I have done several public talks in the past few weeks and I am hearing an entirely different tone from you. People used to ask about how fish farms damage our wild stocks, now all I hear is "What can I do to stop this?"
In response, I am going to do weekly updates on this blog and I am going to inform you whenever there are actions you can take. - Thank you all for your energy.
I will be speaking next at:
Fish Farming: The Science and the Politics in Courtenay on Sunday, 14 March 2010 at 2:00 in the Florence Filberg Centre, 411 Anderton Rd., Courtenay. Admission by donation.
Weekly Update – March 1, 2010
Important Action Required
If you have not already please sign my letter to the Minister of Fisheries to say the laws of Canada MUST be applied to the Norwegian salmon farmers.
When Parliament returns March 3rd two new Fisheries Standing Committees will be selected and new agendas set. We need wild salmon to be at the top of the agenda, because clearly wild salmon must have more political will to survive the next few years. Members of Parliament are hearing from the salmon farmers and will be considering degrading the Fisheries Act in favor of the salmon farmers. In 1993, provincially licenced aquaculture was exempted from almost every federal fishing regulation in Canada (Pacific Fishery Regulations, 1993). These Norwegian companies are seeking to have this same protection continue when all salmon farms become federally licenced in December 2010 as a result of our successful BC Supreme Court challenge.
If you want wild salmon, these Norwegian companies must not be exempted from Canada’s fishing regulations again. Please contact both the House of Commons and Senate Standing Committees on Fisheries and Oceans and ask them to travel to British Columbia to listen to the issues we are experiencing with salmon farms. Also contact your Member of Parliament and tell them we need salmon farms to be regulated by the entire Fisheries Act.
Contacts:
House of Commons Standing Committee
Travis Ladouceur
Tel.: 613-996-3105 613-996-3105
Sixth Floor, 131 Queen Street, House of Commons, Ottawa ON K1A 0A6
Canada Fax: 613-992-9069 E-mail: FOPO@parl.gc.ca
Senate Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans
Administrative Assistant: Louise Archambeault - 613-993-7722 613-993-7722
Fax: (613) 947-2104
Email: fish-peche@sen.parl.gc.ca
Mailing Address:
Senate Committee on Fisheries and Oceans
The Senate of Canada
Ottawa, Ontario
Canada, K1A 0A4
Drug Resistant sea lice
This week the question of whether the Grieg Seafood sea lice have become drug resistant remains. I released the video on this on my blog. http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/ to make this investigation to date available to the public. The Ministry of Agriculture and Lands continues to maintain that there is no evidence of drug resistance in the Nootka Island area fish farms, but their own data (posted on the MAL website) does not support what they are saying. I have asked for clarification as to how their public statements and data do not appear to match.
In eastern Canada drug resistant sea lice also made the news. People there are very concerned about the impact of new fish farm de-lousing drugs on lobsters: and
Infectious Salmon Anemia ISA
An article below appeared in the Globe and Mail. After carrying ISA from Norway to Chile and wiping out 70% of the farm salmon there, along with the Chilean industry the Norwegian fish farmers who operate in all three countries are actually profiting. Introducing a virus into a new ocean should be considered a crime, but instead these companies are profiting. Our Minister of Fisheries refuses to close the border to Atlantic salmon eggs so according to the Norwegian scientists tracking this virus BC will get ISA and it will have unprecedented impact on our wild salmon.
There are reports that ISA has reappeared in for the first time in several years in the Deer Island and Grand Manan aquaculture zones in New Brunswick.
Media
A Norwegian film crew visited the fish farms in the Discovery Islands and produced this story aired in Norway:
The Power of Patagonia
With its glacier-carved peaks and fjords, southern Chile remains one of the wildest places on Earth. But that could soon change.
By Verlyn Klinkenborg
February 2010 National Geographic
Ecojustice threatens lawsuit against Ottawa over fish-farm expansion
KEVIN SAUVÉ
Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2010
"More people want farmed salmon out of oceans" (The Times Colonist, 24th February):
"Morton: Sea lice becoming drug-resistant" (The Tyee, 23rd February): /
