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Alex Morton Launches Petition

Fantastic news and lets hope no other locations!
It will now be interesting to see if there'll be salmon health changes, but man, finally!
 
Yes it ain't over . . . 1) as JohnAbercrombie noted - let's hope there's not just relocation and 2) there needs to be long term good monitoring to see what lingering or emerging effects be in the various salmon populations.
 
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Well, I have waded through all 22 pages of this discussion. I thank-you posters who have kept the thread alive. As with previous commenters, I found the contributions educational -- which is the most important part. Yes, it is work sorting through the more heated sections, but no more so than usual.

Grand Sweeping Generalization Alert

For the sake of the generations to come, let us hope that the current generation has the courage to examine our biases and reverse the pressures we as a species have imposed on the natural world.

Our history as a species is to deploy technology first for our benefit and damn everyone and everything else. We just assume if we can get away with it, have gotten away with it, that it's fine. We even have a saying, "Possession is 9/10ths of the law." It's been that way until only very recently -- by which I mean millenia versus the environmental awakening in the 1950s. (Yes, I'm leaving out indigenous cultures .. but let's set that to the side, ok?)

There is some hope. We have recently (the last 20 years) begun to invest in the science to know if current remediation methods used by industry even work. That's doing it ass backwards, but at least it's something.

I would ask those commenters who want scientists like Alex Morton to be proven 100% correct first (nor ever lied or exaggerated) to consider that basic human bias. That is the uphill battle for anyone who says, "Stop!" in the face of industry and government.

Edit: grammar
 
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Grand Sweeping Generalization Alert

For the sake of the generations to come, let us hope that the current generation has the courage to examine our biases and reverse the pressures we as a species have imposed on the natural world.

Our history as a species is to deploy technology first for our benefit and damn everyone and everything else. We just assume if we can get away with it, have gotten away with it, that it's fine. We even have a saying, "Possession is 9/10ths of the law." It's been that way until only very recently -- by which I mean millenia versus the environmental awakening in the 1950s. (Yes, I'm leaving out indigenous cultures .. but let's set that to the side, ok?)

Translation: It's about money. It's always about money.
 
Vancouver Island mayor breaks rank, supports decision to phase out fish farms

 
"Today, wherever there are fish farms, chinook have continued to decline, to the point where most populations are on the brink of extinction. The SRKWs† have gone from 84 in 2004 to 73 in 2019. The cause of decline is multivariate, but it is accurate to say they are starving to death. The population has little chance of recovery unless thay can find more food. Fish farming is a major factor implicated in the demise of polulations of salmon, and just as importantly, of chinook's primary food, herring. Despite decades of court cases, enquiries and scientific evidence, the removal of fish farms has been glacially slow. The first step to remove 17 fish farms from the Broughton Archipelago, on the other side of Vancouver Island from Gold River, only became operational in 2019."

Spirits Of The Coast
Orcas in Science, Art and History
Royal BC Museum

† Southern Resident Killer Whales

Spirits-of-the-Coast-front-cover_jpeg-for-web-600x750.jpg
 
 
And why finding this out so late - after having vilified those who were raising the alarm
Two salient passages:

[cut]
Piscine orthoreovirus’s evolutionary tree shows that the virus first arrived in the northeast Pacific just over 30 years ago — right when aquaculture efforts in the region began in earnest in the late 1980s. The variant of the virus found in the northeast Pacific is substantially similar to that found in the northeast Atlantic. Both the timing and the genetic similarities suggest the virus was brought to the Pacific alongside imported Atlantic salmon eggs from Norwegian fish farms.

[cut]
It is not clear how the introduction of the virus into wild Pacific salmon populations is affecting their survival and abundance. In farmed Atlantic salmon, PRV causes heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, a disease that is not acutely fatal but which does hinder the fish’s ability to swim and feed. In Chinook salmon, the virus causes different symptoms — jaundice and anemia, which likely slow the fish down and leave them more vulnerable to predators.


and why isn't it clear by now?
 
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and why isn't it clear by now?

Take your pick:
-corporate advertising campaigns
-corporate support of local sport teams
-corporate support of local newspapers
-the shareholder paradigm
-the capitalist goal of externalizing costs
-corruption in DFO
-election donations to all levels of government
-corrupt politicians
-a revolving door between corporation and government employees
etc
 
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