Well said fish counter.

Yes the question is should we stop eating salmon but what difference does it make if we can't find out what the reasons for their decline are. Asking the folks at DFO is a colossal waste of time and we can't do anything to reverse the trend until someone has an answer. Even with that I would start with an outright ban on all floating fish farms on our coast line.

Fisheries cnservation

The studiously ignored elephant in the room is the aboiginal salmon fishery, of which a significant portion comprises seine boats.

Des Nobel's suggestion that only those fishermen based in the areas where the stocks originate should be entrusted with the harvest and conservation, makes sense.

As I recall, this idea was first promoted by fisheries biologist Bill Ellis some 25 years years ago, and is particularly appropriate for rockfish and herring stocks - and for reasonable FN participation.

Re salmon stocks,however, the only truly sensible solution is wiers (fences) at the river mouths.

This idea is entangled in political considetions, of course, but then, politics is what has crippled DFO's management from the start, and so nothing concrete will be accomplished until Federal (and Provincial) apparatchiks are eliminated from the mix.

Farmed Salmon

"succeeded in stigmatizing farmed salmon"

Why is stigmatizing farmed salmon a success?

We do not consider farmed beef or chicken to be unusual. Why stigmatize farmed salmon.

Our fish farms produce a very high product, with a minimal environmental footprint.

The consumption of farmed salmon takes pressure off our wild stocks, and creates employment on the coast for remote communities, which are losing jobs in the forestry and fishing sectors.

Illahie

Guess you missed this article, among many others.

""The world's wild salmon population is being ravaged by sea lice infestation from fish farms, new Canadian research has confirmed.

"Up to 95 per cent of young wild salmon that migrate out to sea die after swimming through plumes of lice from infected fish farms, according to results of the research, published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of The United States of America.

"We know that fish farms raise sea lice levels, and we know that sea lice kill fish," said Martin Krkosek, the report's author and a mathematical biologist at the University of Alberta."

http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/10/09/Fish/

Stop eating salmon?

The reason the stocks in the Skeena system are in good shape is because Friends of Wild Salmon, which included politicians, sportsfishers, commercial fishermen, First Nations and interested businessmen all got together and made sure there were no fish farms located at the mouth of the Skeena River. Fish farms are killing the Fraser stocks Vancouver Island and south coast river salmon and the sooner they are removed the sooner we won't have to worry about headlines such as the one we are commenting on.

Next question: should we eat farmed salmon?

Farmed salmon are like farmed chicken; they are a source of food, and it isn't bad if it is the only salmon you can get.

There is the issue of contaminants, but wild fish have their share of contaminants too. So much so that a detectable pulse of PCB's and other POP's accompanies the marine nutrients in the freshwater ecosystems when large sockeye runs decompose.

The use of chemicals such as Slice or antibiotics is questionable, but the key issue for me is the texture of the flesh. Farmed salmon have soft flesh that almost falls apart in the pan. It has the advantage that it needs less cooking than wild fish, but that is not a good thing.

It is technically feasible to raise salmon in circular tanks, with moving water to simulate natural swimming conditions, producing a fish that has firmer flesh. Effluent can be treated and used for compost and cold water can be drawn from the depths in summer to avoid plankton blooms. Sea lice are controlled by segregation from wild stocks and most of the environmental concerns are gone.

The only obstacle is the cost. Several heroic attempts to promote "bag farms" have been thwarted by cost issues. The bags break in rough seas and fish escape. Atlantic salmon have not, to the best of my knowledge, established themselves in BC waters, and they are not likely to. Atlantic salmon were stocked into the Cowichan River for 50 years to try to build a run and it didn't work. No one knows why.

There are, as is usual in BC, a lot of histrionic exchanges on salmon farming. It gets in the way of real debate. Impassioned crusaders on both sides need to take a balanced view and deal with the real issues.

The wild stocks are in trouble and we in BC have a responsibility to solve the problem. If we do, it will be a first. Personally, I don't think we have the foresight to do it. More accurately, I know we don't and the proof is in our sewage treatment systems. Victoria's approach is nothing less than criminal. Vancouver's isn't much better. Both are generations behind the state of the art.

It is no coincidence that BC resident Orca are the most contaminated marine mammal on Earth. The Strait of Georgia whale population was decimated in five years, starting in 1907. Can you imagine the present day value of having over 100 large cetaceans in the Strait of Georgia as an ecotourist attraction? Think: hundreds of millions of dollars.

Keep eating wild salmon. Pink salmon are fine if you cook them fresh. The taste of smoked chum rivals Sockeye and Chinook. They are both cheaper than chicken.

Frank

Sea lice are just a naturally occuring copepod. Farmed salmon do not naturally start out with sea lice. They become infected from wild salmon. The sea lice (and parasites) are in much higher levels in wild salmon. When adult sea lice mature, the eggs are shed into the water column. The juvenile sea lice attach to wild and farmed fish alike. Wild fish just live with the problem. In farmed fish a sea lice infestation can be easily treated with a product called slice. Wild salmon stocks do not come with a medical plan, farmed fish have free health care.

Fish-counter

Great comment Fish-counter.

DFO actually tried to establish an Atlantic salmon population on the west coast many years ago. The project was a dismal failure. It is difficult enough to maintain Atlantic salmon populaltions on the east coast. And on the east coast Atlantic salmon do not have five other salmon species to compete against (not to mention cutthroad and rainbow trout).

Why are you still eating wild salmon?

...that should be the question.
What is happening to our wild stocks is shocking and a tragedy beyond words. The eagles and resident the killer whales need the wild salmon-we do not.

The grizzly bears fish the salmon in the fall. They take off the heads. The bodies are left in the forest. This nourishes the soil and the cycle continues.

So despite what you may think about the "sustainability" of the wild stocks-it's not true.

Here in Ladner, most fishboats have been tied up for years and years-not enough fish.
The fields have lots of potatoes and squash etc. If Presidents Choice was really so "concerned" why not a new appetizer with potatoes and squash and leave the salmon for the eagles, whales and bears.

Of course if no one bought the appetizer's they wouldn't bother making them anymore.

So maybe you want to consider giving up salmon and take action.
When you see farmed salmon being sold tell them why you won't buy it ever!
Do everything you can do ban fish farms.
Visit: http://www.raincoastresearch.org/home.htm
for further info on the devastation of our wild stocks by fish farms.

How do you like your PCBs : broiled or poached?

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/science/09SALM.html?ex=1231995600&en=82178ad5af4e4015&ei=5070

"....the study, the largest so far to look at contaminants in salmon, ...(was published in the) journal Science. It found more than a sevenfold difference in PCB levels, with farmed salmon having an average of 36.63 parts per billion and wild salmon having 4.75."

(The study advised)... people to limit their consumption of salmon. "Although the risk/benefit computation is complicated," they wrote, "consumption of farmed Atlantic salmon may pose risks that detract from the beneficial effects of fish consumption."

Dr. Barbara Knuth, a study author who is chairwoman of the department of natural resources at Cornell University, said, "It indicates that the vast majority of farm-raised Atlantic salmon should be consumed at one meal or less per month."

Emphasis added.

Puzzled?

"The bags break in rough seas and fish escape." Why do the bags have to be in coastal waters? They should be on land so the effluent can be treated because in the high fish concentrations with their regular doses of antibiotics the stuff that is pumped back is not good for the wild stock let alone the people that may consume them.

Eating farmed fish just promotes more of these enterprises.

eating salmon

I've already stopped eating it. Haven't had any for 2 years.

ME2's proposal to capture

ME2's proposal to capture all salmon with weirs is part of the answer and should be a "no brainer." Government could help by providing assistance to those whose livelihoods disappeared.
Another part of the anwer is closed containment farming. (And if that doesn't "pay," too bad. No industry should survive only because it is not covering its full costs (including environmental costs).

Successfully stigmatizing farmed salmon

Um, folks, the fish farms with the sea lice are nowhere near the Fraser River, where the bulk of our problem stocks are. They may be threatening Central Coast pinks, but what's threatening Cowichan chinook, Early Stuart sockeye, Georgia Strait coho, etc, etc?

As long as our population keeps growing, fish farming will become increasingly inevitable, as it is in Asia, and as it has been for centuries with land-based animal husbandry. So the question is how to start tackling the problems and doing it responsibly (and in that respect it's not comforting that we've become increasingly irresponsible with land-based agriculture to meet the demand for Keg-size portions of cheap protein!)

More importantly, we need to start confronting what has been going on in the Fraser and in so many other U.S. systems to the south, with the clear north/south divide in wild salmon productivity pointing to two key factors: climate change and impacts of more intense human development.

How convenient to continue driving our SUVs to Superstore so that we can smugly eat our MSC-certified salmon puffs and convince ourselves that we're saving the world vs. confronting the harsh reality that we ourselves - not salmon farms - are the far bigger threat to the survival of wild salmon in the bigger picture.

So many perspectives!

Here is a great example of how complicated our choices have become. Kudos to Colleen for including so many perspectives. This is far beyond the black/white viewpoint that frequently passes for 'balanced' journalism.

Canned Sockeye Salmon is

Canned Sockeye Salmon is cheap as chips these days, looks like the Alaskans have lots.

So it's all as scientists predicted a decade or more ago-changing ocean conditions have doomed most of BC's Salmon runs and there is nothing that can or will be done about it.

Total moratorium is the only answer.

And not just the Fraser but all river systems that are currently stressed.

"Wareham says he believes a total moratorium on salmon fishing, at least in the Fraser River, would be worth trying."

As I've said before, a full two cycle moratorium for each species. That means no fishing, period, for at least eight years. This would allow a proper assessment to be made which might, at least, be able to eliminate one cause or another.

Washington State would have to be involved as well because on some years Fraser salmon will travel through the straight of Juan de Fuca.

As most commercial fishermen probably need other jobs for support (a guess) assistance could be given to cover moorage or storage fees. Interest on mortgage payments could be also covered.

I'm not aware of any sport fisherman who would be suffer great harm by the ban and an alternate food source could be found to replace the native food fishery.

And lastly, salmon farms should be given a short period of time to go to fully enclosed pens or go out of business.

This moratorium would not be cheap but I think it would be supported by the majority of people in the province if it were managed properly an assurances were given that no one would be able to rip-off the system.

snert

Props to you!

Doing nothing is the expensive option...sensible suggestions - if only the politicians read Tyee, eh?

One specific measure to conserve fish stocks

Fish-forestry interactions are well understood. A renowned BC fisheries biologist, Dr. Gordon Hartman, co-authored a book on the subject. Check it out.

The biggest single Sockeye salmon stream in BC and in the world is the Fraser River. The Fraser watershed includes about 25% of the province and about three million people and their homes.

Virtually all of the pine trees in the Fraser River Watershed are either dead or will be in a few short years. The Mountain pine beetle appears to be switching to other trees for food. So the Fraser River is being deforested at a rate unprecedented since the last ice age. The folly of forestry monoculture compounds the problem.

Anthropogenic climate change is thought to be the major vector in the pine beetle infestation. We do not know which tree species, if any, will emerge as the dominant species in the new forests of the coming century. It could be Garry oaks or grassland for all we know. It will probably be a constellation of species, distributed according to habitat requirements as per any natural forest.

Do you see where this is going? A few years ago the Saguenay River blew out, destroying hundreds of homes. The recent Yellow River floods displaced millions of people. Is the Fraser a river, or what?

If we do not act, the Fraser River watershed will be subject to erosion, mass wastage, siltation and flooding on a scale we cannot imagine. The recent floods in Chilliwack are just a teaser, a mere soupcon of what we can expect in the near future. The loss of salmon stocks will be the least of our worries.

At present, the silviculture industry plants about 200 million seedlings per year. I think it was down to less than 180 million last year. It needs ramping up a tad.

We need to be planting about one billion seedlngs per year to pre-empt catastrophe. This is clearly a situatiuon that calls for government action. The loss of trees to the pine beetle cannot be compensated for by logging companies. They didn't cut the trees.

We have a world-class ahead of us. It is also a huge opportunity for investing money in the province's future. I don't think we are up for it. Instead, we are suffering from Olympic Overspending and Planning Paralysis.

Save the Fraser Sockeye? Plant a billion trees!

salmon

An ignored but very important factor contributing to the decline of our salmon stocks is the extinction of thousands of runs on small fish creeks. Individual runs can be small enough to be wiped out in just one ill-timed seine set. I have been told by biologists that cumulatively, their contribution rivals that of the rivers.

People who sneer at restrictions placed on local creeks do not comprehend how a resource can die of a thousand small cuts.

There are many other potential blamees, among which are: Overharvesting, foreign interception on the high seas, watershed degradation, raised river water temperatures, raised ocean tempeatures, el Nino, and overharvest of forage fish. Take your choice, and add to them them likelihood of factors of which we are as yet unaware.

But there is to date NO scientific refutation of Andrea Morton's (and now others as well) studies which prove that fish farms have decimated salmon runs in te Broughton area. If there are studies to the contrary which have been published in peer-reviewed journals, I haven't heard of them.

The shame of it is that government, which is supposed to be an unbiased referee in matters such as this, is actually an advocate for the industry, and refuses to do the necessary research, in particular the claim that upcoast farms infect Fraser River fish.

The heaviest fish consumers in the world are the Chinese, and virtually all of that fish is produced on land in ponds which are associated with farms that recycle some of their waste in this manner.

Whether or not we locals eat salmon means nothing. The only thing that would catch gov't's attention would be a boycott campaign overseas like the one about wood which was so sucessful.

Erratum

"We have a world-class ahead of us."

Should read, "World-class challenge ahead of us."

DFO disagrees with ME2

Pink salmon stocks have always been variable, in part because they only live two years. In other salmon populations the stocks consist of variable year classes.

The Pink salmon stocks in the Broughton's are actually doing quite well these days.

DFO finds no impact of sea lice on Pink salmon stocks.

http://www.pac.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/SCI/aquaculture/sealice/statement_e.htm

"DFO’s sampling shows that sea lice infections on wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago are the lowest since observations began in 2002."

Laboratory studies have assessed the impact of sea lice infection and survival of small pink and chum salmon. Comparison of juvenile pink and chum salmon infected and non-infected with sea lice in 2003 and 2004 indicated no significant differences in health or size of the sampled fish.

Two books that everyone should read

"King of Fish - The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon" by David Montgomery and "Cod" by Mark Kurlanski. The first documents the steady decline of salmon in over the last millennium. The second talks about the decline of Atlantic cod over the last 500 years. They are both sad stories about over-exploitation and mis-management.

ME2 makes a valid point about small streams. They are the preferred habitat for coho and have been most severely affected by development. Assessing them is time consuming and requires funding, which has dwindled to almost nothing since 2001. There used to be a small cadre of professionals who annually inspected these streams, using a protocol that was worked out over many years. It was scrapped about five years ago. We do not know how many coho spawned in our small streams last year.

In the ocean of ideas about the BC salmon fishery, there is too much government and too little go. DFO manages the five "real" salmon and BC manages the trout. The two agencies work together most of the time but there is a massive duplication of services.

We ought to forge one single agency that manages all BC streams and fish. That agency should therefore manage the forests as well because fish and forestry are intimately interconnected. It would require an incredible paradigm shift.

The decisions should be made here in BC, and we should be responsible for our own stocks. I have no idea how that could be accomplished but until it is we will continue to have unfathomable policy decisions made in Ottawa, and that is not a good thing.

Historical Escapements

There is much doom and gloom for the fisheries. But there is also some room for optimism. Twenty years ago, Herring stocks were severely depleted. Today the stocks are pretty healthy.

Halibut stocks were severely beaten up, but under the management of the International Pacific Halibut Commission the stocks are now healthy.

The greatest impact on the Fraser River was the Hells Gate Slide that occurred during the building of the railway. Fraser stocks have increased greatly over time, where they are now (until recently) rivaling the historic levels.

The Horsefly and Chilko stocks have done particularly well.

The following charts show the increase in stocks in the Fraser since 1950. Note the two species which are doing the least well are the Chinook and Coho.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/soer-ree/English/SOER/1996report/Doc/1-6-3-9-4-1.cfm

There have been plenty of disappointments, the central coast sockeye stocks, (Rivers and Smiths) almost vanished in the late 1970's (ca 1977), and have never recovered. The reasons remain obscure, but it does not appear to be due to over harvesting. The stocks have not been fished since the 1970's.

Name: SURELY YOU MEAN UPSTREAM

Name:
However, I would suggest that folks downstream in the Fraser Valley go back and closely read Fish Counter's post about the Mountain Pine Beetle.

I think you mean upstream, not in the Fraser Valley per se, but to some degree in the Canyon, and especially in the Chilcotin and Cariboo country, in Robson Valley areas and Prince George-Nechako regions. That's were MPB infestation has taken a toll on the landscape draining into the Fraser basin, not in the lower Fraser Valley.

In the lower Fraser Valley the problems are urbanization and in particular construction close to streams and rivers.

Oh no, Rod, I meant downstream

...as in a near certainty of catastrophic flooding by the time the beetles finish chewing their way through the watershed in around 2012 or so, with the cumulative impacts exacerbated downstream in the aptly-named Fraser Valley flood plain. (I'm talking threat to humans now; never mind the salmon!)

You need to look at the hydrology studies. (Or rather don't if you live in the Fraser Valley and want to sleep at night). How much precipitation each live tree absorbs. How much extra runoff you get when billions of trees from north of Prince George to the Cariboo, plus the Thompson drainage area, are suddenly gone. How the loss of shade will dramatically accelerate spring snow melt in warm spells. Imagine the localized mini flash flooding you used to get from clear-cutting, but multiplied tens of thousands of times and all converging down the main-stem Fraser at once.

Oh, yes, my friend!! Don't go buying a house anywhere in those flood plains and chart your route to high ground if it's already too late.

It's obviously not good news for salmon either, though it might open up new habitat :-)

Illahie

Quoting DFO handouts / press releases is no substitute for the refereed papers in credible journals that are the accepted norm in scientific debate. The DFO is playing its usual politics with this one.

And any credibility you might have had with me died with your submitting the following piece of utter nonsense :

"Those people who oppose fish farms would have us believe that an innocent 2 cm long pink fry would swim into a pen filled with 40,000 piscavores, and instead of being eaten, the Atlantic salmon would instead load up the little fella with lice, then send him on his way......It sounds to me to be more like propaganda than science."

Nowhere have I seen it even hinted that fry swim INTO the pens or even that they must swim relatively close to them. Rather, the adult lice on the penned fish have been shown to be the sole ORIGIN of the huge numbers of lice which Morton and others have found many kilometers from the pens and which infect the passing fry.

You should be ashamed for offering us such a transparently obvious piece of propaganda.

Thank you Name..

...for reminding Smelser that the most dramatic impacts of the Mountain pine beetle infestation will be in the Lower Fraser River Basin, where most British Columbians live.

It is interesting to correlate tree cover in watersheds with runoff. There are libraries full of studies to prove the point. Every tree killed by the Mountain pine beetle needs to be replaced, not necessarily with the same species, but with a plant that will absorb the energy of falling rain, transpire moisture back into the air and retain soil.

There is an urgent need to double or quadruple the annual replanting rate. Given the scale of the problem, we need to throw everything we have at it. No one knows more about silviculture than we do in BC. We have the expertise but we need to increase the capacity.

My scepticism is based on the consummate lack of skill used to increase the "value added" component of the forestry industry. No sooner was that term coined than we started to export raw logs. The BC forestry industry is a living fossil. It is incapable of selling into new markets or developing a furniture industry. The logging companies are not directly responsible for the pine beetle infestation and they have no charter to plant more trees.

It would take a few years to expand the silviculture industry and we need to be on it now. The government is fixated on the Olympic Games, a 14-day event that will be over and gone at a cost of about $100 million per day. Meanwhile the Mountain pine beetle is hibernating under the bark, waiting for spring to arrive so it can finish its work.

We cannot reduce the temperature of the North Pacific with a shovel but we can plant trees with it. Even John Furlong knows that.

LOL. SURE, WHY NOT!

Name
...as in a near certainty of catastrophic flooding by the time the beetles finish chewing their way through the watershed in around 2012 or so, with the cumulative impacts exacerbated downstream in the aptly-named Fraser Valley flood plain. (I'm talking threat to humans now; never mind the salmon!)

Sure, Name, why not!

The absence of tree cover doesn't affect the overall rainfall/snowfall in the Fraser watershed, so the amount reaching the mouth of the river is not directly affected by pine beetle kill, unless you think the removed trees really were storing large quantities of water indefinitely. What is affected is the pace of the runoff in smaller streams and tributaries, in salmon spawning grounds.

trees as water containers

"unless you think the removed trees really were storing large quantities of water indefinitely."

I thought that's exactly what trees do. Or at least they stored the water and released it more slowly than having it hit the ground and run off right away. Can someone with a silviculture background enlighten?

Pink Salmon returns low in 2006 all along the coast

Illahie, since you , obviously like to do a lot of research, you should realize that all even numbered years show a low return of pink salmon everywhere. On the Skeena at the Tyee Test fishery they even report odd and even years of pink salmon returns because historically there has been a big difference.
Fish farms prevent lice from infecting their stock by keeping the lice at bay with SLICE. The result is that fry that collect in the bays where the farms are located are the easy target for these lice. Little Sammy small fry cannot survive very well when four or five lice attach themselves to his/her body. An adult salmon has no problem with that but not the young ones.
The salmon runs on Vancouver Island are disappearing because the fish farms between Campbell River and Port McNeill are having an impact on the fry in that area, so it's not just the Broughton that is affected. When Gordon Campbell lifted the moratorium on fish farms in 2002 the decline of salmon returns was much greater than those years when they weren't in operation. Coincidence? I think not. I believe it is time to see what impact closing these farms would have by shutting them down for four years. See if there is an increase in our wild salmon stocks. But, it looks more likely that Campbell is going to approve more farm licenses which is going to be a sad and tragic end of the Pacific salmon

Skeena Fisherman

Pink salmon stocks almost always tend to have an even or an odd year bias.

If I remember correctly, the south coast major run tends to occur on even numbered years, and the North Coast Pink stocks tend to have larger odd year returns.

As far as fish farm sea lice impacts on sea wild fish, the copepod parasites occur first on wild salmon, the farm stocks do not get infected until the sea lice on the wild salmon mature, which takes a generation to occur.

When mature, the sea lice on the wild stocks release their eggs into the water column. After a week or so, the sea lice larvae are able to attach to a fish if they are lucky enough to encounter one.

The chances of encountering a suitable fish for any given sea louse is not very good. The sea lice do not pick and choose their host. Any fish will do because, they are extremely unlikely to get a second chance.

The larvae from the first generation (wild salmon) sea lice, have no ability to discriminate between wild and farmed fish, hence they infect both.

I recall reading somewhere that juvenile pink salmon mucous layer has some protection from sea lice that adult Pink salmon do not have. If I find a reference, I will post it.

Skeena Fisherman: WHAT ABOUT DFO's RESULTS?

Skeena Fisherman
Illahie, since you , obviously like to do a lot of research, you should realize that all even numbered years show a low return of pink salmon everywhere. ...

When Gordon Campbell lifted the moratorium on fish farms in 2002 the decline of salmon returns was much greater than those years when they weren't in operation. Coincidence? I think not. ...

I am not quarrelling with what you've said, I tend to agree that the fish farms bear watching at the least. However, Illahie has quoted DFO statements that more or less fully repudiate the Morton-Mair view that the salmon farms are damaging wild stocks via sea lice.

I wonder what you think of the work that DFO has done?

Stump: YOU'RE RIGHT. A SILVICULTURE EXPERT WOULD BE HELPFUL

Stump
I thought that's exactly what trees do. Or at least they stored the water and released it more slowly than having it hit the ground and run off right away. Can someone with a silviculture background enlighten?

You're right, it would be helpful to have a forestry expert tell us how much water trees absorb.

Once they've taken it up, I expect it comes off as vapour from the leaves, not some renewed water flow into the ground. Even a denuded area will soon have some small shrubs which may not resist the hydraulics of heavy rains washing down the hillside, but will also be able to "drink up" some moisture from the soil.

My point is that the rainfall/snowpack is the same, and all or most of it has to get to Delta/Tsawwassen one way or another. How much the forest soaks up, I don't know, but it would be helpful to put a broad brush percentage around that, and then from that subtract some smaller percentage representing the amount of territory now denuded by the MPB and therefore having a reduced water absorption capacity.

I found the reference.

Jones, S., E. Kim, and Dawe. 2006. Experimental infections with Lepeophtheirus salmonis (Kroyer) on threespine sticklebacks, Gasterosteus aculeatus L., and juvenile Pacific salmon, Onchorhynchus spp. J. Fish Diseases 29: 489-495

ME2 - here's a few peer reviewed studies for ya'

ME2, you claim "NO scientific refutation of Andrea Morton's studies which prove that fish farms have decimated salmon runs in the Broughton area".

Wrong dude. There are. And there are many more to come. I'm not offering opinion, just suggesting you haven't actually looked for this information(?).

Here's one;
"Krkosek et al. overstated the risks to wild pink salmon from sea lice and salmon farming. Furthermore, their predictions are inconsistent with recent observations of pink salmon returns to the Broughton Archipelago. Their alarming statements of extinction of pink salmon in the Broughton are only possible with highly selective use of the available data and extrapolation of their results to all pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. In assessing and managing pink salmon in the Broughton, all potential impacts on the productivity of these pink populations, including sea lice, should be acknowledged in developing an effective management strategy."
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/322/5909/1790b

And here's another one;
"Additional research during the last five years is not consistent with the Krkošek et
al. (2007) conclusion that sea lice routinely cause in excess of 80% mortality of fry. Rather the literature reviewed herein indicates that pink salmon fry mount an effective immune response at sizes as small as 0.7 grams resulting in the rapid shedding of lice within two
weeks. Pink salmon returns are shown to be highly variable throughout the Northeast
Pacific in areas without salmon farms. Following periods of high abundance, pink salmon populations typically fall to low levels and they may remain depressed for several generations. However, in most cases, the populations then gradually increase to begin the cycle anew. An examination of returns to all of the documented Broughton Archipelago watersheds indicates that following exceptionally high returns in 2000 and 2001, the populations declined to very low numbers in 2002 and 2003. Contrary to the conclusions reached by Krkošek et al. (2007), Broughton pink salmon returns have steadily increased since then with no indication that they are threatened with extinction. Other unsubstantiated assumptions used in the Krkošek et al. (2007) are also discussed in light of
additional scientific reports and theoretical considerations."
http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/35523649-75962693/content~content=a792402946~tab=send

Life cycle and time to maturity for seallice

For those people wishing to obtain some lousey information, you may wish to peruse the following life cycle info on the aforementioned bug.

http://www.upei.ca/~anatphys/Sea_Lice/licecycl.htm

Illahie

Thank you for providing the link for the Science article arguing against Andrea Morton and colleague's claim that Sea lice from fish farms result in drastic declines of salmon in the Broughton and surrounding area.

Unfortunately, her response to those claims, published Dec 19, 2008, will be unavailable without cost to non-subscribers until Dec 2009, and I am among those non-academics who do not have subsidised access to Journals such as Science, and my budget does not allow for paying for the many articles that might interest me.

Furthermore, although I am not averse to reading scientific papers, I freely admit that I am only self-taught in such matters
and hold no academic degrees. I do know enough about the fisheries though, to guess that you are not lettered in that discipline either.

And so we both are reduced to picking "sides" in this debate. My experience re DFO is that politics and economics drives DFO's decision-making, and that Science rarely over-rides contrary values until - as in the case of the Atlantic cod, and now the Pacific salmon, their policies take
a pratfall the public can recognise.

So, while we await informed and hopefully unbiased assessment of Morton's response, I will, for the moment, concede the "high ground"

And now I'll proceed to reading your info re "the bug".

Illahie

Well, that didn't take long.

The first attacks by DFO upon Morton consisted of claims that the lice she saw occurred naturally. And while Morton agreed there was a very small resident population, the numbers she was documenting were incontrovertibly of epidemic proportions. As far as I know, that claim has never been refuted.

The next question follows logically - "Where have they come from". Since such infestations do not occur naturally, the ONLY answer has to be the farms, and AFAIK, that has not been refuted either, despite the use of SLICE.

The salmon fingerlings have never before been exposed to this hazard because never before have there been resident adult salmon - the hosts of spawning adult Sea lice - in the waters which the fingerlings must pass through enroute to the open sea. Normally, at this time the adults are far out at sea, preparing for the journey home. For this reason, fingerlings have never had to evolve any defenses against the lice, and now they're esp vulnerable.

The only defense now left for DFO and its political buddies is to challenge Morton's stats re fish returning from the rivers.

As anyone who has any experience with sampling and stats generated therefrom will tell you, this can easily become a minefield of claim and counter-claim, and my guess is that DFO will play this one to the max, just as they did with the East Coast cod.

Stump and friends

I make no claim to be a forestry "expert", but my understanding is that it is the tree's root system which retains water in the soil.

Looking at it from an evolutionary perspective, it would seem logical that trees would develop this tendency as a means of accessing water in drier times.

This ability is easily proven, since creeks and streams with clear-cut catchment areas show dramatic reductions in stream-flow in the Summer.

misplaced modifier

Last sentence should read ".....dramatic reductions in Summer stream flows."

ME2

I think that the commenter that you were slagging was authored by cake, not myself.

As for myself, I have done my share of time in the Broughton's going back to the end of DFO's Salmon Enhancement Program (ca 1980?), as well as for Forest Renewal BC (ca 1995?)

It turned out that the proposed hatchery location on Devereux (Mussel Creek), was infested with a virus, IHN (infectious haematopoietic necrosis), so the hatchery project did not proceed.

DFO built a spawning channel on the Glendale River instead.

ME2

Actually, I think you will find the entire tree is huge water reservoir. That's why firewood has to dry for a season or two to be good-burning fuel and green branches bend while dry ones snap.

Stump

That the tree's root system and its associated ground-cover both retard runoff from snowmelt and rainfall events and retain large volumes of absorbed water in the soil for later slow release, is pretty basic stuff, and is not in the least controversial.

While it is likely there is enough stored water in our native tree's tissues for them to survive drought for a short time - perhaps in near-dormancy - although I've done considerable reading about tree physiology, I've never seen that possibilty discussed, UNTIL Googling just now.

The normal response to water scarcity by our trees and plants is to shut down the water loss which respiration entails, by closing the stomata on the leaves and thus retaining water.

It would seem natural that in very dry or seasonally dry climates that some trees and plants would evolve to take advantage of storing water in wet times for use in dry times. This is true for both the African Baobab tree, which humans can tap for water, and the cacti, which also store large volumes of water. I was surprised to learn the Ponderosa Pine also stores a lot of water in its tissues, though it now seems obvious as an adaptation to our Drybelt regions. (But how does the Drybelt Fir do it?)

But for purposes of the Fisheries discussion above, and the relationship of watershed destruction by the MPB and our logging practices to impacted stream flows, the causal factor is the loss of the tree-root systems, NOT the trees per se.

All water actually taken up by the tree itself winds up being transpired and lost to the atmosphere, contributing nothing to stream-flows.

WHAT'S THE IMPACT ON FLOODING IN THE LOWER FRASER VALLEY?

ME2
All water actually taken up by the tree itself winds up being transpired and lost to the atmosphere, contributing nothing to stream-flows.

So, how much impact does MPB have on flooding in the Lower Fraser Valley? I would expect it to have relatively little impact, but much greater impact on local erosion in smaller tributary streams up country.