By Alexandra Morton - Day 4 it just gets more interesting

Day 4 it just gets more interesting

Dr. Miller was on the stand again at the Cohen hearing on diseases that might be killing the Fraser sockeye. Today we learned that a single salmon farm with 1,000,000 fish can shed 60 billion viral particles per hour during a disease outbreak. Work done by Kyle Garver (DFO virologist) modeled what this might look like in the Discovery Islands. This is highly relevant because the Discovery Islands are the narrowest portion of the Fraser sockeye’s marine migration route.

In this figure, black is water and you can see two white circles which represent salmon farms. The grey patchy areas are the “viral particles” leaving the farms and they completely fill parts of the channels. This means as sockeye travel through this area there would be no opportunity to avoid viral particles during a salmon farm disease outbreak. Salmon breathe by passing water over their gills, so the oxygen in the water comes into contact with their bloodstream. This means as a wild salmon passes through a salmon farmed region, salmon farm-origin pathogens leaving the farm fish’s bodies comes into contact with the bloodstream of the wild salmon.

Read the rest of this very interesting blog post 

here at Alexandra Morton´s website 

Day 3 Cohen Inquiry Disease Hearings

Day 3 Cohen Inquiry Disease Hearings 

By Alexandre Morton

Dr. Kristi Miller took the stand today to finally explain what she knows about the health of the Fraser sockeye. The court room was filled to over-flowing. It is first time she has been able to speak to the public about what she knows about our fish.

Since 1995, so many Fraser sockeye are reaching the river but failing to spawn that today DFO has to figure out how many are going to die, before they can open a fishery. So in 2005 they tasked their scientist Dr. Miller to use genomic profiling to read the sockeye salmon cells to try and figure out why they are dying. Genomic profiling reads 10,000s of switches that turn on/off in cells in response to starvation, toxic blooms, high water temperature, good feeding etc. When Miller read the cells of the Fraser sockeye she found all the ones that were dying had very similar genomic signatures. This suggested they were dying of the same thing. The cellular switches that were turned on and off were ones that respond to viruses. No one expected this.

All this is going to be very interesting to follow..............

Read the rest of Alexandra Morton's very interesting blog post HERE

Mail from Alex Morton - Cohen Inquiry.

Wild Salmon People,

The Disease Hearings at the Cohen Inquiry have been riveting.  Finally, we are getting a look behind the scenes at how much consideration the wild sockeye have been given by DFO.  Dr. Kristi Miller has shown up daily in the audience shadowed by a very large government security guard wearing an earpiece.  Salmon farm executives are there, Chief Bob Chamberlin, Dan Cody DFO, Policy Advisor and lots of wild salmon people are also witnessing this.

For details see my blog daily: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/ 

Tomorrow Kristi Miller gets to speak.

Alexandra Morton


     "Fisheries and Oceans researcher Kristi Miller still not talking" (The Globe & Mail, 23rd August): http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/fisheries-and-oceans-researcher-kristi-miller-still-not-talking/article2139668/ 
 
"Fish scientist accused of avoiding research" (CBC, 23rd August): http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2011/08/23/bc-scientist-accused-salmon-inquiry.html 
 
"Salmon farming on the hot seat at Cohen Commission" (The Vancouver Sun, 23rd August): http://www.vancouversun.com/Salmon+farming+seat+Cohen+Commission/5297345/story.html 
 
I really look forward to follow Kristi Millers statement very closely tomorrow - and I deeply hope she will stand up and tell us all what is really going on in this industry, which brings so much dead and diseases to the all rivers and wild salmon stock round the globe.


Pool 32 Mag 
Editor 

Farmageddon by Don Staniford

Read this scarry report from Don Staniford and learn all about what farmed salmon is really all about.


Click on this front page below and you will get right to this report.

Mail from Alexandra Morton

Hello Wild Salmon People;

The aquaculture hearings begin on Monday, August 22, with hearings on disease.  The legal teams have submitted the material they would like question the witnesses with.  Thus we have tipped our hands, we know what we are up against.  Justice Cohen gets to decide whether documents will be admitted into evidence.  He will decide what the witnesses need to answer to.

On the first panel are four experts in salmon disease.  

Dr. Stewart Johnson, Head of Aquatic Animal Health, DFO, is responsible for understanding the health of the Fraser sockeye.  

Dr. Michael Kent, is a professor at Oregon State University, who used to work for DFO. During that time  he wrote several scientific papers on Salmon Leukemia.  Salmon Leukemia has two other names - Plasmacytoid Leukemia and Marine Anemia. We have already seen evidence that Dr. Miller, the scientist apparently muzzled by the Privy Council, suspected this disease was responsible for the 18-year decline and crash of the Fraser sockeye.  Plasmacytoid  Leukemia arrived on the Fraser sockeye migration route in the early 1990s in Chinook salmon farms. It killed so many farm salmon it threatened the survival of the smaller companies that were operating at that time.  Kent and others tried to figure out what it was. They put it through screens, measured its bouyancy, tested its ability to infect, and arrived at the conclusion that it must be a virus. it did infect sockeye and to a lesser extent Atlantic salmon.  For some reason they never completed this work, leaving this disease difficult to diagnose.

Dr. Christine MacWilliams is a Fish Health vet for DFO's Salmon Enhancement Program.

Dr. Craig Stephens is Director at the Centre for Coastal Health & Faculty of Veterinary Medicine. Co-incidentally he did his PhD Thesis on Plasmacytoid Leukemia!  In a paper he coauthored in 1995 he wrote:

• “Evidence supporting the hypothesis that marine  anemia is a spreading, infectious neoplastic [cell proliferating] disease could have profound regulatory effects on the salmon farming industry” Stephens and Ribble (1995). With Dr. Kent he wrote that the environmental conditions created by intensive aquaculture may have facilitated the emergence of marine anemia. (Stephen, Ribble and Kent, 1996).
• In a statement in his Thesis at the U of Saskatchewan 1995 he wrote: we should be in "...preparation for the possibility of marine anemia becoming a problem for other farmed and wild species."
• Dr. Stephens did publish on a method of diagnosing Salmon Leukemia by examining the kidney. This has been helpful to the salmon farming industry.

Justice Cohen has provided us an interesting panel of experts.  As these hearings proceed it will be a detective effort.  The best fit answer is going to have to explain an 18-year decline of only the sockeye that migrate along eastern Vancouver Island, while other neighbouring runs were unaffected, even increasing.  It will have to account for the 2010 return and a seemingly good run this year. DFO has deemed the 2011 run big enough that several fisheries have been opened.  And the answer will have to fit the timing, behaviour and condition of the Fraser sockeye over this time period.

I am going to try and write blogs as often as possible to keep you informed. We are encouraging a media outlet to live-stream the hearings to a website.  We will also be distributing daily briefings to the public.  First Nations of the Fraser River and the coast will be holding a rally on the 30th. All of this information will be kept updated at www.salmonaresacred.org . 

If any of you can offer support it would help enormously. You can donate via pay pal at www.salmonaresacred.org or send a check to Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society, Box 399, Sointula, BC V0N 3E0

Stay tuned for a great detective effort into the future one of the last and most generous natural resources on earth - the Fraser sockeye.  Show up if you can, because it is going to make a difference for the witnesses to have your support.

The fish have shown us they can survive with us, now it is time for us to do our part.

Alexandra Morton

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/  

Great Fly High Fishing videos

Here is a couple of very nice videos from Fly High Fishing 

Little Trout, big air Bass flyin' Good times

Farmed Salmon Confidential Part 2

By Common Sense Canadian

Part 2 of a 2-part series - read part 1 here.

When does a foreign-owned corporation’s right to protect its share price trump the environment and Canadian public’s rights? Apparently, when it’s the Norwegian salmon farming industry.

Numerous instances from the past several years reveal a pattern of salmon farmers resisting transparency when it comes to disease and parasite monitoring - and the excuse often given is severe financial damage to the companies involved. But if there’s nothing untoward about their operations, as they maintain, then how could the release of said data prove so damaging to their bottom line?

Norwegian Shareholders Before BC’s Wild Salmon

Documents obtained by The Common Sense Canadian reveal that the Norwegian-owned companies Marine Harvest and Cermaq (who together control three quarters of B.C.’s salmon farms) have been lobbying behind the scenes since at least 2008 for the Government not to release disease information. The BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) also successfully argued against the disclosure of disease data during the Cohen Inquiry, with Justice Cohen ruling in June that information must be kept confidential until the evidentiary hearings on aquaculture.

Clearly, these companies are very worried about this information getting out to the public.

Marine Harvest admitted in a submission to the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner in 2008 that the release of disease information “would cause significant commercial harm,” “undue financial loss” and that “Marine Harvest Canada’s reputation could be tarnished and sales volume reduced”. It further stated: “Marine Harvest is a publicly traded company on the Oslo Stock Exchange and as such, corporate reputation is very important in maintaining share price and shareholder loyalty.” (On a side note, has this industry even informed their shareholders of the risk of Infectious Salmon Anemia in BC?)

Marine Harvest’s largest shareholder, incidentally, is Norway’s richest man, John Fredriksen, worth over $10 billion. (In 2007, while fishing on Norway’s River Alta, Fredriksen admitted to the Altaposten Newspaper, “I’m concerned about the future of wild salmon. Move salmon farms out of the path of wild salmon.”)

Meanwhile, Cermaq - who operate in Canada as Mainstream and whose largest shareholder is the Norwegian Government - claimed in another submission in 2008 to the Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner that “disclosure would result in "undue financial loss" to Mainstream,” “damage Mainstream’s business” and referred to “the harm which such information in the wrong hands can do.”

Similar statements were made by the BCSFA in submissions to the Cohen Inquiry in May this year. The industry lobby conceded that should disease data be disclosed publicly there would be a “likelihood of misuse and irrevocable damage to the economic interests and reputations of participants and individuals.”  In another submission to the Cohen Inquiry in May, the BCSFA admitted, “Irreparable damage will occur to the reputations and economic interests of the BCSFA’s member companies and their shareholders.”

While the BCSFA – whose members include the Norwegian companies Marine Harvest, Cermaq and Grieg – has been privately lobbying for the non-disclosure of disease data, they have issued public statements claiming “good health” and “healthy fish” on BC salmon feedlots.  This is despite the fact that in April 2010, BC’s salmon farmers began refusing access to government inspectors to carry out disease monitoring.

Read the rest of the first part of this VERY interesting and again extremly scary article by clicking HERE it will take you directly to the article on the Common Sense Canadian website.

Farmed Salmon Confidential Part 1

By Common Sense Canadian

ISA and the Cohen Commission

This past year, the Norwegian-controlled salmon farming industry spent $1.5 million on a glitzy advertising campaign in BC, which essentially denied the impacts of open net cage salmon farms on wild fish and the marine environment. The ads left viewers with the impression the industry’s critics are nothing but a bunch of raving conspiracy theorists.

At the same time, unbeknownst to the public, the salmon farmers were facing their toughest hurdle to date – and it was no longer about sea lice, as it has so often been in the past. The subject matter was of a much smaller but infinitely more damaging nature – the possibility that viruses connected to their operations were not only devastating their own farmed fish in places like Chile, but could potentially be linked to mysterious crashes of iconic wild salmon runs on Canada’s west coast. What’s worse, it’s now clear the industry knew about these problems and has done everything in its power to keep them from the public.

ISA and Salmon Leukemia

Largely thanks to the Cohen Commission into collapsing Fraser River sockeye stocks, significant new information has been trickling out over the past year, which – when one assembles the pieces of the puzzle – reveals a coordinated cover-up by the industry of this damaging information, aided by both the BC and Canadian governments. As the aquaculture portion of the Cohen Commission in late August and September draws near, The Common Sense Canadian will attempt through a two-part feature this week to connect the dots and reveal the nature of this cover-up to our readers.

There are two different viruses at issue here – the first, Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) was responsible for decimating up to 80% of the farmed salmon industry in Chile throughout 2008 and 2009 and has affected Norway, Scotland and the East Coast of Canada. While it isn’t known officially to affect wild Pacific salmon yet, the concern is that it may mutate (or may already have done so – more on that later), with catastrophic results for our wild fish.

The second is known as Salmon Leukemia and results in brain lesions which are likely already affecting BC’s wild salmon stocks. Research on this virus is newer than with ISA and the potential of a connection to salmon farms requires immediate further investigation.

Salmon Leukemia was the subject of a recent paper published by DFO scientist Dr. Kristi Miller – whose muzzling by officials connected to the Prime Minister’s office has made headlines. The world’s most prestigious journal, Science, called Dr. Miller’s paper some of the most significant new salmon research in a decade, and yet she was barred from speaking with any media following its publication in January of this year. (More on that in Part 2 of this series).

Read the rest of the first part of this VERY interesting and scary article by clicking HERE it will take you directly to the Common Sense Canadian website.

Don Staniford tries to get the Norwegian King involved.

Don Staniford is trying to get the Norwegian King involved in the Norwegian fish farm problems. But the question is - will His Majesty listen??

His Majesty fly fishing 

The Norwegian King is a very skilled fly fisher, so he must have experienced the decline of fish in the Norwegian rivers, but I'm afraid that His Majesty is too much involved in all of this viewed at on a economic level, since it's "big bucks" for the Norwegian economy we are talking about here.

But at least Don Staniford tries to do something, something we all could learn from - and for that Don Staniford has my biggest respect - Keep the pressure up Don, we are many out here who really like what your are doing.

On this picture where the Norwegian King is attending on the Aqua Nord Fair - and as you can see on the picture, Don Staniford is handing over a letter to the Norwegian Kind in hope to create a constructive and positive dialog about the problems, caused by the Norwegian fish farm industry in North America, Canada and Chile.

I Really hope the King will open up and help change this rapidly growing problem - before it's too late!!

Get involved in this very serious problem - send a mail to Norwegian King and ask him to be open for a constructive and possitive dialog about these problems - here is a mail to His Majesty  -  post@slottet.no

Links:
1) Adressa.no (Norwegian news) http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/okonomi/article1677852.ece

2) Adressa.no (Norwegian news)
http://www.adressa.no/nyheter/nordtrondelag/article1485998.ece

Årgård River Camp - the short version

Just messing around vita my Mac one night I couldn't sleep.

Farmed salmon - "Isnogood"

Here is a picture of a fish with normal food in the stomach - and a fish farm stomach!!
What can I say - would you eat a fish with that kind of "chimichal shit" in the stomach.....??

(click on pic for a larger view)

Photo credits: Don Staniford.

Road trip to the Årgård River Camp

No wonder the COP 15 was such a failure.... :O)

This guy - Villy Søvndal - is probably going to be a minister after the next election - I don't know if I should laugh or cry - from laughing!!!!



And this the best version - my personal favorite..... judge for yourself!!! :O)



And the last one - sorry can't help it....

The Earth by night - it looks like cancer cells spreading

The Earth by night.

A friend send me this link today.

Somehow it looks like cancer cells spreading slowly all over the planet, where every city is a metastases - quit scary somehow!!

(click several times for a larger view)

My friend Patrick from the Fraser River Lodge wrote this very sincere text

My friend Patrick from the Fraser River Lodge wrote this very sincere text - and I couldn't have said it better.

"Give me 5 million $$$ and I might get a bigger car, a bigger boat and a bigger house... But put me in my flip flops, a pair of good old jeans, a t-shirt with some holes in and a fishing rod in my hand and I'll be the happiest person on this planet..."

Patrick - you are my HERO!!!

Check out The Fraser River Lodge - Patrick just told me that the Kings have arrived an fishing is getting better every day.

Stop Featuring Shark as Food

Change.org|Start an Online Petition »

Fish Attack

New edition of Fly'mage is out now

Check out the new edition of Fly'mage HERE 

or click on the image below.

Here's a couple of exsamples of some of the great shoots you will find inside 

Also check out this new video from Fly'mage

FLYMAGE MAGAZINE. FLY FISHING from Flymage Magazine on Vimeo.