I have so many requests for my books I have built a website to sell them and some of my artwork and photographs;
07/28/2010
Critical - Public input required
The federal government has released their proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations with a sixty-day public input period. These regulations roll back the safe-guards we have in British Columbia to prevent heavy industrialization and privatization of the coast at the expense of our communities. Once these regulations pass there will be no further public input on how each salmon feedlot licence is written, how many wild fish they can take and what diseases they must report. The federal licences will be issued without First Nation or other consultation and can be expanded without an environmental assessment. I feel there has to be enormous response or else we all lose, even the people working in the industry, because no retailer is going to want to be in possession of a seafood product authorized to “Harmfully Alter, Disrupt and Destroy” parts of the North Pacific. Oddly these regulations will not apply to the east coast of Canada, where the Minister of Fisheries resides.
There are several options for you to act by the deadline September 12:
You can see my presentation on the strong correlation between disease in salmon feedlots and decline of Fraser sockeye "What's New"
I know it is very hard to react to everything that comes at us, so I have tried to make this easy for you. However, I can’t turn this looming disaster, it requires each and everyone of you and your friends and family. Please pass the petition to all you know.
To stay up to date please frequent www.salmonaresacred.org I will let you know how many people have signed. Volunteers are hosting events throughout BC this summer to link all of us together and this information will be posted. The T-shirts left from the migration are on my website www.alexandramorton.ca and proceeds go to this effort.
The Get Out Migration brought thousands of people together, but government does not want to hear from our communities nor of our need for good health in our environment and our bodies. Clearly there needs to be more public response. That is all that is required to fix this. I will continue to push for protection for salmon feedlot workers, as this is a government mistake and they need not bear the cost of this to our coast.
I think we will have a good Fraser sockeye run this summer and that should tell us the ocean and the river are still highly capable of feeding this coast! This generation of sockeye has shown one of the least declines and we need to investigate why this run is good and the others have failed so badly. If we allow government to let salmon feedlot companies hide their disease outbreaks this investigation will be incomplete. If there is no salmon feedlot disease problem, there should be no reason for secrecy.
Hundreds of people have said “I am behind you Alex,” but this is not working. We have to stand shoulder to shoulder, where we are all peacefully and strongly visible. This is the only way to save ourselves and our planet.
Alexandra Morton
July 28, 2010
Ed Porter, Team Leader, Regulatory Operations
Fisheries and Oceans Canada
PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca
Dear Mr. Ed Porter:
I am responding to the 60-day public comment opportunity on the proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations http://www.gazette.gc.ca/cg-gc/about-sujet-eng.html (left column “Part I Notices and Proposed Regulations” Vol. 144, No. 28, page 1933).
When BC Supreme Court ruled that the federal government must take over regulation of salmon feedlots, the intent was to bring the industry into compliance with the Constitution of Canada. But what Stephen Harper’s Conservatives are trying to do instead is remove safeguards established by previous governments and open the door to privatizing the ocean, which is prohibited by the Canadian Constitution.
With his document Harper not only licences massive ecological damage, he depreciates the market value of BC feedlot salmon. No reputable retailer can afford to be seen with a seafood product raised under a licence to “harm, alter, disrupt and destroy” the ocean. The federal licences will be issued without consultation with First Nations.
“Increasingly stringent international standards are driving seafood importing nations to require Canada to certify health (disease) status, not just food safety, of live aquatic animals and their products. … Canada cannot meet these standards, and is facing increasing challenges to export market access. Canada is already subject to a lesser market access than the United States, Europe ...“ http://www.gazette.gc.ca/rp-pr/p1/2009/2009-12-19/html/reg1-eng.html
Canadian pathologists warn against holding millions of diseased salmon in pens (Traxler et al. 1993) and the graph below demonstrates the reason. There is a strong correlation between salmon feedlot epidemics and the declining Fraser sockeye. This must be examined, but the provincial government is stonewalling release of salmon feedlot disease records and Harper is stepping in to help.
These draft regulations ignore the International (OIE) and the Canadian Food and Health Inspection Agency standards by exempting salmon feedlots from full disease reporting. Harper is not only offering Norwegian companies the right to leave infected salmon in the water, he is protecting them from liability. If government and the industry are willing to throw away premium market value for disease secrecy we are warned this is a dangerous and strong priority.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper is also offering these Norwegian companies blanket authorization for “Harmful Alteration, Disruption or Destruction” of fish habitat (Section 35(1) Fisheries Act). This ignores the value of the oceans to communities across British Columbia. Oddly, these rules will not apply to eastern Canada, where the Minister of Fisheries resides.
Harper is going to legalize destruction of wild fish that become trapped in the pens, attracted by the bright lights and food in the water. There are no surplus wild fish and so this by-catch will compete with fishing quotas. Many feedlots are in rock cod conservation areas where fishermen are not allowed, but the feedlots will continue trapping unknown amounts. This is bad management and will affect herring, sable fish, salmon, lingcod and other important wild fish.
The federal Conservatives are proposing salmon feedlot licences be granted and amended without environmental assessment. This violates strong public demand for healthy coastal waters, but neatly resolves the irreconcilable issue of dumping over a ton/day/site of industrial waste into salmon habitat. These are the only feedlots that never have to shovel manure and chemical waste as it flows conveniently into public waters.
It is dangerous to humanity, (risking food security, drug resistance, disease mutation) to allow feedlots to contaminate natural environments with disease. Feedlots remove all the natural disease control mechanisms and thus allow viruses to mutate, multiply and jump to new species.
Because Mr. Harper is proposing to remove standards designed to protect the ocean from Norwegian feedlots, retailers like COSTCO will have to decide if their mission statements honor government or their customers. Promising to “Exceed ecological standards required in every community where we do business,” is meaningless if there are no ecological standards.
Salmon feedlots are an “ecology of bad ideas,” struggling to control disease with drugs, corrupting the foodchain by using warm-blooded animal products, plants and fish from the southern hemisphere as feed, displacing local businesses, turning a public resource into a corporate commodity with no public access, dyeing their fish pink to resemble salmon. If jobs were the goal, the federal Conservatives and BC Liberals would be working with the BC companies developing sustainable land-based aquaculture to create a viable, world-class product. Instead Mr. Harper is proposing to change the laws of Canada to allow unchecked pollution by a 92% Norwegian-owned industry associated wild salmon declines worldwide. Wild salmon are thriving everywhere this industry does not exist (Alaska, Iceland, western Pacific, areas of BC).
These proposed regulations are a signpost. If this was about fish, attention would have been paid to the market value of the product. Instead it risks one of the last naturally producing salmon regions in the world for a depreciating commodity. What these draft regulations do is clear away legislation established to protect Canadians and our coast from industrialization and privatization.
Ed Porter, the proposed Federal Pacific Aquaculture Regulations do not protect the interests of Canadians or the world and must not be adopted.
Sincerely,
Alexandra Morton
The Fraser sockeye decline began at the same time government failed to cull millions of IHN virus infected feedlot salmon on the Fraser River migration routes. Government ignored federal scientists who state infected Atlantic salmon should not be permitted in pens (Traxler et al 1993). The federal government also ignored warnings from their scientists that would have saved the North Atlantic cod. When the cod went extinct the Hibernia Oil wells appeared on the Grand Banks – the most generous food-producing area humanity will ever have was exchanged for oil.
07/13/2010
salmon feedlot disease secrets
July 13
Hello
Sockeye appear to be doing very well from the Columbia River to Alaska! Even the Fraser forecast is cautiously optimistic. If we get a good run back to the Fraser we will know the river and the ocean are still functioning, whatever has happened to all the other year classes, is something else.
The new proposed Pacific Aquaculture Regulations have been posted to the Canada Gazette website at for a 60-day public review period. The contact is Ed Porter, PAR-RPA@dfo-mpo.gc.ca.
Each licence under this new regime will vary site to site and the diseases they have to report and the amount of wild fish they can catch in their pens will vary. This is disturbing. I hope may of you will take the opportunity to comment that salmon feedlots in the ocean need to report all their disease outbreaks.
This is an article from today on a new salmon feedlot disease in the Atlantic. They report over 400 outbreaks in 11 years and it is now in the wild. Scientists just identified the virus as HSMI and it is generally fatal to fish. Obviously, the eggs imported to BC have not been checked for this virus. Will there be a response from our Minister of Fisheries on how we can be sure this has not spread here?
I just published this article on the secrecy of salmon feedlot disease outbreaks in BC.
The Cohen Inquiry is a massive undertaking. We have requested salmon feedlot disease outbreak information so it can be examined in relationship to the declining Fraser sockeye productivity. Hopefully they will comply. DFO genetic research is reporting that Fraser sockeye are being strongly challenged by a virus, but they do not know which virus yet.
You can follow this work at Salmonaresacred.org
Alexandra Morton
06/20/2010
June 20 update
June 20, 2010
Hello Salmon People
The effort to protect our wild salmon from salmon farm pathogens, pollution and by-catch continues to grow. We are keeping abreast of the issues at:
www.salmonaresacred.org
Hundreds of people have been mobilized by the Get Out Migration writing letters, holding meetings, demanding answers from their politicians and the science continues. The sockeye leaving the Fraser River are once again heavily infested with sea lice near the salmon farms. This picture shows a juvenile sockeye with 14 young sea lice caught near salmon farms off Campbell River.
The salmon farmers have put government on notice - they will not be volunteering any further disease information again. The secrecy around salmon farm disease is a red flag and the people trying to answer why the Fraser sockeye are dying are running blind. The Fraser sockeye decline began at the same time as salmon farm outbreaks of IHN. IHN virus is lethal to sockeye and the fish feedlot outbreaks represent pathogen loads higher than wild sockeye have ever experienced. See attached graph. It is unacceptable that they demand to operate in secrecy in public waters when there is clearly cause for concern. The Governments in power have done nothing to protect BC from these disease outbreaks, in fact they have aided in the cover-up.
Our westcoast Federal Fisheries Critic, MP Fin Donnelly asked Canadian actor William Shatner to lend his star power to this issue and you can see the result at:
http://www.findonnelly.ca/
The Cohen Inquiry into the Fraser sockeye decline is under intense scrutiny for hiring people connected to DFO to investigate DFO. Meanwhile, scientists who have worked on impact of aquaculture were rejected due to their connection to me. However, we have the same lawyer as won our BC Supreme Court challenge, Greg McDade, and we are optimistic that this Inquiry can be a powerful process to reveal the scope of impact of salmon farms on the Fraser sockeye. I encourage all to visit their website frequently and see the submissions. There is one posted there now from hockey star Willie Mitchell who has a deep personal interest in salmon. http://www.commissioncohen.ca/en/
We are hopeful that this year’s Fraser sockeye return will be a big one because this lineage has shown the least decline. There are numerous Fraser sockeye runs and year-classes. These strands twist together like a rope. If we get this strand back, we are lucky but it does not mean the ones we are losing have recovered. Each generation of salmon stands alone, but also are critically linked genetically and ecologically. They cannot thrive alone.
As the inquiry turns up the heat on salmon farming, the attacks have disintegrated to mud-slinging. Below are two links to the National Post that cast doubt on anything this paper has ever published. The money reported in this article must include everything related to wild salmon research, I don’t believe the environmental organizations have received anything close to this for working on salmon farm issues. As well, I have been in the middle of this for 20 years and have never been approached by Alaskan interests. These writers are grasping at straws. Their source on this was reportedly hired by MP John Duncan, a salmon farm advocate. The scientific community is responding and we will be posting these as they come in on salmonaresacred.org
http://www.financialpost.com/news/Salmon+farm+battle+about+competition/3167822/story.html
http://www.financialpost.com/This+science+fishy/3169251/story.html
The Cohen Inquiry funding is scant and so donations would be helpful. There is an avalanche of documents to review. I hate asking for funds, but there is a Pay Pal button on the Salmonaresacred.org website. Since this work would be considered political by Revenue Canada there are no tax-receipts possible. My operations are frugal with no office rental and an abundance of incredible volunteers, so the tiniest donations count and go straight to the work.
Our next court date on the charges against Marine Harvest for illegal possession of wild salmon and herring is this Tuesday. We hope the Department of Justice will appear in court and move forward on this very important case to investigate the rate of wild fish consumption by the salmon farming industry. While the DOJ has assumed our charge we have not abandoned the case.
Rising out of this fracas is Canadian landbased fish farming technology. Farming salmon is never going to feed the world because it takes more fish than it makes, but aquaculture has a place and there are Canadian engineers, communities and organizations who are going to lead us out of this mess offering jobs and a product and technology that Canada can be proud of. Some supermarkets, such as Overwaitea in Canada are currently sourcing land-based salmon from Washington State, which is an opportunity missed. click here As well, one of the 4 main supermarkets in Norway, ICA, announced that fish farmers must move into closed containments within 3 years, or they will remove farmed salmon from their close to 1000 stores in Norway, Sweden and Holland. Between disease, drug resistant lice and their markets the fish farm industry will have to move into tanks and hopefully Canadian fish farmers who are ahead of the curve will reap the benefit.
COSTCO is a major buyer of BC farm salmon.
I was given an honorary Doctorate of Science from Simon Fraser University last week for the research I have done on salmon farm-origin sea lice. This was an enormous personal milestone and should help those who are trying to evaluate what we know about the impact of farm salmon on wild salmon. Simon Fraser University has become a leader in wild salmon research, conferences and education.
There are never enough funds to do the ongoing research in the field and through the documents and so I have launched an online store to continue supporting myself www.alexandramorton.ca is a way for me to remain financially viable and keep my voice free and unencumbered.
Thank you, to all of you. Our numbers are growing, we are concerned about the people who work in the salmon farming industry, but we will continue to powerfully, peacefully and unrelentingly protect what belongs to all of us and the future – wild salmon. Wild salmon are thriving everywhere in the North Pacific, except where there are salmon farms.
Dr. Alexandra Morton DSc (honoris causa)
05/31/2010
05/29/2010
05/26/2010
Sea Lice Secrets
Government memos reveal fish farmers pressured government to keep sea lice drugs secret, six years before biologist Alexandra Morton made it public
(May 26, Sointula) A series of government memos reveal a heated debate in 1995 over a sea louse outbreak on a farm salmon on the Fraser sockeye migration route (Okisollo Channel). In 1995, a salmon farm requested permission to use hydrogen peroxide to treat an extremely heavy outbreak of sea lice on their fish. When the Ministry of Environment, Parks and Lands (MELP) informed the company that their drug application would have to be released to the public, the fish farmer withdrew the request. When environmental groups found out about the sea lice outbreak, the BC Salmon Farmers Association called for an investigation of MELP and a guarantee that fish farmers had a right to secrecy in the future.
Sept 6, 1995 Don Peterson of MELP writes, “The company has withdrawn their application (for hydrogen peroxide) because they heard there was a requirement to advertise if a pesticide was going to be applied. I guess they were either afraid of the shareholders…or the public finding out... the company has asked that this request be kept strictly confidential and that all correspondence on the subject be destroyed.”
September 28, 1995 the BC Salmon Farmers Association criticized Minister Moe Sihota (MELP): “…government has an obligation to maintain confidentiality… Government is further prevented from unauthorized collection, use or disclosure of information…. puts at risk … capital investment of private citizens and individual companies…”
However, salmon farms operate in Canada’s public waters and impact a Canadian resource - wild fish.
On October 23 Earl Warnock of MELP writes, “I find it unconscionable that they (fish farmers) are only prepared to undertake measures appropriate to protect their stock health and the environment unless they can do it in a clandestine manner.... and for them and MAFF to ask us to operate with them in this way says something about the people we are dealing with.”
“MAFF” = Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, now Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL).
Either the sea lice remained on the farm fish on the Fraser sockeye migration route or they were treated without permission from MELP.
November 03, 1995, Bryan Ludwig, MELP writes: “…we are in the difficult position of being concerned about use of pesticides for treatment of sea lice, but also wanting to ensure we avoid a severe outbreak for fear of transfer to wild stocks.”
These documents reveal heroes among our MELP bureaucrats who tried to protect our wild salmon from salmon farms. Gordon Campbell disbanded MELP as soon as he took office in 2001, and he renamed MAFF, MAL and gave them control of allocation of Crown Land. The fish farm industry did not develop a sea lice action plan, the public lost their government biologist advocates, sea lice outbreaks continue with lethal infection underway today rates on wild juvenile salmon on the Fraser migration route (Okisollo Channel) (photos available) and Fraser sockeye stocks migrating through Okisollo Channel are in steep decline.
October 23, 1995 Earl Warnock MELP: “If the truth harms their integrity perhaps they need to look at themselves…”
If we cannot save wild salmon in British Columbia, we do not live in a democracy.
All documents available at www.salmonaresacred.org, “Breaking News”
Wild Juvenile salmon Okisollo Channel May 25, 2010
05/24/2010
Letter to Minister of Agriculture and Lands
May 24, 2010
Dear Minister Steve Thomson, Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL):
I am writing to request attendance at farm salmon harvests to assess unlawful consumption/destruction of wild fish such as commercial fishermen are required.
On May 19, I met with your assistants Harvey Sasaki and R. J. Senko and MAL scientists Drs. Roth and Sheppard. Our conversation raised several concerns.
First, your scientists still think stickleback are an important source of sea lice infection on juvenile wild salmon. This politically favorable hypothesis has been long debunked by scientists, including a DFO paper reporting that sea lice cannot survive on sticklebacks (Jones et al. 2006). It is unacceptable that MAL scientists refuse to accept scientific opinion on a subject of considerable public interest.
Second, international scientists warn that farm lice drug resistance is a growing global problem, but your team was unable to verbalize any precautions underway to protect BC. Drug resistance means fish farms switch to toxic bath treatments that are released directly into the ocean. Such a drug, Salmosan, is already advertised in Northern Aquaculture “in response to the serious and growing problems with sea lice.”
It is in the public interest for you to prevent lice drug resistance to protect BC fisheries from toxic bath chemicals.
I was told to defer to Dr. Sheppard’s opinion that drug resistance has not occurred in BC, but he could not produce a single test result. Senior scientist, Dr. Larry Dill recently testified: “I will comment on the resistance to SLICE first. I felt that Dr. Sheppard's commentary on that was highly irresponsible and very unscientific when he said there was no evidence for it... … contrary to the absolute nonsense claimed by provincial veterinarian Mark Shepherd there are a rather large number of credible scientists myself included who disagree with him when he says there is insufficient information to suggest that lice on farms is affecting pacific salmon in a detrimental way.” (Federal Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans May 12, 2010).
Minister Thomsen, the advice from your team is not credible and could be seen as unreasonably supportive of corporate interests. Downsizing the Norwegian salmon farm industry is the only way to prevent negative impact on BC. The MAL Crown Lands mission statement is … to provide the greatest benefits for British Columbians (http://www.al.gov.bc.ca/clad/). As such many fish farm leases must be rescinded. You can protect aquaculture jobs with the arising Canadian solutions.
The public wants their towns to thrive and thus want wild salmon. Corruption allegations are surfacing at the BC Rail trial concerning Liberal government payment to people to disrupt salmon farm protests. There are many reasons you should re-examine your assessment of Norwegian salmon farm impact on BC and allow public scrutiny.
I await your response.
Alexandra Morton, www.salmonaresacred.org
05/21/2010
05/19/2010
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"The expansion of aquaculture in British Columbia is unacceptable period." - Dr. Larry Dill, Simon Fraser University
DFO is ignorant, misinformed or lying..... - Chief Robert Joseph
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- Juvenile sockeye on Fraser River migration route infested with sea lice
A stunning series of films on salmon farming by B.C. filmmaker Twyla Roscovich - Where was the Minister when BC learned 10.6 million salmon had disappeared
Vancouver filmmaker Damien Gillis went to Norway to find out why Fisheries Minister Shea was there
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