Day 23 of Operation Virus Hunter August 11, 2015 are we are traveling through Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw territory with Melissa Willie of the Dzawada’enuxw, a Band Councillor. Melissa has been instructed by Chief Willie Moon to board the farms and request a sample of the salmon in the farm for testing.
She ask the crew of the Martin Sheen to take her to Burdwood, Simoom Sound, Sir Edmund Bay, Cypress, Maude Island, Cecil Island, Mt Simmonds and Whelis Bay salmon farms. All of these facilities are owned by Mitsubishi and run by the Norwegian company, Cermaq. None have the permission of the Dzawada’enuxw to be there.
At Sir Edmund Bay, Melissa boarded the farm and handed over the paper signed by her chief the Dzawada’enuxw request for a fish was denied.
No one knows who actually owns the salmon in the farms. Under the Constitution of Canada and international law, no one can own a fish in the sea. So Mitsubishi owns the fish while they are in fresh water in the hatchery, but lose ownership as soon as the fish are poured into the sea. The salmon farming industry is trying to change that, but have been unsuccessful to date. If only they would just grow the farm salmon in tanks just a little longer and never put them in the ocean. They would save themselves and many others a lot of trouble.
Next Melissa Willie asked to be taken to the “mort” float where the farm fish that die are stored in large plastic totes until a barge comes and takes them away. The stench on the mort float was overwhelming as she struggled not to vomit. One tote was a writhing soup of maggots, the second tote was ½ full of freshly dead Atlantic salmon, some with hemorrhaging under the skin, an indicator of disease.
On the next farm there were juvenile wild salmon in the totes among the large farmed salmon! The much smaller wild salmon are lined up on the left and the much larger farm salmon carcass is lying under where their tails would be.
“It has been emotional times here, to see our wild salmon laying dead along side these dead diseased Atlantic salmon. How can they say our wild salmon are not affected. To the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw I say it is time to get this garbage out of not just Dzawada’enuxw waters, but out of the unceded territories of the Musgamagw Dzawada’enuxw. It is our duty to our children and future generations to protect all our food fisheries.” Melissa Willie, Band Councillor Dzawada’enuxw
Stand tall my friends, fight this with all your might, these farms are killing our salmon. Why should they be allowed to be here. Why does the DFO support them while denying that they do harm to wild stocks.
Indeed this is THE question – Why does DFO support the fish farm industry in the face of First Nation opposition, 1/3 of the industry is squatting in territories that do not want them and in the face of global evidence that salmon farms cannot operate among healthy wild salmon stocks (Ford and Myers 2008). Indeed they are blaming pink salmon returns for the sea lice that then breed on the farm salmon and kill the next generation of wild salmon! This industry has captured all levels of our governments and someday we will find out how and why this happened.
As responsible citizens WE need to stand shoulder to shoulder with ALL First Nations people who oppose open pen salmon farming – it’s their back yard!! – as well as all other organisations in opposition to this pestilent industry. WE need to be banging on the doors of ALL of OUR politicians to show OUR defiance of their policies that perpetuate this contagious industry, which puts in peril OUR Wild Salmon. Inform and educate any and everyone of this underwater plague that is being permitted by OUR governments, and undertaken largely by foreign corporations who have absolutely no regard for OUR traditional marine environment.
“Under the Constitution of Canada and international law, no one can own a fish in the sea.”
… So, how can you claim that the wild fish belong to the food fisheries?
Doctrine of Priority as defined by the Supreme Court of Canada
Conservation
First Nation FSC (Food, Social, and Ceremonial)
First Nation commercial fishery
Open commercial fishery
We don’t “own” the fish, we just have the right to harvest first, if there are no conservation concerns.
And even with a SCoC decision that in theory protects a First Nation commercial fishery such as the herring spawn on kelp fishery that is dependent on the herring surviving to spawn, the open commercial sac-roe fishery that intercepts herring before they spawn is allowed; even with questionable stock numbers that could result in a bust for the SOK harvesters.
I am amazed at you and your reporters, photographers to be able to claim with such assurance that the totaly decayed small farm salmon are juvinile wild fish!!
Your ability so spew misconception and deceit is vry troubling.
It would seem to a same casual observer that you are trying to inflame a political sensitive issue! What’s even more disturbing is that you are aware of the truths, you have the findindings of the Cohen commision, you are now stating that DFO and the ruling government is corrupt and you are strongly inferring, civil disobedience by suggesting that it is right to defend salmon, which you know are not under threat from fishfarms. The 38,000,000 million dollar Cohen report reflects this very clearly. Please be aware that it’s all fun a d games until somebody dies!!
At this point you have become an accesory to murder and I would hope a swift path to justice for you and yours.
Stop the madness,!!!
You – Scott grossly misrepresent the Cohen Commission and you represent the worst of this industry which, in my view, is hiding their enormous impact on this coast – Here is a direct quote from Justice Bruce Cohen:
“I therefore conclude that the potential harm posed to Fraser River sockeye from salmon farms is serious or irreversible. Disease transfer occurs between wild and farmed fish, and I am satisfied that salmon farms along the sockeye migration route have the potential to introduce exotic diseases and to exacerbate endemic diseases that could have a negative impact on Fraser”
All need to be aware that Cohen, was restricted to reviewing impact on the Fraser sockeye. Other wild salmon stocks, however are equally vulnerable to the impact of this industry.
The paragraph above yours
Continuing to collect fsh health data from salmon farms into 2020 will eventually allow for a more statistically robust assessment of whether fsh farms along the sockeye migration route are afecting Fraser River sockeye. However, mitigation measures should not be delayed in the absence of scientifc certainty. Much research may be done around farm–sockeye interactions and cause- and -efect relationships, which is not dependent on extending the time series of the fsh health database. Additionally, in light of the uncertainty, and while DFO takes steps to better account for proximity to Fraser River sockeye in farm siting, it is appropriate to take measures to prevent any likelihood of harm from increasing. For that reason, I recommend no increase to salmon farm produc- tion in the Discovery Islands until such time as the impact of salmon farming on Fraser River sockeye can be determined, with some degree of certainty, to be minimal.
He states that no new untill 2020? To allow the research to grow
Why don’t you guys wear life jackets?
We stand with our neighbours/family on the removal of the fish farms from our shared territories, Gilakasla.
We the Hereditary Chief of the Mamalilikulla band(Village Island), near Alert Bay BC, of the Kwakwala nations. We have never been consulted to have any open net pens in my territory at all. I am writing to you because all our resources are in danger from these fish farms. They are killing the salmon with sea lice and diseases, eulachons and herring are being caught, getting disease and eaten by atlantics. Our clam gardens are being contaminated and are dying off, get your farms off our gardens. As per all court cases, now you need consent to be in our territory, none was given and you never asked for permission to be there
Our aboriginal laws are strict, you cannot go into our territory without the HC permission. Also if you want to do anything, you need consent from a HC.
Here is list of no consent given:
No consent on having them in our territory
No consent on siting criteria.
No consent on where they were put
No consent on the 30×30 cages
No consent on the expansion to 100×100 pens
No consent for any further expansion of pens, biomass or sites
No consent to put alien species(atlantic) in our waters
No consent to put diseased fish in our waters
No consent to use chemicals to vaccinate these diseases
No consent to use chemicals to rid atlantic of sea lice
No consent to use chemicals for furnucolous disease
No consent to use chemicals for bacterial kidney disease
No consent to trap herring, eulachons and other fish in pens
No consent given to freely dispose of feces in our waters
No consent given to use hydrogen peroxide in our waters and to dump it
As you see here there was never any type of consultation or consent to the rightful title holders.
As your government has signed the UNDRIP, you believe you need consent.
Wild salmon , clams, groundfish, and shellfish is our grocery store and is of most important to us as First Nations for our survival.
We want these fish farms out of our territory as do other First Nations.
We have to be consulted, give consent and be part of your decisions.
We will wait your answer to this request to review your actions of never meeting or getting consent from us.
We want all fish farms removed from our area.
Thank you from Mamalilikulla HC Robert Mountain III.
I thank the First Nations people and all those who stand with them to help protect our oceans and our earth. As Noam Chomsky said recently, it is the indigenous people who are leading the fight to prevent us from destroying ourselves. Fish farms are not about food or jobs. They are about greed and profit.
I appreciate checking your websites. Thanks!