ill-equipped to deal aggressively with the risk because it's responsible both for protecting the country's wild fish and for promoting British Columbia's salmon farms."

This intrinsic conflict of interest needs to be removed. Science and marketing make poor bedfellows.
 
Gov't emails call virus information a PR problem:
the reason comes is in this quote from the article:
"Because aquaculture is a business, of course, the virus or the pathogen ... is a problem," he said. "As far as I know, the spread of diseases is the most feared threat to aquaculture."
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fromhttp://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/12/17/bc-cohen-commission-salmon.html
This additional information is possibly chilling:
. . . that virus isn't her greatest concern, she (Miller) said. She testified she has also found signs of another virus unknown in Canadian fish that causes a condition called heart and skeletal muscle inflammation. She said those results from migrating wild sockeye salmon came back in early testing, and have not yet been shared with officials or been made public.
Click to expand...
 
ken_vandeburgt said:
Not sure if this proposed legislation is a problem. Aren't all things fish farm regulated at federal level? But I notice Dan's article makes mention of it too...

http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/7174 ... 66c9a0128/

http://www.leg.bc.ca/39th4th/1st_read/gov37-1.htm
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Ken, I believe this proposed legislation is a problem -- a huge problem -- for both salmon and our civil rights. Talk about backwards thinking. The politics of this country regarding the environment are taking a huge turn for the worse. Scary stuff.
 
The Commissioner concluded that salmon farms along the sockeye migration route in the Discovery Islands have the potential to introduce exotic diseases and to aggravate endemic diseases which can have a negative impact on Fraser River sockeye. “Mitigation measures should not be delayed in the absence of scientific certainty,” he said.

For that reason, Cohen recommended a freeze on net-pen salmon farm production in the Discovery Islands until September 30, 2020. “If by that date, DFO cannot confidently say the risk of serious harm to wild stocks is minimal, it should then prohibit all net-pen salmon farms from operating in the Discovery Islands,” he said. Cohen also recommended that if before September 30, 2020, the government determines that salmon farms pose more than a minimal risk to Fraser River sockeye, the government prohibit their operation immediately.
Click to expand...
http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/NewsRe ... leased.php

http://www.cohencommission.ca/en/FinalReport/
 
A good letter to the editor in today's paper. (emphasis mine)

Contrary to Campbell River Mayor Walter Jakeway; quoted as saying “We need this industry.” I beg your pardon Mr. Jakeway but we did just fine before the salmon farming industry came. It’s like the salmon farming industry has created a situation that we’re now dependent on. This sounds like the relationship between a drug addict and his pusher in a feeble scenario where the addict eventually dies from use of the pushers product. Has Mayor Walter Jakeway forgotten how vibrant a city Campbell River and many other coastal communities were before the salmon decline?

The jobs created by the salmon farming industry are but a fraction of what the commercial wild salmon industry used to provide to the economy before salmon farming appeared and began destroying it. And that’s just the commercial fishery. The sport sector and tourism is touted by B.C. as paramount and world class and contributes significantly to our economy. Why not give tourists something to boast about instead of us having to give embarrassing whining excuses about our stocks in decline?

And if any one believes this industry is a way to feed the worlds starving masses, this is not the industry that will ever do it. The energy inputs, intensive management and fishing down the worlds stocks of “forage fish” (Herring, Anchovies, Sardines) to turn into feed pellets and multitude of other secondary environmental damages caused, makes this product unsustainable.

http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/opin ... 42941.html
 
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