Vicky Husband - Sierra Club, Jim McIsaac - Cleanwater Director for the T. Buck Suzuki Foundation, Lori McBride - Georgia Strait Alliance. They are opportunists who take a subject like sea lice, something nobody has a clue about, and sell it to the public in order to get funds to continue their useless ventures.
For those that put down Evangelical Christian groups for enticing their followers into speanding money to support the cause, I don't see this is any difference, it's just a different religion.
Perhaps the above mentioned could have taken up plumbing as a proffession instead of whatever useless University course that they are now trying to justify and pay for.
Sea lice are harmless and have always been here.

Ron, we realize that you'll always believe FOR PROFIT corporations before you'd ever listen to NOT FOR PROFIT organizations. We also realize that you won't (please prove me wrong) back up any of your arguements with any substantive evidence. Deny, deny, deny - it's your MO and so be it. But before you go and claim that noone knows what a sea lice is, just google it. Actually, I'll do it for you.....

....here are some of the results:

http://www.fau.edu/safe/sea-lice.html
http://www.umaine.edu/livestock/Publications/sea_lice_bullets.htm
http://www.watershed-watch.org/ww/Sealicefacts/sealicefacts_main.htm
http://www.ecotrust.org/publications/farmed_salmon_steak.html
http://www.fishinghurts.com/fishFarms1.asp

They still don't have a clue as to what they're talking about eh?

mbraun; If you think I would ever link to any of your suggestions your are crazy. Hygiene basics say don't link to anything you don't trust in order to avoid infection of mind or body.
And again, it's not up to me to prove farmed salmon are safe. It's up to you to prove that they are not. I have eaten them and did not die, so I guess their okay.

"I have eaten them and did not die, so I guess their okay."

Wow, that's some rock solid logic there Ron. Guess you should take up smoking too.

mbraun: If Ron Irwin's knowledge of this or other issues is limited to his own observations, I bet he probably belongs to the the Flat Earth society too. Don't be surpised that he is not interested in learning more about the sea lice issue - he is quite comfortable in his own ignorance. Ignore him.

Ron Erwin posted:

mbraun; If you think I would ever link to any of your suggestions your are crazy. Hygiene basics say don't link to anything you don't trust in order to avoid infection of mind or body.
And again, it's not up to me to prove farmed salmon are safe. It's up to you to prove that they are not. I have eaten them and did not die, so I guess their okay.

Three points. First, I tend to agree that there are some people in "the environmental movement" who are doing well by doing good. Their direct mail list is their meal ticket, and like a litigation lawyer, the thing they need most is another villian, a new issue. I certainly think that's what's going on with the opposition to Port Mann and Hwy 1 expansion. However, that doesn't mean that every conservationist is simply trying to get rich milking the believers, or even if they are, that they don't have a point sometimes.

As for these links you won't touch, the second one is to the University of Maine. I went there and there has been no cloud of blue smoke pouring out the top of my computer.

Last, your point on who has to prove what is pretty damned funny. In your world, the people introducing the new product, the cultivated product, are assumed to be doing something perfectly safe, while those trying to protect the original, wild species have to prove they are doing nothing wrong.

Ron, ... you need a job in the Liberal Party War Room where you'll be rubbing shoulders with the best in the business, and once the election is over, you can name your price with any of the Fortune 500 companies you feel like.

I guess you're right boondocker. I suppose that if erwin is going to continue to post on the tyee, that one day, just one day, he may actally present a logical argument. However, he's the ultimate straw man who's posts are laden with over simplification fallacies - his latest post being a prime example.

Its amazing that people can become bitter over fish. Is farming cruel to fish?

Fish farming seems to make sense if what we're trying to do is establish a stable food supply for 6 billion people. Just like we don't go out and hunt for red meat any more, it seems sensible to raise fish instead going out and seeking it.

When you raise fish or animals in captivity, there are going to be challenges to overcome, but I think it has to be done in order to feed a growing population.

How about the chicken? The chicken has it much worse than fish and is warm blooded. I say, leave fish farming alone and focus on the chicken. I'm sure you've seen reports on the horrors chickens go through. There was a video out there of some chicken farmers hooking a conveyer belt up to a dumpster and dumping live unwanted chickens in there to slowly smother.

Yeah right. Unfortunately, the toxic waste you've been ladling into yourself has had a marked effect on your mental faculties. Afraid to read anything not blessed by the Asper family, or the Fraser Institute, Ron?

Tommy; No I am not afraid of reading left wing propaganda. I have as my favoutites The Toronto Star, The Guardian and the king of B.S. The New York Times. I even occasionally watch CBC and log into the Tyee. So, don't uou think I am smart now ?

"Radiation is harmless and has always been here."

I fixed your dumbass statement for ya dumbass.

Is sucession the answer to save you all from "dumbasses" and farmed lice covered fish?

CALGARY (CP) - More than one-third of western Canadians surveyed this summer thought it was time to consider separation from Canada, a poll suggests.

In the survey, 35.6 per cent of respondents from Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia agreed with the statement: Western Canadians should begin to explore the idea of forming their own country.

Albertans, at 42 per cent, were most apt to consider independence, followed by Saskatchewan at 31.9 per cent. Residents of B.C. and Manitoba were the least likely to consider separation, at 30.8 and 27.5 per cent respectively.

The survey was commissioned by the Western Standard, a right-leaning bimonthly news and opinion magazine based in Calgary, to assess how well the federal government has been managing the issue of western alienation - something that Prime Minister Martin promised to reduce as part of his 2004 election campaign.

The research was conducted by pollster Faron Ellis, a political science professor at Lethbridge Community College, who surveyed 1,448 adult western Canadians between June 29 and July 5.

The results are considered accurate within plus or minus 2.6 percentage point, 19 times out of 20.

Ellis noted that surprisingly, separatist sentiment appeared to run highest among young people - 37 per cent of respondents between the ages of 18 and 29 were open to the notion of breaking away from Canada.

Support was lowest - 33.7 per cent - among the baby boom generation aged between 45 and 64.

In the poll's supplementary questions, 64 per cent of respondents said Martin had done a "poor job" at ending western alienation.

I ask again though, what about the chickens? Why will no-one address the chickens? Deserters are good but Chickens are non-entities?

Hey! Brain Dead! (Sit down Ron) To feed a growing population? Fish farms are not the answer, not even on land and in closed pens. That's where the diseases come from and that's where the next plague will originate. We can't feed the 6 billion here now, and more on the way. You obviously have no idea of the scale and scope of this crisis. Do you even recognize that it is a crisis? There just isn't time to suffer fools anymore, and why are you still arguing with Ron?

Ron Erwin is a paid shill and will twist the truth to suit his own ends. Like Gordo and the rest of his Liberal ilk, he will distort the truth to protect his employers. Where are all the fish going anyways?

Is it true that most farmed fish are being rendered into protien based food for cattle, producing more hamburger meat for Mickey D's and Burger Kings of the world? Now there is a Big Mac attack!

As for the West leaving Canada- RIGHT ON!! It's time to split away this corrupt country and let the Eastern overseers fester in their corrupt colonial dreams. Now there's a legacy for Paul Martin and his politcaly correct types.

You again Clubo? If we can't feed the 6 billion we have now (and we can't) isnt it time to change our ways of feeding?

Fish farming is a crisis? No I sure don't recognize it. Nope! Starvation is a crisis. Or do you mean sea lice is a crisis? What's a crisis clubo? Everything? You're probably right, its an over crowded planet getting crushed under the weight of too many people. So why the heck not farm fish, keep it as clean as possible, move forward.

In cave person days, would you be the one to say that we should stick to hunting wooly mammoths and that to begin farming is a step toward doom an disaster.

"If we can't feed the 6 billion we have now (and we can't) isnt it time to change our ways of feeding?"

My understanding is that the problem is one of allocation rather than actual size of supply.

In other words, us fat N. Americans are basically taking food from babies' mouthes. Hell yeah, we're civilized... not.

Howz it feel?

I don't agree, the the crisis is not one of allocation. The 17 major fishing grounds on earth, (the water part) including the grand banks are all in serious decline and unlikely to recover in any commercial sense. Arable land is lost to development and desertification every year. Not to mention the way Monsanto farms the world, with oil and other unsustainable methods. This is all ecology 101 no brainer stuff, David Suzuki et al pointed this out 20 years ago. But yet people still ask what crisis?
Fish farms, especially salmon, is pointless and worse still destructive to the ecology. Farmed Salmon isn't for the hungry masses anyway, it's for western cuisine. Don't eat it period.
If you can't grasp these simple concepts then you need to re-evaluate your thinking. As said by the good Dr. we should try and err on the side of caution.

Is there enough food to go around right now or not? I'm not talking about how it's created or what's going to happen in the future. Seems that's a yes or no question no matter what your politics are ie: XXX calories per day divided by 6 bilion.

If people ate more fruit, vegetables and grains we can feed more people.

Someone wanted to talk about western alienation so they posted that wonk from the Western Standard run by extreme neo-con Ezra Levant so no wonder they got the result on separation.

Hmmm, what if rahrichie is Ezra Levant that would explain a lot.

why are all the right wingers concerned about feeding the 6 billion with farmed fish and not concerned about the rate at which we are paving and developing prime farm land in the Okanagon South Island and Fraser Valley? Once that farm land is gone we will never get it back, will produce from trucked from California or grown in green houses be affordable when we get into Peak Oil, for some maybe.

Any lawyer with a good heart can contact me through this blog site. I am going to canvas residents of Squamish so that we might file a class action suit against cn rail and members of the provincial liberal goverment.
How much more of what's left of our province are we going to allow to be destroyed so that american corporations who bought gordo and his gang of theives can deliver profit to their mercenary shareholders?
p.s.- a inside source told me that railcars passing thru Squamish don't get nearly the same level of inspection ever since cn took over and canned all the local bc rail workers.

In 40 or 50 years when the wild fishery has been wiped out, the history books will blame politicians like Gordon Campbell and fish farm advocates like Ron Erwin. They'll ask why they didn't listen to all the experts telling them that their fish farm practices were dangerous to the wild stock. I can live with that, but it is too bad that I won't be able to take my great-grandchildren salmon fishing (assuming I'm still alive, lol).

I don´t have a problem with fish farming in principle - just the way it is done on our coast. These fish farmers are NOT doing to feed the starving billions who can´t afford to pay; they are doing it to overfeed themselves.

We should note that many of the fish farm operators here (BC) are hear because they are not permitted to operate in Scotland and Norway in the way they do here. I believe some of them are even banned from some European waters because of the damage they have done to local fisheries.

Factory farms are about greed, whether the farmed animals are fish, chickens, cattle, pigs. And with the factory farming comes a lot of unexpected side-effects such as rampant disease requiring large inputs of antibiotics and toxic effluent (eg intensive hog farming which has ruined neighbouring property values as well as local sources of fresh water ...)

Some medical archaeologists have suggested that the major portion of significant human disease originated with intensive argiculture. (Animals confined to close quarters provided a fertile ground for the reinforcement of mutations that allowed animal diseases to leap the species barrier to humans).

As for feeding the world, there is probably not enough animal protein out there to sustain 6 billion people with the amount of meat that North Americans eat. I have read that there are not enough cattle in the world to feed the Chinese for a year at the same rate that the US consumes cattle. There is, however, usually an excess of grains and other plants every year. Plant protein is approximately 10 times more efficient to produce than animal protein.

Apologies. My last sentence should have read: Plant matter is approximately 10 times more efficient to produce than animal matter (by weight). Animals serve to concentrate proteins.

This ain't about fish, guys. And it ain't about well meaning but misguided theoretical policies.

It's corruption.

These companies are buying influence, paying lots of money to political parties and politicians, and the politicians are getting elected. Then they sell. Our stuff. Real cheap.

This isn't some staff liason, it's fixers and expediters. Making sure no nasty regulations get in the way of their nice big profit they paid so much for.

Those damn wild salmon keep popping up in the river where people who didn't pay for them can get at them? Where just anybody can eat food without paying us? Quick! Get the guy from fisheries to fake up some science to fuddle the duddles until our lice and diseases can finish the buggers off.

Problem fixed.

Jesterjogger - go for it, sue the bastards, its what we need to get to the truth. All local input is long gone as the 'dangerous' cargo cars were marshalled at the wrong end, but what does CN care.

In Alberta, criminal action may start by the provincial government against CNR because they lied about the consist that was dumped into the lake.

Sending dangerous cargo by rail is very safe, except where railways ignore the rules or scimp on track and/or vehicle maintenace.

Everything these days is intensive farming, factory style on concrete floors, and I can't get exercised about fish farming because I'm sure it can be done right. I'm not so sure about the way we grow livestock — especially fowl — though. In fact, I don't like it one bit.

Isn't it curious that most people posting here don't want to deal with the basic public administration issues that this story is about?

Instead, they want to talk about fish farming, which is related, but is not the real story. The real story is the fact that tne Federal Public Service has ethics and values that are so elastic that they allow an official from a department that regulates an industry to be loaned to that industry, and paid well by it. No one here, not even the self-proclaimed environmentalists, is ready to confront that, perhaps because to do so would disturb their happy go lucky view of the Federal Liberal Party.

Budd Campbell,

You are correct about side-issues and being off topic, but I don't think Tyee subscribers are overloaded with those with benign feelings toward the Federal Liberal Party.

Simply put, I see the author relating a conflict in which the taxpayer is doubly shafted in helping to finance bad decisions while permitting "double-dipping" of a highly paid, public employee.

These threads will sometimes be abused (in the eyes of some) to get off a pet peeve or refer to a breaking story. If, as a courtesy to the author, the topic is referred to in the message, I see not much wrong with that.

For example:

After two columns in which Vaughn Palmer tells us that the RAV line will be a smaller package at greater cost and that some of those cost overruns, that we were assured would have absorbed by the contractors, will be picked up by taxpayers. Let's have a thread on this.

I think we should start an email campaign demanding full dislosure, perhaps those with more time could post the email address of public officials who would get the ball rolling and the email of the individual himself so we can let him know how we feel. This speaks volumes about the real mandate of the Federa Government with regards to protecting our Fisheries and Oceans.

Bailey: A discussion took place the other day about the origins of corporate corruption and was it part of a larger conspiracy. To make a long story short

...not that short...
It was decided that it was more likely to have been collusion during the dawning of modern media, when the TV came to life. CEO's would have met at a free chamber of commerce luncheonette and started talking.... Hey lets advertise on TV and create demand for this useless stuff that will make us all rich! So it grew exponentially from there to the giant mess it is now, Corporations selling image as well as products. But as for any grand design to conspire this outcome 50 years ago, we thought that scenario unlikely. But we do agree there is rampant corruption. I suspect Monsanto is behind it all now.

Stump: I don't see the point of the question is there enough Caloric production to satisfy 6 billion. I'll say yes, for one day or perhaps a month. But that's not sustainable. Which is proven by the starving masses and the dwindling caloric production. The logistics are too great and much gets in the way of distribution as well. Like corruption and politics. The question was put to Paul Erlich some 20 years ago. He is a population reasearcher/expert. When asked what is the number of humans that could be sustainable world wide on our humble little planet? 500 million. We hit 1 billion for the first time in like 1860. Of course I see a few non believers doubled over laughing right now, but as a lover of nature, I'm hoping that our extinction will make way for a more intelligent life form that can perhaps rival the susccess of the dinosaurs. That is, if you measure success by longevity...

"I'm hoping that our extinction will make way for a more intelligent life form that can perhaps rival the susccess of the dinosaurs."

Charity begins at home they say. You wanna be extinct... go for it. I'd rather not.

Skeptikool - right on a thread on RAV the biggest political scandal in BC

Aquaculture has been around in different forms for at least 1,000 years if not more. Wish I could say more but my office is partly involved.

Colin,

So has sex.

??

In different forms?!!!

HA!! Stump!!! Like you get a vote!!!!!HAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

My comment was to point out that Aquaculture is more widespread and historical than as currently practised here.

Although one could argue that the First Nations fish weirs were a form of aquaculture as opposed to harvesting.

Clubofrome:

Haha, the joke's on you my friend, you don't get a vote either. You too shall pass.

Wake up Stump... it's was just a bad dream. You don't want to pick a battle of wits with me today. Besides you are defenceless...

Disinterested maybe...

smell ya later.

By far, the largest producer of farmed fish in the world is "Red" China. And it is truly farmed - produced in ponds on a multitude of farms with no off-farm inputs. The best of the product is sold as a delicacy, out-pricing farmed salmon in New York markets. It's been a while since I read up on it, but I believe the species is Tilipia.

On the other hand, a problem on at least an equal par with lice and escapees is the rapid depletion of "forage fish" (herring, anchovy, menhaden, sandlance, etc) in the world's oceans. This is the primary food used for our farmed fish, and it takes 4 - 6 lbs of these fish to produce 1 lb of farmed salmon. Of course, the development of hormone additives can reduce that ratio - as with beef.

Joe: When can I go fishing?
DFO: Hang on a sec, we're counting fish... (4845, 4846...)
Joe: How many fish are supposed to show up?
DFO: 11 million.
Joe: Wow! So what happened?
DFO: I can only tell you what the boss says we have to say. The ocean is getting warmer.
Joe: What does that have to do with anything?
DFO: I dunno. But you can be sure that it is backed up with scientific reasearch.
Joe: For example?
DFO: For example if the water was colder there would be more fish.
Joe: Oh.... What about pollution, overfishing and fish farms?
DFO: No, those are natural occuring things. What we are looking for here is a smoking gun. A two degree rise in temperature is very suspicious!
Joe: You mean like global warming?
DFO: Ha ha ha.... that's more like junk science. This is based on extensive research.
Joe: I've been a fisherman all my life and the temperature changes all the time. In fact it changes at different depths as well, how can you accurately point to temperature as the smoking gun?
DFO: Um...hmpfft. Listen you'll just have to trust us, now if you don't mind I'm counting fish here....where was I....Oh ya...8475, 8476...

Yesterday there was a story on BCTV about the aboriginal fishery on the Fraser by the Stolo Nation. There was no mention on deliberate DFO mismanagement, but, of course, there was more anti-Indian corporate media claptrap about how the Indians are too blame for the decrease in the salmon run. And once again, the BC Fishery Survival Coaltion was there to give an interview for BCTV about how the injuns are going to completely wipe out the fish stocks.

If BCTV is going to interview an anti-Indian group like the BC Fishery Survival Coaltion then why doesn't it offer some balance and also interview someone from a pro-Indian group like the ecumenical KAIROS group or Project North?

Further, with Conservative MP John Cummins representing the poiltical wing of the anti-Indian faction and criticizing the Cheam on BCTV, why doesn't BCTV interview NDP MP Tom Martin to represent the pro-Indian political wing?

Asher, I suspect you've gotten used to seeing 50% of our media coverage being given to the affairs of 7% of the BC population.

Just be happy that the media doesn't send its reporters around to dig up the dirt on band affairs - and there's lots to be dug up (like band administrations going millions of dollars into unauthorised debt).

If it did so, then the predictable charges would be of "anti-Indian intent"

Again on the Sunday (Aug. 21) night broadcast of the BCTV news on Gloabl at 11pm there was another anti-Indian story on the Cheam fishing the Fraser. No other TV news broadcast carried this story.

This time the BC Fisheries Survival Coaltion was not on the scene to speak, but Conseravtive MP John Cummins was there again. He said a DFO vessel had been surrounded by injuns recently. Just as prairie schooners were during the genocidal days in America, I guess. That hits my fear of injuns button.

Global reported a sports fisher as saying there were twelve of "them" injun boats on the river. However, no indication if that meant twelve drift nets. Then the reporter warned us of us the menance of injuns on the river tomorrow and the next day.

Then the camera crew and reporter were out on the river filming one injun fisher who they reported as catching 12 salmon.

Glad Global caught that on tape! I think that pretty much explains it. The injuns are wiping out millions of salmon - by the dozens! They gotta be the ones responsible for the fall of fish stocks! At least that is what Global's coverage from the anti-Indian movement tells me.

want to see what else might be happening to out fish stocks.

http://maps.google.com/

click on hybrid then double klick in the center of b.c. the zoom in on the Prince George region or Quesnel Fort St James and have a look the cut blocks are pretty obvious, the older ones starting to regen look lighter. Enjoy.