Tag Archives: Salmon

B.C. fish farms blamed for sea lice in new report

Uncategorized, ,
Share

From CTV.ca – Dec 24, 2010

VANCOUVER — Another salvo has been fired in the battle over sea lice at fish farms on the B.C. coast.

Just a week after a report was released clearing sea lice in the
collapse of the pink salmon run in 2002, an environmental group is
pointing to a new report that it says shows fish farms make the sea lice
problem worse.

Watershed Watch quotes a study by a New Zealand professor who looked
at the growth of sea lice on two salmon farms in the Broughton
archipelago on the central B.C. coast, which is on the migration path of
juvenile wild salmon.

The environmental group says the study found that farmed salmon can lead to a sharp increase in sea lice in coastal waters.

Read full article here

Share

New Federal Rules Welcomed by Fish Farmers

Uncategorized, ,
Share

New rules welcomed by fish farmers

But environmental groups say federal government has fallen far short of what is needed

By Judith Lavoie, Times Colonist
December 11, 2010
Salmon
farmers are welcoming new federal fish farming regulations and say
they will help streamline aquaculture operations, but environmental
groups say they are seriously flawed.

The new rules were posted
this week by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is
taking over oversight of aquaculture from the province.

On
Friday, federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea and provincial Agriculture
Minister Ben Stewart signed a memorandum of understanding in
preparation for a Dec. 18 handover.

The move follows a 2009 B.C.
Supreme Court decision that aquaculture is a fishery and so
responsibility for regulations lies with the federal government.

“The
new regulations and conditions of licensing will mean stronger
environmental controls as well as increased monitoring and
enforcement,” Shea said at a ceremony at the Vancouver Aquarium.

A new DFO division, with 55 employees and an annual budget of $8.3 million, will oversee aquaculture regulations.

However,
the industry will remain a shared responsibility between the two
levels of government, with the province retaining responsibility for
deciding where farms will go and managing Crown leases.

Read full Tmes-Colonist article here


Share

First Nations Win Right to Launch Class-Action Lawsuit Over Wild Salmon Damage

Uncategorized, , ,
Share

From the Vancouver Sun

By Ian Mulgrew – Dec. 2, 2010

First
Nations have won the right to launch a class-action lawsuit over damage
to wild salmon stocks from sea-lice allegedly caused by salmon farms on
the Broughton Archipelago.

Victoria challenged proposed
representative plaintiff, Robert Chamberlin, the elected chief of an
aboriginal collective known as the Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First
Nation, saying Indians are barred by the Class Proceedings Act from
launching such litigation.

The provincial government
contended that a class action is not the preferable procedure for
resolving the native claims, and that the challenges the First Nations
would face in establishing the fishing rights said to have been
infringed would overwhelm the law suit.

Ottawa raised
similar objections and argued the evidence failed to establish adverse
impacts on wild salmon stocks attributable to sea lice contamination
from fish farms.

In addition, the two governments said the
complications involved in deciding what rights the native people enjoyed
would make the damages phase of the case interminable.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice Harry Slade disagreed and said the lawsuit should be certified and allowed to proceed.

Read Vancouver Sun article here

Click here to read the court ruling

Share

Farmed Salmon: The Worst Type of Fish You Can Eat

Uncategorized,
Share

From leading natural health newsletter, Mercola.com:

Fish farms are killing off wild salmon. Norwegian policies are making
farmed seafood unsustainable and unhealthy. Open cage salmon farms, used
to raise what is perhaps the most popular type of farmed fish, pose
numerous problems for the environment and public health.

Many environmental experts have warned about the unsustainability of
fish farms for close to a decade now, but nothing has been done to
improve the system. As usual, government agencies and environmental
organizations around the world turned a blind eye to what was predicted
to become an absolute disaster, and now the ramifications can be seen
across the globe.

Farmed fish is now so common, if you bought fish in the supermarket
recently or ordered one in a restaurant, chances are it was farm raised.
(About the only places you can find wild-caught fish these days are
specialty fine-dining seafood restaurants.)

These oceanic feedlots, consisting of acres of net-covered pens
tethered offshore were once considered a wonderful solution to
over-fishing, but the reality is far from it.

As mentioned in the video above, it can take up to 5 kilos of wild
fish and Antarctic krill to produce just one kilo of farmed salmon!

Rather than solving the problem of over-fishing, fish farms are
literally competing with human consumption for what little wild fish
thereare left…

Open cage salmon farms are also decimating natural salmon stocks, and destroy the livelihoods of fisheries across the world.

Read full article here

Share

Call for ban on sale of salmon infected with ISA virus

Uncategorized, , ,
Share

Lawmakers and environmentalists are demanding that the Chilean Health
Ministry (Minsal) prohibit the marketing of more than 100 tonnes of
salmon for human consumption, which is infected with the infectious
salmon anemia (ISA) virus.

The petition was filed by Senators of Magallane, Pedro Munoz, Guido
Girardi and Alejandro Navarro, the council of Punta Arenas, Mario
Pascual, and organizations like the Centro Ecocéanos,
the Latin American Observatory for Environmental Conflicts (OLCA),
Citizens Defense League for the Consumer and International Consumers.

A few weeks ago, the National Fisheries Service (Sernapesca) reported that it had detected an outbreak of ISA in facilities belonging to the Acuimag company, located in the Magallanes region.

In total, some 230 tonnes of salmon were infected by the virus, of
which only 50 were destroyed. The remaining 180 tonnes are being
processed for human consumption in the plant of Pesquera Edén.

The director of Centro Ecocéanos, Juan Carlos Cardenas, beleives that
“it is urgent that policy actions and the system for sanitary control
of the industry are strengthened to ensure the safety of the industry’s
aquaculture production.”

While both the Ministry of Health and Sernapesca say the virus does
not cause problems for humans, but rather a high mortality rate for
fish, the Ecocéanos specialist warned that the virus comes from the same
family that produces the human flu and therefore has a great capacity
for mutation and adaptation to new hosts.”

Read full article here

Share

Genetically Engineered Salmon: FDA Says It’s Safe – Consumers Say ‘No Way’

Uncategorized, ,
Share
Back in September, the U.S Food and Drug Administration that a genetically engineered fish grown in a lab was “as safe as food
from conventional Atlantic salmon,” and will “not have a significant
impact on the quality of the human environment.” Conclusions were based
largely on data prepared by AquaBounty Technologies,
the company that manufactures the synthetic salmon. “There is a
reasonable certainty of no harm from consumption of food from this
animal,” the FDA wrote.

Since then, dozens of consumer and environmental organizations,
commercial and recreational fishery associations, food-safety advocates,
food retailers, and chefs have been putting pressure on the FDA to
continue researching the environmental and public health impacts of the
fish before releasing it into the U.S. food supply. Consumer advocates
argue that the FDA’s decision to approve this fish could open up a
pandora’s box of genetically engineered animals on the market without
labels and that the FDA is not taking these concerns seriously.

If the FDA approves the scientifically created salmon, a product called AquAdvantage, it will be the first time a genetically engineered animal has been given the green light for human consumption.
Read full article at Politics Daily here
Share

Fish Farm Sea Lice More Widespread than Thought: CBC

Uncategorized
Share

Salmon
farms are transferring sea lice to wild salmon in a much larger area of
British Columbia’s coastal waters than first thought, according to new
research by B.C. scientists. Fisheries scientists have long linked salmon farms in the Broughton
Archipelago, between the north end of Vancouver Island and the mainland,
with the sea lice that wild juvenile salmon pick up as they migrate
past farms on their way to the open ocean. The latest study, published in the current issue of the peer-reviewed Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences,
shows juvenile salmon picking up sea lice throughout the Georgia Strait
to the south and in Finlayson Channel on the Central Coast, northwest
of Bella Coola.  Read more of CBC story here 

Share

Cohen commission: Brain lesions linked to sockeye decline

Oceans, Salmon Farming and Aquaculture, , , , , , ,
Share

After the dramatic collapse of sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River
last year, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans quickly identified
the three “most likely” causes – including a mysterious disease that
causes brain lesions in fish. Read more of Mark Hume’s Globe & Mail article here

Share

The people have spoken: Put fish farms on land and in closed containment

Uncategorized,
Share

Article by D.C. Reid in the Victoria Times Colonist. “The people of B.C. have done it again. They canoed down the Fraser River from our city of Hope for sockeye salmon. And in a torrential monsoon, hundreds more stood out in Vancouver and shivered on the on-foot migration to the Cohen Commission that is looking into the disaster of last year’s Fraser sockeye run.”
Read article

Share