On Monday February 4, 2019, Justice Strickland of the Federal Court of Canada ruled that the Minister of Fishery’s policy not to screen farm salmon for the virus piscine orthoreovirus, PRV, is unlawful, a violation of the precautionary principle, and ignores both the critical state of wild salmon in BC today and the high degree of scientific uncertainty around what this virus is doing to wild salmon. In a word I won! Thank you Ecojustice.
We won this already in 2016, but Fisheries Ministers Shea, Tootoo, LeBlanc and now Wilkinson all refused to obey the Federal Court and continued to refuse to screen farm salmon for PRV.
It is against the law to transfer fish carrying a “disease agent” into BC marine waters (s.56 of the Fishery General Regulations).
DFO research Di Cicco et al 2018 showed that PRV causes the red blood cells of Chinook salmon to rupture en masse which means it's a "disease agent".
This means; if the Minister screened for PRV, by law he could not issue a permit to move infected fish out of the freshwater hatcheries into marine net pen farms. So long as he doesn't screen, he doesn't know.
However, we know some hatcheries are infected. Marine Harvest provided documents to the court saying all but one of their hatcheries is PRV-positive and that the company would be "severely impacted" if this law was applied to their fish. Marine Harvest submission.
If that is true, then millions of infected farm fish have gone into BC waters because three Ministers ignored a federal court ruling.
Three days after my 2nd court ruling, DFO issued a press release. A panel of experts had reached consensus: Piscine Orthoreovirus in Atlantic salmon farms poses minimal risk to wild Fraser River sockeye.
So PRV is not a "disease agent"? However, DFO provides no scientific confirmation, in fact the review is not complete and the experts were not given the opportunity to approve the statement.
One of these experts spoke up. John Werring senior Biologist and Policy Analyst for the David Suzuki Foundation, reacted saying that the expert panel did not approve DFO’s press release and that given the extremely high scientific uncertainty of harm sockeye, it is impossible to conclude that PRV is a minimal risk to Fraser sockeye.
But then in an interview another "expert" from the panel states:
"When asked directly whether the farmed salmon were infected with PRV in the smolt stage or once they were in the net cages, one expert said it was “highly prevalent in marine net pens” and the fish were picking up the disease once in the sea." Intrafish Feb 8, 2019.
This is opposite to what Marine Harvest told the court, that all but one of their hatcheries is infected. So presuming theirs is the correct story, by ignoring the court, three ministers allowed Marine Harvest to move millions of PRV-infected fish into marine farms, exposing virtually all wild salmon in southern BC to PRV... a virus that appears to cause Chinook salmon red blood cells to explode, as the southern resident orca starve into extinction for lack of Chinook salmon.
Several First Nations requested that I be on thos expert panel as I am publishing on PRV in their territories. DFO refused to accept me or Emaliano Di Cicco, who reported PRV is causing Chinook salmon blood cells to explode.
Washington State recently ordered the destruction of a total of 1.8 million PRV-infected farm fish that a Canadian company was trying to put into pens in Puget Sound. But Canada is moving in the opposite direction dealing with three Norwegian companies.
Meanwhile, indigenous governments of the Broughton Archipelago won the authority to screen farm salmon going into their territory for PRV and will be removing the industry entirely within 5 years. It took a year of tough negotiations and the 280 day occupation of the farm facilities, but now these nations are assuming DFO's role.
I don't understand how Wilkinson doesn't realize that the science has gotten away from him. While he controls many labs and is apparently seconding Dr. Gary Marty from the BC Ministry of Agriculture to oversee farm fish health for DFO, they don't have control over my science. The group I work with are the only non-goverment team working on PRV in BC. Clearly it continues to be essential to keep some research beyond the influence of government or industry.
The solution remains. Invite land-based investment if BC is committed to growing farm salmon and use the rapidly developing genomic science to allow wild salmon to inform us where we need us to strategically get out of their way. We could have both. However, the companies using BC seem unwilling to make the move.
Will I, or someone else have to go to court a third time on this subject? Will there be any uninfected wild salmon left at the end of that proceeding? I have four research initiatives underway, that will help make the risk of PRV to wild salmon clearer.
However, one of the unfortunate things that has happened in recent years is the formation of large coalition has meant funds from its members have been withdrawn from my work. I have reduced costs as much as I can, living the past 5 years without running water and much more to keep the science on PRV advancing. If I hadn't published the 1st paper on PRV in BC, would any information on PRV be public today? I think there has to be non-government work breaking the ice to allow research from inside DFO to make it out into the daylight.
I know I have been at this much too long and should have been able to achieve more progress by now, but I am asking for your help to go the last mile because the evidence suggests that this growing scandal is taking an enormous toll on the BC coast.