Today four people took the stand:
Dr. Michael Kent, who worked in Fish Health for DFO at the Pacific Biological Station from 1988 - 1999, and become the Head the unit from 1997. This was during the rapid expansion phase of salmon farming and the spread of Plasmacytoid Leukemia through the farms. Dr. Kent did much of the research on this disease. Today, Kent is a professor at Oregon State University
Dr. Craig Stephens, who wrote his PhD Thesis on Plasmacytoid Leukemia in 1995 and a professor at University of Calgary.
Dr. Christine MacWilliams, Fish Health Veterinarian for the DFO Salmonid Enhancement Program since 2005, wrote her PhD Thesis on the exotic virus, Infectious Salmon Anaemia that has been spread across the North Atlantic and into Chile in salmon farms.
Dr. Stewart Johnson head of Aquatic Animal Health Section, DFO and monitors disease in wild salmon.
There was only time for questioning by Cohen's council, and the lawyers for Canada and the Province of BC. My lawyer, Greg McDade and others will ask questions tomorrow
While the panel included scientists who were working with two of the pathogens of greatest concern, Plasmacytoid Leukemia - which Dr. Miller suggests might be weakening and killing the majority of Fraser sockeye and Infectious Salmon Anemia which is following the salmon farming industry around the world, - none seemed concerned about these diseases.
Dr. MacWilliams, presumably has access to the fish farm disease records said she has seen no evidence of the exotic Infectious Salmon Anemia virus in BC. MacWilliams did research that found rainbow trout could be lethally infected with this exotic virus, but went on to say that Pacific salmon were relatively resistant to ISAv.
Dr. Kent, whose own research showed the Plasmacytoid Leukemia was widespread in salmon farms and 100% of the sockeye exposed became infected, said Plasmacytoid Leukemia (PL) was not a high risk to sockeye.
Kent never completed his research to figure out exactly what this disease is; an intracellular parasite, or a virus. Kent was very vague today saying they found some pretty good evidence it was a virus, a retrovirus, but that retroviruses are very common in animals and don't always cause disease. He said they could find PL with other inflammatory diseases, it could be a presentation of cells, might be caused by more than one agent, later more commonly associated with a parasite, a very convoluted story, complicated etiology, proliferated cells can be caused by many things.... Then he took a long drink of water.
Dr. Kent said it was hard to find wild salmon that die of disease, not mentioning the thousands of Fraser sockeye that have been dying for the past 18 years on the river banks just before spawning, that Miller's work suggest might be due to the disease he named.
Dr. Johnson distanced himself from this virus and Miller's work saying he only knew of her work from meetings....
There was a moment of confusion when the lawyer for the Province brought forward a document that I found reporting Gyrodactylus salaris in the Little Campbell River Hatchery. While there are North Pacific species of the freshwater parasite Gyrodactylus Gyrodactylus salaris is an exotic species of enormous significance as it can be extremely lethal to naive populations. The lawyer for the Province of BC asked what was more likely to have killed the cutthroat trout in the disease report - Bacterial Gill Disease or Gyrodactylus salaris. Dr. Kent said Bacterial Gill Disease, not the Norwegian parasite!
While the lawyer said she checked with the hatchery and it was just a typo, not in fact "salaris", not one of the panel members suggested someone should make certain this parasite has not been transported from Norway to BC. I could not see how the correct spelling of an exotic lethal parasite on a hatchery disease report could be considered a typo without someone checking up on this. Two of the people we pay to oversee hatcheries were on the panel and yet this document seemed new to them.... Something is wrong with the system, this should have raised immediate red flags and an investigation. Hopefully, it is just a "typo."
There was some questioning about whether we can be certain that Infectious Salmon Anemia is not in BC. It is appearing around the world in farms belonging to exactly the companies operating in BC, the DFO egg import form does not require reporting on this disease and the fish farms did not need to report it until Jan of this year. Given the cost of this Inquiry to Canadians and the longstanding concern expressed about this virus I think Dr. Johnson should have been able to report to us on competent testing using proper numbers of samples on how we know BC is still ISA - free, but he did not.
More to come tomorrow...
