Dear Mike Ballard Field Supervisor, Aquaculture Conservation and Protection Unit, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
I am writing to recommend that you attend the Cermaq Venture Point farm and the Marine Harvest Sonora farm because of the high number of moribund and dying Atlantic salmon in the pens.
Ian Roberts of Marine Harvest wrote to me on Jul 27th:
“Okisollo Channel is currently seeing levels drop below 5.0 mg/l at times, and low levels of D.O. can be stressful to fish. The top metre of the ocean is often richer in D.O. so fish know to surface to run their gills through the top layer of water. This will be seen as “finning” on the surface. At these times, we stop feeding and if required we are able to turn on air compressors to provide additional air. The staff also stay off the system during low D.O. times, so not to disturb the fish or have the fish think it is feeding time. “
Cermaq has posted on their website that they had a low oxygen event last night July 27-28.
While this may well be true I have several observations that give me cause for concern that the cause of the moribund fish in these farms may not be solely due to low dissolved oxygen.
- I observed dying salmon in these farms on June 4th with chunks of farmed salmon flesh drifting out of the Sonora farm in Okisollo Channel (attached) so this fish health event appears to be ongoing for over a month
- I viewed fining and dying Atlantic salmon in these pens on July 25th prior to the low DO event https://www.voyageforsalmon.ca/4275-2/
- The behaviour of the fish fining on the surface in these farms appears consistent with HSMI
- The Venture Point farm reports discovery of lesions consistent with HSMI in 2013
- 91% of HSMI outbreaks in Norway had a previous outbreak with the last year within a 50km radius (Kristoffersen et al 2013).
- Not all the pens appear equally affected, in some pens the fish are lying on the surface with fish rolling over and dying, while in other pens the fish are leaping.
The adult Fraser sockeye passing through the Discovery Islands right now are tracking at well below average returns. Expected spawning escapement for Fraser River sockeye salmon is well below the goal for a maintaining a healthy stock (DFO Fisheries Fraser River update July 26).
Commercial fishermen are loosing income to protect these stocks by not fishing. Sportfishing on Fraser sockeye will not occur this summer. The brood for year for this year’s Shuswap return was less than 100 fish, near-extinction levels.
In short, the Fraser sockeye swimming through the Discovery Islands are in an extremely fragile state and other sectors are working to protect them. It should be expected that dying Atlantic salmon in this region are of very high concern and that DFO should not leave the assessment of risk from these fish to Fraser sockeye salmon to Cermaq/Mitsubishi and Marine Harvest.
This is why I recommend that DFO attend Sonora and Venture Point salmon farms. I feel it would be in the interests of Canadians to provide samples of these fish to Dr Kristi Miller, as the capacity of her lab to identify pathogens and impact on the health of salmon is critical.
I will remain at these farms until DFO’s visit.
Thank you and please be patient with poor cell service/internet. I will be standing by on the Martin Sheen, Channel 16.
Alexandra Morton
It is sickening to think our prescious wild salmon may become extinct while the DFO drags its feet or doesn’t move at all. Whose best interest to they have.
This is very disturbing, Thank you for this very important precious work in attempts to save the Salmon and keeping this virus from going up the food chain !
I think that fish health should be left to professionals, not activists. This looks like classic symptoms of low oxygen in the water. Each new tide brings different water with different levels, and that’s why each pen may look different.
I feel bad that the fish and the farmers have to deal with it. Too bad someone is just trying to get attention on the backs of a natural event.
Alex is a biologist who genuinely cares about the future of the wild salmon. She never wanted to become an activist but is compelled to speak out to protect the future of this coast and I am so grateful that she is doing this.
So would you also think this is okay as an annual event? I inadvertently ran into the unbelievable stench from all the dead fish (morts) last summer 1/2 km away in the main channel–along with a tourist zodiac with a dozen or so tourists paying $100 a pop for the privilege! According to DFO ‘Due to the physical characteristics of Okisollo Channel, very low oxygen levels occur EVERY summer. The behaviours you described are consistent with previously observed feeding reactions during periods of depressed oxygen levels.’ Neil Jensen A/Chief, Regional Programs/Conservation and Protection (Aquaculture and Regional Investigative Services) DFO [email protected]
In discounting fact, Ken Kruge failed to note some pens affected, others not. Ergo, not a dissolved oxygen issue; rather, pathogens. I recommend Ken, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and every Canadian with a legitimate concern for the protection of our seriously imperilled wild fish stocks take note of some “activists”‘ whistle-blowing before it’s too late. Sadly, I believe the determined efforts of Alexandra Morton will not effect change; only stand witness to irrevocable tragedy.
Very disturbing, the public want to know, unfortunately we have little faith in our DFO and No trust in bias fish farm science or statements…trends show that since fish farms were designated in our waters fish populations travelling through here, have been dying off!! DFO do something about this, tell us what exactly is going on in these farms.
If you have “no faith in our DFO” why are you and Ms. Morton asking for DFO to go to the site or to tell us what’s going on?
Where’s your data that supports your assertion that fish populations are dying off since the fish farms were installed?
Haven’t we had some of the largest runs in recorded history?
This kind of goes against your narrative.
We need to get DFO off their buns to be involved in protecting wild salmon and we need to restore faith in DFO through seeing them take action to protect wild salmon. If you love eagles, whales, bears and other wildlife that depend on wild salmon, you’ll surely see how important this issue is. We all need to care about the future of this amazing coast’s biodiversity.
I disagree with this blogger. I’ve seen salmon in a river react the same way when water is warm and there is low oxygen. I’ve also seen cod do the same thing in the ocean.
Tom Russell’s wife Mary Elizabeth Russell here, as her computer is down:
Sadly, if the DFO refuses to investigate these sicko farms smack in the migration routes of our wild salmon– particularly our threatened Sockeye of the Fraser—we will know that DFO is still in bed with this disgraceful industry, and is thereby a national disgrace that may see our wild runs into oblivion. If renown scientist Christy Miller is not allowed to test the fish on these farms, it shows they are as sick as Alexandra Morton describes. Let it not be true that DFO stands for Destroyer of Fisheries and Oceans—for this could be the last chance for it do the right and honest thing—get to the bottom of disease in these farms once and for all under our renown Dr. Christy Miller, and for good measure, with the keen observances of Dr. Alexandra Morton at her side.
These waters are not warm! Far from it, the waters in Okisollo Channel vary little from winter to summer because of all the tidal action churning the water from the bottom. This farm is no more than 5 km from Upper Rapids, which can run up to 10 or 12 knots! A more likely explanation would be all the excrement combined with sunshine using up all the oxygen. Plus 2 other farms, one on each side, don’t seem to have the same problem.
Vary much? 6 C in the winter and 14 C in the summer.
That’s a big difference given how oxygen saturates at cooler temperatures.
Buy a thermometer Joanne. And a science book.
Considering the size of the oceans and how much of the planet they cover to consider the fact that we are eating fish produced in these abusive manners is very telling of how little competence there is in the DFO/provincial fisheries and how the “good science” being used or rather not even being done has devastated the life of the wild oceans. Unfreaking believable and plain criminal!
god help us the dfo wont
We are at a precarious point globally and so to continue to assume we ‘can have our cake and eat it too’ has long passed. Don’t consume Salmon and the fish farms will be no more. PS: every life form on this planet is not “ours”. The DFO, similar to the Federal Government, has their feet in both camps: business & protection/regulation. At the end of the day, where do you think both feet are?
What levels of oxygen is Sea Shepherd documenting in the waters? I would think they have oxygen sensors on board right?
Please post the daily trend in oxygen levels, as the salmon farmers have. Please know that if you don’t publicly report this data, that says a lot about your “research” and commitment to scientific ethics.
We cannot feed the world on wild salmon, so we need fish farms. But we should not be farming in open net cage pens in our ocean as these are obviously harmful to migrating wild salmon. The solution, as I see it, is to move the fish farms into land based pens such as the “Kuterra” farm near Port McNeill. I believe it is very successful and should not interfere with wild salmon. We would still have the product and all the jobs .
Remember – wild salmon are priceless!!
Have you ever eaten salmon from a closed containment facility?
Do you even know what the carbon foot print of a land based farm is?
Just imagine a world where 2,200,000 million tons of salmon are raised on land in sprawling concrete facilities loaded with diesel generators and huge oxygen tanks.
There used to be a forest by the Nimpkish River now it’s a closed containment salmon farm.
One hundred years in the future people will be protesting the land-based farms saying “move the farms into the ocean and use green tidal energy to provide flow and oxygen to the farms”
Salmon farms on land is about as silly an idea as cattle farms on the ocean floor.
Kuterra have never made a penny and in fact lose millions each year. The losses are funded by charitable donations.
This comment is not credible. The blog owner has shared with Kuterra the email address of this comment poster. It is a fictitious email address using a name that is not and has never been on Kuterra’s staff list. the poster is wrong in saying Kuterra loses millions each year. Kuterra has been generating revenues for just two years and has widely reported that it continues to move closer to breaking even.
Josephine Mrozewski, Kuterra Communications
Hello! hello! to all the authors of the above comments: which century are you living in?
Haha we are currently living in the 21st century, Did you just wake up like Rip Van Winkle or something?
After posting that comment I realized the better question to have asked is: which planet are you living on? The answer to your question James, is in your question – specifically, “or something”. With respect, inform yourself about the web of life and try to stay away from the ‘great chain of being’. The former is wholism [interconnectedness of life on Earth], the latter is hierarchical [a social construct].