Dear Mr. Per Grieg Jr. owner Grieg Seafood (per.grieg@grieg.no):
Several weeks ago I received reports that salmon in your Skuna Bay farms were dying in large numbers. I visited these farms in Nootka Sound and confirmed the reports were accurate. I wrote a letter to your CEO, Morten Vike asking what the fish are dying of, who made the diagnosis and the actual test results so that I could repeat the tests and verify.
Mr Vike did not answer my questions, instead he went to INTRAFISH and called my “allegations” “utter nonsense.” Mr Vike went on to say there had been an algae bloom and that “the fish in Nootka Sound are healthy.”
One week later, I returned to your farms called Concepcion Point and Williamson and filmed large hoses sucking hundreds of dead salmon out of your pens into rusting dumpsters. They were not “healthy,” they were dead and they were apparently garbage. I wrote to your CEO, Morten Vike a second time, but he has still refused to answer. This makes it appear that Grieg Seafoods is hiding the true reason the salmon in your pens are dying.
Large amounts of dying farmed Atlantic salmon not only present a risk to the wild salmon of Nootka Sound, they also pose a risk to the most important Canadian salmon stock, known as the Fraser Sockeye. Your company is taking the fish that are still alive amongst the dead, rotting fish, trucking them across Vancouver Island and getting them processed on Quadra Island where the outfall pipe pours into the migration route of the Fraser sockeye.
I have co-authored a scientific paper on this outfall pipe and the risk it poses to the wild salmon of western Canada.
You can see the film of the mort suckers and the details at: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com
I recognize that the governments of Canada and British Columbia are weak and ineffective in protecting wild salmon from the impacts of the Norwegian salmon farms that are sitting in every wild salmon migration route of southern BC, but that does not mean the Canadian people feel the same way.
Can you address the citizens of Canada in a manner fitting of a Norwegian company raising Norwegian salmon in the Pacific Ocean and give us the truth about why the salmon in your pens are dying? As you must know it is very unclear in Canada as to who owns the fish in your pens.
I await your reply,
Alexandra Morton
Independent Biologist – See more here
We (as in the Canadian & U.S. governments) turn from nature in absurd self deception. Salmon the currency of the Salish Sea for 9,000 years or more, has in recent times seemed to be the enemy of the state. Warm water, acidified and polluted, add in fish farms, coal train accidents, tailing pond disasters, port expansions, all have come together to threaten the worlds greatest salmon river. It’s so insane. People march by the thousands, but nothing changes, it gets worse.
Its so depressing, yet Morton and Damien keep on resisting, keep on seeking the sanity that we all hope wins the day.
I monitor the eagles in Point Roberts, just south of Vancouver and the mouth of the Fraser river. 6 of the 7 nests I monitor failed to produce any eaglets this year. Comparing my results of the last 7 years against the 35 year data base of nests in Oregon, the Point Roberts nests, have a 50% success rate, compared to 62% average in Oregon, but alarmingly is the 0% of 2-3 eaglets in the 21 breeding cycles of the 3 southern resident pairs, which pale in comparison to the 54% rate in the 30,000 breeding cycles in Oregon. Starfish are Wasting, Oysters are dying off, Salmon are avoiding the Straight of Georgia, because the water is too warm. I’ve been coming to Point Roberts for 59 years, and have never felt such warm water.
Why isn’t the state of Washington and BC being called national disasters??? Orca populations of the Southern residents just dropped to 78!!!! Yet both countries just go on clearing more land, destroying more habitat, taking away our freedom and quality of life.
All the while we are left singing, “Message in a bottle” sending our SOS to the world. when will they listen???? What more needs to happen?
Thank you Alexandra for your lifetime of work on our coastal ecology. Please continue.
And the Dept of Fisheries is where?
Handcuffed and gagged by the Feds and the local politicians no doubt…..
Pathetic.
One wonders if a few dead salmon could be retrieved and or purchased from a worker at the farm…………..for independant testing.
If there’s nothing to hide then why are they quickly and quietly removing them?
MSM where are youuuuuuuuuuuu?
Alexandra Morton, you will never ever receive an honest reply so why try?
keep the films and pictures coming to wake up your zombie-like fellow Canadians as to the transgressions of these companies.