Scientists are divided over virus threat to Northwest salmon – Various Sources

Posted on May 6, 2013 by Al B.

Like mariners scanning the horizon from the crow’s nest, scientists have for years been on the lookout in the Pacific Northwest for signs that a dreaded salmon-killing disease, scourge to farmed salmon in other parts of the world, has arrived here, threatening some of the world’s richest wild salmon habitats. Most say there is no evidence. But for years, a biologist in Canada named Alexandra Morton — regarded by some as a visionary Cassandra, by others as a misguided prophet of doom — has said definitively and unquestionably that they are wrong.

Kirk Johnson reports. Scientists are divided over virus threat to Northwest salmon
http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/article/20130505/NEWS/130509993/scientists-are-divided-over-virus-threat-to-northwest-salmon

See also: Fish farms allied with government, activists say
http://www.timescolonist.com/news/fish-farms-allied-with-government-activists-say-1.146182

and see the free hour long video on Alexandra and her work. Very damning to the BC Provincial and Canadian Government.

https://vimeo.com/61301410

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Sustainable salmon farming? Maybe, if you head inland

Posted on May 3, 2013 by Al B.

Is salmon farming ever sustainable? For years, many marine biologists have argued that the floating, open-ocean net pens that produce billions of pounds of salmon per year also generate pollution, disease and parasites. In some places in western Canada, the open-ocean salmon farming industry has been blamed for the collapse of wild salmon populations in the early 2000s — though other research has challenged that claim. But now, a few salmon farms have moved inland, producing fish in land-locked cement basins separated from river and sea.
Alastair Bland reports.
http://kplu.org/post/sustainable-salmon-farming-maybe-if-you-head-inland

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Leading Farmed Fish Opponent on the History of the Canadian Farmed Fish Opposition

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Al B.

Want a short but thorough read of the history of the silencing of the opposition to farming salmon in Canada? Here it is. Alexandra Morton, the woman who has done more to educate the population to the perils of farmed salmon, has done an overview of how the Canadian government has systematically worked to silence any and all critics of salmon farming. You also have a chance to sign a petition helping to put your voice out to end the practices of this industry. If you ever wondered what the hubbub over farmed wish was all about, here’s a chance to get a quick education on the subject.

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2013/01/silenced.html

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Ottawa moves against PEI lab that reported virus in B.C. salmon – Globe and Mail

Posted on November 26, 2012 by Al B.

This is yet another reason why the fish farming industry cannot be trusted. Now that it has been proven that the Canadian government and farming industry has been lying to the public for a long time over whether the fish were getting infected, the answer has been to go after the testing facilities for scientifically proving what they said wasn’t happening.

A lab that revealed the first evidence of an infectious virus in British Columbia salmon should be stripped of its international credentials, according to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. In a letter to the World Organization for Animal Health, the CFIA urges the international agency to accept the findings of an independent audit that recommends “suspension of the reference laboratory status,” of the facility. Mark Hume reports.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/ottawa-moves-against-pei-lab-that-reported-virus-in-bc-salmon/article5582798/

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Ties break down between B.C. salmon-farming firm, environmental coalition

Posted on May 28, 2012 by Al B.

As the spread of INH virus keeps moving through BC salmon farms, the relationships that were put in place to work towards avoiding this very situation start to fray.

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A unique relationship meant to reduce conflict between environmental groups and British Columbia’s largest salmon farming company has fallen apart. The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform and Marine Harvest Canada confirmed Saturday that the project, known as the Framework for Dialogue, is officially over.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/ties-break-down-between-bc-salmon-farming-firm-environmental-coalition/article2444558/

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Meet the biologist who is salmon farming’s worst enemy – Seattle Times

Posted on May 27, 2012 by Al B.

As the IHN virus spreads from Canadian fish farms down to US farms here in the Puget Sound, and the people in Canadian government still refuse to believe the possibility of this disease affecting wild fish runs, the Seattle Times highlights the woman who has done more to keep this issue alive, Alexandra Morton. Kudos to the Times, which did a nice job of highlighting her battle. Here’s hoping that all of you are buying wild salmon. If not, start today.

BY Craig Welch – BROUGHTON ARCHIPELAGO, B.C. — She’s perched in her boat near a fish farm, talking about diseases, the kind that might escape and kill wild salmon. Then she spies a worker peeling toward her in a boat.

Alexandra Morton, bane of North America’s salmon farms, runs a hand over tired eyes and awaits a confrontation.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018296338_viruslady27m.html

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Deadly virus appears in Washington state salmon farm – Pacific Fishing

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Al B.

Pacific Fishing, 25th May 2012

A virus has infected a Bainbridge Island salmon farm, forcing the owners to begin culling and destroying infected fish.

It’s the same disease – infectious hematopoietic necrosis virus, or IHNV – that caused a British Columbia salmon farm to destroy 560,000 fish last week. The fish ended up in a composting facility.

Another British Columbia salmon farm announced this week that it
had voluntarily quarantined itself because the disease was found in its stock.

Alan Cook is vice president for aquaculture at Icicle Seafoods,
which owns American Gold Seafoods, the operator of the Bainbridge Island salmon farm at Orchard Rocks.

“There is no human health implication,” he said. “The virus is
endemic. Wild fish have it. The disease came from wild fish to our fish, not the other way around.”

Cook said the path of the disease can be proved by DNA analysis.
Hugh Mitchell, a Seattle area veterinarian who specializes in fish, agrees. The disease “is endemic. It’s common. It’s part of the natural ecosystem.”

At the Orchard Rocks farm, diseased fish are being culled. Fish
large enough for the market are being butchered and sold, Cook said. Smaller fish are destroyed.

He declined to say how many fish were in the farm.Once the stocks are gone, the farm will be fallow for three months.
Nets will be removed and disinfected, Cook said.

The largest financial hit for Icicle will come from lost production.

“More than anything else, it’s the cost of the loss of livestock,” Cook said.

There has been a salmon farm for 30 years at that Bainbridge Island location. Never before has it been hit by IHNV, Cook said.

However, the disease was reported in salmon farms in British
Columbia about 10 years ago, Mitchell said.

The disease is part of the natural ecosystem in the North Pacific. Wild salmon species here have built some resistance to the virus. Healthy wild fish can withstand the infection.

However, Atlantic salmon used in farming have no resistance to
the disease, Mitchell said. They are made even more susceptible to disease because they live in close confinement.

“Farmed fish are way more susceptible to wild diseases,” Mitchell said.

And why did the disease made another appearance this year and
not others?

“No one knows,” Mitchell said.

http://pacificfishing.com/news/pf_20120525_virusII.pdf

Read more stories via Pacific Fishing: http://www.pacificfishing.com/

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Island fish farm gets rid of all its quarantined fish – Vancouver Sun

Posted on May 23, 2012 by Al B.

Tofino is not that far away as the water flows…

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A Vancouver Island salmon farm says it has now emptied a site that was quarantined because of a virus. Mainstream Canada announced last week that tests confirmed the presence of an infectious virus known as IHN at its Dixon Bay site, north of Tofino.

http://www.vancouversun.com/health/Vancouver+Island+fish+farm+gets+quarantined+fish/6665262/story.html

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Marine Anemia Cover Up in B.C.

Posted on September 1, 2011 by Al B.

This just in from Alexandra Morton, the leading scientist opposing net pen aquaculture. If you have any question about the safety of net pen aquaculture, or the lengths that entrenched bureaucracy will go to support the unsupportable, then not only read the info below, but follow the link to Morton’s web site and read the lurid details. It’s quite sad, actually. Fiddling again while Rome burns.

Just to be clear on Ms. Morton’s credentials before you go further: She graduated Magna Cum Laude from American University with a bachelor’s in science. Her further studies have led her to be recognized as one of the leading researchers on the planet documenting behaviors of Orca.

“Testimony at the Cohen Inquiry Aquaculture Hearings hit a new low yesterday. The lengths scientists are going to cover up the marine anemia outbreak that occurred on salmon farms in the Fraser sockeye migratory corridor is extraordinary. If DFO succeeds in disassembling Dr. Miller’s lab, the truth about this disease, its impact on sockeye and the concern voiced in the 1990s regarding its potential for health concerns will never be revealed. If these vets want to tell us all the research done on marine anemia, also called Plasmacytoid Leukemia was wrong, they are going to have to retract the papers they wrote in journals such as Cancer Research, Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, The Canadian Veterinary Journal, the Journal of General Virology and Dr. Stephen’s PhD Thesis. “

Alexandra Morton

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

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Virus causing salmon deaths in BC?

Posted on April 19, 2011 by Al B.

Virus causing salmon deaths?
By ROB HOTAKAINEN; Staff writer

WASHINGTON – In Canada’s Fraser River, a mysterious illness has killed millions of Pacific salmon, and scientists have a new hypothesis about why: The wild salmon are suffering from viral infections similar to those linked to some forms of leukemia and lymphoma.

For 60 years before the early 1990s, an average of nearly 8 million wild salmon returned from the Pacific Ocean to the Fraser River each year to spawn.

Now the salmon industry is in a state of collapse, with mortality rates ranging from 40 percent to 95 percent.

http://www.theolympian.com/2011/04/18/1620501/virus-causing-salmon-deaths.html?story_link=email_msg

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