Today, Nov 25, 2021, the BC Salmon Farmers Association put out a report that attempts to discredit me and my research. Their point - I am wrong - closing salmon farms in the Discovery Islands made no difference to the health of young wild salmon swimming past Campbell River last spring.
The BC Salmon Farmers Association is paid to protect its members. They are failing. More and more First Nations are forcing salmon farms out of their territories to protect wild salmon.
And so they discredit anyone who says salmon farms harm wild salmon.
The BC Salmon Farmers' new website quotes my results without naming me.
They say "independent" data provided by Mainstream Biological Consulting found the opposite - that removing salmon farms made no difference to the number of sea lice on young wild salmon.
They call me an activist.
There are four things you should know if the survival of wild BC salmon is important to you:
1. The BC Salmon Farmers paid for their "independent" data. In an August 2020 letter to the Minister of Fisheries they reveal that they engaged "an independent third-party professional biologist"... the same Mainstream Biological Consulting. Paying for research is fine, but they should come clean and admit they paid for it instead of pretending it was "independent".
2. They use my data and refer to me as "established anti-salmon farming activist". For sure, I am active, but unlike Mainstream Biological Consulting, I have extensively published my sea lice results. This means the BC Salmon Farmers are discrediting the scientific journals that accepted my work. Instead of hurling accusations on a website - they could submit formal comments to the journals and explain why my results should be discredited.
3. Instead taking this debate into the scientific realm, Mainstream Biological Consulting uses social media to slander me... using #hate...
4. When you actually drill down into the data cited on this website, the industry data agrees with mine - there were far more lice in 2020 when the farms were active, than in 2021 when they were closed!
So there you have it. The BC Salmon Farmers is relying on data they paid, for from a group that uses social media to slander scientists who don't agree, and then they misinterpret the data.
Next summer the young pink salmon that went to sea through the fish farm-free Discovery Islands will return and then we will hear directly from the fish.