I was told by a North Coast business man recently that fish farms provide good paying jobs...12-14 dollars an hour. On a forty hour week, year long, that's $25,000 to $30,000 gross, asuming there are no shut-downs or lay-offs.
Those are not good-paying jobs, not in this economy. Not if you would like to buy a house, buy and insure a decent car. And there would not be much left over after deductions, rent and food
to trickle down to the business man.

The oddest part of this salmon farming thing is that it's like trying to raise hogs on a mountaintop. You have virtually no control over your stock apart from some single layer string net pens. Your stock is subject to every natural and unnatural hazard the oceans hold. Every disease, predator, parasite and accident is right there in your face.

This multiplies your operating costs, forces you to use measures that you can't control and won't work anyway, and sets you at war with the whole natural world.

Why would any farmer or stockman ever choose this over a proper well controlled environment?

It's as though they are trying to cause a catastrophe on the scale of the pesticide disaster of the fifties that nearly wiped out all bird life in North America, and from which surviving species are only now precariously recovering.

If they were not, they would be lobbying for more government involvement rather than less. They'd be asking to lease crown land within pumping distance of the saltchuck, loans to build big ponds, help developing markets for fish byproducts, help from universities to create filters and water purification equipment.

But they're not. And that puzzles me.

What is the advantage to them of a world where seaborne food chains have collapsed? Because that's the inevitable result of the path they're on now.

Not to mention that the word is out about the fish farming industry and most consumers demand wild salmon only. It is not obvious who the Campbell government works for. I greatly fear it is not an orchestrated conspiracy but a case of mainstream media supported incompetence.

I suspect why Campbell and his Liberal cronies are staying with this industry until it floats belly up is because there is a substantial amount of Liberal family money invested in it.

We'll never get to see who has invested in these fish farms, but some we already know.

Some relatives of Liberals are known investors, many Liberals have enjoyed pretty strong finacial contributions from the fish farmers and the Liberals appear willing to sink an entire (wild salmon), industry to prop this one up despite near universal disgust for the damage it does.

How sad that we are to lose an entirely sustainable wild-salmon industry just because some politicians have never grown beyond the old pork-barrel politics of another era.

I used to have more faith in the human species to do "the right thing", ie. to act with some degree of rationality and honesty, contemplating the consequences of actions, having prorities beyond next quarter's corporate earnings report.
Fish farms and high seas fisheries mismanagement
worldwide, are just two examples in a bottomless pit of shameful human endeavor. Our leaders behave
more like enemies than allies. (this includes you, Gordo).
Thanks Rafe for staying on this important issue.

Yup. I'd say too.

This story has been going on for years now. Most journalists would have grown bored and moved on to the next "hot" thing, but Raif has sunk his teeth into this one. He knows that it is important, and if the crimes of salmon farms are ever stopped, he is one person we will all have to thank.

Meanwhile, industry and gov't continue in the fine Canadian tradition of screwing up our beautiful blessed country, until we will all be deeply ashamed to live here.

Greed, greed, and more greed.

I am a Lover of fresh fish, but I have found farmed Salmon to be mushy, greasy and disgusting...for that reason I refust to eat another bite of that vile stuff sold in my local "Overwaitea" no doubt "o'l Jimmy is a major sharholder of a fish farm....Fortunately, I live on a river with no ocean access because of dams that prevent ocean fish from entering our waters...we have an abundance of Rainbow, Dolly Varden, Cod, and Gerard Trout, and they cannot be commercialized, thank god, so we should dump those crooks who poison us with tainted seafood, and and replace them with someone in power who cares about "people" above greedy corporate shysters who would poison a planet to fill there own pockets!

This is the second time I've had to go to the bathroom, check the mirror, and be sure I was still me; it's the second time I've agreed with Raif Mair!!

Why is nothing being done to protect the wild fishery? Why are atlantic salmon raisers continuing with practices they know are detrimental to wild stocks? Why are the flat world crowd denying the obvious evidence of the sea lice? Why...........

because if they wipe out every type of wild fish there is no reason left for us to try to bring in stringent regulations over the feed lot pens.

They came here because Norway would no longer allow them to destroy the rivers and the coast. They came here to do what they were no longer allowed to do in Scotland, Ireland, and Scandinavia. They came here so they could put their feed lots close enough to shore they could zot back and forth to "work". They came here because our climate allows them to feck around out there in their shorts in the summertime!

They came here because we were uninformed and allowed THEM to dictate "standards".

THIS experience is why we have to start yesterday to ensure that any shellfish industry is set up with OUR pollution standards. Right now they're raising oysters for human consumption in waters off Spain which are really little more than open seawater sewers...and people buy them and eat them. Of course they want to come here. All they need are a couple of photographs of what our coast still looks like in spite of the floating feed lot pens and they'll control the european market... so we have got to have more respect for what we have got and not be so shamefully eager to cash in on what we have.

There is no excuse at all for open sided net pen feed lots. Greediness is not an excuse. Avarice is not an excuse. And neither is stupidity.

I had a farm. I am a farmer. You would not believe the hoops through which I had to jump where cow manure was concerned. Farmers have to BUY their land, pay taxes on their land and pick up the cost of fencing off all water sources so the calves can't pee in it. These yahoos do not buy where they situate their sewers, and they don't have to clean up the shit.

Oh, I know , "shit" is not a nice word. Anne Cameron, shame on you, you must not say shit, you must say septage or sewage or offal or... it is shit. You can wrap it in expensive paper, tie it with a ribbon, even attach a flower to the parcel but what you have inside is shit.

And there are skyscrapers of shit under those floating feed lots. And that shit teems with antibiotics, with additives, with chemicals nobody wants to mention, with hormones and with red dye to make the flabby flaccid meat of the prisoner fish more "optically pleasing".

We need to hire a damn good lawyer who will go to court in a class action suit against both provincial and federal governments for deliberately mis-handling, mis-managing and negatively impacting our oceans. Sue their asses off!

They might understand that.

They even lie about the wages they pay. Most of those jobs are minimum wage. Period.

I think I need to sign off before I type myself into carpal tunnel flare-up! IT's just that i am so amazed to be in agreement with Raif Mair. Most of the time I think he's a Socred hack gas-bag fart-breath, and here I am saying, again, Right on Rafe Mair.

Please, do not think any of this fish shit is accidental. They KNOW what they're doing and they don't care.

They even went so far as to try to attack the credentials and character of Alexandra Morton, a woman who could easily be making huge bucks in private industry if it wasn't for her highly developed sense of morality and ethics. She has swept better than them off her floor.

Salmon farms, like artificial-environment poultry farms, are just one more expression of the fact that human populations, in the so-called developed world, have far exceeded the earth’s carrying capacity. But the parallels and the obvious wrong-headedness of these endeavours seem to escape serious analysis. The consequences of overpopulation in the developed world are stories no one wants to talk about. Instead, we come up with diversions like the “ closed containment” and “Abbottsford (avian flu) biohazard warning sign” fairytales that only an uninformed, technophile public believes will succeed.

If we applied the real costs of operating true closed containment, from a full-cost accounting perspective, to the salmon farm segment of the aquaculture industry, it would shut down tomorrow. Aside from day to day infrastructure maintenance, and the outrageous cost of oceanfront real estate and associated taxes, the energy costs are prohibitive.

Tens of thousands of voracious Atlantics all trying to convert as much biomass as fast as possible into greenbacks require enormous amounts of oxygen. These aren’t goldfish, where you change the water and flush it down the toilet when it looks dirty. They require a constant, high volume flow of fresh, oxygenated seawater pumped through the system: That takes energy, and lots of it.

Just because the pens are on land doesn’t mean you stop dealing with pollution, parasites, disease, treatment of the water that comes out of these systems and waste disposal: And that takes even more energy.

Any politician that says they want to promote environmentally sustainable salmon farming by moving to closed containment is full of shit. (Ooops, I’ve been reading too much Anne Cameron).

Put a cap on the existing farms and let market pressures phase them out. Focus on rebuilding wild salmon stocks through serious habitat restoration projects and employing inshore selective harvesting techniques.

This is just another very important reason to kick the Lying Liberals out of office and teach them a lesson. If anyone here gives a damn about our environment they will go out and vote for anybody but the "Lieberals" on May 17th. If you don't vote you have no moral grounds to complain. Period. Thanks, Rafe.

Thanks Rafe. Loved your piece Anne Cameron...they say the third time you agree with Rafe is the charm so watch out... the magnetic poles may be reversing themselves...

I'm with you on this one KWD, fish farms have never made sense to me. I would rather we take serious, immediate, and diligent action to protect our wild stocks...let the salmon roam free in the deep, wide ocean where they can traverse their needed long distance runs...they don't belong in ponds...why purposely mutate the behavior patterns that nature has already designed so efficiently?

'Course the answer to that may be exactly what some commentors are suggesting - to willfully destroy what is naturally successful, in order to establish the privatization of a kind of fish that is more easily controlled, man-handled and molded for profit alone. The same kind of lies and phony crisis-driven deception that preceded the privatization of health services, BC Rail and BC Ferries... and soon BC Hydro and ICBC... is now being waged here, it seems, against nature itself.

It's all about the money. The short-term and medium-term jobs and revenue that fish farms have the potential of making are quite good. Saving the environment costs money. You'd think Mr. Mair would have figured this out by now. It is easy to stand and suggest that the current research is incomplete and not yet conclusive. Who will take you to task on it? The mainstream media? Don't make me laugh!

There are three billion people in asia who love to eat fish. There are factory fleets that still surreptitiously float hundreds of kilometers of death trap drift nets that kill everything they touch in order to give them fish to eat.

Of course it costs money to feed people while still protecting the wild world. That doesn't mean you don't have to do it.

Unless you have some magic way of reducing the population of humans on Earth that nobody else has thought of, It must be done.

The energy and the techniques and the effort and the work. The only way to protect the wild world is to take the pressure off it. and the only way to do that is to find ways to produce other foods cheaper and better.

Making mistakes and correcting them is always going to be part of that process, but it doesn't mean you don't have to do it.

We have to do it. Or else...

Knowing these important issues are facing us all in this election campaign, can someone please enlighten me as to why so many are still going to vote Liberal? I simply cannot understand the large number of voters willing to support Gordo & Co. He lies, caters to big corporations, does little for the average working family and is involved in the biggest scandal in BC history - yet to be fully revealed. Makes his drinking an driving look like small potatoes. Why vote for someone that can't be trusted???

I wrote this haiku for the wild salmon, which was not printed by the Tyee earlier in the year:

Watch me swim away

I am my ancestor of yesterday

Can I live in your memory?

WE must not lose our wild salmon run. They are far more important than any passing political party and their whims.

Fish farms are not about feeding the poor or the starving, in Asia or anywhere else, they’re about feeding the bottom line of the aquaculture industry.

Mistakes from the past, and the present? Using the terms "due diligence" and "government" in the same sentence!

Until people stop blaming salmon farming for every passing woe of wild salmon populations, we will never get to the truth. Why Rafe is still spouting off about farmed salmon escapees colonizing rivers is beyond me. It just ISN'T HAPPENING!
Salmon farming and wild salmon can coexist...simply look at the statistics, ALL of it, from the Broughton area over the last 15 years.

I've seen them. Hundreds of them pooling up at the mouth of the Englishman river, crowding together like they were still in pens, waiting for the Fall rain to swell the river.

I guess they just changed their mind and didn't swim up when it came, though. Probably just all had a meeting.

"Listen, fellows. We're ATLANTIC salmon. We can't go up here to spawn! It wouldn't be right!

"Quick, everybody turn left! Head for the Panama canal!"

Ya think?

Only slightly off topic:
I heard a sober, thoughtful Norman Ruff, UVIC political scientist, say to Mike Smith tonight on CKNW, that he thinks Adriane Carr has a pretty good chance of winning the Sunshine Coast seat!
He said she has done a good job of raising her profile there and has a real chance!
I had no idea any Green could come close this time around, under 1st past the post.
This province definitely could use a Green in the legislature.

Attn: Bobb999
According to the Mustel Group poll released today (http://www.mustelgroup.com/press.html) the Greens 12% is 12% everywhere...not even a support spike on the coastal region (Carr's riding)...meaning - she will not have a seat if she is polling 12% in her own riding.

Aloha Rafe!
This is the second time I've had to go to the bathroom, check the mirror, and be sure I was still me; it's the second time I've agreed with Anne Cameron who thinks Frenchwomen are whore's, and who can't yet spell Raif!! (The first time was when she described you as a tired old "gasbag").

Jean Binette
PS People, if you want to know more about fish farms Google Norway fish farms and the first hit you get will be: environment.no/templates/themepage____2688.aspx
... Discharges from fish farms contain the same types of nutrients and organic ... This is not currently a problem in Norway, but there are indications that ...

Double PS, You might also remind yourself about who Mair really is before you follow his lead. He's the politician who ran out on his constituents for greener pastures; He's the talk show host allegedly tufted from his top radio spot because of verbal abuse to his women co-workers who now belongs to the Jimmy Pattison Team; He's the cruel browbeater who dumped his seriously disabled wife and later used intimidating divorce tactics which reduced her to leaving notes on his chair because of the "fear of his rage".

Most of all, he's a "broken promise" who I never want speaking for me...

Jean Binette

To NI Resident:

Just wait till the big report that everyone is holding their breath waiting to come out is released. We'll see then won't we!

Dear Jean Binette, Why are you lying?

I hit your button there. Your Norway site says 1 fish farm = sewage from 5000-7500 people. It says the fish soon start to die from their own poison and have to be moved. It says it's a HUGE problem for Norway.

Just like the way you've polluted the name Jean Binette. You need to move to a new name.

May I suggest Richard Head?

Being believed in a lie is NOT the same as telling the truth. A lie is still a lie even if it fools somebody. And a liar is always a liar, and cannot be trusted again.

Well my dear Village Idiot, as my final free shock treatment - if you feel so strongly about liars (past and present) why on earth would you support the NDP?

Regretfully, I think the voices in your head are beginning to talk behind your back, my friend.

Jean Binette

To Chris H
It's easy to site some future revelation as a fact. Conspiracy theories are usually just that...theories. Don't hold your breath too long, it's bad for you.

PKELLY gave a link to Mustel Group detailing their recent polls. Thanks for the link, but it does not appear to back up your contention that the Green vote is 12% "everywhere", including Carr's Sunshine Coast riding! From what I see on their site they don't break down specific numbers for Carr's riding. I only see the provincial average of 12% Green, up from 10%. So, I'll trust Norman Ruff's comment that Carr is a contender with a real chance of winning, until I see specific #s to the contary.
BCers:Send an important message to the NDP and Fiberals and
Vote GREEN!

I can't believe this subject gets more responses than any other. Fish farming is not the problem, the fish farms are. Until the industry polices itself (which it never will) all fish farming in open water pens should be banned. The only logical way to farm fish is in land locked pens where they can be isolated from the wild stock with no chance of escapement. Please do not spout off to me about the additional costs involved. If the government and all the others who back these farms put their money into developing an industry that utilizes land based methods they would garner the support and financial backing of all those that currently utilize their resources *limited though they are* fighting them. Personally I would purchase and consume farmed salmon and other fish if I thought that it was being farmed in such a way as to eliminate the threats to wild stocks. Until then I along with anyone who knows me will always ask "is this farmed or wild?" and boycott any farmed product.

Maybe we need to be more vocal and tell them to get with the program. How much longer can they deny the damage done to the wild stocks.

One important item about fish farms is disease. The food that is fed to the fish in fish farms is rendered protien, fortified with massive doses of antibiotics. Not only is this food mixture, or the digested remains, highly toxic, the rendered protien, from dead cattle, my harbour BSE or mad cow disease.

This is exactly what happened in the UK; cattle were fed rendered protien feed, contaminated with BSE infected dead sheep and cows, which inturn infected the healthy cattle. The infected cattle entered the food chain and the rest is history!

The Liberal government and the fish farm owners are playing with a loaded gun and they do not care a bit about the public, eating the product.

The British public are living under a very dark cloud with BSE and the government fiddling, while Rome burned for over a decade about BSE transmission by feed made from rendered animal byproducts.

How long will Gordon Campbell pander to the fish farm lobby, while sea lice destroy wild Salmon stocks and the prospect of a BSE like disease infect the human population?

It seems that Liberal political income is worth more than sea or human life. Have we sunk this low?

So "dear premier" is also "jean binette"? I didn't think there could be two of them...and I never said "all" frenchwomen were whores.. someone really should take the time to teach this guy some reading comprehension skills... I understand why NI Resident cringes at the thought of more job loss. The North Island has been hammered repeatedly , not always because of government stupidity but often enough some of us are wishing we could just secede before they wipe us out completely. And yet tightening up the fish farm reg's doesn't have to result in job losses...not in the feed lots, not in the processing plants... and if it happened it would be a deliberate move to punish and frighten people. Sad that this pay-back policy would come down hardest on the ones who are working for and thus supporting the industry but that in itself indicates how much that industry cares about people, even it's "own" people. How they feel about wild stocks is evident in how they treat them, too.

Prions are dangerous and some of them cause BSE and mad cow disease. Others cause other nasty and often fatal conditions. The amount of wild fish stocks being turned into pellets is astounding and we don't know about it because most of those fish are taken off south america. There, as here, entire species are being wiped out by this industry. To this protein is added slaughterhouse remains, in some places even road kill. Even chicken feathers from the battery poultry feed lots get added so the pellets don't sink too quickly

My experience as a farmer left me with the conviction there is no "nice" way to get meat to the table. The best we can do is work very hard to ensure the animals we raise are very well cared for and comfortable for the limited time they are with us. That, unfortunately, means the meat raised is much more expensive than that which is raised in such a way as to sicken most people.

For a while I felt quite pessimistic. I could not make myself raise chickens the way the commercially sucessful industrialists were raising them. Then I discovered a wonderful thing. People lined up to buy my chickens, and they paid enough for them I could afford to continue raising them. Organic, free range, even pampered birds who walked in the fesh air and sunlight doing their chicken-brained things MEANT something to people who were fussy about what they fed their kids!!

I'm too old, now, and my back is toast, and the unremitting labour of farming is too much for me. On absolutely no statistical or scientific evidence whatsoever I am convinced we could raise food properly. The only thing lacking is the will.

Of course, you won't get top price for your shares on the NY stock exchange if you do. And I suspect more money is made that way than in the feed lot pens.

Now everyone take a good deep breath and wait for Jean Binette to rage. Bonjour, Jean, ca va mon pot?

An interesting story with many elements.

Concerning the ability of Atlantic salmon to survive in Pacific waters, the evidence is they cannot. Early in the 20th century efforts were actually made to introduce the species (in its natural state it's quite flavourful). These efforts all failed.

On the matter of ranching these salmon, over 20 years ago, before the industry was anything more than an amateruish effort, a detailed investigation was carried out by a scientist trained in the sciences involved. It argued for strict regulation and careful location of pens. It was quickly forgotten in the rush to expand the industry.

I don't know Rafe or anything about his background except in the vaguest way, but I would ask contributors to keep personal attacks out of the commentaries -- it only detracts from the discussion of the issues. As an infrequent visitor to the site, my reaction also is that slanging matches between correspondents detract considerably from the discussion.

Rafe's article is carefully and perhaps provocatively crafted: but let his arguments and his view of the facts be the object of discussion.

If I've influenced anyone on this, thank you.

Well my friend if you did take the time to find out who Rafe is you wouldn't be saying it "detracts from the issue", and you wouldn't be attempting to "influence" others to believe the Mair "fish stories" - Believe me, it's nothing than crap backed by more crap.

Secondly, There is no discussion here, You are at Tyee Misinformation Central, designed and funded by the NDP union team to publish false information in order to get it's candidates elected at any cost.

Jean Binette
PS, Old age indeed has caught up to Anne Cameron , anyone can see the symptoms of senile behavior brought on by dementia which runs rampant among the Village Idiots who promote Carole James.

Well my friend if you did take the time to find out who Rafe is you wouldn't be saying it "detracts from the issue", and you wouldn't be attempting to "influence" others to believe the Mair "fish stories" - Believe me, it's nothing but crap backed by more crap.

Secondly, There is no discussion here, You are at Tyee Misinformation Central, designed and funded by the NDP union team to publish false information in order to get it's candidates elected at any cost.

Jean Binette

PS, Old age indeed has caught up to Anne Cameron , anyone can see the symptoms of senile behavior brought on by dementia which runs rampant among the Village Idiots who promote Carole James.

Dear homo civicus; (great handle, by the way)

Welcome to the tyee. This is a great site for discussion and debate, all viewpoints are represented here, mostly quite civicus.

But there are some elements who act as spoilers only. You'll start as you did, saying please just be civil and we'll all have more fun. Then you'll be annoyed, and get caught up in an argument with one of them. Soon, it will degenerate to the 'nyah nyah nyah, poop, so's yer old man' level.

You'll end up advising new contributers to just ingnore the ad hominem troglodytes and keep going, because in between the nonsense, lots of good conversations and information and debate go on here.

It's annoying, I know. It's frustrating. But it's worth it. I advise you to just ignore the ad hominum troglodytes and keep going.

Well my friend if you did take the time to find out who Rafe is you wouldn't be saying it "detracts from the issue", and you wouldn't be attempting to "influence" others to believe the Mair "fish stories" - Believe me, it's nothing but crap backed by more crap.

Secondly, There is no discussion here, You are at Tyee Misinformation Central, designed and funded by the NDP union team to publish false information in order to get it's candidates elected at any cost.

Jean Binette

PS, Old age indeed has caught up to Anne Cameron , anyone can see the symptoms of senile behavior brought on by dementia which runs rampant among the Village Idiots who promote Carole James.

NI Resident:

I didn't say what it would reveal and never suggested any conspiracy theory. If the report comes out and cheers on the fish farms for the low impact it has on the environment I will be relieved. I still won't eat that crappy product, but atleast we'll be more confident in our future wild slamon stocks.

er salmon stocks. (Where's the edit button?)

LOL

So Chris H. doesn't know for sure whether fish farming is good or bad. I thought so.

You might then ask yourself, if he hasn't actually eaten it how does he know it's a crappy product? (most likely because Mair said so).

Jean Binette

Why are you making the assumption that I haven't tried it? From my observations, you jump to conclusions quite frequently. Thinking before you type might be a novel idea for you, Jean Binette. BTW, please stop your spamming.

For the same reason I say you don't know for sure whether fish farming is good or bad - you say so. "If the report comes out and cheers on the fish farms for the low impact it has on the environment I will be relieved", and you "still won't eat that crappy product".

You should make up your mind one way or the other and I would urge you not to take stock in Mair's fish stories for the obvious reasons.

Jean Binette

Take a reading comprehension course Binette. Saying "I still won't eat that crappy product" doesn't presume that I have never eaten it, but good try.

All the evidence seems to be pointing to the fact that fish farming is harming the ecology and wild salmon stocks. However, if credible scientific findings prove otherwise, I won't stick my head in the sand and pretend they don't exist. It sure seems like that is what you're doing with evidence that suggests fish farming is harmful. You got some shares in a fish farming company or something?

Double PS, You might also remind yourself about who Mair really is before you follow his lead. He's the politician who ran out on his constituents for greener pastures; He's the talk show host allegedly tufted from his top radio spot because of verbal abuse to his women co-workers who now belongs to the Jimmy Pattison Team; He's the cruel browbeater who dumped his seriously disabled wife and later used intimidating divorce tactics which reduced her to leaving notes on his chair because of the "fear of his rage".

Most of all, he's a "broken promise" who I never want speaking for me...

-definitely the most disgusting comments I've ever run across online.What the hell is the matter with you?

I think where neo-cons really show how truely contemptable they are is on the subject of the environment.In the interests of pure greed,they will ignore sound science and in their anger drag respectable people through the muck.Just repulsive.Welcome to the "new era" of Limbaugh and Coulter,a free for all of racist slurs and back stabbing lies.

So which is it good, bad, or kind of crappy -or is it just a gut feeling you have?

All the evidence points to you not knowing any more than I do or than the blowhard Mair does.

Jean Binette.
Welcome to the Tyee sonic931. You've just described it to "T". Which "sound science" are you referring to?

JonBenet Ramsay was murdered, the case has never been solved. But a neo-con extremist thinks its funny to adapt her name as his disguise.

There is some excellent material available on the proven impact of fish feed lots in Scandinavia, Scotland,and Ireland. I'm not convinced it matters whether the captive fish are Atlantic or one of our Pacific species; it's the filth and the horrible amount of antibiotic and growth hormone which most concerns me. I've heard reports of Atlantics invading the spawning banks, I've read that they cannot reproduce here, I've read that they can and are...until the government which lifted the moratorium on pen expansion funds an INDEPENDENT study by reputable biologists with no personal axes to grind we probably will not know for sure. I'm not convinced the addition of the Atlantics would necessarily be a bad thing although there are some pretty scarey examples of what happens when "exotic" or "import" species are introduced and then take over entire areas, even wiping out previously secure species. Still, even the Atlantics would have natural predators in the ocean and if the sea lions and seals which are learning to pack up at the mouths of rivers and feast on returning spawners are happy eating Atlantics...

The Columbia river run is a flat bust this year. That fishery has been closed, even to native fishers. Nobody knows WHY. This was predicted to be a bumper year and instead it is a tragic collapse.

Perhaps the seiving out of thousands of metric tonnes of krill to add to the processed pellets fed the feed lot fish might have something to do with the collapse. Salmon don't eat krill but the sardines and herring and needlefish do, and those species are the food which feeds the salmon. No krill=no small feeder fish = starving salmon = collapse of an entire run...and we don't yet know what our own runs are going to be like...

The moratorium was lifted, the regulations have been loosened, and there are fewer inspectors with fewer enforcement powers... a recipe for disaster.