alexandra morton

How a Minister Tried to Protect Salmon but We Lost a Generation of Fraser Sockeye

 

The document below was sent to DFO's new Senior Aquaculture Management Coordinator. This is the story of what happened when the Minister of Fisheries told DFO to make fish farm sea lice regulations stronger and they got weaker.

Below are DFO's own words taken from 2,500 pages of internal documents. I acknowledge the effort of DFO field staff, biologists, conservation & protection officers and others who are trying to navigate what appears to be an impossible situation that has reached a breaking point. 

I can see a path through this highly damaging state of chaos, but DFO’s compass must be re-calibrated to establish the health of wild salmon as true north.  

For the record:

How the Minister of Fisheries Tried to Protect Wild Salmon and We Lost a Generation of Sockeye

Information derived from A-2020-00026 (2,253 pages)

 

Summary – citations below this section

A memo to Director General, Pacific, Rebecca Reid, frames why salmon farm Conditions of Licence (CoLs) were updated in 2020. In 2019 Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson recognized there was a serious problem with sea lice infections in BC salmon farms impacting juvenile wild salmon, that this problem was not going away, that media interested had been sustained for over 3 years and that changes to this aspect of salmon farm management were urgently required.

Wilkinson announced that salmon farming Conditions of Licence would be improved before the next wild salmon outmigration in March 2020 - two years before all salmon farms licences expire coastwide in 2022, which was the natural time to change these CoLs.  The minister wanted the CoLs opened immediately for revision due to urgent conservation concerns to increase enforceability of farm lice limits that had been established in 2003 in response to the first lice outbreaks documented in the Broughton Archipelago. 

A group of scientists, industry veterinarians, DFO staff and First Nation delegates were invited to join the minister’s Fish Health Technical Working Group (FH TWG) to provide advice on redrafting the salmon farm CoLs.  It was a volunteer position.  Tables were created comparing the new and old CoLs, listing the advice from different sources. Everything provided to the Fish Health Group had to be directly approved by the deputy Minister Timothy Sargent.  Months into the process, staff were told not to share the portion of this table that listed all the FH TWG advice that had been ignored.  

Some DFO staff were acutely aware of the sea lice problem and they knew how to achieve industry compliance.  They recommended that any farm that exceeded lice limits should have future production reduced, a mandatory fallowing period of several months, and should be subjected to a review of whether the licence would be rescinded.  All these ideas were blocked.

Other staff were involved in protecting the industry by lowering requirements to the point that the farms were able to comply.  They reported this as “erring on the side of caution,” meaning fewer farms would break the rules if the rules were weaker. 

DFO staff repeatedly warned senior management that First Nations and ENGOs were not going to accept the new CoL’s, but they admitted the new CoL’s would avoid causing “an unhappy industry”.   DFO staff were operating on the understanding that there would be CSAS done to review the impact of farm-origin sea lice on juvenile wild salmon to support the hard decisions they faced, as they were caught between conservation and facilitating industry, but this CSAS was quietly cancelled. 

No one acknowledged the 2018 published DFO research that experimentally recorded acute stress in young sockeye infected with sea lice. One of the DFO authors of this paper was tapped to produce sea lice briefings for First Nations and others.  He never mentioned the impact of sea lice on Fraser sockeye. As well, none of the regional directors, including the Science Director mentioned this work, which raises the question: were they hiding it, or were they so unaware of DFO science that they did not know about it?  Was this paper the reason the CSAS on sea lice could not go forward, because to omit it would have been one of the more identifiable catastrophic flaws in the CSAS process and to include it would undermine all the efforts to downplay the role of farm lice in the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon?  Certain Dr. Simon Jones who was author of both the research and sea lice briefings knew about this.

There were other examples of DFO’s failure/refusal to accept the science on sea lice impact.  A DFO veterinarian told ENGOs that there is no evidence that Caligus sea lice cause harm to wild salmon and therefore zero regulation of this species would be considered.  Days later this same person admitted to having read Dr. Sean Godwin’s work on the negative impact of Caligus on young Fraser River sockeye, but he chose to simply discount it. 

While this conversation was going on, the Minister of Fisheries was announcing that the 2019 Fraser River sockeye return had fallen to the lowest level in the history of Canada, far lower than had triggered the Cohen Commission in 2009.  Fraser sockeye were on a steep extinction trend and DFO was ignoring and hiding the science that would have allowed them to reach the open ocean and have a fighting chance at survival.

The most revealing discussion was around creation of a sea lice farm threshold, i.e. the number of lice per fish x the number of fish in each farm.  This was seen as critical by some staff because some farms had 600,000 fish and others might have one million. Ultimately it was the number of larval lice pouring out of each farm that decided the fate of young wild salmon.  The negotiation started at 1.5 million adult stage lice per farm, 2.5 million was considered the hard line, but even 3 million was rejected by industry as too strict.  As the BC Salmon Farmers Association put it over time this limit would result in smaller farms in contrast to the global trend for larger farms.  Meanwhile the First Nations of the Broughton Archipelago wrote to DFO and said Mowi and Cermaq had agreed to farm thresholds.

On December 4, 2019, the BC Salmon Farmers Association asked to review the proposed CoLs.  Version 10 of sea lice CoLs appears in the record at this time and contains the first mention of the 42-day window during which each farm could be infected with an unlimited number of sea lice with no consequences. This 42-day window would be allowed repeatedly for each growout. So, in reality the farms only had to briefly report low lice numbers and they would be released from any limit for another 6 weeks.  We know from Godwin et al 2020 that industry underreports it’s lice by up to 50%[1].  The industry also complained about the cost and effort of counting their lice in advance of the juvenile outmigration, which was required for proactive action to ensure the farms did not kill wild salmon, particularly at the beginning of the migration in March and April when the wild fish are smallest and most vulnerable.

On January 29, 2020, Allison Webb wrote to Rebecca Reid “we need direction on changes on sea lice where there are diametrically opposing views – industry on one side and FN/ENGO on other”.  Kerra Shaw writes “senior management did NOT support some of the things we told the group [FH TWG] we were recommending...”.

Senior management clearly sided with industry, removed the farm threshold, removed the mandatory fallow, and production cuts and allowed the industry to repeatedly exceed the current lice limits as many times as they wanted as young wild salmon coastwide tried to make it to sea past the farms. As a result, in the spring of 2020 half the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands exceeded the 2013 lice limit considered safe for wild salmon, 99% of young sockeye were infected at levels that DFO’s own science stated would have caused them acute and profound damage. It was the worst sea lice outbreak recorded since 2004 and Canada lost the majority of young Fraser sockeye, as well as, most of the pink and chum salmon that migrated through Okisollo Channel in the Discovery Islands that year. 

This record informs us that DFO field staff tried to honour the intent of Minister Jonathan Wilkinson to open the salmon farming Conditions of Licence two years early and insert strong protection measures, but their efforts were discarded in favour of industry-friendly Conditions that resulted in the loss of the generation of Fraser sockeye salmon that migrated to sea through the Discovery Islands in 2020. Ultimately this contributed to the industry’s loss of 19 farms in the Discovery Islands.

Industry complains that the public’s lack of trust in DFO is hurting them but in reality, it is the distrust of the salmon farming industry that is hurting the relationship between DFO and the people of Canada. (Pg 172)

Citations for the material presented above.

DFO staff knew sea lice in salmon farms were a serious problem

A May 2017 internal report muses “what’s the chance of litigation if DFO does not do something” about the rising lice problem.  (Pg 57)

June 2017, an internal DFO document titled Sea Lice Management Considerations to Guide Potential Changes – June 2017 states “serious fish health issues may occur when salmon are heavily infected by sea lice.”(Pg 148)  It says that transmission of lice from farms to young wild salmon has to be controlled and this will require a more effective response from DFO. 

DFO’s aversion to non-DFO science crops up in a comment to remove mention of Dr. Marty Krkosek’s work. (Pg 153)

In a 2019 meeting with environmental groups, DFO states the sea lice species Caligus has not been demonstrated to impact salmon, but two days later DFO Dr. Zac Waddington admits that he has seen Dr. Sean Godwin publications on Caligus impact on young Fraser sockeye and choses to ignore it. (Pg 181)

Bernie Taekema drafted enforcement options with escalating production reduction based on how many sea lice the farm was infected with, including ordering the farm to remain fallow through the next juvenile outmigration period. (Pg 631) In October 2019, the suggestion appeared that lice numbers should not be calculated per fish, but rather per farm.  The first limit proposed was 1 million motile lice per farm. (Pg 644)

On that same day Dr. Sonja Saksida writes – “... we need to figure out how to apply the consequence of non compliance. It’s pretty apparent the original way did not work... we have to put in some teeth ”  and suggests  that the licences be pulled from farms that do not comply with lice limits, and as well as the companies should be hit with a 20% decrease in future production in that farm.   Bernie Taekema responds, “The consequence section is getting tricky”. (Pg 400)

Dr. Simon Jones weighs in saying that they know that elevated lice numbers on salmon farms results in high infection of juvenile wild salmon, that there is no point in even counting lice on wild salmon anymore. (Pg 403)

Jan 6 table titled Results of Consultations... CoLs: states “No evidence that Caligus cause harm to wild fish.” “No correlation between wild and farmed sea lice levels has been found... (Pg 1265)

Derek Price points out that after a hydrogen peroxide delousing bath treatment, the attached stages of sea lice remain on the farm fish, keeping the infestation going and so multiple baths are required, but for a number of reasons farms can’t do this. (Pg 1197)

The Sea lice CSAS that never was

Adrienne Paylor, Regional Director of Aquaculture Environmental operations filed a request for a CSAS on sea lice to be used to update the Conditions of Licence (CoLs). She notes that the 2012 CSAS on sea lice was inadequate and that the new Sea lice CSAS would support the Pacific Aquaculture Regulations.  She highlights that as an “IMPORTANT” issue to the public. (Pg 360)

Sept 15, 2019, Adrienne Paylor repeats that she has been pushing for a science Risk Assessment on sea lice impact on sockeye, but “nothing has been done.” (Pg 409) 

On October 2, Kerra Shaw pushes for sea lice questions in time for the October sea lice CSAS submission deadline. (Pg 626) On October 3 she writes to Dr. Simon Jones asking for two hours of his time to hammer out the right questions for the CSAS.  Jones writes back, send me your questions and I will try to get back to you, Shaw responds that she wasn’t looking for his answers, she wanted to work with him to shape the questions. (Pg 653)

Jan 6 – In the Results of Consultations and Recommendations on Changes to Sea Lice COL: (Pg 1266)

• Industry response to having to count lice in every pen “some concerns with work load...” Re culling “No-DFO does not have the authority to require killing of fish REDACTED Causes economic loss and there are animal welfare considerations” 
• “The current CSAS request for more sea lice analysis which could result in requirement to test wild salmon in 2022 licence renewal”
• No Caligus regulation required “ Caligus come and go with herring and salinity ... No evidence that Caligus cause harm to wild fish
• Industry concerned that additional pre-migration monitoring might increase work load...
• No to removal of adult farm salmon from next migration window if sea lice threshold exceeds continuously for 90 days
• Re bioassays “vets sensitive to DFO interfering with the practice of medicine”

Fish Health meetings

October 17, 2019, Kerra Shaw writes that the Deputy Minister (Timothy Sargent) is “currently approving everything we share at the FH Technical Working Group...” (Pg 704)

Pg 1271 – “Things we heard from the FH TWG but will not be incorporated” in response to sea lice exceedances

• Ticketable offences
• Forced culling
• Reducing tonnage
• Managing Caligus
• Mandatory poor performer culling

Jan 7 Carmel Lowe writes to Kerra Shaw suggesting that the FH TWG not be informed that the above recommendations would not be applied (Pg 1279).

Jan 29 Allison Webb writes to Rebecca Reid “The timing was made more difficult by on-going discussion with the FH TWG that was required as input to the consultations which took place into mid-January... we need direction on changes on sea lice where there are diametrically opposing views – industry on one side and FN/ENGO on other”. (Pg 1811)

Simon Jones

On November 1, 2018, Drs Simon Jones, Kyle Garver and Amy Long of the DFO Pacific Biological Station had a scientific paper accepted by the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health paper stating that sea lice cause “profound physiological impact to Sockeye Salmon...”[2] the infected sockeye became lethargic, suffering significantly more than young Atlantic salmon.

Six months later on May 22, 2019, Simon Jones sent a presentation to Lesley MacDougall, Science Coordinator of Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Ottawa, titled “An Overview of Sea Lice Research in BC” (Pg 670). It presents an infographic suggesting Atlantic salmon are more susceptible to sea lice than all Pacific salmon.  However, while he states in the presentation that 75%  of 135g sockeye would survive infection with 50-60 lice, it remains silent on his published finding that 10 sea lice caused acute and profound stress in a 91g sockeye.

On September 28, 2020 DFO published a website on the impacts of salmon farms on Fraser sockeye stating that “Atlantic salmon are generally more susceptible to sea lice than Pacific salmon species,” when the paper co-published by Simon Jones in 2018 said pretty much the opposite: “Furthermore, Sockeye Salmon have been shown to be more susceptible than Atlantic Salmon to L. salmonis infections and the resultant physiological impacts.”[3]

Condition of Licence edits

October 15, “.. may not use mechanical and bath treatment options during out-migration window unless a majority of the sea lice can be captured and removed...” (Pg 702)

Nov 1, 2019, Daniel Tomlinson, fishery officer, says “The language is awkward... the licence states that you must NOT exceed under any circumstance but... only if you exceed really badly these will be a defined consequence and almost accepts the continuation of the offence. I would suggest that is sea lice is a biologically important issue, they should be below the threshold or the existence of the farm/licence be reviewed.” (the rest is redacted). (Pg 795)

Nov 14, Kerra Shaw points out that if only 1.5 million motile sea lice (Leps) were allowed in a farm, “I think we have to assume many more farms would be out of compliance...” (Pg 874)

 Nov 26, a presentation to the salmon farming industry gives a summary of lice exceedances 2011-2019 and the planned “updates” to Conditions of Licence; page 948 shows the upward lice trend across all farms and years.  It says all lice must be captured during well-boat and mechanical treatment, and it includes a farm lice threshold as well as an individual fish lice threshold (pg 951).

The salmon farmers pushed back on a proposed 60-day fallow period between growouts in a letter to Director General, Pacific Region, Rebecca Reid (pg 957).

December 4, 2020 the BCSFA writes to Adrienne Paylor to say that they met “to review the proposed changes to the marine finfish aquaculture licences...” but “is unable to approve any changes to the licences until draft language has been made available for consideration. (pg 1005).  This is odd language as it is hard to see how they met to review the changes without a some of the proposed changes to review.  Two pages later in the ATIP, Version 10 of sea lice CoLs appears and it contains the disastrous 42-day time period (Pg 1007).  

Page 1063 Kerra Shaw writes DFO National HQ is trying to get aquaculture an exemption from the US prohibition on killing marine mammals.

Dec 18 Howie Manchester, DFO Aquatic Science Biologist, DFO, says “If we wanted to error on the side of caution (not having farms exceed farm threshold before fish threshold) 2.5 million (lice) might be a compromise... but I don’t think we should budge beyond 2.5 million.” (Pg 1174)

Jan 6, 2020 “AMD proposes an initial implementation of a farm threshold of 3 million, which will not lead to many additional farm exceedances... while still limiting farm-generated plumes and allows for future adjustment in 2022 or beyond. Needs senior management decision.”(Pg 1265)

Jan 8 Draft Memorandum to Regional Director states First Nation advice consistently included moving the industry to land. Notes biggest industry pushback is the farm level threshold. The pros of adding the threshold include “better risk management, increased enforceability, and alignment with FN and ENG recommendations” “Cons include unhappy industry” and nothing else.  If threshold not included, “allows time for CSAS to occur which will focus on the link between sea lice and wild salmon” (Pg 1289)

BCSFA says farm threshold will result in smaller farms in contrast to global trend for larger farms.  (Pg 1352)

Jan 14 Broughton Nations write to Todd Johansson, Aquaculture Management that Mowi and Cermaq have agreed to farm – specific thresholds that reflect proximity to other farms, natal streams, health of Pacific salmon and will be annually adjusted (Pg 1379)

Draft memo to the Deputy Minister states Industry is strongly opposed to farm thresholds and FN and ENGOs are strongly supportive. (Pg 1429)

Jan 29 Krista Sandberg looks at 2019 data and says that a 3 million lice threshold is going to be pretty tough for industry to meet. (Pg 1805)

Feb 17 DFO told the BCSFA “which COL have been dropped from the licences... will probably relieve some of the stress.” (Pg 2061) one of the things dropped was the farm threshold

Feb 17 Memorandum to Rebecca Reid “ENGOs and FN are likely to react adversely to the proposed changes as not being precautionary enough to protect wild salmon.” (Pg 2104)

Broughton farms never exceeded 3 motile lice limit after the First Nation occupation (Pg 1121).

Conclusion

Industry says lack of trust in DFO is hurting them, the way I see it a lack of trust in the salmon farming industry is hurting DFO (Pg 172).

[1] https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/eap.2226

[2] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30566268/

[3] https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/cohen/recherche-aquaculture-research-eng.html

 

This is the outcome of the salmon farm Conditions of Licence issued March 1, 2020

 

 

[1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30566268/

[2] https://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/cohen/recherche-aquaculture-research-eng.html

Dear Minister Jordan Your Decision Will Face a Minefield

 

 

January 4, 2021

Dear Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan:

Thank you again for your decision to respect First Nations and remove salmon farms from the Discovery Islands over the next 18 months.  I can see from local and international media and social media that this decision is both widely applauded and fiercely attacked.  As much of this, good and bad, will be directed at you, it is important that you are warned about the defensive alliance of senior bureaucrats and scientists that surround the salmon farming industry within DFO.  Their allegiance to the industry is stronger than their allegiance to your office.  “Divided loyalties” Justice Bruce Cohen called it.  They are as much a risk to your government as they are to wild salmon.

Your instinct will be to disregard my warning, no minister wants to hear that they cannot trust their staff.  I understand.  Fortunately, you don’t have to believe me.  Canadians are extremely fortunate that a number of scientists, lawyers, environmentalists and First Nation members and chiefs are challenging the misinformation coming from DFO and the Provincial Ministry of Agriculture.   In some cases, they have risked their careers to do this.  They provide both evidence of the lies, but also the path to reinstating DFO as a leading agency capable of restoring the great fisheries of Canada.  Listening to them will benefit your government enormously.

I believe, previous Minister of Fisheries, Jonathan Wilkinson, began this process, but perhaps it was more than he dared see to completion.   Wilkinson made a point of talking to people who are on the frontlines of revealing the true impact of salmon farms and now your parliamentary secretary, Terry Beech, and MLA Fin Donnelly are picking up where he left off.  You are going to hear things that are simply unbelievable.  For example, the aquaculture loyalists within DFO will tell you that the virus PRV in most salmon farms is endemic and low risk, while other scientists, including some of your own, will tell you it arrived from the North Atlantic during the import of 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs and is causing heart damage in sockeye and massive cell rupture in Chinook salmon.  Your lawyers and industry lawyers have sat together in courtrooms fighting First Nation and my lawyers to allow this virus to spread uncontrolled through wild salmon.  This will be hard to accept.

You won’t hear anything from your aquaculture-allied staff about the bacteria Tenacibaculum, the cause of mouthrot, pouring out of salmon farms, over the gills of wild salmon, despite heavy antibiotic use, in the most critical wild salmon habitat.  This is unconscionable given what we know about the virulence that develops in feedlot pathogens and their risk to wildlife and human health.

I was selected to examine the impact of salmon farming on Fraser River sockeye by Justice Bruce Cohen and with my lawyers Greg McDade and Lisa Glowacki sifted through the .5 million DFO documents provided to the Cohen Inquiry.  This is where I picked up the thread of unethical abusive pressure applied to anyone in DFO who dares speak the truth about the impact of salmon farms.    This is the same scenario that led to the collapse of the North Atlantic cod.  DFO told DFO scientist Ransom Myers not tell the public that DFO’s fishing policy was driving one of the largest human food resources to extinction.  He told me DFO is a criminal organization.  Indeed, managing ocean fisheries to extinction should be viewed as a crime.

In 2019/20, your staff conducted “consultation” with several First Nations regarding new conditions of salmon farm licences.  These nations asked me to sit in and I heard your staff tell them that stickleback, not salmon farms, are likely causing sea lice outbreaks on young wild salmon and that wild salmon are resistant to lice infection.  I sat at your Fish Health Table over the winter of 2019/2020 to discuss what regulations would best protect wild salmon from farm lice.  And I read your September 28, 2020 announcement that salmon farms are low risk to sockeye salmon in the Discovery Islands, as per Cohen recommendation #19.   On that website someone in DFO wrote that Atlantic salmon are more susceptible to sea lice than most Pacific salmon.  And yet, scientists within your department knew that sockeye are more susceptible to sea lice than Atlantic salmon.  One of the scientists involved in this work sat at the Fish Health table and never mentioned this.  Your representatives consulting with First Nations in 2019, never mentioned this work.  It was not until the Discovery Island consultations that one of your veterinarians slipped this paper into the flood of documents provided to the nations and that is where I found it.  However, it was not included in the sea lice presentation by your staff to the First Nation leadership.

This DFO sea lice paper acknowledges the contributions of Marine Harvest (MOWI) and Greig Seafood.  This suggests that these companies, also at the Minister’s Fish Health table, knew the impact their rising lice infections were having on the collapsing Fraser River sockeye salmon populations and they said nothing.

After all these meetings, on March 1, 2020, your staff gave Mowi, Grieg and Cermaq permission for unlimited lice infections for 6 weeks every time they exceeded the limits set to protect wild salmon.  As a result, these three companies were immune to charges last spring while Canadians lost a significant portion of the Fraser sockeye, Nootka chum and many other runs of wild salmon.

The problem you and your staff are facing is that the DFO policy to promote salmon farms is completely at odds with responsible wild fisheries management. They cannot control their lice, bacteria or viruses in open net pens.  I believe this is why those who wrote the Constitution of Canada frowned on private fisheries - which salmon farms are.  You can see the outcome of government protection of this private fishery in Norway where they sacrificed their wild salmon for salmon farms.  Members of the Norwegian government came to Canada twice to warn us about this industry, Jon Lilletun, Parliamentary Committee on the Environment in 1991, and Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, former attorney general of Norway in 2010.   

DFO has become a division of the aquaculture industry, sharing staff, principles and the suppression of damaging information.  As Justice Cohen recommended, I believe you will have to create a Regional Director of Wild Salmon to uphold management of wild fisheries.  Whoever inhabits this position will have to understand the powerful science in your genomic lab - the key to restoring wild salmon-, be closely connected with First Nation leadership so as to work seamlessly with their fishery departments and have an awareness of the minefield that your department has become for anyone trying to maintain wild salmon.

I would like to offer a pathway through the scandal bubbling to the surface as we lose one of the most important global fish stocks.

Take the genomic science your department is developing to First Nations.  Initiate highly coordinated sampling and enumeration of wild salmon as they migrate, and collection of environmental data on each habitat they pass through.  Run these samples through your genomic lab run by Dr. Kristi Miller and make the fish and environment data generated open access, inviting the highly skilled fishery modellers in Canadian universities to find the pulse. Why have Canada’s wild salmon runs become unpredictable.  Once we learn what the extinction drivers are, First Nations and municipal governments can work in concert with DFO to alleviate what stressors can be removed.  The extraordinary power of this science allows us to ask the fish whether each intervention reduced the stress or not by reading their immune systems.  In this way, the fish themselves become the ultimate authority.  Making the data open access will guard against biased interpretation, i.e. the transparency your department already strives for. 

However, none of this will work if you allow the culture of suppression to continue in DFO.   I believe your BC Regional Director of Science, and your Science coordinator must be replaced.  It is unforgiveable that in the face of extinction of the Fraser sockeye salmon that they did not bring forward the research warning us that the rising lice infections in the farms would have catastrophic impact on the sockeye. 

As well, your aquaculture managers spread across BC, Ottawa and eastern Canada, should have zero influence on publication of research, research funding and access to facilities, such as the high-biosecurity tanks required to fully understand the impact of amplified aquaculture pathogens on wild salmon.  I have read 10,000s of pages of internal DFO correspondence through the Freedom of Information Act and so I know what is going on.  For example, in 2018 your Director of Science lost all the money to enumerate wild salmon and was never able to account for where it went.  Thankfully your Regional Director stepped in at the last moment and found funds.   

For example, research defining PRV as a disease agent and thus captured under s. 56 of the Fisheries (General) Regulations, sat on a desk in Ottawa for 7 years as the virus spread from salmon farms into wild salmon. 

For example, your CSAS process edited out information that would have altered your September 28, 2020 announcement and classified salmon farms as high-risk to wild salmon.

Aquaculture has an important role, but DFO has destroyed its future in BC.  If there had been strong regulation to protect wild fish, we would be the leaders in closed containment.  Instead, the Canadians pioneering landbased fish farming have suffered under the shadow of three Norwegian operators.  These foreign companies are facing charges in several countries across two continents for acting as a “cartel.” Mowi is facing loss of farms in Scotland due to environmental damages, charges by Chilean authorities for over production, as well as a $6 million fine for escapes and the highest cost for sea lice treatments in Norway in its history.   This is an industry in chaos as it resists maturing into closed systems.  Both the US Hedge Fund and Oslo stock analysists recommend purchase of landbased salmon farmer stocks.  While here in BC the three Norwegian companies insist that they can’t evolve, they are determined to use the cheapest, dirtiest form of growing fish.  BC is now producing the lowest grade salmon – neither wild, nor landbased.

I think the Canadian Pension Fund should rethink its heavy investment (5^th biggest investor) in Mowi as this company is showing no capacity to keep up with the trend to isolate salmon farms from the wild fisheries it is damaging.

Minister Bernadette Jordan you have taken a brave step that no other Minister of Fisheries anywhere in the world has dared take.  I see that you are also making strides to recover the North Atlantic cod.  I certainly did not expect this when Trudeau appointed you as our Fisheries Minister.  I thought you were too far removed from BC to understand the terrible situation here.  I was wrong.  You will face the wrath of the salmon farming industry, and you deserve all the support we can provide.  We have everything we need to restore wild salmon and likely all the herring impacted by this industry and develop a highly successful landbased aquaculture industry.  All we have ever needed is the political will.

Respectfully,

Alexandra Morton

Options to Remove Impact of Farm Lice

The operation of eighteen salmon farm sites in the Discovery Islands region is under review through DFO consultation with 7 Nations that have overlapping territories in the Discovery Islands; Kwiakah, We Wai Kai, We Wai Kum (Laich-kwil-tach Nations) and Komox, Homalco, Klahoose, and Tla’amin.  All the federal licences of these farms which are owned by Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg expire on December 18, 2020.  DFO has to consult with the nations whose territories are being used by these companies.

The following farms are under review.  Farms in grey are sites that have been inactive for ~ 5 years or longer.  Each farm holds 600,000 – 1,000,000 Atlantic salmon, except for Yellow Island and Doctor Bay, size unknown, species Chinook and possibly Coho.

121059  Phillips Arm, Mowi
121058  Brent Island, Okisollo Channel, Cermaq
121057  Raza Island, Raza Passage, Cermaq      

121056  Dunsterville Bay, Hoskyn Channel       
121055  Sonora Island, Okisollo Channel, Mowi
121054  Bickley Bay, East Thurlow Island       
121053  Thurlow Point South, Nodales Channel   
121052  Brougham Point, East Thurlow Island    
121051  Read Island, Bear Bay  
121050  Cyrus Rocks, Okisollo Channel  
121049  Young Passage, Sonora Island   
121047  Doctor Bay, West Redonda Island, 622335 British Columbia Ltd.
121046  Yellow Island, Discovery Passage, Yellow Island Aquaculture (1994) Ltd.
121045  Barnes Bay, Sonora Island, Grieg      
121044  Sonora Pt., Nodales Channel, Mowi     
121043  Venture Point, Sonora Island, Cermaq   
121042  Chancellor Channel, West Thurlow Island, Mowi
121041  Lees Bay, N. Shore, West Thurlow Island, Mowi

The area under consultation is roughly DFO Management Area 13, however, three salmon farms on Johnstone Strait, yellow dots (Map 1), were omitted from the consultation because DFO appears to be using its Fish Health Surveillance zone- 3-2.

Farm names, including 2 farms that appear to have had their licences cancelled, Farside and Egerton Creek, because they are not included in the consultations.

In terms of impact on migrating wild salmon, there is no biological reason to omit Shaw, Althorpe and Hardwicke. The majority of the farms in the Discovery Islands are owned by Mowi, Norwegian-based, largest salmon farming company in the world.  Next is Cermaq, Norwegian – based company owned by Mitsubishi. One site is owned by Grieg Seafood, a Norwegian family engaged primarily in shipping.  As well, there are two single farm companies that raise Pacific salmon presenting a different set of risks, i.e. switching to Pacific salmon is not a solution as genetic pollution becomes a serious problem, as Norway knows.

The 18 farms included in the consultation include 7 farms that have been inactive for ~ 5 years or more (black), 8 active farms (red).  The 2 most southern farms are smaller farms. The primary impact on Fraser salmon is the 6 active Atlantic salmon farms.

Most of the sites are currently reporting over the 3 motile lice limit that was set by the Province of BC 15 years ago, as safe for wild salmon.  This limit is only in effect March – June, which DFO considers the juvenile wild salmon outmigration time period, although in reality, the migration period is much longer, extending into September in some regions and some Coho and Chinook remain in coastal waters over the winter.  Fraser sockeye appear to migrate the fastest and pass through the Discovery Islands from late May – June.  However, high lice numbers now mean that the industry has a lot of work to do coast wide to get their lice under control before March.  The federal government removed the incentive for the industry to reduce its impact on wild salmon by granting them unlimited lice numbers for 42 days every spring as the last of BC's young wild salmon struggle to get to sea through fish farm clusters throughout southern BC.

Broughton Archipelago

Of note, in the Broughton Archipelago, where First Nations have taken over the authority of removing and managing salmon farms from DFO, none of the farms have been over the 3 motile lice limit for this entire year.  Broughton Nations have taken a much stricter approach to sea lice than DFO in hopes of protecting their highly damaged wild salmon returns during the last few years that they are allowing these farms to operate in their territories.  While DFO is allowing the salmon farming industry to have an unlimited number of lice for 6 weeks during the juvenile salmon outmigrations in other territories, Broughton Nations do not allow this and industry has complied.  It is likely that the salmon farming industry  does not have enough boats to delouse all their farms and perhaps the industry is prioritizing stricter delousing in regions where they are concerned that First Nations will order their removal.  60% of juvenile salmon leaving Broughton Rivers were completely uninfected with sea lice, whereas 99% of juvenile sockeye that swam through the DI last spring were infected at levels we know will reduce their survival.

Options to protect the 2021 juvenile salmon out-migration from farm lice

The area of greatest impact on the 2021 juvenile salmon is Okisollo Channel.  This is because it is a small area that young Pacific salmon aggregate in and three different companies operate 4 farms there.  The smaller the area, the less dilution of the waste that is coming out of these farms and so the bigger the dose of bacteria, viruses and sea lice.  Salmon farms are super-shedders and their impact is greatest in confined waters like the narrow, short Okisollo Channel.  It is the difference between standing a football field away from a COVID positive person and sitting in a small room with the same infected person.

When my team and I sample for sea lice research, we always find a lot of young wild fish in Okisollo.  It is part of their natural migration route and there is nothing we can do to keep them out of there.  While all the Discovery Island farms are exposing young wild salmon to unnatural pathogen loads, Okisollo is the worst due to the number of farms, how confined an area it is and how many young wild salmon congregate there.  We can't move the wild salmon, but we can move the salmon farms to stop the dangerous spread of industrial infections into wild populations.

Young sockeye migrating past salmon farm in Okisollo Channel, pass through the industrial biological waste from this operation.

Protective measures

1. Removing the 5 farms that have been inactive for years will sound good, but will do nothing to protect wild salmon.
2. Best option – remove all salmon farms from the Discovery Islands by March 1, 2021. This would give the extremely weak Fraser sockeye salmon the best chance of getting to sea
   
3. Second best remove all farms from Okisollo Channel by March 1, 2020 and apply the measures below to all remaining sites:

• • Remove the 42-day unlimited lice condition of Licence 7(c) granted on March 1, 2020 in the DFO Conditions of Licence March 1 Aquaculture This condition is a strong signal of "regulatory capture" meaning that while this keeps the salmon farming industry "in compliance" with their conditions of licence, it kills wild salmon.  This is DFO at its worst.
    

• • Require weekly sea lice counts that include all lice life stages, not just “motile” (adult) stages so that we can see lice numbers building before they reach adult stages and begin reproducing and killing young salmon, and if the juvenile stage lice start escalating out of control - cull, not harvest the farm before the lice reach adult stages and start releasing larval lice into BC's biggest wild salmon migration route.
    

• • DFO and First Nation joint oversight of industry lice counts, because recent published scientific paper reports that if we let industry count sea lice on their own, they under count the lice by up to 50%, which delays treatment and kills wild salmon.
    

• • Agree on a lice limit that considers not only how many lice per farm salmon, but also how many farms are in the entire area. The more farm salmon, the lower the lice limit per fish.  So if there is 1 farm in a region or 4 farms in a region the total lice in the water has to be the same, i.e. if there are 4 farms there needs to 1/4 the allowable lice on each farm, than if there was only 1 farm in the region.
    

• • As soon as any farm goes over the limit, the entire farm must be culled (not harvested as that takes weeks)

• • Prohibit wellboat delousing from releasing any effluent into the Discovery Islands during the spring out-migration.  This is going to require third party monitoring as industry is saying different things about these boats 1.) that they cannot catch all their lice (Nov 1, 2019, DFO Fish Health Meeting) 2.) that they do catch all the lice coming off farm salmon during treatments (various presentations to First nations).  So we won't know which is the truth unless we look for ourselves.
    • Research earlier this year off Port hardy found an average of 42 newly hatched sea lice on young sockeye salmon near the Mowi delousing vessel Aqua Tromoy during sea lice treatments. As this is 4 times higher than ever seen before in 20 years of sea lice research in BC, precautionary measures have to include restricting operation of these well boats.

I have the greatest respect for the seven First Nations who are in consultation with DFO over the future of wild salmon on the coast of BC.

Sea Lice: On Record, On Notice

The salmon farm licences in the Discovery Islands are going expire on December 18.  DFO is consulting with seven First Nations; 4 Coast Salish and 3 Laich-kwil-tach prior to renewal.  The salmon farming industry is losing control of their sea lice.  DFO is trying to cover for them, but it is starting to get obvious.  Fraser sockeye runs migrating to sea through these territories are infected and collapsing.  Next spring, the weakest generation of Fraser sockeye in the history of Canada will try to swim through the Discovery Islands.  If they are hit with the same lice levels as the 2020 outmigration, we shouldn't count on seeing them return in 2023. 

As the lice on the farms became resistant to the delousing drugs, the sea lice researchers on this coast noticed and we fanned out over the coast recording the devastation when wild salmon collide with farm lice outbreaks.

In response, on March 1, 2020 DFO issued new salmon farming Conditions of Licence March 1 Aquaculture that gave the industry permission to have unlimited lice levels for 6 weeks during the juvenile salmon out-migration.  This would keep the industry "in compliance" even as their lice soared past levels dangerous to wild salmon.

But the impact on young wild salmon was catastrophic. 

Whether it is chum salmon in Nootka and Clayoquot, sockeye in the Discovery Islands, or all five species in the Phillips River, the runs of salmon infected with farm lice are sliding into extinction.  DFO has blocked every effort to stop farm lice from eating wild salmon to death. They are waging a campaign of doubt that serves to protect three Norwegian companies; Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg, companies that refuse to follow the global trend and get themselves into tanks so that we could have both aquaculture and wild salmon.  They complain that it is too expensive for them and their shareholders, and yet Intrafish, the leading source of news on global aquaculture, reports near daily on construction of landbased salmon farms worldwide.  Norway, is a leader in closed containment farming even though they sacrificed their wild salmon to this industry.  The Norwegian government is  pushing the industry into tank to save it from itself.  The sea lice that are so dangerous to wild salmon in BC, have gotten to the point in Norway that they are eating the farm salmon to death.

This blog - Sea lice - On Notice, On Record - is going to chronicle what everyone does next.  The salmon farmers belong to the Steelworkers Union a powerful lobby with no interest in wild salmon.  Commercial fishermen have lost their industry and have largely given up. Their Fisherman's Union, once the most powerful voice to protect wild salmon from salmon farms has gone entirely mute.  First Nations of the Fraser River have lost their most important food source, and have never been consulted despite their clear rights to the salmon of the Fraser River.  The nations of the Discovery Islands are being wooed by industry and misled by government.  Environmental organizations are engaging in every possible way, but DFO has them on repeat attending endless meetings.  Federal Liberal Members of Parliament know that getting re-elected is going to be harder if the Fraser sockeye go extinct on their watch.  While DFO field staff have been raising alarm farm lice are out of control, senior DFO managers ignore them because they are the salmon farming industry.  Bureaucrats working at DFO slide over to industry, and visa versa.  They are not going to raise a hand to save wild salmon. The Minister of Fisheries sits silent a continent away as one of the most important Canadian fisheries is extinquished.

DFO has decided that Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg will be protected at all costs and that is what they are doing. DFO is sacrificing the wild salmon of southern BC to these three Norwegian companies.

And yet in this massive betrayal of the fish that built the very soil of this province a group of Vancouver Island First Nations - rose to stand up for wild salmon salmon.  They occupied Mowi and Cermaq salmon farms for 280 days.

And then they entered a year of talks with the Province of BC over cancelling the tenures. The nations set aside territorial disputes, formed a united voice including their members, elected and hereditary leaders.  The talks missed deadline after deadline as the nations held firm - the farms were leaving -

and they finally emerged with an agreement signed by Mowi, Cermaq, the province of BC and the federal government to remove several salmon farms every year.  Their wild salmon are almost gone, but the little ones that went to sea last year were the healthiest on the entire southcoast.

Today, the nations of the Fraser River are rising in defense of wild salmon.  It remains to be seen how determined they are. Their fight will be tougher as Mowi and Cermaq lost a lot of farms in the Broughton and cannot afford to lose anymore.  Grieg was protected in southern reaches of the Broughton Archipelago by the Tlwoitsis Nation, so this company is getting it's first taste of the power of indigenous leadership taking a stand for wild salmon.  I don't know why this industry wants to go down fighting to preserve the cheapest, dirtiest form of farming salmon.  I don't think the people of Norway, realize what these companies are doing to this coast.  I don't know why these companies don't take the high road, look for long term solutions, embrace landbased technology and stop rolling around in the mud.  However, maybe it's better this way - open the door to Canadian's who want to get into clean aquaculture.

Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Fisheries Terry Beech stepped onto this battlefield on Nov 12 with an announcement that he has been assigned the task of transition the salmon farming industry into something we can live with here in BC.  Brave man!  His announcement was vague and basically said everything, but until he proves otherwise I am going to support his efforts.  However, I believe this is a conversation that has to be public.  I know how incredibly hard it is to save anything on earth, I know how aggressive these companies and the Steelworker's Union are.  I know how close we are to losing wild salmon.  And I know a little about the First Nation leadership that has stepped forward in defence of wild salmon.  The fight for the wild salmon that swim through the Discovery Islands where 18 salmon farm tenures threaten life on this coasts is going to be nothing short of epic.

Background

The Discovery Islands is an archipelago off Campbell River where 1/3 of all BC wild salmon have to migrate past 18 salmon farms to reach the Pacific Ocean.   The Cohen inquiry into the collapse of Fraser sockeye recommended that all these farms should be closed by September 30, 2020, unless the Fisheries Minister (Bernadette Jordan in Nova Scotia) was satisfied that the farms are not harming the Fraser sockeye.  The Minister refused consider all the science done by non-government researchers showing that sea lice from salmon farms are harming BC wild salmon and and decided the salmon farms could stay.

Salmon farms in BC are largely owned by just three Norwegian companies – Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg. Additionally, Creative Salmon operates off Ucluelet.  For the past five years, we have seen these companies lose control of their lice, starting in Klemtu and working its way down the west coast of Vancouver Island as the farm lice evolve resistance to the delousing drug, Slice. Horrendous images of sea lice eating young salmon to death near Cermaq farms in Clayoquot Sound hit the media every spring. Meanwhile DFO field staff were fighting to get Grieg Sea Food in Nootka Sound to empty farms where lice populations were exploding over young salmon.  Senior management refused to listen.

In 2019, then Minister of Fisheries Jonathan Wilkinson met with many of us and realizing something had to be done about the lice, struck several committees, one of them, the Fish Health Committee, was tasked to recommend improvements to the federal sea lice Conditions of Licence to reduce the impact on wild salmon.  I was a member of this committee. It held the potential to improve survival of wild salmon while building a path for a sustainable salmon farming industry.  However, shortly after our meetings began, Trudeau called an election, we lost Wilkinson and got Bernadette Jordan, and in the absence of leadership senior DFO staff steered the process away from protecting wild salmon.  The David Suzuki Foundation and the Pacific Salmon Foundation joined me in trying to get the committee to acknowledge the collapse of the Fraser sockeye. When we set up a gathering of veterinarians to report on the risk from one of the farm viruses, deputy minister Timothy Sargueant weighed. Under no circumstances would we be allowed to hear directly from them directly.  Instead we were handed a DFO - approved synopsis. When Minister Jordan finally did weigh in, it was to say that she would rely on the final recommendations mangled to avoid any science that suggested salmon farms were killing wild salmon.

Last winter DFO also “consulted” with First Nations about changes to sea lice conditions of licence.  Several nations asked me to sit in on these meetings. DFO mislead them suggesting that a tiny fish, the stickleback, was causing the sea lice outbreaks, a theory was shown to be biologically impossible in 2007.  Sea lice cannot survive on stickleback.

When I first discovered the sea lice outbreaks in 2001, the Scottish scientists that I reached out to wrote back – Can’t you guys in Canada read - it was that obvious the sea lice problem would follow salmon farms from the Atlantic Ocean.  DFO asked me for samples of the young infected salmon and then sent an officer to my door to charge me with poaching – that was DFO’s initial response.

On March 1, 2020, ignoring the recommendations by my colleagues and I at the Fish Health Committee, DFO permitted unlimited  lice for 6 weeks March - June when young wild salmon were trying to migrate to sea past the farms. While Rebecca Reid, Director General DFO Pacific Region wrote to tell me 6 weeks was too short a time period to cause harm. 

I looked directly at the fish that swam to sea in 2020 through DFO’s unlimited lice plan.  50% of the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands off Campbell River reported high lice numbers.  Predictably, 99% of young sockeye were infected with enough lice to reduce their survival.  In Nuu-chah-nuth territory in Nootka Sound 99% of young Chinook and chum were heavily infected.   In Kwagiulth territory off Port Hardy 100% of young salmon had an average of 32 sea lice eating through their skin and it was worse for young sockeye infected with an average of 42 lice per   This is far more lice than ever documented on young salmon in BC in 20 years of sea lice research. 

DFO did no research and decided nothing will change next year.

Where we are now

Because  DFO has to consult with First Nations before reissuing the farm licences and they are waging a campaign of doubt to protect the three Norwegian companies from the mounting evidence that sea lice are driving wild salmon towards extinction.

The three Norwegian companies are wooing First Nations in the Discovery Islands and elsewhere because the nations are increasingly opposing the farms.  The companies are scared of what happened in the Broughton where First Nations won the authority to close a few farms every year.  The companies even handed out free sockeye from Alaska to some nations, nations that were once proud fishermen.  Meanwhile, the Fraser River Nations who depend on Fraser sockeye have never been consulted.  The commercial fishing fleet that made tens of millions off these fish are nowhere in sight in this battle.

While the Fraser sockeye are returning at 1% of forecasted numbers, the sockeye returning to Vancouver Island through Alberni Inlet where salmon farms were removed came back this year at 40% higher than forecast. This tells us the ocean can still make salmon.

Sea lice from salmon farms is the greatest known impact of salmon farms on wild salmon worldwide and yet Minister Bernadette Jordan refused to even look at it in her response to the Cohen Commission.  Despite all the evidence she just skipped over it, while her senior staff are telling us the problem is not the farm salmon, it's the tiny stickleback.  Shoddy!

On March 1, 2020 DFO issued licences to all salmon farms allowing unlimited sea lice in the farms while the Fraser sockeye are passing by.

I am in a unique position. I have published many papers on the impact of sea lice on young BC wild salmon. I have stood on the front lines with many nations. I am one of the few people actually looking at young wild salmon exposed to salmon farms year after year for 20 years.

No Farms No Lice April 2, 2020 from Alexandra Morton on Vimeo.

I am an advisor, official and unofficial, to many First Nations worried about the loss of salmon.  I sat at the Minister of Fisheries Fish Health table all last winter discussing how to stop the damage by farm lice with DFO industry and science colleagues.  I have taken DFO and the salmon farming industry to court many times and never lost.  And I am reading internal DFO emails acquired through the Freedom of Information Act and so I know that DFO field staff and scientists are as concerned as I am, but DFO senior staff refuse to listen them. Fish farmers reach out to me all the time to express regret and concern.

It is from this extensive experience that I can say that DFO currently intends to allow all the young wild salmon that migrate to sea from southern BC to be lethally infected with farm lice, because that is the only option the salmon farmers can live with.  We will see what role Terry Beech can play in changing this.

DFO is hiding the truth about salmon farm impact on wild salmon in their consultations with First Nations.  The salmon farmers are desperate because they lost 17 farms to First Nations in the Broughton Archipelago and if they lose the 18 farms in the Discovery Islands, it is probably game over for them in British Columbia. 

DFO is not being truthful and neither is the salmon farming industry.  Canada is going to be left with the lowest grade salmon in the world – neither wild, nor acceptable to the sustainable seafood market, because marine net pens salmon farms have a dirty reputation worldwide.

Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg, can’t survive stronger lice regulations and the Fraser River sockeye won't survive without stronger regs.  So it is simply a matter of which side is stronger.  DFO, the Steelworker's Union and some nations have sided with the 3 Norwegians. Other nations, independent scientists, environmental organizations and some businessmen are standing on the side of wild salmon.  Many sectors are sitting quietly on the side lines even though they will be hugely affected. 

In 2019, the sockeye runs returning to the Fraser River collapsed by up to 99%.  This had nothing to do with the landslide at Big Bar as these numbers reflect the number of sockeye salmon in the lower Fraser, long before the fish were blocked from reaching the upper river.  Their offspring are going to sea next spring and if we kill them with farm lice, we can't expect them to return in 2023.

Imagine the loss of wild salmon.  A huge win for the salmon farming industry which currently owns the BC salmon market...

More to come...

 

Is Minister Jordan going to drive Fraser Sockeye to Extinction from Alexandra Morton on Vimeo.

 

Failure to Inform

 

 

Below is a letter I sent to some Members of Parliament on Sept 18th. It details the latest DFO impropriety in the regulation of salmon farms. 

A DFO scientist failed to bring critical information to a committee struck to advise the minister of fisheries.  The fish virus PRV is not a local virus, it is from the Atlantic.

It matters when a virus hits a population with no immunity.  We are living this. 

 

 

 

The 2020 farm lice infection infestation on young wild salmon was the highest ever seen.  And last week, we learned the industry under reports its lice, which delays treatment - escalating infection of young wild salmon.  

 

 

Justice Bruce Cohen said - if we want Fraser salmon, the minister of fisheries, currently Bernadette Jordan has to decide whether salmon farms in the Discovery Islands are less than minimal risk to wild salmon (Cohen #19).  She has to make this decision on September 30, and she has to post her the reasons where the public can see it.  Cohen did what he could to safeguard this decision.

There are no Canadian owned salmon farming companies in BC.  The Canadian Pension Plan is the 5th biggest share holder in Mowi, with over 10 million shares.  The companies using BC are being investigated for acting like a cartel.

 

Dear BC Members of Parliament:
 

Leading up to the fisheries minister’s decision whether or not to enact Cohen Commission recommendation #19 to restore the Fraser River sockeye I am providing the following information.

September 30, 2019 DFO senior scientist, Dr. Stewart Johnson was present at the Minister of Fisheries' Fish Health Technical Working Group meeting: 

“The group disagreed on numerous points raised previously including whether PRV 1a (BC strain) is endemic, … The conversation was challenging with both sides demonstrating little willingness to move.” (meeting notes distributed by email from DFO to participants). 

April 2020, Stewart Johnson and Diane Morrison, managing director for MOWI Canada West and executive of BC Salmon Farmers Association, submitted a paper to Virus Evolution reporting that the PRV found in BC is from the Atlantic.  

 

May 2020, the DFO/CFIA chairs of the Fish Health committee, including DFO’s Regional Director of Science,  wrote in their Final Report Marine Finfish and Land-based Fish Health Technical Working Group:

“There were divergent views among FHTWG members on reported distinctions between endemic vs exotic variants of PRV, ...The FHTWG did not agree on what constitutes a “foreign strain” of PRV;  
 
At no point did Dr. Johnson inform the committee that DFO and MOWI have joined the scientific consensus that the PRV found in BC is from the Atlantic.  The advice from this committee to the minister of fisheries must now be viewed as inaccurate.

With this letter you are informed that the CSAS advice on PRV is therefore also critically inaccurate.

 

A DFO scientist working closely with industry failed to bring forward critical information that a highly contagious virus associated with organ failure in Chinook and heart lesions in Fraser River sockeye has been introduced to BC from the Atlantic.  Clearly, the 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs imported by this industry are a suspect source. 

 

Please be aware as you try to sort out the significance of this, that non-government, non-industry research teams are analyzing the same data to arrive at a more precise time of arrival of PRV into BC.

 

These events are in addition to the 2020 farm sea lice outbreak that infected 99% of sockeye migrating through the Discovery Islands with lice loads known to reduce Fraser sockeye survival. This was concurrent with reporting by 50% of the salmon farms in the Discovery Islands that they exceeded government-set lice levels considered safe for young Pacific salmon.  

 

March 1, 2020, DFO issued Conditions of Licence that offered protection to MOWI, Cermaq and Grieg Seafood from prosecution for exceeding government sea lice limits.

 

I am available for further information.  

 

Alexandra Morton

Independent Biologist



Further statements on PRV DFO/Industry

June 2019, DFO advice on PRV stated that the virus found in BC is distinct from PRV found in the Atlantic:

“Of importance with regard to PRV in British Columbia is that there appears to be relatively high genome homology between PRV-1 isolates within the Eastern Pacific and that these isolates are notably distinct from isolates sequenced from PRV-1 in the Atlantic.” (CSAS 2019/035, pg 3)

June 2019 “It’s our understanding that the native strain of PRV is in the water naturally, and that is it benign.” Shawn Hall  https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/salmon-virus-testing-part-of-new-precautionary-approach-fisheries-minister-says

October 2019, Michelle Rainer, DFO Communications is quoted: “It’s our understanding that the native strain of PRV is in the water naturally, and that is it benign.” ( https://seawestnews.com/fish-farms-do-not-need-to-test-for-b-c-strain-of-virus)

 

Letter of Resignation to DFO Fish Health Committee

 

 

 

March 11, 2020

Dear Carmel Lowe;

I am writing to resign from the Fish Health Committee which you are co-facilitating - effective immediately.

I am resigning to ensure that my name does not endorse two of the outcomes of this committee; the revisions to the salmon farm Sea Lice Conditions of Licence, and the Veterinary Workshop’s report on salmon diseases related to the virus, PRV. 

First, DFO’s revised Conditions of Licence now grant salmon farming companies 42 days to bring their sea lice infections under control during the highly sensitive juvenile salmon outmigration period.  While this new grace-period benefits an industry increasingly challenged to control their lice, I have too much first-hand experience with these outbreaks to support this unprecedented leniency built into the salmon farming Licences. This puts wild salmon at significant and unacceptable risk. 

Secondly, the closed-door Veterinary Workshop, organized by our committee, that DFO prohibited First Nation and most non-government/industry members of the committee from observing, recommends that the diseases related to the virus PRV remain undiagnosed until they reach a population level (epidemic) within the farms.  This means containment of the virus through early detection will not occur and wild salmon will be exposed to uncontrolled release of high virus levels.  

I donated time and travel expense to this committee at the request of our previous Minister of Fisheries, Jonathan Wilkinson, because it was a new, open, science-based direction that stood to benefit the aquaculture industry, wild salmon and DFO itself.  However, the department has since lost its sense of direction again.

DFO is presiding over the lowest wild salmon runs in the history of this country with no leadership to pick up the extraordinary scientific tools that have been developed in DFO to reverse to these extinction trends.

Fortunately for British Columbians, First Nations are stepping into the role DFO has abdicated, to protect wild fish, and I can only hope that as DFO retreats from its responsibilities, that it will not thwart the First Nation initiatives to salvage what is left of wild fish abundance.

I resign with great regret that the opportunity to protect wild salmon and restore DFO’s integrity has been lost.  It is unforgivable at this moment in history for DFO to pretend they don’t understand the risk of allowing a highly contagious virus to spread through Canada’s wild salmon.

Alexandra Morton,

Independent Biologist

 

The virus PRV brings out the worst in DFO

Today DFO is holding its’ 4th closed-door review on whether the virus PRV is causing disease in BC. They have barred access to several members of the DFO Fish Health Committee, who organized this workshop.

At issue is deep disagreement within DFO - is PRV killing wild salmon or not?

Some DFO scientists report PRV causes massive cell rupture and heart lesions in Pacific salmon, other DFO scientists report the virus is low risk to wild salmon. PRV is highly contagious and most farm salmon are infected. Industry told the federal court of Canada that they would be “severely impacted” if prohibited from transferring young PRV-infected Atlantic into their farms.

Given that the 2019 BC wild salmon returns were the lowest in the history of Canada and that infected salmon farms are sited throughout wild salmon migration routes, the impact of this virus may be critical to whether wild salmon ever rebound on this coast.

I sit on the DFO Fish Health Committee and when the representative from MOWI told the committee that there is no evidence that PRV causes disease in BC, I objected, given the scientific evidence.

• Massive red blood cell rupture in Chinook salmon – Di Cicco et al 2018
• Moderate heart damage to Fraser River sockeye salmon – Garver et al 2016
• Juvenile Chinook exposed to salmon farms are becoming infected and exhibiting signs of disease – Wang et al in preparation

I recommended that the committee hear from veterinarians researching this virus with opposing views. A workshop was arranged. However, the deputy Minister of DFO, Timothy Sargent declared that the First Nation delegates, non –government biologist with the David Suzuki Foundation and myself (author of 4 scientific papers on PRV), were barred from attending, even though we sit on the committee that organized this meeting

This is the 4th review of PRV conducted behind closed doors, and the previous three reviews serve as a warning.

• An internal DFO science review process -CSAS review – removed comment by a DFO scientist reporting clinical signs of disease in PRV-positive farm salmon in the Cermaq, Venture Point in the Discovery Islands. As a result, the conclusion was that this virus is low risk to wild salmon
• A 2nd CSAS review stated there was consensus that PRV is low risk to Fraser sockeye, however John Werring, senior biologist with the David Suzuki Foundation, went public that there was no such consensus .
• The Federal Court of Canada instructed DFO had to consult with ‘Namgis First Nation on the evidence that PRV is harming wild salmon. While ‘Namgis brought experts from across Canada reporting how the virus harms Pacific salmon, DFO refused to bring any. Outcome - DFO re-affirmed they would allow PRV-infected farm salmon to continue going into salmon farms in BC.

The facilitator chosen for this current DFO workshop on PRV is Dr. Ian Gardner who is not neutral on this issue, having publicly discredited the research reporting impact.

DFO has put their integrity at risk, as well as, the survival of wild salmon.  This also damages public opinion of the salmon farming industry. I suspect DFO’s behaviour is aimed at preventing First Nations from witnessing the strength of the evidence that millions of PRV-infected farm salmon are a critical risk to wild salmon. Fraser River salmon cannot be expected to migrate up the Fraser River with heart damage and I don't see how this workshop can undo this evidence.

Only two scientists with the opinion that PRV is causing organ damage in Pacific salmon were allowed into this workshop and the outcome will be a consensus decision...  This consensus will come back to the Fish Health Committee that I am sitting on and so I will let you know if my concern was warranted.

I remain outside the workshop in case DFO decides to salvage their reputation and allow me to attend.

 

PRV causes a disease called HSMI that causes Atlantic salmon to become emaciated and lethargic

 

Amending Sea Lice Licence Conditions to Better Manage Sea lice Threshold Exceedences

Dear Timothy Sargent:

I am writing to you about a MEMORANDUM TO THE MINISTER titled Proposed Enhancements to Sea Lice Management in British Columbia that you appear to have signed with Kevin Stringer earlier this year.

This MEMORANDUM TO THE MINISTER recommends that the salmon farming industry Conditions of Licence (COLs) regarding sea louse control need to be strengthen due elevated risk to juvenile wild salmon. It states that the following steps are required to open the existing salmon farming licences and make necessary changes:

• A conservation concern has to be identified
• Or industry has to volunteer changes

I am writing because you omitted two other options:

• “A Direct order from the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans”
• Changing the Discovery Island Licences which are expiring this month

Two years ago, before the images of lice-eaten wild salmon in Clayoquot Sound streamed out on the internet, members of your staff were already trying to deal with what they considered a serious threat to wild salmon fisheries. In 2017, they drafted: Amending Sea Lice Licence Conditions to Better Manage Sea lice Threshold Exceedences (see below). They were clearly concerned that current conditions are too weak to make the salmon farming companies reduce their lice loads to meet the government threshold required to protect wild salmon.

They list 5 methods to re-open existing salmon farming Licences and strengthen them. Disturbingly, they note that one of the problems they faced is lack of support from DFO science.   This is true. Despite dozens of scientific publications on the serious impact of sea lice from BC salmon farms on wild salmon, DFO continues to blame the tiny stickleback and the weather (Nov 21, 2019 meeting with First Nations). I never understood why DFO science remains unresponsive to the scientific the evidence until reading this internal memo. It would appear that as long as DFO science maintains that the salmon farms are not responsible for the devastating sea louse outbreaks on young wild salmon, it is difficult to open the Conditions of Licence to make sea lice regulations enforceable. This is very similar to the DFO science outlier position that PRV is not a disease agent and thus not subject to s56(b) FGR.

The specific reason I am writing to you is that this 2017 internal document offers two methods that could have been used two years ago to strengthen the sea louse Conditions of Licence that would have prevented the damage done to wild salmon runs in 2018 and 2019. These were omitted from your Memorandum to the Minister. I want to make sure that you and others are aware of them.

1. Since the Discovery Islands fish farm licences expire every December, new conditions can be inserted immediately to protect Fraser River and other stocks.
   1. The 2017 internal document warns that this might trigger a judicial review as ENGOs or FNs “may have the position that all farms need the same requirement.” Good point, but 2019 is the lowest salmon return in the history of this country and you have a duty to Canadians not to allow these fish to go extinct.
2. A “Direct order from the Minister of Fisheries”

A Direct order from the Minister of Fisheries is all that is needed to install enforceable regulations on all BC salmon farms to protect wild salmon fisheries. This should have been brought to the attention of then Minister of Fisheries, Jonathan Wilkinson.

As well, now that we know that the sea louse regulations for the farms in the Discovery Islands can be strengthened immediately, that needs to happen, because your own scientists are warning Fraser River sockeye are threatened with extinction.

It’s seems simple. If the farm exceeds the limit, impose a fine large enough that it becomes economically critical for the company to deal with it or they lose their license. The new Minister of Fisheries, Bernadette Jordan, needs to know that all we need to stop the loss of wild salmon fisheries to sea lice from salmon farms is a “Direct Order” from her.

I want to thank the members of your staff who are clearly trying to live up to the mandate that Canadians expect from DFO and who seem prepared to handle the changes to the Conditions of Licence.

Please advise when you have informed Minister Jordan and tasked your staff to strengthen the Conditions of Licence of the Discovery Island farms.

 

Thank you,

Alexandra Morton

Cc:

Adrienne Paylor

Dr. Ian Keith

Kerra Shaw

Joe Knight

Neil Jensen

Download A-2019-00392-Amending Sea lice COL 2017

The Virus Above the Law

I can understand if you see me as overly pessimistic, a doomsayer perhaps, however... as a biologist, I have sworn a private, internal oath to say it, like I see it.  If I think I am looking at extinction trends that are going to wreck havoc on us, I am going to do what I can to let people know.

It is up to you to decide whether to believe me.

Hard truths are the new norm. The climate patterns we relied on are gone. Now we don’t know what to expect. Will this winter drop us off ext spring in a drought state, like last winter?  We don't know.

PRV - a virus that tests Canada's resolve to serve the people

I was the first scientist to have the freedom and opportunity to publish on the existence of piscine reovirus in BC farm salmon. I sent renowned filmmaker Twyla Roscovich to Norway, to interview scientists just before I published my first paper on PRV because no one had heard of the virus in BC.

This was before everyone dug trenches, and got in them.  PRV was just an emerging virus and the disease it causes, HSMI, is listed as a production threat for Marine Harvest (MOWI) year after year in their Annual Reports.

Marine Harvest Annual report 2016

The leading PRV scientists in Norway spoke freely to the 7-month pregnant filmmaker from Canada. They knew the virus in BC was from Norway, because I had sent samples of BC farm salmon to them. They knew that it was not a good idea to allow PRV to spread and that the virus was causing organ damage in salmon.

Twyla made the film, Asking Norway.

Today, the virus has grown into a legal threat to the existence of open net salmon farming in Canada. Canadian law prohibits DFO from signing transfer permits for fish infected with a disease agent (s.56 FGR) to go into Canadian waters, including salmon farms. PRV is a disease agent, and you can see that MOWI sees it as one of the most damaging infectious agents to their industry. It is only here in Canada that the aquaculture industry refuses to see PRV is a disease agent. When I say “aquaculture industry” I include DFO’s Aquaculture Management Division (AMD) and the Provincial Animal Health Centre with the BC Ministry of Agriculture and I am also including commercial science labs, and the many academic labs receiving funds from the industry.

The scientists who dare publish warnings about PRV are under attack via internal agency audit processes which are hidden from view cloaked in confidentiality. Their jobs, credibility, and careers are threatened.  Fortunately the field is widening and some have the support of their employers, but it continues to be very difficult to study aquaculture viruses and keep your funding and reputation intact.  This behaviour occurs in Norway and Canada.

In 2010, I was asked to be a participant in the Cohen Commission. All participants were given access to .5 million internal DFO documents. Among them I found the farm salmon health records produced by the Animal Health Centre of BC Ministry of Agriculture. Case 08-3362 provided to Mainstream Canada (now Cermaq) mentioned seeing the organ damage caused by HSMI, the disease caused by PRV.  While the report noted HSMI lesions, it brushed off the observation saying the disease had never been found in BC.

Case: 08-3362

This report concerned me. I wondered did this mean a disease widespread in the Atlantic salmon farming industry had made its way to BC and what would the impact of this be on wild salmon that are naive to the virus?

By this time in my career,  I had experienced 10 years of DFO’s unreasonable and stubborn refusal to acknowledge that sea lice from salmon farms are killing wild salmon, something well-researched and widely accepted in other countries. I decided to go looking for the virus considered to be the cause of HSMI - PRV  No one except the Animal Centre was allowed to test the salmon in the farms and by this time I did not trust DFO or the province.  So I began sending samples of BC farm salmon that I purchased from markets with international credentials. Most farm salmon were infected.  The genetic sequence of the virus in BC farm salmon was traced to Norway

In 2013, I got a tip that Marine Harvest (MOWI) was going to transfer Atlantic salmon smolts that had tested positive for PRV from their Dalrymple Hatchery into a farm off Port Hardy. I assumed this was not legal… to knowingly spread a problem virus from the Atlantic into Pacific waters.

I pleaded to Marine Harvest not to move the infected fish.

Of course they didn’t listen and I learned that transferring Atlantic salmon infected with a Norwegian virus was in fact "legal.  However, in their regulatory haste when someone in DFO wrote this dangerous practice into the fish farm conditions of licences, they contradicted the Federal laws of Canada (section 56, Fishery General Regulations).  They left it up to the company to decide if the fish were low risk to wild salmon and this was an unlawful delegation of ministerial powers.

As a biologist with some understanding of the enormous ramifications of releasing viruses, I went to court to change these regulations and I won in 2016, thanks to Ecojustice.

It was considered an important decision for the precautionary principle in resource management. Justice Rennie ruled that DFO must screen for PRV. The Minister and Marine Harvest (MOWI) disagreed and said they would appeal the decision, however, just before the deadline for that appeal all parties got a letter from the Department of Justice. There was new information that all sides might want to review i.e. the results of the now-published Di Cicco et al 2017 – PRV is causing HSMI in BC salmon farms, thus it is a “disease agent.”

Unable to appeal the decision, because DFO's own scientists were on the paper reporting that PRV is causing disease in BC, three successive Ministers of Fisheries simply refused to acknowledge the ruling that they must salmon from PRV - Gail Shea, Hunter Tootoo, Dominic LeBlanc. They were mute and unrelenting on the issue. They showed no understanding of the ramifications of ignoring our courts and the epidemiology of releasing viruses via farm animals into the wild. It was surprising to many, that a Minister could cherry pick among which laws he/she wanted to obey.

Screening for PRV would protect wild salmon and the interests of the public. Not screening for PRV would benefit 3 companies, with head offices in Norway, that were using BC waters to grow cheap farm salmon.

The math was the easy.  This was not a good deal for Canadians.

I am guessing that the thought went – if we don’t test for PRV, then we don't know, and so we are not really breaking the law when we sign the transfer permits to move farm salmon infected with PRV into net pens along the coast. But we all know this is not how the law works.  If you get stopped for speeding the police doesn't care if you didn't see the speed limit sign.  

Two years later, ‘Namgis filed a lawsuit to stop DFO from putting PRV-infected farm salmon in their territory.  I had also filed a second lawsuit a few months earlier and these cases were heard together. On February 5, 2019, we won. In the 199-page decision Justice Cecily Strickland ruled that transferring the fish without screening them for piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV, “perpetuates a state of wilful blindness on the part of the (Minister of Fisheries) with respect to the extent of PRV infection in hatcheries and fish farms.” https://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/alexandra-morton-namgis-first-nation-win-federal-court-ruling/

Download Order and Reasons of Madam Justice Strickland made February 4 2019

Justice Strickland ordered DFO to consult with ‘Namgis and revise their PRV policy within four months.

Astonishingly tone-deaf to the nation’s rising intolerance of disregard of the indigenous governments, DFO did not consult with ‘Namgis! At the last minute they asked for an extension. All parties agreed. The clock was reset and DFO was given another 4 months to consult and come up with a decision based on that consultation.  The new due date for DFO's response to the court, was October 3rd - in the middle of the election period. The lawyers for DFO assured us that the decision would be made prior to the election.

I became an expert witness for ‘Namgis along with the virologists on the front-lines of the emerging science on PRV for this consultation with DFO.   Dr. Fred Kibenge flew in from UPEI. Dr. Gideon Mordecai came from UBC. Dr. Emiliano Di Cicco came from the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Dr. Rick Routledge – Simon Fraser University and me.

This group presented the unvarnished truth about PRV and what it is doing to salmon and trout globally.   Working at breakneck speed an in-depth expert report was produced and provided to DFO prior to the court-mandated decision date. This report is an asset to everyone who wants understand the risk PRV in farm salmon to wild salmon.

Download 2019.09.24 'Namgis Submission_ Accommodations_Rationales_PRV

The primary points are:

PRV is from the Atlantic.

It is harming Pacific salmon

In the high-density fish farm environment it is known to mutate to higher virulence

DFO refuses to believe the work of these exerts and claims there is a harmless, local BC strain of PRV, but they cannot provide the critical evidence - the genetic sequence of this unique-to-BC “strain” of PRV.   The word “strain” is ambiguous; no one knows exactly what it means. A better way to talk about the variation in PRV is to refer to “sequence variants.” PRV sequences will vary even within a single fish. However, there is no consistent difference between PRV sampled in BC to sequence variants found in Norway and Iceland. They are all the same virus.

If a family gave birth to three children, one in Norway, one in Iceland and one in Canada, each of the children would be slightly different genetically different from the others. Each child could say they were from Norway, Iceland or Canada, but genetically they would still be the same family.

It is the same with PRV. The virus appears to have been moved from country to country where it replicates and spreads. Eventually, enough genetic drift will occur that BC might have it’s own variation of PRV, but the virus is still too new to this coast. The oldest genetic sequence of PRV in BC is from 2011. Salmon farming began in BC in the mid 1980s. So to prove that PRV existed in BC prior to salmon farming and this is endemic, we would need to see genetic sequences prior to 1980.  DFO has samples of fish going back several decades in their freezers, but they have not supported their own claims by finding PRV in those samples.

There is no reason to be surprised that we got PRV from the Atlantic Ocean. 30 million Atlantic salmon eggs came into BC before anyone even knew PRV existed and many are identified as "MOWI" stock, which is ultimately Norwegian.  The disease caused by PRV, HSMI, started ripping through the Norwegian salmon farming industry in 1999. No one knew what was causing this wasting-type disease, called HSMI. The fish just refused to move and grew skinny.

While the virus was spreading undetected through the industry in the North Atlantic, the industry was spreading aggressively into other countries, taking their infected stock with them.

Finally in 2010, piscine reovirus was discovered, named and proposed as the causative agent of Heart and Skeletal Muscle, HSMI (Palacios et al 2010).

Given that the disease and the industry were spreading rapidly at the same time - the virus got a ten-year head start on any effort to contain it. Industry and government couldn’t guard against a virus they didn’t know existed.  However four years after PRV was discovered as the cause of HSMI, the Norwegian government officially gave up trying to control the disease, it was too widespread and in 2014 they delisted it as reportable. They would just learn to live with it. There were so few wild salmon left in Norway anyway.  The Canadian government is trying to follow suit and would also like to ignore PRV, but they keep running afoul of our laws that prohibit DFO from ignoring viruses that cause disease. The industry told the court they were so infected with PRV that they would be “severely impacted” if they were prohibited from transferring PRV-infected fish in marine pens.

And so the opposing forces pressuring DFO are the people trying to protect the last wild salmon vs the 3 salmon farming companies in BC who sound like they will have trouble complying with the law.

In a world where natural salmon are valued, the admission that the Norwegian salmon farming industry cannot comply with our laws because they are so heavily infected with PRV would have triggered swift removal of fish farms from the ocean into tanks on land.  However there is no evidence that wild salmon are respected by the government of Canada.

Now that PRV has become a legal issue, every research project into this virus is viewed as a threat by the industry.  While scientists who claim the virus is harmless have access to the biosecurity tank facilities where they can run tests on what PRV does to Pacific salmon, the scientists who view the virus as a disease agent are denied access. I had to go to Norway to find a lab to run PRV challenges.  That was a mistake.

One third of the fish in the experiments I commissioned mysteriously disappeared.  Jumped out of the tanks and walked away? how did this happen? There was no explanation. Then many of the samples taken from the remaining fish were missing the key organ for analysis, the heart. I refused to pay for this work and the lab was fine with that – no argument from them.  My impression is that they were happy to abandon this project.  Being the lab to prove that PRV from BC is causing disease in salmon would not be good for business as the primary clients are industry-related. To this day, scientific team reporting PRV causes disease have not been given access to a lab to run challenge experiments.

Why would DFO prevent the research on whether or not PRV from BC is causing disease?  Why would they favour only the researchers who have co-published with Marine Harvest?

There are so many implications

If the virus is from the Atlantic… that means someone is liable for bringing it here, so denying it came from the Atlantic protects companies

Denying PRV is a disease agent despite all the research to the contrary protects profits for an industry that admits it is infected

If the same PRV genetic sequence is found in a farm hatchery and a collapsing wild salmon stock and someone can show that PRV is killing these fish - these are grounds for suing for damages. 

You can see why it's better for some to stop the research before it gets that far.

 

There are fewer powerful organizations still defending wild salmon. The once powerful Fisherman’s Union went silent when they lost most fishermen to the wild salmon collapses and began to sign up fish farm workers. The Steelhead Society was once a powerful voice in the fight to stop Atlantic salmon from being imported for fear of disease.  Now that that has exactly happened they have withered into complete silence.  They don’t want to know about the impact of PRV on steelhead, they don't respond. The BC Wildlife Federation, perhaps the biggest wildlife organization in Canada seems silent on the issue of this virus spreading into wild salmon and trout.

Most indigenous governments on the coast have signed arrangements with the industry. I don't know what they think is causing their salmon to vanish, but they are silenced.

Because of the widespread complicit silence on the impact of this industry, the scientists on the front lines are largely unsupported.  Worse than that, there are attempts to have our papers "retracted."  So far the journals have refused to comply.  There are changes of misconduct filed, repeatedly in some cases, which take huge amounts of time to sort out and permanently damage credibility even though every one of them has been dismissed.

The ‘Namgis expert witness panel detailed why the DFO science reporting PRV is not a disease agent is wrong.

The experiments used to say PRV is not a disease agent did not run long enough to record the full damage to the organs of the fish. Immune system measurements were taken too soon and too late and so missed the interval when other researchers report peak response. In some cases, they examined the wrong organs.

Then when these DFO scientists still found “moderate to mild” heart lesions in Fraser River sockeye salmon, they decided those lesions did not impact the fish.  What human would volunteer for exposure to a virus that caused moderate heart damage?  It is impossible to accept that heart damage is no risk to salmon faced with swimming up the Fraser River through Hells Gate and the slide at Big Bar. I think it is reckless to expose salmon to a virus causing heart lesions.

DFO refused to bring the scientists who say PRV is low risk to Pacific Salmon to the ‘Namgis consultations. There was no opportunity to hear them defend exposing salmon to a virus that causes heart damage.  Instead all we got were bureaucrats.

I constantly review DFO internal conversations through the Freedom of Information Act, trying to figure out why they are so adamant about putting wild salmon at such enormous risk. I have read hundreds of emails written over the years, many of them by the bureaucrats who were sitting across the table from us. The way I read their emails, they are involved in the day-to-day control of information about PRV.  Papers by DFO scientists on the impact PRV on Pacific salmon were not allowed to be published for years.

Very concerning there is never any one in the room from the government in Canada who is responsible for wild salmon.  No one who could act to protect wild salmon.

One of the many problems for DFO is that its own scientists strongly disagree. Dr. Miller’s lab suggests PRV is an exotic virus causing significant and widespread damage to Pacific salmon. However, Dr. Garver’s lab also at the Pacific Biological Station suggests the virus is local and low risk to wild salmon.

DFO is a two-headed regulator. One head says PRV is a disease agent, the other says it is not. However the hand that is signing the transfer permits for the farm salmon industry appears to only listening to the head that claims PRV is not a disease agent. How can Canadians have any confidence in this situation, especially when wild salmon populations are lower than they have been in the history of this country?

All of this started at 2:55pm on August 19, 2008 when Dr. Gary Marty of the Animal Health Centre in Abbotsford wrote up Case: 08-3362 a fish health report to a Mainstream veterinarian:

“This pattern of inflammation has also been described with Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation in Atlantic salmon reared in Europe, but this disease has not been identified in BC salmon.”

There is only one HSMI report in the records provided to the Cohen Inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye salmon.

Eight years later, on January 5^th 2016, Dr. Marty publish a paper with Dr. Garver and Marine Harvest that states emphatically that the PRV found in BC does not cause HSMI:

“Western North American PRV Fails to Cause HSMI”

However, four months after that, on May 20th, DFO scientist Dr. Miller and Dr. Di Cicco from the Pacific Salmon Foundation reported they had diagnosed HSMI in farmed Atlantic salmon in BC. This is the news that caused DFO and Marine Harvest (MOWI) to drop their appeal against the legal decision I had won.

In an odd twist, I came across emails that Dr. Marty sent the next day May 21 and on the 23, appearing to admit that he found HSMI in 2008 - that would be case 08-3362 that launched my surveillance and discovery of PRV.

Dr. Marty explained that he deserved credit discovering the disease in 2008, even though he had published a paper just 4 months earlier reporting that it did not occur in BC.

He explained that when he saw the characteristic lesions of HSMI he went to the salmon farmers, who said it wasn’t HSMI. Dr. Marty gave the condition a new name, changed how HSMI would be diagnosed in his lab - the lab doing the government health audits of the farm salmon. Indeed the new diagnostic worked perfectly.  HSMI was never reported by him again -  until Miller and Di Cicco finally got access to a fish farms, and bam there it was, large as life.  Dr. Marty wanted credit for the discovery of HSMI in BC.

No one blinked, except the lawyers who recommended that the Minister drop his appeal of my case.

Even though the appeal was dropped in response to this finding  - everyone became quietly complicit.

It was too risky for anyone to respond to this, pull up the blinds and let the light in. PRV is  disease agent in BC... and thus infected fish have to be prohibited from transfer into farms.

Science co-published by federal and provincial scientists and Marine Harvest stated - no HSMI in BC, and then one of the government scientists broke ranks and wanted credit its discovery 8 years earlier.  This information was provided to two ministers how could the same government scientist appear to be saying one thing publicly and a different thing privately.  No response.  What about PLoS One, the scientific journal that published HSMI is not in BC?  Do they know one of the authors appears to want credit for finding it 8 years earlier? 

In the fall of 2019, I began walking rivers from Port Hardy to the Fraser River examining dead yellow salmon.  Yellow is the colour PRV turns Pacific salmon after their livers to fail. 

2019 is the worst year on record for wild salmon returns to BC. Images of starving bears from rivers in the Broughton Archipelago flashed around the world on CNN, the BBC, Daily Telegraph, PEOPLE.com. The southern Resident orca are starving towards extinction and abandoned their summer feeding grounds. While all of BC seems impacted, the rivers near salmon farms are orders of magnitude lower.

Commercial fisheries were closed. Thousands of people were put out of work. Forests have been robbed of the nutrients that allow them to draw-down massive loads of carbon pollution and produce the oxygen we breathe.

On October 3^rd DFO sent a letter to inform me they had made their final decision on whether to screen farm salmon for PRV.

DFO will not be screening farm salmon for the virus PRV, a virus linked to heart damage and red blood cell rupture in the last wild salmon.

They went one step further. Even if they know the virus is present they will approve the transfer of infected fish.  

Download Final Signed - Morton Letter Oct 3

This is against the spirit of the law in Canada s. 56 (FGR).

Seven years in court, three legal decisions against this, extensive scientific evidence, exposed cover-up, division within DFO, the collapse of BC salmon fisheries, Pacific salmon turning yellow and dying before spawning in the rivers and DFO opted for a state of lawlessness aiding millions of farm salmon in shedding a virus over every run of wild salmon that tries to migrate to sea from rivers in the southern half of BC - that is associated with rupturing their red blood cells.

DFO has ruined the salmon farming industry by never giving them any reason to clean up.

I sat in the rain and wept for hours at the suffering, loss, extinctions and the thing about some humans that drives them to destroy the very things our children need to survive.

Onward....