Charlie Smith December 30, 2009 Straight.Com

Last February, fish biologist Alexandra Morton and a few other petitioners won a declaration that provincial regulation of the ocean-finfish aquaculture industry was unconstitutional. In his written decision, B.C. Supreme Court Justice Christopher Hinkson ruled that under the Constitution Act, 1867, the federal government is responsible for management and protection of fisheries. He ordered an end to provincial regulation over ocean-finfish aquaculture by February 9, 2010.

Morton has often claimed that regulators are not addressing the threat of sea lice from fish farms to wild salmon. “Salmon farming is the emperor with no clothes, and I really just want people to see that,” she said in a phone interview with the Georgia Straight.

In late December, the federal government was back in B.C. Supreme Court, asking Hinkson to extend the deadline to December 2010. In a November 5 affidavit, Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s director general of the aquaculture management directorate, Trevor Swerdfager, swore that it was impossible to create a federal regulatory regime in time to meet the court-ordered deadline. He described the impact of the B.C. Supreme Court decision as “monumental” on aquaculture governance, claiming it would require the hiring up to 50 new staff.

Read the full story on The Straight.com

Bruce Winfield
December 29, 2009
North Island Gazette

A high-ranking delegation from Marine Harvest Canada (MHC) received a VIP welcome from councillors Dec. 8.

“Marine Harvest is the biggest public sector employer on the North Island now,” said Port Hardy Mayor Bev Parnham while introducing MHC Managing Director Vincent Erenst.

“It’s very nice to tell you about our activities and how we’re minimizing the impact on the environment,” said Erenst.

Read the full story in the North Island Gazette

December 25, 2009
The Globe and Mail

In the early 1990s, about 24 million sockeye a year swam up the Fraser, suggesting the river might return to the 40 million it saw a century ago. It wasn’t to be.

1999 – More than eight million sockeye are expected but only three million reach the Fraser, the lowest figure since 1955.

2000 – About five million salmon return but fisherman take nearly half, plus the Weaver Creek and Cultus Lake stocks are nearly wiped out because the fish die before spawning, likely due to overly warm water.

2001 – Officials worry when fish travel upstream as many as 47 days early, and widespread fishery closures are imposed but not before 1.6 million salmon are taken. The overall run: 7 million.

2002 – More than 15 million sockeye show up (and about four million are caught), but some Fraser runs are veryweak.

2003 – With the Fraser hitting temperatures over 19 degrees, the sockeye delay entering the river. The total run is only 4.8 million with just over 2 million caught.

2004 – Again about four million fish return but only 1.7 million live to spawn, 77 per cent below what biologists feel is needed to rebuild the stocks. Water temperatures set a record, and an abundance of sea lice is noted on young salmon migrating through the Broughton Archipelago.

Courier-Islander Staff
December 24, 2009
Courier-Islander

There's more detail about Marine Harvest's hopes for a closed containment pilot project.

Managing director Vincent Erenst, confirms the company hasn't formally applied for government funding for the project, but that's because they haven't found government programs "where we could formally apply and where we would have a chance of success."

In a presentation to Campbell River city council earlier this month, Erenst said the company was working towards a pilot study but "so far we've not been able to convince either the feds or the province to support us in this."

"So far, we have been trying to get some help in the order of 30 to 40 per cent of our investment, and we have not succeeded," he said. "We are definitely willing to do a trial. We have it basically designed. We are ready."

Read the full story in the Courier-Islander

See related story in the Courier Islander

Jennifer Moreau
December 23, 2009
Burnaby Now

More research and action is needed in the case of declining Fraser River sockeye stocks, according to a think-tank led by Burnaby academics.

"The think-tank was an incredible gathering of many of Canada's preeminent scientists. ... They really highlighted just how complex this topic is and how much we don't know," said Mark Angelo, chair of BCIT's Rivers Institute and one of four local academics on the think-tank's steering committee. "It's probably more about questions than answers."

The group of roughly 20 scientists met for two days in early December to discuss how to manage declining Fraser sockeye stocks.

In July, Fisheries and Oceans Canada was forecasting 10.6 million sockeye salmon would return to the Fraser this year - only 1.37 million came back. It was the lowest run in more than 50 years.

While no one knows exactly what happened, theories include disease and sea lice from fish farms, pollution and warming waters, which would affect available food for the fish and migratory patterns for their predators.

Read the full story on Burnaby Now

Read related story: December 10, 2009;  "Scientists call for more cautious salmon harvest"; The Globe and Mail

Read the "Statement from Think Tank of Scientists";  December 9, 2009; "Adapting to Change - Managing Fraser sockeye in the face of declining productivity and increasing uncertainty" 

Read background stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye

Claire O'Connell
December 17, 2009
The Irish Times

A UCD team has had some promising results in the search for a vaccine against sea louse, a parasite that has plagued Irish salmon farms and is threatening wild stocks

THE ANIMAL glowing blue in the picture below right might look pretty, yet its effects are anything but. It’s a sea louse that attaches to salmon and causes damage to skin and scales, along with a general decline in the fish’s health.

The not-so-pretty parasite is a major problem for fish farmers and could potentially spread to wild populations, which is why researchers at University College Dublin are looking for an effective vaccine to help fish fend off the unwelcome hitchhikers.

Read the full story in The Irish Times

Neil Judson
December 18, 2009
The Squamish Chief

Federal Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea downplayed the effects fish farms have on British Columbia wild salmon stocks when fielding questions and concerns at a roundtable discussion with local experts at the Adventure Centre on Tuesday (Dec. 15).

"The jury is still out on that," Shea responded after Squamish Streamkeeper co-ordinator Jack Cooley pointed to a study that reports 50 per cent of the millions of sockeye salmon that failed to return this year were likely killed by sea lice from fish farms.

"I don't think we can say unequivocally that sea lice kills salmon. We can say, sure, it's a factor but it's safe to say we have to do more research."

Cooley responded with a loud sigh.

Shea's visit came shortly after Prime Minister Stephen Harper called for an 18-month judicial inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye. Only about a million of the anticipated 10 million fish returned to the Fraser River and its tributaries this past summerms.

Read the full story in The Squamish Chief

Read background stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye

Paul Rudan
December 15, 2009
Campbell River Mirror

After spouting venom for two days, the “pit of snakes” gave federal fisheries officials one final option – make B.C.’s coastal fish farms change to closed-containment systems.

“There’s a lot of long-term resentment here,” said Anne Cameron of Tahsis. “You probably left your offices in Ottawa with a head full of idealism and then walked into a pit of snakes...you came here with a plan that already seems to be done.”

However, officials with Fisheries and Oceans Canada (also known as DFO) said they had come to Campbell River last week to consult with stakeholders, the public and other user groups about the change in governmental responsibility over fish farms.

In the new year, the federal government will assume control over all sea-based aquaculture operations, including fish farms. The changeover was ordered by the B.C. Supreme Court which ruled that fish farms are a federal responsibility.

Read the full story in The Campbell River Mirror

Mark Hume
December 10, 2009
The Globe and Mail

A brainstorming session by some of the West Coast's leading salmon experts has pointed to ocean conditions in the Strait of Georgia and the possible impact of fish farms as the most likely causes of a collapse of Fraser River sockeye stocks.

But the two-day think tank, organized by Simon Fraser University and the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, concluded Wednesday that the government needs to do more research to solve the puzzle.

Read the full stoy in The Globe and Mail

Related stories: 

• Global TV; December 11, 2009; "Missing Salmon Mystery" 
• The Maple Ridge Times; December 11, 2009; "Scientists don't want to wait for fish inquiry"
• South Delta Leader; December 10, 2009; "Fish farms, climate eyed in salmon collapse
• The National Post; December 9, 2009; "Problems in Strait of Georgia likely cause salmon collapse"

Read background stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye

December 10, 2009
Seafood Intelligence.com

Responsibility for regulating British Columbia’s aquaculture industry will soon (as of February 2010, theoretically) come under the authority of the federal Canadian government, instead of being shared between the Province and the government of Canada. This results from the British Columbia Supreme Court ruling of February 9th 2009, finding that whilst the land beneath a BC fish farm is indeed the property of the provincial government, the latter does not have the right to regulate salmon farms; thus making the BC regulation of fish farms unlawful, unconstitutional and invalid... The court has suspended the ruling – which can be construed as a 'legal victory' for biologist and salmon farming critic Alexandra Morton who brought on the case - for a period of 12 months to allow the federal government to bring in proper legislation. Now (rather late some will argue for such a momentous change), in preparation for the transfer of powers, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is holding meetings in Campbell River (the capital of salmon farming in BC, and Canada) to get input on a number of regulatory considerations. The BC Salmon Farmers' Association (BCSFA) outlined yesterday (December 9th) 'what it wants DFO to know'. Interestingly a BCSFA comment relates specifically to one of the key demand of environmentalists opposed to currently practiced open-cage salmon farming: that it instead be operated in “closed containment”. “Although there are no commercially viable closed containment systems growing market sized Atlantic salmon operating anywhere in the world right now, we feel advances in technology may make closed containment systems viable in the future,” the BCSFA said. 

Read further on Seafood Intelligence.com

Dan MacLennan
December 9, 2009
The Courier-Islander

Marine Harvest Canada says neither Ottawa nor Victoria have come through with funding for a closed-containment pilot project, but both the federal and provincial governments say they haven't been asked.

The issue came up last week when Marine Harvest Canada managing director Vincent Erenst was asked about closed containment during a presentation to city council.

Read the full story in The Courier-Islander

Dan Maclennan
December 4, 2009
The Courier-Islander

An estimated 40,000 live Atlantic salmon escaped Marine Harvest's Port Elizabeth farm in October after the sheer weight of dead fish tore holes in a net pen, a company official told city council Tuesday.

While official investigations of the Oct. 21 escape in the Broughton Archipelago have yet to produce public reports, Marine Harvest's managing director Vincent Erenst told council that the incident started with a low oxygen event.

Read the full story in The Courier-Islander

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic Salmon Escapement, click here. .

Connor Duffy
December 8th, 2009
ABC News

It's being served up on plates all the way from Sydney to Shanghai and the entrepreneurs driving the Tasmanian salmon industry have predicted it will become a billion dollar industry.

It is amazing growth for a product that only started in Tasmania 20 years ago, when the first Atlantic salmon eggs were shipped in and hatched in local waters.

Farmed Tasmanian salmon is on its way to becoming the most popular table fish in the country and is now worth $350 million a year.

Salmon farmers have relied on marketing Tasmania's clean, green image to spearhead their assault on mainland and overseas markets.

Advertisers use phrases like "grown in the pristine oceans off Tasmania" and the industry has acknowledged that this association has been crucial to salmon's success.

But a growing number of critics say the marketing is a sham and that the waters of a salmon farm are more likely to be swirling with chemicals and waste.

A battle is being waged over whether salmon are a clean, green omega-rich super food or the battery hens of the sea.

Canadian environmentalist Dr David Suzuki is one of the industry's detractors. 

Read the full story on ABC News

Sean Thomas
December 1, 2009
The Northern View

While Prime Minister Stephen Harper has made clear his intentions to carry out a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River Sockeye in 2009, Prince Rupert city council will be making it known that they expect equal consideration following a disastrous commercial fishing season on the North Coast.

“I would ask council to consider sending a letter to the federal government requesting the DFO be instructed to commence a judicial review of the 2009 Skeena River fishery and its failure of some salmon stocks. This would be similar to what the federal government has committed to do with regard to the Fraser River fishery,” said mayor Jack Mussallem, a motion that was subsequently put forward and passed unanimously.

Read the full story in The Northern View

Read news stories on the Fraser River judicial inquiry

Dan MacLennan
December 3, 2009
Courier-Islander

Saying Marine Harvest suffers from bad press, company officials attempted to set the record straight in a presentation to city council Tuesday.

"I think it can be said in general that salmon farming gets a lot of press attention in BC and also in Campbell River, and unfortunately for us the attention is not always very positive," managing director Vincent Erenst told councillors. "Most of the news stories originate from our opponents or our critics and they are usually not positive.

Read the full story in The Courier-Islander

Read related story in The Campbell River Mirror; December 3, 2009; "Fish farming company explains itself"

Diane Strandberg
November 26, 2009
The Tri-City News

High water in creeks and streams caused by recent heavy rains has been good for spawning salmon but not so good for volunteers keeping count of the local fish population.

It will likely be a few more weeks before stream stewards and fish biologists have an accurate fish count because the swift-flowing water has been too dangerous for people to do much work in and around the creeks (there have also been warnings for walkers to stay away from creek and river banks).

Numbers will be available once the salmon have died and their carcasses can be counted.

But the late-fall returns of chinook, chum and coho salmon to the Coquitlam River and Hyde Creek have been good, especially when compared to the Fraser sockeye run, which hit a 50-year-low this summer that prompted a federal judicial inquiry.

Read the full story in The Tri-City News

Larry Pynn
November 26, 2009
The Vancouver Sun 

An independent panel of scientists is embarking on a comprehensive report of the health of Canada's oceans, with special emphasis on climate change and marine biodiversity.

Panel chairman Jeff Hutchings, a Dalhousie University biology professor, said in an interview that Canada has a moral and geographic responsibility to care for its oceans, given that it has the longest coastline in the world.

"People tend not to focus on the oceans, but on the land-based issues," he said of the climate-change debate. "Things in the oceans belong to all Canadians, not specific groups or companies, and that lends a sense of stewardship to what happens in the oceans."

Announcement of the report Thursday, sponsored by the Royal Society of Canada, precedes next month's United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Hutchings said the report would provide a source of education and information about oceans, with recommendations to Ottawa on how to improve the oceans' health into the future.

Hutchings is also chairman of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada, a scientific body that recommends to Ottawa species that should be listed as at risk.

The committee has identified 29 marine fish and 33 marine mammals at risk in Canada — including southern resident killer whales, basking sharks, and abalone — although not all have been accepted by Ottawa to date.

Of 10 scientists on the panel, one is from each of the U.S. and Britain, and the other eight from Canada, including three from B.C.: Brian Riddell, a former federal fisheries scientist, now chief executive officer of the Pacific Salmon Foundation; and two from Simon Fraser University, marine biologist Isabelle Cete, and Randall Peterman, Canada research chairman in fisheries risk assessment and management.

The panel, expected to report back in 2012, plans to address broader issues than the recently announced federal judicial inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye runs. 

Read the story in The Vancouver Sun

Read news stories on the judicial inquiry

SeafoodSource Staff
November 25, 2009
SeafoodSource.com

The Kwicksutaineuk and Ah-Kwa-Mish First Nation (KAFN) on Wednesday applauded the British Columbia Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to dismiss a series of motions brought by the provincial government in a case involving salmon farms.

In February, KAFN filed a class-action lawsuit against the provincial government, claiming salmon farms have harmed wild salmon and their way of life. KAFN blames the government for the decline in pink salmon stocks by authorizing 29 salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago area.

A week after the lawsuit was filed, the court ruled that the provincial government’s regulation of salmon farming is unlawful and that the federal government has jurisdiction over the industry. Fish inside farms are to be regulated as a fishery, not an agricultural crop, thereby eliminating any private rights to the waters in use, the court ruled.

“We are pleased with the court’s response,” said Bob Chamberlin, KAFN chief. “The efforts of the B.C. government had real potential to increase the damage to the salmon by delaying consideration of the merits of our case. It is a great relief to be on track to seek certification as a class action in early January.”

“In my view, there is a substantial risk that hearing the province’s preliminary motions in advance of the certification hearing could create unnecessary delay, duplication and expense,” said Judge Harry Slade. “This does not mean that the province is not able to advance their submissions in the appropriate forum — the certification hearing.”

Read the full story on SeafoodSource.com

Read the full B.C. Supreme Court decision. 

Read related stories:

Nation Talk; November 25, 2009; "BC Supreme Court Will NOt Delay KAFN Salmon Fishery Class Action Law Suit

Read background news stories on the class action law suit. 

Dan MacLennan
November 25, 2009
Courier-Islander 

Philip Round
November 20, 2009
The Comox Valley Echo

The case for farmed salmon was put to Comox Valley Regional District directors this week.

Vincent Erenst, the managing director of Marine Harvest Canada, had sought a direct audience of directors because he considered arguments in favour of the industry were not being heard.

Most stories in the press were coming from opponents of the industry, he contended, and the fish farms of Vancouver Island were not getting a fair hearing.

He said Marine Harvest, which is based in Campbell River, operated in six countries internationally.

On Vancouver Island and the B.C. coast, it had 41 operational fish farms and two processing plants - the biggest being at Port Hardy.

On and around the Island the company employed 550 workers - 80 of them living in the Comox Valley - and between them they helped produce 38,000 tonnes of fish product a year.

That generated sales of $220 million annually, 70 per cent of that sum being export trade to the U.S. But their products were also sold and enjoyed locally, he added, through businesses such as Superstore in Courtenay.

The industry had been attacked over sea lice issues, but he said the issue was taken very seriously and was being tackled vigorously.

Read the full story in The Comox Valley Echo

Amy Rosen
November 20, 2009
Weekend Post

Just when you thought we were all finished with farmed Atlantic salmon, now comes news that the New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture has officially become the first company in North America to offer eco-certified farmed Atlantic salmon. And while the certification of seafood is a growing trend, the certification of farmed seafood - in particular salmon - may just represent the next frontier in sustainable seafood for a global market hooked on the ocean's bounty. Heritage is the name brand of Cooke Aquaculture's salmon, and the label under which it is sold at supermarkets like Loblaws and Longos.

But what does this certification actually mean? The press materials say the salmon is certified under IFQC (International Food Quality Certification), an internationally recognized organization, and that the eco label requires Cooke Aquaculture to meet stringent standards in five key areas: Marine environment, feed, energy, water use, packaging and waste. Cooke Aquaculture sells more than 115 million pounds of salmon a year to markets across Canada and the U.S. - a hell of a lot of salmon. Which got me thinking about a dinner I had in Vancouver a few months ago.

Read the full story in The National Post

See the related story in The Globe and Mail; November 24, 2009; "Debunking our 'fetish of the fresh'".

Derek Evans
November 23, 2009
Irish Times

NORWAY HAS closed 100 of its fjords to salmon farming to protect its wild stock, John Mulcahy, chairman of Save the Swilly (Ireland) told a packed audience following the screening of Farmed Salmon Exposed: The Global Reach of the Norwegian Salmon Farming Industry in Buswells Hotel, Dublin.

The 23-minute documentary lifts the lid on the problems caused by open net cage salmon farms worldwide and reveals the pervasive nature of the issues plaguing salmon aquaculture today. As part of a Global Week of Action, premieres took place in Edinburgh, Dundonnell and Oban in Scotland; Santiago in Chile; Washington; Vancouver; and Oslo and Bergen in Norway. Further screenings in Orkney, Shetland, Arran, London, Las Vegas, Santa Cruz, Puerto Varas, Ancud and Vancouver Island are planned.

Read the full story in The Irish Times

To see the video "The Global Reach of the Salmon Farming Industry", click here

Westcoaster.ca staff
November 24, 2009
Westcoaster.ca No Atlantic salmon escaped a Clayoquot Sound fish farm last week even though a storm damaged sections of one facility.

Laurie Jensen, community relations manager for Mainstream Canada, said three of four north-head mooring lines failed at the company’s Fortune Channel operation, pressing the system into a feed barge Nov. 17.

She said the company was harvesting fish when a supervisor noticed some buckling on a walkway. Jensen said the company stopped harvesting and tugboats held the system in place until a third tugboat arrived in the morning and helped secure the facility with additional lines.

Jensen said divers inspected the facility and found no holes in the nets.

Jensen blamed a storm surge, higher-than-normal tides and more than 200 millimetres of rain.

The company says it is reviewing all engineering recommendations.

Source: Westcaoster.ca

Intrafish November 24, 2009 An urgent meeting is being called by Norway's Fisheries Minister Lisbeth Berg-Hansen to discuss the worsening issue of sea lice on salmon farms. The meeting, to be held on November 26th, will have technical authorities, industry players, experts and investors in research present. The primary goal of the meeting is to establish a common platform for the status of the problem, including an understanding for the need of future initiatives. "There has been a substantial change in the salmon lice situation lately" said Berg-Hansen "If the aquaculture industry is to achieve long-term, sustainable growth, we have to find solutions to this problem. Therefore I want to discuss status and initiatives in the short and long terms with the leading players." Recently, there have been considerably higher levels of sea lice being reported on salmon farms in Norway, and an increasing number of cases in farms where treatment has not reduced these numbers as effectively as hoped. This suggests that de-lousing methods are either being inadequately implemented or the treatments are no longer effective. Berg-Hansen has said, "We cannot just go along with this. We must find solutions together that ensure we can reach the targets in the government's strategy for an environmentally sustainable aquaculture industry"

See a listing of Norwegian media related to this story on the Pure Salmon website 

Katherine Palmer Gordon
November 2009
Focus Magazine

As many as 11 million sockeye salmon were expected to return to the Fraser River and its tributaries this fall but actual returns may number in the thousands. Critics of DFO say federal fisheries couldn’t manage a home aquarium. DFO says they’re being treated unfairly.

DFO is an agency that couldn’t manage a home aquarium,” says former DFO communications officer Alex Rose. Now a journalist in Vancouver, Rose is not alone in his criticism of his former employer. There is a damning consensus among those involved with BC’s wild salmon fishery that DFO mismanagement is exacerbating the rapid decline of wild salmon numbers in our waters.

DFO has been doing an abysmal job of fisheries management,” says commercial fisheries advocate Phil Eidsvik. Biologist Alexandra Morton, who has devoted the last 15 years to battling both DFO and the provincial government about the negative impacts of fish farms on wild salmon, agrees: “DFO ignores the science, misinforms the public, offers unconfirmed theories and takes no action.” Retired fisheries scientists Gordon Hartman and Casey McAllister add: “DFO’s performance during the past 25 years is lamentable.”

Read the full article in Focus Magazine. Note that article is copyright of Katherine Palmer Gordon and not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without prior written permission.

Read background stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye

November 19, 2009 The Economist A MYSTERIOUS decline in the numbers of spawning salmon has become one of the rites of autumn in British Columbia, bringing worries of financial and job losses, threats of extinction and a perplexing lack of answers. This season only 1.7m of the 10.4m sockeye salmon that were forecast to return to the Fraser river in fact made it—a 50-year low. That prompted Stephen Harper, Canada’s prime minister, to ask Bruce Cohen, a justice of British Columbia’s Supreme Court, to hold an inquiry into the causes of the sockeye’s decline. Applause was muted. Four other federal inquiries held over the past three decades have failed to halt the decline. Many British Columbians fear that the province’s rich salmon fishery, worth about C$500m ($475m), could disappear like that for Atlantic cod. Of the five species of wild salmon involved, two (pink and chum) remain relatively abundant. But stocks of coho, chinook and sockeye are down by more than 70% since the early 1990s. Chinooks on the Thompson river are officially listed as endangered. Hardest hit are Fraser sockeye, once the most valuable fishery. Two groups of sockeye that spawn in lakes near Vancouver are also listed as endangered.

See the full story in The Economist

Read background on the Judicial Inquiry and collapse of the Fraser River sockeye. 

Sarah Douziech
November 19, 2009
Westerly News

Returns of two West Coast salmon stocks are so low this year, they're headed on the path to extinction, fish counters say.

Numbers of chinook in Clayoquot Sound and sockeye in Kennedy Lake have been seriously declining for the last ten years, but Doug Palfrey, a fish counter contracted by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to do counts in both areas, said this year is the worst yet.

"You've got extinction on your doorstep," Palfrey said. "We have almost a total collapse of sockeye this year."

Palfrey, who also runs the Tofino Salmon Enhancement Society, has been doing counts of salmon spawners in the region for over 20 years.

He said the declining sockeye numbers over the last ten years rivals this summer's Fraser River sockeye crisis, percentage-wise.

In 2000, about 30,000 sockeye were counted in the Upper Kennedy River. This year, 2,380 were counted in the same system; nearly a 90 per cent drop in stocks over nine years.

The beach spawning sockeye population in Kennedy Lake (including Clayoquot Arm, Sand River and beaches along the highway) was counted at 125 fish this year, compared to 14,364 in 2000, 11,500 in 2004 and 373 in 2008.

Read the full story in The Westerly.  

Larry Pynn
November 18, 2009
The Vancouver Sun

The oceans are being emptied to provide feed for farmed animals such as fish, chickens and pigs, a study involving the University of B.C. concludes.

The study, published this week in Oryx: the International Journal of Conservation, finds that 30 million tonnes or 36 per cent of the world's total fisheries catch each year is ground up into fishmeal and oil to feed farmed animals.

The study notes pigs and chickens consume six and two times the amount of seafood as U.S. and Japanese consumers, respectively.

In Peru, the anchovy fishery produces half of the world fishmeal based on annual catches of five to 10 million tonnes, while 15 million people -- half the country's population -- live in poverty and 25 per cent of infants are malnourished.

Finding alternative sources for the production of animal feed should be a priority, the study said. Fisheries that supply the fishmeal industry instead of feeding people should not receive an eco-label of sustainability.

Protein alternatives for animal feed could potentially include soymeal as well as meals made from mass-producing insects, the study noted.

The study's lead author, Jennifer Jacquet, a post-doctoral fellow at UBC's Fisheries Centre, said in an interview Tuesday the B.C. salmon farming industry is a major consumer of wild fish stocks.

She doesn't see that changing because salmon -- unlike chickens -- are carnivores and unlikely to adapt to a herbivorous diet. Oyster and mussel farming is a better alternative, she said.

Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, deferred response to the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance, but no one there could immediately be reached.

Read the full story in The Vancouver Sun.

Jennifer Moreau
November 18, 2009
Burnaby Now

Four Burnaby academics are at the helm of a new think-tank investigating the decline of the Fraser River's sockeye.

"It's going to be a very important event. We're going to have the think-tank with many of North America's best-known fisheries scientists," said Mark Angelo, chair of BCIT's Rivers Institute. "This will be the first kick at the can in terms of looking at this issue from a really scientific perspective."

Angelo is one of four local academics on the think-tank's steering committee.

The think-tank will be made up of roughly 20 scientists, who will meet Dec. 7 and 8 to discuss questions on how to manage declining Fraser sockeye stocks. The steering committee will then report on results in a panel presentation on Dec. 9.

Angelo said the think-tank is particularly timely and important, given the federal government announced a judicial inquiry into the Fraser's declining sockeye on Nov. 6.

"We feel there is really a pressing need for an immediate scientific assessment of what unfolded this year and why because the inquiry is not going to report out till 2011," Angelo said. The think-tank could help identify steps that could be taken sooner, he added.

In July, Fisheries and Oceans Canada was forecasting 10.6 million sockeye salmon would return to the Fraser this year. Only 1.37 million returned, and no one knows exactly why.

Theories include disease and sea lice from fish farms, pollution and warming waters, which would affect available food for the fish and migratory patterns for their predators. This year's return was the lowest in 50 years.

Angelo also chairs the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council. Burnaby SFU's John Reynolds, Patricia Gallaugher and Richard Routledge are also on the steering committee, as are Ken Wilson and Brian Riddell.

Read the full story in Burnaby Now. 

Ray Grigg
November 13, 2009
The Courier-Islander

Anyone who cares about wild salmon and tries to reconcile the tolerant attitude of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) to the environmentally damaging practices of salmon farming must confront a bewildering question. If DFO is responsible for the well-being of Canada's wild salmon stocks, why does it endorse salmon farming in principle and allow open net-pens in practice when such an industrial practice is a clear risk to wild stocks and causes demonstrable harm to the very species and habitat that DFO is legally mandated to protect?

This question seems unanswerable given the salmon farming industry litany of environmental transgressions -- either by intent, negligence or implication. The list of these transgressions is long. And DFO's tolerance of them is mystifying considering the damning evidence accumulating in BC and recorded in other places where salmon farming has a longer history.

The justification for this tolerance, however, may reside in a sobering logic that does make sense if we think large enough.

Globally, the industrial catch of wild fish from the oceans has peaked, despite more effort, more boats, more sophisticated fishing technology and the rising need of protein for a burgeoning human population. Marine biologists warn that current harvest rates are unsustainable and, unless reductions in catch occur, the world's oceans will be empty of fish by 2050. Meanwhile, the production of farmed fish -- of which salmon is a small percentage -- now exceeds the wild catch for the first time ever. Farmed fish are replacing our depleted supply of wild fish.

Concurrently, the emission of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is acidifying the world's oceans. About a third of the CO2 we emit from industrial activity is added to the atmosphere to cause global warming, a third is absorbed by plants and a third is dissolved into oceans. When carbon dioxide mixes with salt water, it forms carbonic acid, and this process is lowering the ocean's pH -- making it more acidic.

Read the full story in The Courier-Islander

Dan MacLennan
November 12th, 2009
Nanaimo Daily News

The response to last month's Marine Harvest fish farm escape calls into question the company's commitment to recover farmed fish from the wild.

That's how biologist Alexandra Morton, a well known open-net-cage opponent, views the Oct. 21 escape of Atlantic salmon from the company's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago area.

Both the company and a commercial fisher on scene agree large numbers of the escaped Atlantics schooled outside the farm for up to 10 hours after the escape but there was no recapture effort until after they'd largely dispersed into the wild.

On Oct. 23, two days after the escape was discovered, Marine Harvest issued a news release saying about 40,000 mature Atlantics had escaped from several holes in two pens. The release stated "a vessel is on site for recapture efforts."

What the release did not state is that thousands of the escapees that circled outside the pens for hours were gone by the time the designated recovery seiner arrived from Campbell River.

James Walkus, of Port Hardy-based James Walkus Fishing Co., was on the scene with two of his six vessels including the Kristin Joye, a seiner, shortly after the escape was noticed.

"They were all fairly schooled up," he said. "It just hung right around one of my boats, the Pacific Joye."

Walkus said the school stayed together for about 10 hours.

Read the full story in The Nanaimo Daily News

Read related story in The Courier Islander; November 12, 2009; "Province defends regulations governing fish farms". 

For background, read related news stories from October 17th to November 1st. 

Sarah Schmidt
November 12, 2009
The Province

The "wild" B.C. salmon you are eating in a restaurant may be from a fish farm, according to a new cross-country fish investigation spearheaded by high-school students from Richmond and across Canada.

Consumers should think twice about paying a premium to eat high-end fish because it could actually be a cheap substitute, the students say.

One in four fish samples taken from restaurants, supermarkets and fish markets was mislabelled or misidentified as higher-priced or more desirable fish species, according to University of Guelph biology Prof Robert Hanner, who released the results on Wednesday at a conference in Mexico City.

Read the full article in The Province

Mark Hume and Bill Curry
November 5, 2009
The Globe and Mail

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen has been appointed to head a sweeping judicial inquiry into the collapse of the most important salmon run on the West Coast.

Justice Cohen will investigate "the causes for the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon including, but not limited to, the impact of environmental conditions, aquaculture, predators, diseases, water temperature and other factors that may have affected the ability of sockeye salmon to reach traditional spawning grounds or reach the ocean."

Details of the inquiry were being released this morning in Vancouver by Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to hold the inquiry is being called a last, best hope to avert a fisheries disaster on the West Coast.

This is our chance to save B.C. salmon from going the way of Atlantic cod,” Phil Eidsvik, a spokesman for the B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition, said Thursday after Mr. Harper's surprise announcement in Ottawa.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail.

Read related stories in:

• The New Westminister News Leader; November 25, 2009; "MP Peter Julian says salmon action can be taken today". 
• The Economist; November 19, 2009; "British Columbia's salmon socked".
• The Courier-Island; November 18, 2009; "Salmon farmers welcome inquiry".
• The Globe and Mail; November 6, 2009; "B.C. Judge given broad powers to probe collapse of salmon stock".

See The Globe and Mail's online Q&A related to the Judicial Inquiry; November 9th; "Discuss how to save B.C.'s salmon stock with Fisheries Survival Coalition spokesman Phil Eidsvik". 

Read the biography on Mr. Justice Cohen.

Read the full press release from The Office of The Prime Minister.

Read the Terms of Reference of the Judicial Inquiry.

Access the Cohen Commission website.

Read background stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye

Mark Hume November 6, 2009 Globe and Mail

The federal government's fight to save the West Coast's dwindling salmon stocks is run from a glistening 18-storey office tower in the heart of Vancouver's financial district, where, despite a $250-million budget and the best work of more than 2,000 employees, the battle is being lost.

On the shores of Vancouver Island's Great Central Lake, in a clearing they hacked out of the forest by hand, Bruce Kenny and Carol Schmitt think they know why British Columbia is losing that fight and is having some of its worst salmon returns in history.

And they say they know how to fix it: by adopting a model perfected by the aquaculture industry, which has learned to grow its young fish more slowly during the first year. The approach relies on producing fewer, but healthier, salmon that have a vastly improved chance of surviving in the ocean environment.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail

Michel Loubet
November 7,2009
Fisheries Information Service

A new short documentary produced by Canadian film-maker Damien Gillis could cause severe problems for the salmon farming sector, an industry already rife with controversy. “Farmed Salmon Exposed: The Global Reach of the Norwegian Salmon Farming Industry” is eerily resemblant to the film “The End of the Line,” which was released earlier this year and had quite an impact on the fishing industry.

This film claims to reveal the pervasive nature of the issues plaguing salmon aquaculture and features testimonials by witnesses discussing the environmental and socio-economic damage caused by what they call “poorly managed salmon farms" and places heavy emphasis on Cermaq and Marine Harvest.

See the full article and a clip of the referenced documetary on the Fisheries Information Service

See the full documentary. 

John Ibbitson
November 5, 2009
The Globe and Mail

Alarmed at declining stocks of sockeye salmon off Canada's Pacific coasts, The Conservative government has launched a judicial inquiry in an effort to find out why.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper announced the inquiry in the House of Commons this afternoon.

As the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has said on numerous occasions, we are very concerned about the low and falling returns of sockeye salmon in British Columbia.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans reported in August that only 1.37 million sockeye returned to the Fraser River this year, a shadow of 10.6 million that the department had predicted.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail

Read related story in The Vancouver Sun

Michel Loubet
November 5, 2009
Fisheries Information Service

On of the foudners and long-time leaders of Greenpeace, Patrick Moore is voicing a stinging attack on environmentalist groups for their opposition towards salmon and shrimp aquaculture.

“Greenpeace opposes the farming of salmon, shrimp, and other species even though this takes pressure off wild stocks, provides employment farming the sea, and produces some of the healthiest foods at affordable prices,” Moore explains to FIS.com.

On the other hand, Greenpeace says that “Rapid development and expansion of intensive aquaculture for species such as salmon and shrimp has, for example, resulted in widespread degradation of the environment and the displacement of coastal fishing and farming communities.

Moore was an active figure in Greenpeace from 1971 to 1986, serving as president of the Greenpeace Foundation in Vancouver. He is now chairman and chief scientist at Greenspirit Strategies Ltd. 

“Since I left Greenpeace in 1986, partly over their decision to "ban chlorine worldwide," they have adopted a number of policies that I believe are not in the best interests of the environment or humanity,” Moore says. 

Moore founded his own salmon farming company, Quatsino Seafarms Ltd, at Winter Harbour. At this time, he also served as president of the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) from 1986 to 1989.

In a statement on Moore, Greenpeace said that “Patrick Moore often misrepresents himself in the media as an environmental “expert” or even an “environmentalist,” while offering anti-environmental opinions on a wide range of issues and taking a distinctly anti-environmental stance.”

One of the “anti-environmental opinions” raised in the statement was that of salmon farming.

Read the full story on the Fisheries Information Service 

Natalia Bell
November 6,2009
Fisheries Information Service

Scientists have conducted the first worldwide life cycle assessment (LCA) of farmed salmon to gauge farms’ environmental impact.

Although less environmentally destructive than the beef industry and others, the aquaculture sector generates a hefty amount of pollution, reveals a study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology on 23 October.

The LCA measures the collective energy use, animal resource use and greenhouse gas, acidifying and eutrophying emissions (such as phosphates) produced by salmon farms in Norway, the UK, Chile and British Columbia, Canada, the main salmon-farming countries.

As aquaculture has spread throughout the globe, production skyrocketed from a yearly 500 tonnes in 1970 to 1.5 million tonnes today. The environmental consequences are excessive energy use, contaminated coastal waters and depleted pelagic stocks, New Scientist reports.

Read the full story on the Fisheries Information Service.

Read scientific paper on which article is based.

Helena Zhu
November 4, 2009
The Epoch Times

B.C. technology and the research of a Vancouver-based marine microbiologist are behind the launching of the world’s first commercial fish tank farm in China.

AgriMarine Holdings Inc., a Vancouver-based fish farm company, has developed a floating, solid wall closed-containment system that, unlike conventional fish farms, is completely closed off from its surrounding environment. 

Floating in a reservoir near Benxi city in Liaoning province, AgriMarine’s 24-metre diameter tank contains three million litres of circulating water stocked with 50,000 juvenile steelhead trout. 

“It's a totally Canadian-owned operation,” says Larry Albright, a member of AgriMarine’s board of directors who helped develop the company’s waste management, feed, and life support systems.

Read the full story in The Epoch Times

Dan MacLennan
November 5,2009
Courier Islander

The response to last month's Marine Harvest fish farm escape calls into question the company's commitment to recover farmed fish from the wild.

That's how biologist Alexandra Morton, a well known open-net-cage opponent, views the Oct. 21 escape of Atlantic salmon from the company's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago area. Both the company and a commercial fisher on scene agree large numbers of the escaped Atlantics schooled outside the farm for up to 10 hours after the escape but there was no recapture effort until after they'd largely dispersed into the wild.

On Oct. 23, two days after the escape was discovered, Marine Harvest issued a news release saying about 40,000 mature Atlantics had escaped from several holes in two pens. The release stated "a vessel is on site for recapture efforts."

The entrails of one of the escaped farmed salmon shows the remains of a wild salmon smolt.

What the release did not state is that thousands of the escapees that circled outside the pens for hours, were gone by the time the designated recovery seiner arrived from Campbell River. James Walkus, of Port Hardy-based James Walkus Fishing Co., was on the scene with two of his six vessels including the Kristin Joye, a seiner, shortly after the escape was noticed on the Wednesday.

See full story with images in The Courier Islander

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic Salmon Escapement, click here. 

Gazette Staff
November 3, 2009
North Island Gazette

A renewed accord between Marine Harvest Canada and the Kwakiutl First Nation will mean jobs and training for the Kwakiutl people.

Kwakiutl First Nation have reiterated support for Marine Harvest operations — four salmon farms, two freshwater hatcheries, and a processing plant—in their traditional territory, said a press release.

“In 2000, we signed an agreement with Omega Seafood, which later became Marine Harvest Canada,” noted Kwakiutl First Nations Chief Verna Chartrand. “But due to company mergers and changes in band leadership, we stopped communicating. The agreement was really only on paper, and didn’t help nurture a relationship between us, so we met to discuss our needs.”

Read the full story in The North Island Gazette

Canwest News Service
October 30, 2009
Courier-Islander

A wild Pacific salmon smolt found in the stomach of an Atlantic salmon on the lam shows escaped farm fish are capable of hunting prey, says a vocal opponent of open-net pens near wild salmon migration routes.

The smolt was found in the stomach of one of an estimated 40,000 fish that escaped last week from fish-farming company Marine Harvest Canada's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago.

Biologist Alexandra Morton said she examined stomachs of 20 escapees and at least one had been hunting during its two days on the loose.

"It was a 12-pound male Atlantic and it also had some other fish in its intestine," Morton said.

It's extremely unusual for a farm fish to hunt prey, according to Clare Backman, Marine Harvest director of environmental operations. 

See full story in The Courier-Islander.

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic salmon escapement, click here. 

Black Press
October 29,2009
Campbell River Mirror

BROUGHTON ARCHIPELAGO - Marine Harvest Canada said they managed to recover 1,073 of approximately 40,000 Atlantic salmon that escaped from a fish farm in the Broughton Archipelago.

And the company says it has put in place measures to prevent any further escapes.

The Atlantics escaped from the company's Port Elizabeth site, at the south end of Gilford Island, Oct. 21.

The loss was discovered after scuba divers found several holes in two pens while removing fish which had died as a result of low oxygen levels, said a company press release.

Prevention methods to eliminate further escape are in place, the company said, and this incident has been reported to regulators. The cause of the holes remains under investigation, but may be related to the fish removal process.

"This is something that has to be taken seriously," said Clare Backman, environmental relations director for MHC. "There will be a full investigation and we will make changes as required to prevent this from happening again."

Read the full story in The Campbell River Mirror

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic salmon escapement, click here. 

Judith Lavoie
October 18,2009
The Times Colonist

A wild Pacific salmon smolt found in the stomach of an Atlantic salmon on the lam shows escaped farm fish are capable of hunting prey, says a vocal opponent of open-net pens near wild salmon migration routes.

The smolt was found in the stomach of one of an estimated 40,000 fish that escaped last week from fish-farming company Marine Harvest Canada's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago.

Biologist Alexandra Morton said she examined stomachs of 20 escapees and at least one had been hunting during its two days on the loose. "It was a 12-pound male Atlantic and it also had some other fish in its intestine," Morton said.

It's extremely unusual for a farm fish to hunt prey, according to Clare Backman, Marine Harvest director of environmental operations. "It is certainly outside our experience. Our fish are cued in on little brown pellets," Backman said, adding the incident has been investigated and two studies found no interception of wild fish.

 Read the full story in The Times Colonist

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic salmon escapement, click here.

The Canadian Press
October 27, 2009
CTV.ca

The latest mass escape from a B.C. fish farm has led to renewed calls from the NDP to change how the farms are run. 

About 40,000 Atlantic salmon escaped last Friday from a Marine Harvest Canada farm off the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

The NDP is demanding the Liberals replace open net pens with closed containment systems to protect wild salmon from fish farms but Agriculture Minister Steve Thomson won't make any commitments.

He says the government takes the escape very seriously and will investigate fully.

NDP environment critic Rob Fleming also demanded that Thomson promise not to issue more fish farm licences before B.C. gives up jurisdiction over the farms to the federal government next February.

Thomson wouldn't make such a promise, saying B.C. retains the right to regulate the farms until February.

Source: CTV.ca

Read related story on Burnaby Now; October 31, 2009; "New Democrats call for inquiry into salmon" 

For background news stories on the October 21st Atlantic salmon escapement, click here. 

Judith Lavoie
October 24,2009
The Times Colonist

A recovery vessel working for a fish-farming company recovered about 1,100 escaped Atlantic salmon yesterday, and will continue working over the weekend to catch more of the estimated 40,000 escaped fish.

The salmon got out late Wednesday evening after crews, using a pump system and pipe, removed dead fish from the two pens at Port Elizabeth on Gilford Island, said Clare Backman, director of environmental relations for Marine Harvest Canada.

The fish died because of low oxygen levels in the water, a phenomenon that occurs intermittently in the area, Backman said. "It was during that process that a hole in the net occurred," he said.

But the recapture vessel was not able to start fishing until Thursday and by that time, gillnetters in areas such as Sointula, about 40 kilometres from the Broughton Archipelago, were reporting catches of Atlantic salmon.

"The response time really troubles me," said Chief Bob Chamberlin of the nearby Kwicksutaineuk-Ah-Kwaw-Ah-Mish band.

"One of the only reasons we found out was because a commercial fishery was going on and they were catching Atlantics."

Chamberlin, who is also secretary-treasurer of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, an organization that's pushing for more First Nations involvement as regulation of fish farms passes from the provincial to the federal government in February, said assurances from the industry that Atlantic salmon won't affect Pacific salmon have been proved wrong.

Read the full story in The Times Colonist 

Read related stories:

CBC News; October 23, 2009; "40,000 salmon escape B.C. farm" 

North Island Gazette; October 23, 2009; Atlantics escape Broughton fish farm

The Province; October 24, 2009; "Thousands of salmon escape from B.C.'s largest farm (same article in The National Post; The Windsor Star and The Ottawa Citizen). 

The Tyee; October 24, 2009; "Morton renews call for judicial inquiry after latest farmed-salmon escape"

Straight.com; October 24, 2009; "Marine Harvest reports huge escape of Atlantic Salmon from Broughton fish farm"

On FishNewsEu; October 26, 2009; "Farmed salmon escapes in Canada and Scotland"

Alberni Valley Times; October 27, 2009; "Fish farmers must pull their nets if they don't change"

The Canadian Press; October 27, 2009; Renewed calls for fish farm changes after escape"

Campbell River Mirror; October 29, 2009; "Marine Harvest reacts to Atlantic salmon escape"

The Times Colonist; "Farmed salmon capable of eating wild fish: biologist"

Courier-Islander; October 30, 2009; "DFO says smolt "an interesting data point"

Courier-Islander; November 5, 2009; "No cents to recover fish"

Nanaimo Daily News; November 12, 2009; "Fishermen forced to watch escapees flee"

Courier-Islander; November 25, 2009; "Confusion over special licence and the 40,000 fish question"

The Courier Islander; December 4, 2009; "Weight of dead fish caused massive escape"

Shayne Morrow
October 27, 2009
The Alberni Valley Times

Staff at Robertson Creek Hatchery have hit their target of six million chinook salmon eggs but the number of wild spawners will likely be lower than expected this year.

Manager Harley Gaetz said while coho returns have been reasonably strong, the chinook continue to straggle in later than expected.

"We've got our quota of chinook but we won't switch over to coho for another week," Gaetz said. While cohoes ripen at about the same time, there are numerous distinct pulses of the fish over the course of the run, he explained.

"We take fish in here all the way through the run," Gaetz said. Those fish are penned separately, where possible, to ensure eggs are taken throughout the spectrum, to ensure genetic diversity. The coho egg take typically begins in the first week of November.

Read the full story in The Alberni Valley Times

Robert Mendick
October 25,2009
The Telegraph (UK)

Separated by an ocean, a continent and more than 7,000 miles, Chile seems an awfully long way to go to find sushi for millions of Britons. 

The packaging gives no clue to the origins of the “salmon trout”.

Nor does it make clear the disastrous consequences of intensive fish farming along Chile’s once pristine coastline where, according to eco-activists, many farms are plagued by disease and pollution. 

There is, of course, no suggestion that the fish served by Waitrose or Pret a Manger, two of Britain’s most environmentally friendly food suppliers, comes from a farm that has prompted concern.

The rise of Chile’s fish industry began about a decade ago when international corporations realised there was money to be made in the blue water off a short stretch of coast around Puerto Montt, 600 miles south of the capital Santiago.

The explosion in global demand for salmon and trout led to a rapid expansion of the open net fish farming industry, in which fish are kept in pens in the sea.

By the middle of this decade, Chile had become the world’s second largest producer of salmon and trout – after Norway – with a business worth more than £1.2 billion a year.

With labour and energy costs a fraction of those in Norway, Scotland and Canada – average workers in the Chilean fish farming industry earn less than £5,000 a year – Chile’s Pacific coast was making big corporations huge profits. However, environmentalists complained that regulation was not robust enough.

What followed was disaster. In July 2007, Marine Harvest, a Norwegian company that supplies one in four of the world’s salmon, reported its first case on the South American continent of Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA), a virus deadly to the fish.

Read the full story in The Telegraph (UK)

Stephanie Dearing
October 22, 2009
Digital Journal 

While the Department of Fisheries and Oceans has been mum on its plans for taking over the regulation of salmon farms in British Columbia, the people who rely on salmon for their livelihoods have not been sitting idle.

Earlier this year, the BC Supreme Court said that because BC's fish farming takes place in the ocean, it is up to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to regulate BC's fish farming industry. The Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) adopted a Statement of Solidarity on Aquaculture in September, staking a claim in anticipation of the hand-over of the regulation of fish farms to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The UBCIC Statement of Solidarity was adopted at the 40th annual General Assembly and notice was sent to DFO's Minister, Gail Shea this week. The Union is trying to ensure that B.C. First Nations will be included in further discussions over jurisdiction of the fish farms. Earlier this fall, the DFO held an invitation-only emergency meeting on the collapse of the Sockeye salmon fishery, but refused to let in a designated First Nations representative, Chief Bob Chamberlin.

BC First Nations want the salmon to be protected. This year's Sockeye collapse followed two previous years of collapses of the Sockeye fishery. First Nations, environmentalists, scientists and sports fishermen have been saying that fish farms have a detrimental effect on wild salmon stock. Sea lice is seen to be the primary cause of the wild sockeye decline. William Shatner recently lent his support to the side of conservationists calling for limitations to be imposed on fish farms. The government of British Columbia has backed demands for an inquiry into the collapse.

Read the full story on the Digital Journal

Emma Bocking
October 20, 2009
The Ecologist

Salmon farming is renowned for its local environmental pollution, but now some fish farmers are starting to look at fish waste as an untapped resource

Aquaculture just seems to be one of those words that really riles up environmentalists, and with good reason - the effects of pollution from fish farms are well documented.

But fish farming is not going away. In fact, it is the fastest growing food production industry in the world, and accounts for almost half of our seafood consumption. Finding a way of making aquaculture more sustainable is a future priority for those in the industry and those making the rules.

With the longest marine coastline in the world, it is perhaps not surprising that Canada is behind only Norway and Chile in the production of farmed salmon. And it is on this coastline that some pioneering aquaculturists are using ecological approaches to reduce the impact of their business.

Read the full article on The Ecologist

Larry Pynn
October 20, 2009
The Vancouver Sun

Look B.C.'s top fisheries official in the eye and ask what advice he would give his own son or daughter wanting to get into the commercial salmon fishery.

"Weigh carefully the implications," offers Paul Sprout, a fish scientist turned regional director general for Fisheries and Oceans Canada. "Go in with your eyes open. Sprout is a bureaucrat swimming upstream, tasked with the job of managing salmon stocks that once represented the backbone of the fishing industry but today provide only a fraction of past harvests, with no change in sight.

"We're going through a challenging period," Sprout says from his Burrard Street office. "The way we may have fished in the past may not be the way we fish in the future. Change is a force and it's here."

Down on the lower Fraser River, near the Alex Fraser Bridge, veteran salmon fisherman Bob Rezansoff doesn't need to be reminded. "Fishing now is dismal," he laments after 46 years in the business.

Read the full article in The Vancouver Sun

Read Shifting Seas Part 1: Big picture shows how ocean changes

Read Shifting Seas Part 2: Quotas net results

Read Shifting Seas Part 4: The war on poaching

Read Shifting Seas Part 5: The challenge facing consumers

Jennifer Moreau
October 7, 2009
Burnaby Now

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is expecting to meet its conservation targets for sockeye salmon although millions are missing from this year's Fraser River run.

In July, Fisheries and Oceans Canada was forecasting 10.6 million sockeye salmon would return to the Fraser this year. Only 1.37 million returned, and no one knows why exactly.

Theories include sea lice from fish farms, warming waters (which would affect available food for the fish and migratory patterns for their predators) and pollution.

"The management objective for the year was to put the majority of those fish into the system to spawn, and we've met that objective," said Barry Rosenberger, B.C. Interior area director for the Department of Fisheries and Ocean's Pacific region.

The Fraser sockeye fishery has been closed all season apart from test catches and some limited First Nations fishing. That has left 92 per cent of the surviving sockeye free to return to spawn.

Read the full story in Burnaby Now

Read background news stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye.

Leah Hendry
October 3, 2009
CTV News

For years, aboriginals along the Broughton Archipelago on the north end of Vancouver Island have watched wild salmon numbers dwindle.

On Saturday, they were joined by hundreds of people at the Vancouver Art Gallery who share their concern that one of B.C.'s most treasured resources is being wiped out.

This year, returns on wild salmon fell off dramatically.

Some environmentalists say wild salmon that swam by open-net fish farms to get to their spawning grounds didn't make it and were killed off by sea lice associated with the fish farms.

See CTV News video report.

See related video of the request for a judicial inquiry at the Salmon Circle Rally .

Hear coverage of the Rally on CKNW.

See related story on the Digital Journal; October 3, 2009; "Protest against fish farms draws hundreds in Vancouver".

See related story in the Globe and Mail; October 5, 2009; "Why are Tories so quiet about salmon collapse?"

Read background news stories on the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye.