February 2, 2022
Dear Minister Joyce Murray,
Hopefully your staff are briefing you on the developing sea lice situation in BC salmon farms. I would like to add my observations.
From December 1 – January 22 Mowi treated its farms in Quatsino Sound with freshwater baths. A few weeks later two of those farms are nearly 4xs over the limit that will apply on March 1, the onset of the juvenile wild salmon outmigration. This raises two issues I hope you can consider:
First – It appears sea lice are building resistance to freshwater treatments through repeat exposure by these wellboats. This is a serious problem as it would allow sea lice to enter BC rivers and feed on juvenile salmon trying to rear in BC freshwater systems. I don’t think we can fix this if it occurs.
Second – Mowi must have thought this treatment would be effective or they would not have spent the enormous funds to treat the farms in Quatsino over the past 7 weeks. And yet the treatment failed spectacularly. The Mowi farm, Koskimo in Quatsino, had an average of 2.17 lice before treatment in December and 11.57 now post treatment today. Mahatta East had 11.9 motile lice and now has 11.6. Mowi is now treating Mahatta East with hydrogen peroxide, however in Norway they are moving away from these bath treatments. As I noted in early letters to you, these treatments appear to trigger sea lice outbreaks, making the problem worse, not better. All of this suggests the company doesn’t have a handle on this.
Mowi is now treating its farms off Klemtu with the same freshwater treatment that failed in Quatsino. Mowi has three farms off Port Hardy and Klemtu that are over the March 1 limit and three others that are rapidly approaching the threshold. All of these will require treatment. Each farm requires approximately 1 day per pen, and there are 10-12 pens per farm. I don’t see how Mowi is going to meet their Conditions of Licence (section 6.6) and protect the 2022 wild salmon outmigration.
Meanwhile in Clayoquot Sound Cermaq is trying hydrogen peroxide and mechanical de-lousing (hydrolicer) with three farms over the March 1 limit and 3 more very close. As reported to you earlier the evidence suggests the mechanical treatments used by this industry are violating their Conditions of Licence by releasing lice.
Grieg imported a $30 million boat last year and another this year for $11 million per year, and yet there are annual high farm-lice infections on chum and Chinook smolts migrating through Nootka and Esperanza.
Even if Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg meet the March 1 deadline, their Conditions of Licence allow them 42 days of high infection every time they breach the 3 motile lice limit from March – June. Given their current track record during the winter months when lice reproduction is at its lowest, we can only surmise these companies are going rely on this 42-day option and infect significant numbers of young salmon this year. The placement of the farms struggling with sea lice will impact the Fraser River, southcoast mainland inlets, Vancouver Island rivers, all west coast rivers and central coast rivers.
Minister Murray - DFO’s salmon farm Conditions of Licence clearly recognize that high lice numbers on salmon farms are dangerous to wild salmon stocks because each licence requires the salmon farming industry to control their lice. As someone on the ground studying the impact of these regulations it is clear they are too lax, but nevertheless they exist and thus establish that DFO recognizes exceeding three motile lice on farm salmon is harmful to wild salmon.
The evidence I offer here, from the companies own websites, suggests the salmon farming industry does not know how to control their lice, even as DFO recognizes sea lice on salmon farms have to be controlled and many wild salmon populations exposed to salmon farms have declined to the brink of extinction. If DFO continues on this course the agency appears complicit in the harm that is occurring. Something has to change.
My recommendations to you are to:
- Remove the 42-day exemption for high lice numbers immediately from the Conditions of Licence and enforce the 3 motile limit throughout the 2022 juvenile wild salmon outmigration
- Inform the industry that DFO will audit each farm for sea lice weekly given reports that farms are under reporting their lice by up to 50%. There are a lot less farms left on this coast today and Broughton Nation are already doing this work on eight farms and so this task is easier for DFO than in previous years.
- Inform the industry that their licences may not be renewed when they expire this summer if they cannot keep their lice below 3 motiles (which is higher than many First Nations are now requiring from the industry). The industry has been aware of this issue for 2 decades and so it will not be a surprise to them that today’s federal government has to act given the extreme wild salmon declines of the past few years.
I recognize these are very difficult recommendations, but all the work coastwide to save wild salmon runs from extinction will be for nothing if young salmon cannot get to sea uninfected this spring. It seems reasonable to say wild salmon numbers are too low to allow Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg to continue failing to control their sea lice. To put this in perspective, they are also failing to control sea lice in their home country of Norway and the equipment shipped to BC, failed to work in Norway. For the industry to suggest they can control their lice is a dangerous ruse.
Thank you for your consideration. I will be applying for a scientific licence to examine young wild salmon for sea lice for my 20th year and I hope the licence will be granted.
I recognize how difficult protecting wild salmon is and I am grateful for the opportunity to write to you. Attached are screen shots of the freshwater treatments and the ongoing H202 treatments by Mowi in Quatsino.
Alexandra Morton
Science Advisor ‘Namgis, Mamalilikulla and Kwickwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis First Nations
Below are screen captures of sea lice treatments by Mowi in Quatsino. First they did seven weeks of freshwater treatment with the Aqua Tromoy. When they ended up with more lice than they started with, they switched in hydrogen peroxide treatments by the Roy Kristian (bottom image)