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.