Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Farms

Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Farms

Postby Oscar » Tue Jul 19, 2016 10:23 am

Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Farms

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/07/19/Sea-S ... mon-Farms/ ]

Biologist Alexandra Morton welcomes conservation society’s support; fish farmers ‘alarmed.’

By Andrew Nikiforuk , July 19, 2016 | TheTyee.ca

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here.

When Alexandra Morton learned that Paul Watson, the combative navigator of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, was sending a research vessel to British Columbia to help draw attention to the threat fish farms pose to wild salmon, the 59-year-old biologist was stunned.

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Salmon farming began on the West Coast 30 years ago as small family-run operations but quickly became a source of controversy due to algal blooms, price volatility, Atlantic salmon escapes, the killing of fish predators and bankruptcies.

Morton, a whale specialist, initially supported fish farms and even worked on one, until commercial fishermen raised concerns about the location of fish farms in critical habitat and on migration routes for prawns, salmon and rock cod.

After the DFO answered Morton’s persistent queries about impacts with letters stating “There is no evidence of problem,” the biologist realized the federal agency wasn’t collecting evidence on the impacts of factory farms.

She began to document how exploding sea lice populations at factory farms attack and cripple migrating young wild salmon. She also began to track and identify the impact of diseases spawned in salmon farms and transmitted to wild fish.

“I shouldn’t have to get on a Sea Shepherd vessel and make a scene when governments have a problem,” says Morton. But governments increasingly only heed corporate voices, she says.

In approving long-term leases to fish farms “with no consultation whatsoever, the federal Liberal government has failed act in good faith by not obtaining the free, prior and informed consent of Indigenous peoples,” adds Morton.

She hopes the presence of R/V Martin Sheen in coastal waters from Vancouver to Alert Bay will draw attention to a “failure of democracy.”

Just like cattle feedlots or intensive hog operations on land, industrialized farming of fish like salmon depends upon intensive use of fossil fuels and imported feed.

Crowding of fish also sets the stage for the rapid growth of viruses, bacteria and sea lice. Factory farms also produce high volumes of toxic waste (2.5 to 2.7 kilograms per fish per production cycle) [ http://0101.nccdn.net/1_5/1ee/0ae/200/W ... n-farm.pdf ] that can seriously degrade coastal water quality. [ http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/wp-co ... plumes.pdf ]

A waste plume from a fish farm, for example, can extend 30 kilometres into the ocean and can become a biological gauntlet of viruses, bacteria and sea lice for wild migrating fish.

“Four foreign corporations are using our wild Pacific migration routes as their open sewer to raise a foreign species of fish on the territory of First Nations,” said Morton. “It is not a sustainable industry.”

She compares the placement of fish farms on wild fish migration routes to a mother “dragging her children through the infectious disease ward of a hospital on their way to school.”

“And the Trudeau government is allowing them to get bigger,” Morton notes.

Morton and other groups such as the New Brunswick-based Atlantic Salmon Federation [ http://asf.ca/aquaculture-in-need-of-change.html ] have long advocated for closure of open net fish farms and a shift to land-based aquaculture industry using a closed system that can contain its dangerous biological waste.

Such a system could also use alternative feed supplies such as insects as opposed to dwindling and imperilled stocks of small fish.

Morton also says the government should use new technology that can read the immune systems of wild fish to help coastal communities restore wild salmon populations.

If genomic profiling shows that certain kind of pollutants, declining river water levels or deforestation are stressing fish along a particular migration route, “we can go back the next year and fix the problem and see it makes a difference to fish survival,” she says.

All coastal communities would have to participate in a monitoring program with standard protocols to make the system work, explains Morton. “The technology allows the fish to talk to us and then allows us to structurally get out of the way of fish so we don’t have be a bully in the ocean.”

The RV/Martin Sheen will follow wild salmon migration routes along the Fraser River delta up to Discovery Passage and Alert Bay over the next two months.

The BC Salmon Farmers Association said they are open to “meeting with the researchers from the Sea Shepherd Society.” [Tyee]
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Re: Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Fa

Postby Oscar » Mon Aug 08, 2016 11:24 am

WATCH: Fish-Farming: An Afternoon with Alexandra Morton

[ http://thetyee.ca/Video/2013/04/25/Alexandra-Morton/ ]

Submitted by Lewis Bennett, 25 Apr 2013

In a discussion with filmmaker Lewis Bennett, Alexandra Morton discusses her life as a an activist and researcher on the B.C. coast and her hopes for positive change as a cataclysmic event.

"Humanity itself could figure this out. We just need to look at the system, see it as perfect, and figure out how to fit in."


= = = =


RELATED:


Meet the Crew Aboard the Fish-Farm Patrolling ‘Martin Sheen’ - August 8, 2016 - Andrew Nikiforuk

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/08/Fish- ... ign=080816 ]
No ‘hippie terrorists’ here, the sailors supporting Alexandra Morton’s research mission share a passion for ocean life.


‘There Is a Dead One There’: Patrolling Fish Farms with Alexandra Morton - August 2, 2016 - Andrew Nikiforuk
[ [ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/02/Patro ... ra-Morton/ ]
As biologist’s research quest continues, industry decries use of drones and cameras as ‘harassment.’


Sea Lice Exploded among Wild Young Salmon near BC Fish Farms: Study - July 25, 2016 - Andrew Nikiforuk
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/07/25/Sea-L ... ng-Salmon/ ]
Parasites spiked in Broughton area salmon pens, and hit decade high among wild juveniles, says new report.


Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Farms - July 19, 2016 - Andrew Nikiforuk
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/07/19/Sea-S ... mon-Farms/ ]
Biologist Alexandra Morton welcomes conservation society’s support; fish farmers ‘alarmed.’


How Sea Lice Are Killing Young Salmon - July 25, 2016 - TYEE Staff
[ http://thetyee.ca/Video/2016/07/25/Sea- ... ng-Salmon/ ]
Sea lice were once never found on young salmon, until we created fish farms.


Evidence of Fish Farm Disease Detected in BC - May 23, 2016
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/05/23/Fish-Farm-Disease-BC/ ]
Government backs down from court appeal based on 'new information.'


Alexandra Morton Challenges Federal Fish Farm Licences in Court - June 11, 2014 - Pauline Holdsworth
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2014/06/11/Morto ... Transfers/ ]
Biologist takes issue with transfer of virus-infected fish into wild salmon waters.
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Re: Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Fa

Postby Oscar » Mon Aug 15, 2016 10:25 am

Critic Still Wary on Liberals’ Commitment to Salmon

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/10/Liber ... ign=150816 ]

Praise for Cohen Commission action, but doubts about commitment to restoring protection lost in Harper years.

By Jeremy J. Nuttall , 10 Aug 2016 | TheTyee.ca

Critics fear the federal government is planning to weaken a major salmon conservation plan that guides protection of the embattled fish.

The government announced it would adopt the recommendations of the Cohen Commission, a 2012 study detailing safeguards to protect sockeye salmon in the Fraser River and apply them across the province at Vancouver press conference Tuesday.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada said all 75 of the commission's recommendations will be implemented and almost 30 scientists added to DFO staff to work on implementation.

Aaron Hill of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society said he’s generally happy with the DFO initiative.

But he doesn't understand why the government’s plan includes changing a major fisheries document to reflect weaker salmon-protection laws introduced by the former Conservative government—especially when the Liberals have promised to change the laws.

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The Tyee asked Fisheries and Oceans Canada why it would change the Wild Salmon Plan to conform to laws the government said promised to change, but did not received a response.

A previous query on the implementation of the Cohen Commission recommendations was answered with a link to the nearly 14,000-word progress report on the initiative. [ http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/cohen/report-rapport-eng.htm ]

Hill said he remains wary about the Liberals’ intentions
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Re: Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Fa

Postby Oscar » Tue Aug 23, 2016 8:25 am

First Nation Serves Evictions Notices to BC Fish Farms

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/22/First ... ign=220816 ]

Orders follow a number of developments, including federal decision to extend licences.

By Andrew Nikiforuk, TheTyee.ca August 22, 2016

The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw, whose traditional lands includes much of the Broughton Archipelago, have boarded two Japanese-owned fish farms and delivered eviction orders to remove their operations from unceded territories over the last six days.

On Aug. 15, three Dzawada’enuxw traditional leaders served an eviction notice to a Cermaq/Mitsubishi salmon farm on the Burdwood Islands, and on Aug. 18 boats from the communities of Gwayasdums (Gilford Island), U’kwa’nalis (Kingcome Inlet) and Alert Bay arrived at the Sir Edmund Bay fish farms run by Cermaq/Mitsubishi to conduct a cleansing ceremony.

Melissa Willie, an elected councillor for the nation, said about 40 people participated in the cleansing ceremony and that more demonstrations are planned later this week.

Willie said a cleansing ceremony was necessary because fish farms have been clouded by a lot of “negativity” and environmental impacts, and her people wanted to do something positive.

“We will do a cleansing of our waters once we get these fish farms out,” Willie told The Tyee.

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Notice gives three months to pack up

The eviction notice gives the corporate farms three months to pack up their operations.

It also demands that no more farmed fish be transferred into the First Nation’s traditional territory and that the nation be allowed to take fish samples from the farms anytime it wants to determine what types of disease or parasites might be present.

“The people who are benefitting from these farms are benefitting over the suffering of our people,” said Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader Farron Soukochoff in a press release.

The Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nations have opposed corporate salmon farming on the grounds that open-net feedlots invite diseases and waste that have had a deleterious impact on wild fish, including herring and five varieties of Pacific salmon.

“We, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw view the destruction of wild fish by the fish farming industry as part of the long history of genocide forced on our people by the governments of Canada,” reads an Aug. 18 press release. “Salmon are essential to our well-being and the well-being of our world.”

According to a recent report, the number of young wild salmon leaving Dzawada’enuxw territory in the spring of 2015 could have been reduced by nine to 39 per cent due to sea lice from salmon farms.

Along with the eviction notice, the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw have set up a website called “cleansing our waters.” [ http://cleansingourwaters.com/projects/ ]

Approximately one-third of the corporate feedlots growing Atlantic salmon along B.C.’s coast are located on Dzawada’enuxw territory.

A 2008 scientific study found that wild salmon populations declined wherever corporations have set up industrial fish farms in the ocean including Norway, Scotland, Ireland and Canada. [ http://www.fmap.ca/ramweb/papers-total/ ... s_2008.pdf ]

“We have heard the words of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, that honouring the rights of First Nations are a ‘sacred obligation’ to the Liberal Government of Canada,” said Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw hereditary leader and chief councillor Willie Moon at a cleansing ceremony at the Sir Edmund salmon farm at the entrance to Kingcome Inlet.

“Our people have spoken: we want salmon farms out of our territory.”

In a prepared statement, Jeremy Dunn, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association, said that the industry has 20 agreements with First Nations that cover “78 per cent of the annual harvest of farmed salmon.”

“Our members are always open to meeting and discussing issues with First Nations and would like to develop agreements in areas where they do not exist today,” added the statement.

Dunn told The Tyee that many First Nations have tried to evict corporate farms in the past but later signed financial agreements with the industry.

*Story updated Aug. 22 at 9:45 a.m. to include comment from the BC Salmon Farmers Association.

- - - -

Sea Lice Exploded among Wild Young Salmon near BC Fish Farms: Study - July 26, 2016
[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/07/25/Sea-L ... ng-Salmon/ ]

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Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here: [ http://thetyee.ca/Bios/Andrew_Nikiforuk/ ]
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Re: Sea Shepherd ‘Pirates’ to Turn Spotlight on BC Salmon Fa

Postby Oscar » Thu Aug 25, 2016 1:32 pm

RCMP Arrest Four Indigenous Protesters over Fish Farm Action

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/25/RCMP- ... ign=250816 ]

‘It is the right of any human to protect their land and water,’ says one protester.

By Andrew Nikiforuk , TheTyee.ca August 25, 2016

Andrew Nikiforuk is an award-winning journalist who has been writing about the energy industry for two decades and is a contributing editor to The Tyee. Find his previous stories here: [ http://thetyee.ca/Bios/Andrew_Nikiforuk/ ]

The RCMP has arrested and released four Indigenous protesters in the community of Ahousaht, B.C. for trying to obstruct a fish farm company from restocking an empty feedlot with new Atlantic smolts.

The incident happened Monday evening when Lennie John, Sacheen Seitcham and two other residents of the Ahousaht community protested at the Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino as a barge attempted to stock the previously closed farm with new smolts, or young Atlantic salmon.

The RCMP arrested the protesters the following day after the company, Cermaq/Mitsubishi, lodged complaints about the incident. Charges have not yet been laid.

Seitcham and her husband, Joe James Rampanen, told The Tyee in an email sent together that they participated in the protest “because it is our inherent right to protect wild salmon, it is our duty and responsibility to ensure we have Indigenous food security and we are upholding our rights to do so.”

The couple, who eat traditional foods from the ocean five days a week, said they had witnessed “a noticeable decline in herring and salmon runs and the shell fish beaches as well” after fish farms were allowed into their traditional waters nearly 20 years ago.

“It is the right of any human to protect their land and water. We will not be bullied or intimidated by this industry... We knew Cermaq would do this. It is a bad call on their part,” Seitcham said.

Laurie Jensen, a communications manager with Cermaq, said the company “received calls from the site on Monday night asking for help as militants were engaging in unsafe behaviour.” Jensen said she was not aware of the arrests.

Jensen offered no account of what happened but said that Cermaq will conduct its own investigation into the incident at the Dixon Bay facility, and that all “unsafe activity will be reported to the proper channels.”

The incident follows dramatic boardings [ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/22/First ... on-Notice/ ] of fish farms by the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw First Nation in the Broughton Archipelago on the other side of Vancouver Island over the last two weeks.

During the peaceful boardings, tribal chiefs delivered eviction notices to farms owned by Cermaq and the Norwegian multinational Marine Harvest.

The chiefs claim that high-density open-net fish farms pollute the ocean with disease and waste and threaten marine life and wild fish stocks. They have given the two foreign-owned corporations three months to close their operations.

Disease remains a persistent problem at corporate fish farms due to overcrowding and viral exchanges between wild and farmed stock.

Cermaq’s Dixon Bay farm, for example, was closed in 2012 due to an outbreak of infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus [ http://www.cfsph.iastate.edu/Factsheets ... crosis.pdf ], also known as IHNv. The virus is carried [ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4902920/# ] by wild fish who show little evidence of disease. In contrast, the virus can wipe out 90 per cent of farmed salmon.

That same year the federal government paid $4.1 million [ http://www.vancouversun.com/news/farms+ ... story.html ] to two other corporations for the loss of farmed fish from the same virus in B.C. waters. The federal government has compensated corporate fish farms for disease losses with nearly $100 million in payments since 2011.

MORE:

[ http://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/25/RCMP- ... ign=250816 ]
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