The Hook

neocon economics

If I'm correct in deducing from what I've read so far, that once infected with the lice, the smolts don't live long. If that is so, it should be relatively easy to prove that once past the farms, they don't get too much further.

Since that would be a labour-intensive project, it might require some DFO funding.

"But DFO hasn't any money" you say? Oh, how sad and how utterly convenient.

But then, I suppose, we should be grateful that Harpo is saving us all that money by downsizing DFO........Right?

The surveyors....

...are arriving in Pavilion as we speak. The sod-turning for the Gordon Campbell dam will be scheduled for next May.

Bigger than the Bennett, bought with an entire species and an entire industry.....

The answer isn't fishfarms

This is a coast-wide crash of sockeye - even the Nass and Stikine are affected and there are no fish farms up there.
Strangely enough the pinks who were supposed to be most affected are back with a vengeance....of course I'm just a victim of what CBC tends to air on the subject

More than just lice

Water temperaure is also a factor. 17.5C is bad for the fish and I've just heard that the Fraser Delta is 20C.
Having said that, I still have no doubt that the sea lice are a major factor in the disappearance of the runs.And that problem isn't being addressed by the Federal and Provincial governments. And I submit that it is all done for the bottom line in the Fish farming industry. Wipe out the wild stock and they will have to buy the junk fish.
Have I got news for them.

Another horribly biased article by Crawford Kilian

It is very sad that a respected academic such as Crawford Kilian could write such trash.

This is not an article, it is an deliberate attack on fish farms.

Perhaps a bit of history is in order.

In the old days of commercial fishing, the highest quality fish was the fresh fish troller catch. A troller would go out for a 12 day trip with a uninsulated hold full of ice. The fish laid next to the hull would often be in a state of rot when the troller returned to port. The overall quality of the troll caught product was quite poor.

When fish farms started on the coast, the quality of the fish that farms produced was quite good.

The commercial fishing industry went on the warpath against the fish farms with a propaganda campaign. Bumper stickers declaired that wild fish don't do drugs.

When the fish farm industry started bringing Atlantic Salmon into BC, the DFO demanded that the Atlantic Salmon be disease free to ensure that our wild stocks were protected from any introduced disease.

Atlantic Salmon were and still are completely disease free, but the those opposed to fish farms twisted the concern about disease free to farmed fish being diseased and infecting wild fish.

The sealice issue is an offshoot of this misinformation campaign.

Shame on Crawford for perpetuating it.

If fish farms are such a

If fish farms are such a god-send, how come they're a disaster to wild fish stocks in other countries too such as Chile, Ireland, or Norway? How come the fish farm industry is dead against fish ranching? I do agree about some of the theories about the sockeye low returns cuz of the river and sea water temps. How come there is no mention about salmon sharks?

Manfish

So why do they get fish covered in sea lice way up there.

The fish warms have been on a warpath with propaganda since the beginning. They should have been charged the cost of the due diligence to make sure they would not have these environmental impacts. Prove they are safe before the contaminate any other attempt to determine their impacts. Now the fish farmers can argue all they want but the fact is that salmon are at risk thanks to their actions.

Evidence Supports Dead Sea Lice

I heard about the salmon the other day and was taken aback by the devastating news. And it is just that as it is a living for some as it puts food on the table in more ways that one and part of their culture. T

I thought of the warmer temperatures, and of course the sea lice. It would be interesting to hear the evidence of course as I don't eat the farm variety myself and would hate to think it could kill out the wild.

Bumper Stickers

How many people on this site remember the commercial fishing bumper stickers which slagged the fish farm industry?

A couple that I remember:

"Wild Salmon don't do drugs"
"Commercial fisherman help you live better"
"Real fish don't eat pellets"

I am sure that there were more. If anyone can recall other bumper stickers please post them in comments.

They stated the obvious Illahie

We were being sold an inferior quality fish filled with antibiotics we didn't need and risking the wild stocks. The fish farm industry has never been subjected to as much regulation as the wild fishery. With the sea lice problem we know that fish farms are a risk to wild stocks.

Lessons Learned

There are some benefits to the Commercial Fisheries, Fish Farm, Environmentalist skirmish. There are lessons to be learned.

Number One, I think is the change in the Commercial Fisheries. When the fishing industry found how much money the fishfarm industry could get for a well cared for, high quality product, they dramatically changed their ways.

The Commercial Fishing Industry is now something our country can and should be proud of.

Number Two, perhaps is that the fish farm industry has realized that if they continue to produce a high quality product, there is a huge market out there. Public opinion, especially misquided public opinion does not matter, the quality of the product does.

Number Three I think is a lesson on propaganda. Propaganda campaigns can be very effective. It is not possible to prove a negative, so make claims that cannot be proved or are very difficult to prove. Claim that fish are diseased and that lice kill, and let the industry and management try to prove otherwise. Don't worry about the facts, the facts don't matter. Most people will never check the facts. People seem to be trusting, perhaps even gullible.

Number Four. There has got to be a way to make money off of trusting, gullible people.

You left me on the following:

"well cared for, high quality product" That in place of a healthy wild salmon. No thanks, farmed fish don't come close.

One of the longest and the shortest campaigns

I would like to think that the propaganda campaign against fish farms was thought up over a beer. In those days it would have perhaps been one of those 200 seat beer parlors which sold suds for two bits a glass.

That was 30 years ago, and I am sure those fisherman who were then fighting for their jobs have long since retired. I would think that if they are still hoisting beers, that they would have a bit of a chuckle over a campaign dropped by the fishing industry long ago, but like the Energizer Bunny is still running.

This contrasts with perhaps the shortest ever campaign, when Greenpeace took on the commercial herring catch. The herring fishery is perhaps the worlds shortest, an opening may be only 15 minutes long. A herring seiner would have only one objective, to put their net around a million dollar ball of herring. The stakes were huge. Mere seconds could separate the million dollar boat from the boat that did not make a single dollar.

When Greenpeace found out that the herring fleet was only focused on catching herring,
and did not care what the protesters did,
they decided that perhaps the herring fishery was not that bad for the planet.

By the way Sockeye salmon do not eat herring, they feed on zoo plankton such as mysids.

Illahie’s Red Herring

Illahie -

Of course much of the campaign 30 years ago focused on the health benefits of eating farmed vs. wild salmon. Are you going to tell us that eating farmed fish is every bit as healthy as eating wild salmon? Were the fishermen wrong?

And do really think that your figurative fishermen hoisting beers are really going to raise a glass to the demise of the salmon that fed their communities for generations? Of course these gentlemen are responsible for much of the decline in the salmon, and they are paying for it with their jobs. However, not all of the blame can be put on their practices for reasons discussed at length in other forums.

I agree that it is unfair to blame the salmon farming industry as the main culprit for the decline in wild stocks. And maybe the industry is getting unfairly associated with the decline of the sockeye. But where are the scientific studies (not just a few graphs) directly discrediting Ms. Morton’s work? Illahie, can you point us to them, since you are posting on this site with the obvious intent to inform and clear up misinformation?

There is a lot of blame to go around for the decline of the salmon. No industry wants to be the “the last straw breaks the laden camel's back”. It’s all about how much risk we are prepared to take with our wild stocks.

Illahie

I don't believe anyone should defend human tampering within an ecosystem - sorry but humans aren't really that smart my friend- we tend to think way too highly of ourselves and we shouldn't.

The fish farms have had an impact period along with other mentioned factors. Perhaps the whole industry should be shut down for 5 years - of course the Americans, like ourselves, will not stop until we are all staring in disbelief at the very last salmon and wondering what happened. Yup, we are an intelligent bunch aren't we?
Should we defend industry until the bitter end of the world as long as someone is making money from it and it creates a few jobs?

The whole thing is ridiculous.....