The Minister left without making a decision, salmon are dying, it's up to us.
As I wrote in my previous blog, there are salmon dying in northeast Vancouver Island rivers with jaundice and anemia. They are dying before spawning. Both of these are symptoms of a disease strongly associated with piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV. Jaundice/anemia causes Chinook salmon red blood cells to rupture releasing so much hemoglobin their liver cannot keep up and jaundice results. The decline in red blood cells causes anemia - the gills become pale.
I have been winning in court for 6 years on this virus, because the Minister of Fisheries cannot issue permits to transfer farm salmon infected with a "disease agent" into the farms. It is against the law in Canada. However, the dirty practice continues because all previous ministers have refused to screen farm salmon for PRV. I am concerned about the evidence that this is having catastrophic affect on wild salmon. This is why I am checking wild salmon again this fall.
Marine Harvest (now MOWI) told the court that all but one of their hatcheries are infected with PRV, so we know millions of PRV-infected Atlantic salmon are going into farms throughout southern BC.
DFO continued to argue all summer long that this is not a problem.
While they admit most farm salmon are infected, they say PRV in BC is different, it's harmless, not a disease agent, so they let the farmers keep their virus. However, DFO has been unable to show that PRV in BC is genetically different than the "bad" PRV in Norway. It is the same virus and thus we can only expect that it is indeed an agent causing disease.
MOWI (Marine Harvest) listed PRV as one of the leading causes of their losses worldwide year-after-year in their annual reports, but they say that it is harmless in BC. A miracle... DFO agrees with MOWI, but they won't examine a farm when there is a large die-off. This undermines DFO's understanding of what is really going on.
In June, the Minister of Fisheries asked the court to give him more time to decide whether he can face the fish farmers and tell them the law is the law, no more PRV allowed. At that court hearing his lawyers said this decision would arrive before the election.
Well that didn't happen.
All summer I sat in meetings watching DFO squirm away from the hard truths like spaghetti falling off a fork. They could not answer why they use a different test than the rest of the world to tell if PRV is causing disease. They are using a test that has never found the disease HSMI. This is a huge point. If PRV is not causing disease, it's good to go into every farm. Somehow DFO thinks they can use a test that doesn't work and that we will believe them when they claim - there is no disease. I feel like I am talking to a small child who thinks she disappears when she pulls a dish cloth over her face.
So what happens if the Minister follows the law? Let's look at Washington State.
In 2018, PRV-infected farm fish were prohibited and the industry has not been able to stock a single farm. The industry is that infected. This is why everyone is afraid to follow the law and tell the industry no more PRV - infected fish.
So, now that we have no minister of fisheries for the 40 days of the election period, during the lowest wild salmon returns to BC in the history of Canada and wild salmon are turning yellow and dying like leaves in the rivers, it is up to us. We can go and check the salmon in the rivers ourselves. Is this die-off in only the three rivers I have checked? The Puntledge, Campbell and Quatse? Is this only occurring where wild salmon are exposed to fish farms? Or is this a natural phenomena in all rivers on this coast.
Download and print this instruction sheet. Let your fisherman friends know. Depending on your report I might head out to take samples. If you can't head out to the nearest river, donate a few dollars for supplies and tests. Click on the Extinction Watch graphic in the upper right.
Become the Department of Wild Salmon.
Click here to download Photo instructions