alexandra morton

Update on Charges laid against Marine Harvest for illegal possession of wild salmon

The Department of Justice has assigned Crown lawyer Todd Gerhart to review the materials in my charge against Marine Harvest for illegal possession of wild salmon. Mr. Gerhart specializes in resource and fisheries offences. The Department of Justice is an entirely separate body from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) and I sincerely hope this will allow a fresh and unfettered look the importance of this charge. As a result, the court date that was set for Tuesday, September 22, 2009 in Port Hardy was postponed (adjourned) at the request of Mr. Gerhart. I appeared in Port Hardy Court with my lawyer and a new court date was set.

I laid this charge because endangered wild pink salmon are being retained in salmon farms. I have been asking the Minister of Fisheries, Gail Shea, since March to put observers on the fish farms, just like the observers that are put on many fish boats to protect non-target species. In addition, herring, rock cod and black cod (also called sablefish) are all under very strict quotas, regulations and licensing, and they too may be retained in the net pens. But none of this will actually protect the fisheries if there is a large, unregulated and unmeasured harvest going on.

When a witness saw wild salmon spilling onto a road out of a farm fish transport vessel and collected some of these fish we contacted the local Fisheries enforcement officers. They assured me that the incident would be investigated. However, although Marine Harvest has publicly admitted to transporting and possessing wild salmon in their vessel, Orca Warrior, no charges have been laid.

After 22 years of living among salmon farms, my neighbours and I have begun to question if salmon farms are above the law. Displacing whales, using pit lamps, releasing deleterious substances, losing exotic salmon into the Pacific, possessing wild salmon without a licence and many other activities go on without consequence to the fish farming industry. While DFO was actively out on the water this summer laying charges against tourists and commercial fishermen for violations under the Fisheries Act, it seems DFO was told to stand down on enforcement against fish farms.

Now that the Department of Justice is on the case it is possible this will move forward to a prosecution. The incident was well documented, samples collected and the company admitted to the offense. The next step is for the Department of Justice to use its considerable resources and legal expertise to move this case forward, ensuring all Canadians are treated equally under the law. There is an amazing instruction book written that governs DOJ policy.

The Federal Prosecution Service Handbook states:

“The right of a citizen to institute a prosecution for a breach of the law has been called a ‘a valuable constitutional safeguard against inertia or partiality of the part of authority.’ ”

“A private citizen’s right to initiate and conduct a private prosecution originates in the early common law. From the early Middle Ages to the 17th century, private prosecutions were the main way to enforce the criminal law. Indeed, private citizens were responsible for preserving the peace and maintaining the law.”

“Deciding whether to prosecute is among the most important steps in the prosecution process. A wrong decision to prosecute and conversely, a wrong decision not to prosecute, both tend to undermine the confidence of the community in the criminal justice system…”

A charge should not be denied due to; “Possible political advantage or disadvantage to the government or any political group or party”

My lawyer, Jeffery Jones (who is acting for me Pro Bono) and I, both feel the weight of government inertia. We remain concerned that the activities of salmon farms impacting on Canada’s wild salmon will continue if government abdicates its power to enforce the laws of Canada against certain industries. We know that certain political parties are anxious to encourage arrange of Norwegian investment in Canada and may be reluctant to disturb any Canada/Norway investment decisions. But relationships like this are reasons specifically excluded when it comes to enforcing the law in a democratic country.

Reply from Norway

From: Postmottak FKD
Date: September 21, 2009 6:16:06 AM PDT (CA)

Sir/madam
Thank you for your e-mail to Minister Helga Pedersen, who has asked me
to answer on her behalf.

We acknowledge your concern for the environment and the declining stocks
of wild salmon, and we believe that most Canadian fish-farmers share
your concern. All companies operating fish farms in Canada, including
Norwegian owned companies, are oblige to follow rules and regulations
at the place of operation, in this case Canadian federal and provincial
regulations and standards. The Norwegian government is confident that
the Canadian federal government, and the provincial government in
British Colombia, is regulating and controlling the fish-farming
industry in the best possible way to mitigate the environmental risk
from fish-farming, taking Canadian national and provincial
considerations into account.

Regards

Yngve Torgersen
Deputy Director General

Dear Yngve Torgersen:

Thank you for your effort to address our concerns, but I don’t think you have been accurately informed on the situation here in British Columbia. Nine million sockeye salmon vanished without a trace and the Minister of Fisheries, Gail Shea has told us your fish farms are not responsible because there was a coastwide collapse of all salmon. Fortunately this is not true. While there have been some very alarming collapses this year, this is not the case among the southcoast sockeye. Only the ones going past Norwegians fish farms vanished, the others made strong returns.

Similarly, the Pacific Region director of Fisheries, Paul Sprout, wrote letters in newspapers claiming that the lice on the juvenile sockeye that vanished were not the species found on farm salmon. This is not true either. On Marine Harvest’s own website over 92% of the farms reported the exact same species in the year and months that the missing sockeye swam past them.

The only thing being controlled is the public perception. The fish farm industry is increasingly associated with the spread of the ISA virus. But our Minister of Fisheries claims, against the science coming from Norway, that the virus is not carried in the eggs.

What do you say to this? How do you respond to the Canadian government protecting your industry with statements that are not accurate?

Can you be sure diseases on your fish farms are not responsible for loss of one of Canada’s most valuable fish resources? If so why?

Sincerely,

Alexandra Morton, biologist

There must be a Judicial Inquiry into the Federal government's handling of the Fraser sockeye collapse

There must be a judicial inquiry of Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s handling of the Fraser River sockeye crash. Statements by Minister of Fisheries, Gail Shea and Regional Director General (Pacific) Paul Sprout to exempt salmon farm companies from the investigation into this crash are misleading. The current situation bears disturbing resemblance to the same department’s inactions that culminated in the commercial extinction of Canada’s North Atlantic cod. Hutchings et al. (1997) critique of Federal Fisheries on this include:

1. Misinformed the public on the science on the state of the cod stock
2. Reprimanded their own scientists who tried to speak freely
3. Offered plausible but wrong theories that allowed continued inaction
4. Did not take recommended action

No one was held accountable for demise of one of earth’s largest human food resources. Today, the highest levels of Fisheries and Oceans Canada are exonerating salmon farms using plausible but wrong arguments before the investigation on the collapse of the world’s largest sockeye salmon river has even begun.

Specifically:

August 26, 2009 Minister Gail Shea sent multiple copies of a letter to citizens stating:

“The coastwide scope of the decline that has occurred across all Pacific salmon species suggests that this decline [Fraser sockeye] is associated with much larger ecological events than localized salmon farming. These events include climate change and changes in ocean productivity along our West Coast. “

FACT: On August 26, 2009 it was widely known that there had not been a coast-wide collapse of all Pacific salmon species.

On August 15, 2009 Mr. Paul Sprout, published a letter to the editor of the Globe and Mail stating:

“Sea lice from fish farms are not the explanation for this year’s extremely poor marine survival of Fraser sockeye. … The sea lice species found on juvenile sockeye in the Strait of Georgia are not the same species that typically infects farmed salmon.”

FACT: In spring/summer 2007, when the missing sockeye went to sea as smolts, over 90% of the Marine Harvest salmon farms on the Fraser migration route reported this species of louse

Mr. Sprout repeats this again in the North Island Gazette September 3, 2009.

We cannot know at this point if salmon farms destroyed millions of Fraser sockeye, but they are a factor that bears close scrutiny including disease occurrence.

Sockeye runs near the Fraser River that did not pass salmon farms including; Columbia River to the south, and Somass River to the west survived better than forecast. Even within the Fraser River, the Harrison sockeye, reported to migrate via fish farm-free Juan de Fuca, came in at twice the DFO forecast. Only the sockeye stocks that migrated past 60 salmon farm sites failed at over 90%. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has never mentioned this publicly.

It is my opinion that Fisheries and Ocean Canada’s (recent and past) incomplete and inaccurate information to the public regarding salmon farming is threatening wild salmon of the eastern Pacific. There have been a plethora of scientific papers, government and environmental group reviews listing recommendations that have been critically ignored. It is my observation, as a resident and a scientist, that Fisheries and Oceans Canada is not honoring their original mandate to protect wild fish and that this will not be corrected without the highest level legal inquiry. I believe there are scientists, including myself, who should be questioned under oath on the science and review process that leads to publication of the science. One very critical and urgent episode is Minster Gail Shea’s March 11, 2009 assertion in a letter to me that there is no strong evidence that ISAV (fish virus) is transmitted via eggs, in support of continued farm salmon egg imports into British Columbia. Scientific papers report the opposite conclusion and it is believed that the devastating ISAV outbreak in Chile arrived in farm salmon eggs. Virologists report impact of this virus would likely be devastating and irreversible to naïve BC wild salmon stocks.

The fundamental issue at stake is Canadians’, present and future, right to the economic, ecological, food-security and social benefits of wild salmon. Fisheries and Oceans Canada has two conflicting mandates to protect wild salmon and promote salmon farms. This is not working. Farm salmon have a far reduced habitat requirement, in particular they do not require the rivers where 600 applications have been made to divert water for power production at 720 separate diversion points.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s handling of marine fish farms is not only inadequate, it is following the pattern of behavior that led to demise of an extremely valuable fishery resource in eastern Canada and global food resource. A judicial inquiry with binding recommendations is essential to prevent repeat of that here in western Canada.

Alexandra Morton Charges Marine Harvest with illegal possession of wild salmon

If government is not going to apply the laws of Canada to fish farms, it is up to the people to do so.

Port Hardy, September 15, 2009 biologist Alexandra Morton laid charges under the federal Fisheries Act against fish farm giant Marine Harvest Canada Inc. for illegal possession of wild juvenile salmon from an endangered stock.

On June 16, 2009, hundreds of small salmon were seen spilling onto a dock in Port McNeill during a transfer of live Atlantic salmon brood stock from the fish farm vessel M.V. Orca Warrior into tanks on a truck. The vessel’s registered owner is Marine Harvest.

“When I received photos of the incident minutes later,” says Morton, “I was really surprised the fish lying on the road were young pink salmon, I could not understand what were they doing in Marine Harvest’s boat.”

“Marine Harvest emailed stating that the young wild salmon had come from the Potts Bay fish farm, just west of Glendale River in Knights Inlet,” says Morton. “They were apparently in the farm salmon pens and were scooped up with the Atlantic salmon. We have no idea how many pink salmon ended up going down the highway in the tanks on the truck.”

When Morton took her boat to the Potts Bay fish farm she saw large schools of pink salmon leaping inside the pens (film). “While millions of tax payers dollars and environmental donations have been spent to protect the Glendale River pink salmon from fish farms, last fall was the lowest return yet. These are the offspring from that generation and far from safe, they are right in the farm and in their fish packers,” said Morton.

Morton has published 15 scientific papers on juvenile pink salmon.

Morton’s lawyer, Jeffery Jones corresponded with DFO for 6 weeks about this incident but the Department still has not taken any action.

“I have received many reports over the years of herring, black cod and wild salmon in farm pens. The escaped Atlantic salmon that fishermen bring me often have wild fish in their stomachs. Are Norwegian farm salmon fattening up on wild BC fish? What happens to the wild fish when the nets are pulled? What happened to the pink salmon that may have been in the truck? DFO has often charged commercial and sport fishermen with illegal possession to protect wild fish and why wont they charge fish farms for the same violation,” said Morton.

Morton asks that anyone with information on wild fish in fish farms to contact her at www.adopt-a-fry.org. 18,000 people and counting have signed a letter on this website saying the laws of Canada must be applied to fish farms.

Four pink salmon lying on paved surface of Port McNeill dock

See video on Minister Gail Shea's visit to Vancouver where she would not allow Chief Chamberlin the opportunity to speak to her despite years of work on fish farms in his territory, his position as chair of the Provincial Aquaculture working group, his trips to Norway to address the fish farm share holders and his position as secretary/treasurer with the Union of BC Chiefs. film

Juvenile wild salmon spilled from overflowing tank during transfer of farm salmon.

Minister Shea Bars Broughton Chief from her Meeting

On September 11, Fisheries Minister Shea held a meeting on the Fraser sockeye collapse behind closed doors. She invited stakeholders that included prominent First Nation chiefs, but refused entry to the one chief who knows all about fish farms.
Bob Chamberlin is elected chief of the Kwicksutaineuk-ah-kwaw-ah-mish First Nation on Gilford Island, in the heart of the Broughton Archipelago, now fish farming country. Chamberlin is Chair of the Aquaculture Working Group, which addresses aquaculture issues as they pertain to First Nations, with a mandate from UBCIC, AFN-BC, and the First Nations Leadership Council. He is Chair of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council, which represents First Nations in the Broughton Archipelago, hard hit by fish farms. Chamberlin has traveled to Norway several times to speak directly to the executive directors and shareholders of the Norwegian companies that own 90% of "BCs' fish farm industry."
Chief Chamberlin knows a thing or two about fish farms. He has seen the bottom and the top. When he called the minister's office they acknowledged aquaculture would likely come up at the meeting today, but no, there was no room for this chief and he should just respect the wishes of Minister Shea who arrived at via a service elevator to avoid looking Chamberlin in the eye.
OK, you might say this man was just grandstanding and had no business trying to crash this meeting, but I strongly suggest you look a little closer.
In 1997, three Canadian scientists from leading Universities across Canada published a paper in Canada’s leading scientific journal titled ”Is scientific inquiry incompatible with government information control?” In it they dissect how Federal Fisheries managed Canada’s North Atlantic cod stocks into commercial extinction. They conclude “there is a clear and immediate need for Canadians to examine very seriously the role of bureaucrats and politicians in the management of Canada’s natural resources.”

As I mentioned in my previous post, a letter to the Minister of Fisheries Gail Shea, what I see is DFO following exactly in their own footsteps towards demise of our wild salmon. This is why Chief Chamberlin was so rudely denied access to Minister Shea’s meeting on the Fraser sockeye.

The collapse of the Fraser sockeye is highly specific to the fish that passed through the dozens of fish farms off Campbell River and Port Hardy. Wherever there are fish farms all over the world wild salmon tip into steep decline.

We must not allow the Federal Conservative government to avoid this issue. Every single fish farm on the coast of BC should immediately be tested for disease and their health records opened for immediate review.

Unless British Columbians take a stand where politicians can see you, our wild salmon will be left to die out. 17,500 people and counting have signed a letter to the Minister asking only that she apply the laws of Canada to fish farms www.adopt-a-fry.org

See article on this

History IS repeating DFO cannot be allowed to do this again

Please read the column below published in the Globe and Mail eleven years ago. This is exactly happening again. At the end of the column the writer asks for drastic action, even criminal charges to be laid to stop DFO from ruining more Canadian fisheries.

Nothing effective was done. Nobody was made to resign, no one was made accountable for what happened to one of humanity's biggest food supplies. The legendary Dr. Ransom Myers, quoted in this article, has tragically passed away. Before he died he spent several days with me in the Broughton preparing for publication of his paper with Jennifer Ford on the global impact salmon farms has had on wild salmon. He told me DFO is corrupt. He planned to take up the fight for wild salmon against DFO's blind support for salmon farms.

On the other hand George Baker, quoted in this article has risen to Senator, he is still in a position to help the necessary changes happen.

The Prime Minister of Canada must simply give the nod to Fisheries and Ocean Canada and say OK it is time to honour our contract with Canada. Your job, folks, is to protect the wild fish in Canada's oceans.

Please read and consider taking a stand. Unless tens of thousands of people are counted politicians will not disturb status quo. You can join 17,000 people on the letter at www.adopt-a-fry.org simply asking the Minister of Fisheries to apply the laws of Canada to fish farms.

GLOBE AND MAIL COLUMN JANUARY, 1998

ISLE MADAME, NS - Silver Donald Cameron

If I did something that cost the people of Canada 10,000 jobs and a billion dollars, I'd expect to be jailed. Or sued. Or fired. Or reprimanded.

Or... something.

So what's going to happen to management at the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans?

In 1992, say the scientists, the best scientific information about the Atlantic cod stocks was "gruesomely mangled and corrupted to meet political ends." (The quotation comes from an internal DFO report.) The Minister had already decided to close the Northern cod fishery off Newfoundland for two years because the stocks had fallen so low. But the scientists knew that stocks elsewhere -- in southern Newfoundland and the Gulf of St.Lawrence, and on the Scotian Shelf -- were equally ravaged. They intended to tell
that to the Atlantic Groundfish Advisory Committee, which in turn would advise the Minister.

No, said the bureaucrats, we're only talking about Northern cod. Scientists who saw the resulting document "wondered what had happened to their conclusions."

So the three imperilled stocks were fished for another year. This, says Dr. Ransom Myers of Dalhousie University, then a DFO researcher,"allowed most of the remaining fish to be caught in these areas and directly caused the collapse of these stocks. The cost to Canadians was over 10,000 jobs and almost a billion dollars" to support unemployed fisheries
workers.

Myers is no marginal figure; he has been called "the best fish scientist in Canada" by his peers. And he is not alone. The House of Commons Fisheries Committee has been holding hearings into the treatment of science within DFO, and scientist after scientist has testified to the committee about gag orders, intimidation, suppression and outright
distortion of research.

There was no scientific basis for a two-year moratorium on Northern cod, for instance. The breeding cycle of a codfish is seven years, and in other cases of stock collapse -- the California sardine fishery, for example -- recovery has taken 20 or 25 years. A two-year moratorium implies that the stock will soon recover. It won't. But Newfoundland families and communities still think the fishery will return in their lifetimes.

Again, DFO would have us believe that the stocks collapsed because of seal predation and pillaging by foreign fishermen, and that it's safe to fish off the isolated mid-Atlantic seamount called Flemish Cap. The best empirical evidence says that none of these contentions is true; the fishery, for instance, collapsed because of overfishing, mostly by Canadians. But, say the scientists, at DFO evidence is adjusted to fit policy, not the other way around.

"It sounds silly when you say it out loud," Ransom Myers admits, "but they seemed to have a notion that you could sit in Ottawa and *make up* reality. If you could enforce a scientific consensus, that would *be* reality."

For years, fishermen have claimed that DFO was grossly mismanaging the fishery; the current hearings reveal that they were right, just as they were right about the disappearance of inshore cod stocks. If I were an Atlantic premier, I'd sue the feds. If I were a fisherman or a processor, I'd launch a class-action suit. Heads should be rolling in Ottawa. But they aren't.

The basic problem, says Newfoundland MP George Baker, who chairs the Commons Committee, is that Canada's legislation has created "an Ayatollah of Fish," a Minister who doesn't necessarily know anything about fish, but who can do anything he chooses. In the US, the ability of a politician to overrule scientific evidence is severely constrained; in Australia it's completely prohibited. But the Canadian Minister can ignore research, suppress unwelcome findings, or do whatever it takes to get through the
next election, regardless of long-term consequences. If he wants, he can close all the fisheries research stations in Atlantic Canada -- and he has.

We've downsized exactly the wrong thing. All of which raises an even larger question. The Atlantic cod fishery got along fine for 500 years before DFO was given the task of ensuring its sustainability. Now DFO has 800 bureaucrats in Ottawa -- more bureaucrats
than there are fishermen in most fishing communities -- and the fish are gone.

Has any organization in our history ever failed more appallingly, or with more catastrophic consequences? Will DFO simply be allowed to continue unscathed? Why are we paying for this vast apparatus?

The Committee hearings are a good start. But this situation calls for truly drastic action. Criminal charges. (Is this not criminal negligence?) Or Royal Commissions. Or firings, suspensions, demotions, reprimands.

Or ... something.

Silver Donald Cameron is an author and a columnist with the Halifax Sunday Herald. His web site is www.silverdonaldcameron.ca

Minister Shea please resign

Dear Minister Shea:

On August 26 you sent duplicate letters Download DFO Reply to many people dismissing the impact of salmon farms on British Columbia. I can only imagine the response to collapse of the world’s largest sockeye salmon river, the Fraser River, has come directly from Ottawa. Your letter provides stark insight into the Federal Conservative government’s course of action.

With an entire ministry at your disposal you told the public:

“The coastwide scope of the decline that has occurred across all Pacific salmon species suggests that this decline is associated with much larger ecological events than localized salmon farming.”

This is entirely inaccurate as there has NOT been a coast-wide collapse across all Pacific salmon species, quite to the contrary. The people of British Columbia are looking at a bull’s-eye collapse pattern with good returns all around the dead center – which is our extremely valuable Fraser River sockeye.

Really interesting – even within the Fraser River, the Harrison sockeye, which scientists report migrate to sea via fish farm-free Strait of Juan de Fuca, are returning at twice the DFO forecast.

The missing Fraser River sockeye salmon were observed as smolts by DFO as they migrated in the river. They were abundant and large. They entered the sea in late spring 2007, turned north into a heavily industrialized salmon farming area, where I examined some of them as they were being infested with sea lice and then they disappeared. These are the only sockeye that collapsed to less than 10% of forecast.

While you are telling the public all salmon species collapsed coast-wide, your highest-ranking BC official is publishing letters in newspapers also telling us that fish farms are not responsible for the collapse because the lice species I and others counted on the young sockeye in 2007 are not found on farm fish. First of all, there were two species of lice on the sockeye smolts, the large salmon louse and the smaller Caligus. Second, the fish farm company on the Fraser sockeye migration route, Marine Harvest, frequently reports Caligus in their website data. Specifically they report 16.5 Caligus per fish for a total of 8 million breeding on the Cyrus Rocks farm early this July as our newest sockeye generation was passing that farm. Because Caligus frequently jump fish to fish this species is also a strong potential disease vector.

As he exonerates fish farms, he goes on to say he will work with First Nations and other fishermen to conserve sockeye. Minster Shea, you closed this fishery at the beginning of the season and there has been extremely little fishing on this stock of sockeye. Your Ministry has absolutely no valid scientific or legal reason to omit fish farmers from the investigation and ensuing action to protect the Fraser sockeye.

You also wrote that DFO has “taken significant action…” by “monitoring” farm lice and doing “ocean circulation studies.” These are studies, not “significant action.” Your letter tells people you can’t protect our salmon with closed-containment farms until this is “practical and realistic” for the fish farmers with head offices in Oslo, Norway. Minister Shea, you work for the people of Canada. Your primary mandate is protection of our wild salmon and whatever else is going on in your office no one has rescinded this mandate yet.

History is clearly repeating itself. In 1997, DFO scientists reported that the collapse of Canada’s North Atlantic cod stocks, one of earth’s greatest human food supplies, was because DFO ignored the science, misinformed the public, offered plausible but inaccurate theories, reprimanded scientists who spoke freely and took no action(1). No one in DFO was held accountable when Canadians lost this vast resource. Here in 2009, I would argue you and your department are ignoring the science, misinforming the public, offering plausible but unconfirmed theories and taking no action on a highly documented and obvious factor that reoccurs worldwide wherever there are salmon farms(2). You must be held accountable or it is clear from experience where this is heading.

The Fraser sockeye contribute far more to the economy and employment than salmon farms and they transport ocean nutrients into much of this Province feeding the trees that produce oxygen, remove carbon and help stabilize our climate. An enormous number of British Columbians live in the Fraser watershed and are breathing oxygen produced by salmon fed trees. These are planetary systems we literally cannot live without. First Nation women have written me in anger and anxiety at losing an essential part of their diet.

The very concept of farming salmon in net pens is unconstitutional in Canada because it attempts to privatize ocean spaces and own schools of salmon in the ocean. The industry appears in violation of many sections of the Fisheries Act. It breaks the natural laws of wild salmon, which never remain stationary. Your record of fish farm defense includes a recent assertion that the industry’s by-catch of wild fish is not a “significant problem.” And you refuse to acknowledge the science and act on the information that the fish farm viral ISA pandemic is spreading in imported salmon eggs(3).

Reading the outpouring of articles, letters to editors, emails to me and the 17,000 signatures thus far on my letter to you asking simply that you enforce the Fisheries Act on salmon farms, I don’t think western Canada is ready to lose their fish like eastern Canada. The actions required are simple:

Within your investigation on the fate of our sockeye, require full disclosure of the health and stocking of every salmon farm in BC from 1986 – present and run analysis against health records in enhancement facilities near and distant from salmon farms, including the 2007 salmon farms from Campbell River to Port Hardy.
Close the fish farm fishery on the Fraser migration route just as you have closed commercial and sport fishing.
Apply the Canadian Fisheries Act to fish farms and start laying charges for violations.
Support the Canadian fish farmers who want to reinvent their industry on land, with an eye to siting these facilities in job-starved towns
Ensure that marketing of both farmed and wild salmon is maximized to benefit us all, instead of driving down the price of both
Remove your science branch from the political DFO body and reinstate the Fisheries Research Board - which was a cutting edge, world class, Canadian, scientific powerhouse. Start using, instead of muzzling, your scientists.
Form local area management councils compromised of the people who depend on wild salmon and understand the complexities of their regions.
Apply the phenomenal wealth of science now available to harness the salmon’s own remarkably successful biology to restore our runs.

If you won’t take these steps please resign along with your Pacific Region senior staff and make way for people who will honor Fisheries and Ocean’s contract with the public of Canada, present and future generations, to protect our salmon. The enormous pink salmon return this year – fish that were allowed to go to sea without farm lice, is a clear statement by the fish themselves that British Columbia can have abundant wild salmon, even running through the biggest city in our Province, Vancouver, City of the Salmon.

Wild salmon are a gift on a magnitude far greater than any oil well, river power project or the few jobs from a Norwegian industry that imports fish from the south Pacific, throws them in our ocean and pulls out fewer fish.

Read the list of 17,000 people and counting who have signed my letter www.adopt-a-fry.org asking that you apply the laws of Canada to salmon farms. They are First Nation chiefs, business people, politicians, entertainers, environmentalists, stream keepers, they are the people of British Columbia, not a fringe group you can brush aside. Minster Shea, you have failed us in your response to the collapse of earth’s largest sockeye salmon run and this is not alright with British Columbia.



Alexandra Morton, R.P. Bio
Echo Bay, BC http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/


1 Hutchings, J.A., Walters, C. and Haedrich, R.L. 1997. Is Scientific Inquiry Incompatible with Government Information Control? Canadian Journal of Aquatic Science. Vol 52.
2 Ford, J.S. and Myers, R.A. 2008 A Global Assessment of Salmon Aquaculture Impacts on Wild Salmonids. PLos Biology 6(2)
3 Vike, S., Nylund, S., and Nylund, A. 2008. ISA virus in Chile: evidence of vertical transmission. Archives of Virology. Vol. 154. (note: “vertical” means via eggs)

In the Globe and Mail Today - September 7, 2009

No answers in B.C.'s salmon collapse

Experts say cuts to research grants will make it difficult to determine why more than nine million sockeye won't return to the Fraser River this year

Unfortunately I was unable to connect with this reporter while I was out in the Broughton Archipelago, but what I would have said is this:

We are looking at a bulls-eye pattern of sockeye collapse with our Fraser River salmon dead in the center and runs all around them thriving. In fact, even within the Fraser River the Harrison sockeye, which are known to migrate to sea via the fish farm-free route through Strait of Juan de Fuca, did twice as well as DFO forecast.

The only sockeye to catastrophically collapse are the Fraser sockeye that migrate to the north through the clusters of fish farms off Campbell River.

More on this very soon.

BC is in the Pink! Thank you all.

As I cruise the waters of northern Vancouver Island, near Sointula, Port McNeill, Alert Bay and the Broughton, fat and sassy little pink salmon are leaping and wriggling everywhere. I thought I would never see this again. These fish are a powerhouse - feeding watersheds throughout the south coast, growing trees, wildlife, tourism and people. I want to give thanks to everyone who made fish farms reduce their sea lice. If the lice levels I discovered in Broughton in 2001 and off Campbell River in 2005 had persisted these salmon would not be here. I would be happy to debate any person, government, company or organization on this anytime, anywhere!

I want to caution you that this is temporary. The scientists I met in Norway warned me: DO NOT RELY ON DRUGS. All parasites whether boll weevils, head lice or sea lice become resistant to drugs. Using chemicals against pests is an arms race we humans lose every time. These fish farms must be removed from the Fraser River migration route before the few sockeye eggs being laid this fall hatch and go to sea. However, we have bought time and in no particular order I have to thank:

The Broughton First Nation Villages who are standing strong against renewal and expansion of salmon farm licenses, Gilford, Kingcome and Hopetown.

Chief Bob Chamberlin of the Broughton who has filed a class-action suit against the fish farms and is a powerful voice for wild salmon in BC.

The Musgamagw Tribal Council, The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, Wilderness Tourism Association, Raincoast Conservation, Friends of Clayquot Sound, Western Wilderness Committee, Save Our Salmon, Wild Salmon Circle who have each added significantly and relentlessly in different ways to bring this to the public, pressure politicians who seem unable to act and get Marine Harvest to actively reduce their lice to allow this generation of pink salmon to reach the open ocean.

The late Dr. Ransom Myers, and Drs. Rick Routledge, Larry Dill, Martin Krkosek, Rob Williams, John Volpe, Mark Lewis for the powerful scientific effort with me towards understanding of the impact of fish farms.

Steve Bergh and Jody Erikisson for years of work in the Discovery Islands helping us understand sea lice infection rates on pinks, chums, sockeye and herring.

Young biologists from throughout British Columbia who have volunteered on the science projects on fish farm impact that never seem to have quite enough funding.

The nine hundred small donors to www.adopt-a-fry.org who have fueled my legal challenge to Provincial regulation of fish farms with their ten and twenty dollar bills.

Through this effort and brilliance one salmon farm company began de-lousing their fish to protect the pink salmon. Unfortunately the drug of choice, SLICE, only works for about 6 weeks and so the later runs of sockeye were not thus protected. Earlier this week the Provincial government quietly announced they are pulling out of fish farm regulation. That leaves the federal government holding the now red-hot potato. The federal government managed our cod to commercial extinction and so our work is cut out for us to save the salmon, but at least now the DFO is solely responsible. No more passing the buck. That the Province bailed so soon after the sockeye collapse does make me wonder what they know about this.

If we want our wild sockeye there must be full accounting of disease on every fish farm from Campbell River to Port Hardy in 2007 when these fish went to sea. Only the sockeye that migrated past these farms are in collapse. While there are indeed many impacts, Norwegain fish farm companies have become gatekeepers to our salmon runs. Whether we get our wild salmon home hinges on what the fish farmers do. DFO MUST now apply the Fisheries Act to fish farms www.adopt-a-fry.org .

In my successful legal challenge Judge Hinkson ruled fish farms are a fishery. All the other fisheries; commercial, sport and First Nation, have been told by DFO to reduce their fisheries on sockeye and the salmon farm fishery must do the same. Salmon farms do not belong on BC’s most valuable and important wild salmon migration route – the Fraser sockeye. Halfway measures will not work.

Thank you to all who have brought us the miracle of the life-sustaining runs of beautiful pink salmon home to British Columbia. Clearly we can bring our wild salmon back, lets get on with it!

Joyfully,

Alexandra Morton