Study Confirms Deadly Disease in BC Salmon Farms

[Oscar]

Study Confirms Deadly Disease in BC Salmon Farms

[ https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/02/27/BC-S ... Confirmed/ ]

Research identifies HSMI in farmed fish, links to widespread virus.

By Andrew Nikiforuk , | TheTyee.ca February 27, 2017

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: [ https://thetyee.ca/Bios/Andrew_Nikiforuk/ ]

New research shows that, despite industry and government denials, a deadly and durable virus has been causing disease in B.C. salmon farms.

A study [ http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0171471 ] supported by the Department of Fisheries and Ocean’s Strategic Salmon Health Initiative [ https://www.psf.ca/what-we-do/strategic ... initiative ] has confirmed that heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI), the third largest killer of farmed fish in Norway, occurs in B.C. and has caused disease at a fish farm in the Discovery Islands between 2011 and 2013 and possibly at three other farms between 2013 and 2014.

The study, with respected federal scientist Kristi Miller among the co-authors, also shed light on the links between piscine reovirus (PRV), common in farmed salmon in B.C., and HSMI.

“We showed that piscine reovirus (PRV) is statistically associated with the development of heart lesions, but also that some fish carry PRV without lesions, especially early in the disease, as has also been reported in Norway,” the study reports.

HSMI was first identified in Norwegian fish farms in 1999 and costly outbreaks have continued to affect its fish farm industry. The disease leads to emaciated, and lethargic farmed fish.

It is just one of many emerging diseases [ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2878170/ ] spread by the global expansion of the farmed fish and shrimp industry. Overcrowding and stress invite the emergence of new pathogens.

MORE:

[ https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/02/27/BC-S ... Confirmed/ ]