I recently received 1,200 pages of internal DFO communication on the escalating sea louse outbreaks on salmon farms. In summary, DFO knew their laws to control sea lice on salmon farms were unenforceable. Not surprising, as upper DFO management consulted with the salmon farming industry to write them. They were designed to prevent companies from being charged and penalized for allowing their lice to eat wild salmon to death. DFO hid the fact that the one drug used in BC to control lice was failing, the lice had become resistant to it here as elsewhere. The fishery officers and vets on the ground tried to stop the farms from killing wild salmon, but their "hands were tied" because the Conditions of Licence issued to the farmers had a loop hole big enough to allow the death of millions of wild salmon with no consequence to the farmers.
In this era of mass extinctions DFO is aiding and abetting the salmon farming industry is causing the extinction of wild salmon runs and all that depend on them.
This is all from ATIP A-2018-00799 a document detailing the two outbreaks in 2017 and then in 2018. Today, DFO is allowing this to happen again and now we know why.
Drug Resistance
While the salmon farming industry and DFO repeated up until the spring of 2018 that there was no evidence of drug resistance in farm salmon in BC, we see following email from October 2017, Dr Ian Keith, DFO aquaculture fish health veterinarian, wrote “We have data back to 2008 on failure of lice management by SLICE” ( Download)
Drug resistance in sea lice in salmon farms, is a leading cause of the decline of wild salmon and sea trout in other countries. It has proven to be inevitable everywhere the industry operates and for DFO to co-write toothless regulations with industry, even as people in BC became increasing concerned about the impact salmon farms on wild salmon, is an act of collusion with the industry.
NOOTKA SOUND Grieg Sea Food - 2017
Jan 27 Adrienne Paylor, Regional Aquaculture coordinator, produced a summary on the growing sea louse problem in Nootka Sound. She says DFO learned about the failure of the in-feed drug Slice in controlling sea lice in the Nootka Sound Grieg farms on October 26th 2016. In January as sea lice numbers soared in their farms, Grieg’s plan was to borrow a barge from Marine Harvest to apply hydrogen peroxide, but they were unable to get the barge ( Download page 97) and the special equipment Grieg needed to deliver the treatment “hasn’t been manufactured yet” ( Download page 133). By Feb 22 2017, one of the farms had 15 times more lice than allowed ( Download page136). She notes this information may be discovered by ATIP and “This will reflect badly on the Department’s regulatory role and on the salmon farming industry…” with no mention of the impact this will have on the wild chum populations in the region. However, she was write, I did discover this via ATIP and it points to collusion between industry and DFO in the demise of the 2017 juvenile wild salmon outmigration through Nootka.
Dr. Ian Keith (DFO) however, understood the ramifications of all these lice and he began writing a number of exceptionally strongly worded emails including one on Jan 27, 2017 that says he knew Grieg was going to use harvesting as their only response to the high lice numbers which was too slow to help the wild salmon. He says he was warned about the weak licence conditions, and raised a red flag that there are “conservation units of concern (Chinook) in Esperanza Inlet.” Most of this point is redacted ( Download page 92). Thank you Dr. Keith for being the only person who tried to protect wild salmon through this.
Fish from the Grieg's Steamer Point farm, where sea lice resistance were uncontrollable, were transferred to farms in Clio Channel in the Broughton Archipelago, where lice levels reached threshold levels in Jan 2017. DFO trusted Grieg to do the bioassay on the lice on these fish to determine drug resistance levels. There was no further mention of this situation even tho, drug resistance is a serious threat to wild salmon, Grieg was clearly unprepared to deal with it, and appear to have exposed a new region to threat. Clio Channel is the territory of First Nation that is very pro salmon farming and they did nothing to stop this, if they even knew. (Download Download page 94).
Dr. Keith tried to explain that Grieg's own husbandry was aggravating the growing drug resistance. On October 12, 2017 he wrote to DFO’s Zac Waddington to explain that the way Grieg Seafood was stocking their farms with salmon of different sizes, meant that the smaller fish would not uptake the drug SLICE, soaked into the feed, and so there would not be “uniform therapeutic dosing.” He warned that continuing to use the drug in a region where the lice were becoming resistant was dangerous and would increase resistance. He asks if we want to repeat the mistakes made in the Bay of Fundy ( Download page 304).
January 20,2017 Ian Keith says “Karen [Calla], Director BC Aquaculture Resource Management, has to be warned that within pen fish size variation is the greatest risk we have for sustainability of BC salmon aquaculture… you can’t inject every fish; you have to be able to use medicated feed,.. with such size variation you can’t get therapeutic does in all your fish” he says using different size fish will cause drug resistance whether to sea lice drugs or antibiotics. He goes on to say that in a meeting with ENGOS (Living Oceans, Watershed Watch, DSF, and myself) Jon Chamberlin (DFO) said the solution was more drugs, but Ian states this is “regressive” and will make the drug resistance problem bigger ( Download page 82).
In a pointed letter Dr. Ian Keith tries to communicate that Grieg must figure out how to get lice numbers reduced on all their farms throughout Nootka Sound, because the lice larvae are drifting between farms throughout the area infecting young fish in other Grieg farms before the older ones are removed. As Grieg prepares to transfer fish from an infected site to a new one in Nootka (Gore), he notes that he appreciates that the company wants to preserve the gills of the fish (lamellar epithelium) “as these fish will require many peroxide treatments” however he thinks if they aren’t going to reduce the number of lice during transport of the fish, they better be ready to do so shortly after the transfer (Download page 275). This suggests the treatment is burning the gills of the fish.
Dr. Keith asks “how can DFO Science not share with their health management counterparts that they have data indicating that sockeye are the most susceptible Pacific salmon” (see page 82 above).
By using the harvest of fish for market to lower the number of lice in the Nootka Sound area, the lousy infested fish were trucked from Gold River to Browns Bay near Campbell River for processing. July 20, 2017 Ian Keith emphatically states “…the resistant lice should not move from the west to east coast…” This following confirmation that the sea lice eggs released into the blood water from the Browns Bay packing plant were alive and hatching – and therefore drug resistant lice from the west coast were pouring into the largest wild salmon migratory corridor in BC off Campbell River. ( Download page 235). DFO and the Province of BC who is supposed to be regulating the plant's effluent did nothing was done to stop this.
The Aquaculture Management Fish Health Section (DFO) wrote an unsigned letter, with a redacted date, to Grieg demanding they reduce their lice to below the threshold of 3 motile lice per fish by March 1 ( Download page96)
In July 2017 Karen Calla is “not convinced” DFO should test the farms for drug resistant lice, (perform bioassays) until they have “a clear understanding of how we would use the findings in our decision making,” ( Download page 230) however, without this information, DFO knows very little about how resistant the lice are, i.e. the degree of the problem.
Oct 5 2017, we see that despite the clear and disastrous evidence that SLICE no longer works in Nootka Sound Grieg Seafood wants to use SLICE again, which would serve to elevate resistance. ( Download page 256)
Oct 10, 2017 Ian Keith writes an email that lays out the regulator fail “Not a criticism of individuals from Bernie writes the licence conditions, DOJ advises, and industry is consulted. We end up with a regulation that will have gaps. ” “… companies have cited the law when refusing to do whatever the veterinarians and biologists request” (Download page 264)
Nothing was done, Grieg was not fined, First Nations were not informed, no one checked on the impact on young wild salmon and we don't know if this deadly scenario is repeating today. However, given there is no incentive for these companies to protect wild salmon from sea lice - why would the situation have improved?
CLAYOQUOT 2018
In the spring of 2018, researchers with the Cedar Coast Field Station off Tofino found extremely high sea lice numbers on young wild chum salmon. I traveled there to photograph the infected fish and provided the images to Clayoquot Action who brought the situation to the attention of the media/public. 18 years after I discovered farm-origin sea louse epidemics in BC killing wild salmon, with numerous papers published on this, many committees and government reports and problem is is now worse than when I first discovered it. Wild salmon have been thrown away in favour of an industry that cannot operate cleanly.
What becomes apparent in the 2018 emails is how this the farmers are getting away with killing large numbers of wild salmon. The Condition of Licence (COL) to operate salmon farms had a built in loop hole that prevented any legal ramifications or fines against the companies for failure to control lice. DFO field staff that had noticed this and asked upper management to correct it, but they were ignored. Essentially as long as a company had a “plan” and they could be seen as having followed that “plan” they were in compliance, even if it was so weak it couldn’t and didn’t work to protect young wild salmon from infection. There was no provision made to stop the infection and death of wild salmon. This is how we know DFO loyalties have been divided in favour of the three Norwegians using BC to make millions farming salmon. None of this is an honest mistake. It is deliberate.
Claire Doucette, Conservation and Protection supervisor in Nanaimo, worried over a reporter’s question, saying “I am just concerned that if it is a really bad outbreak, the reporter is going to ask well will you charge them, why just [write] a letter. We can’t [charge them] and that will take us down another rabbit hole.” In another email she adds “…until the COL’s are changed we can never charge. Looks bad for us” ( Download pages 614/5).
Rebecca Reid the highest DFO officer in BC, Regional Director tries to downplay the situation when a reporter starts asking questions. "There are ways to address this..., its part of our routine activities... this is regular farm business, why would we get into the details..." ( Download pages 620-622)
Four days later, May 15, 2018 Zac Waddington makes VERY different points than the Director, Rebecca Reid and writes in the middle of the Clayoquot outbreak “I recognize and agree that our COL are very weak in many areas and would support opening the licence to change and strengthen our conditions to make them enforceable.” He notes that in the case of the Clayoquot outbreak “… here we have documentation demonstrating the failure of their plan to reduce absolute sea lice inventory as per a condition of licence.” ( Download page 626) He is referring to 6.4 (a) of the COL which states - “within 15 calendar days of discovery, implement a plan which will reduce the absolute sea lice inventory within the containment structure array.”
Unsupported by senior DFO management, who seem compliant in letting the companies get away with the damage to wild salmon, on May 2018, Ian Keith writes to Cermaq asking for further evidence of what options were pursued to assist in assessment of compliance (Download page 608)
- How did they ensure proper use of SLICE
- What other options did they consider
- What monitoring was done on the exposed wild salmon
May 17, 2018, Neil Jensen, DFO Fishery Officer, writes to Zac and Clair that Compliance and Protection staff looked at the COL in the past and recommended a change as it was not viewed as enforceable, but despite this recommendation no changes were made. (626) He writes “The only thing that a company can be compelled or held legally accountable for is “implementing a plan” – whatever that means. There is no measure of quantifiable action that we can determine happened or not.. As long as the company has a plan and implements it, they are in compliance of the COL. For example, if they discover the sea lice and ordered up hydrogen peroxide treatments and a well boat, but it will take 6 months in order to reduce the number of sea lice, they would be compliant. REDACTED The only avenue that I can recommend is that you try to convince Allison REDACTED that the COL needs to be changed for conservation and protection reasons (for wild fish)… C&P staff would be happy to help you develop an enforceable COL”. ( Download page 626).
Andrew Thomson, Regional Director says they looked at strengthening the Conditions around sea lice in 2017 ( Download page 661), but apparently did nothing.
Oct 10, 2017 Ian Keith writes an email that lays out the regulator fail “Not a criticism of individuals from Bernie [Taekema] writes the licence conditions, DOJ advises, and industry is consulted. We end up with a regulation that will have gaps. ” “… companies have cited the law when refusing to do whatever the veterinarians and biologists request” ( Download page 264)
In a draft memo to the Deputy Minister which states “Not to be shown to Minister LeBlanc” it is noted that Slice treatment failure occurred in Klemtu in 2015, in Esperanza off Gold River in 2017, and in Clayoquot in 2018 and that changes to the Conditions of Licence may be required Download page 773). However, the current 2019 outbreak in areas of BC suggest no changes were made to the Conditions of Licence, allowing another generation of wild salmon, including conservation units of concern, to be heavily impacted.
In a table provided in the ATIP, it is noted that “Potential Resistance” is occurring in all fish farmed regions in BC, including Discovery Islands, where most Fraser River salmon are trying to migrate to sea.
Today
Currently sea lice levels in parts of Clayoquot Sound are higher than have ever been recorded at 100% and an average of 12 lice per fish. In Broughton infection impacted 90% of young salmon during the migration.
Sea lice from salmon farms are killing off our wild salmon and DFO has carefully created the circumstances where this can occur with no ramifications to the companies.