Join 20,000 people on the letter to the Fisheries Minister asking that the laws of Canada be applied to fish farms

 sign here

 Follow this issue as we work our way through the courts at Alexandra Morton’s blog: 

I will be giving a presentation on Fish Farming: The Science and the Politics in Courtenay on Sunday, 14 March 2010 at 2:00 in the Florence Filberg Centre, 411 Anderton Rd., Courtenay. Admission by donation.

See films on current investigation into the impact of salmon farms: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/ 

Hello,

I am a biologist who moved to a remote floathouse community on the BC coast in 1984 to study orca whales.  I have spent 26 years in Echo Bay and raised both my children here (Listening to Whales - Ballantine Books).

At first I thought fish farming was a good idea. But as the biologist on the grounds I noticed disturbing signs and began publishing science on the impact that net pen salmon farms have on whales and wild salmon  journal . I also participated in every government process on salmon feedlots and wrote over 10,000 pages of letters to government. But government has been deaf to science, its own government reports and reason.

The crux of the problem is that feedlots allow diseases to reproduce at an unnaturally high rate.  If, as in the case of salmon feedlots, the farm population is in contact with wild populations - disease epidemics are triggered and spread far beyond the farm (farm lice).  We are exposed to this lesson repeatedly and everywhere there are salmon feedlots, wild salmon are in exceptional decline due to amplification of parasites, viruses and bacteria (Ford and Myers 2008).

A simple solution that would benefit the BC economy and ecology:

• Apply the Canadian Fisheries Act  to fish farms as it is applied to all other marine users.  If the fish farmers (92% Norwegian-owned) cannot meet this standard they should leave.  
• The Provincial government could support the Canadian fish farmers who would like to reinvent the industry in tanks on land in towns starved for employment.
• Restore wild salmon using local management and the fish’s own biology.

Thank you for visiting this website.  I am dedicated to bringing reason to this situation. This website funded a very successful BC Supreme court action that changed the relationship between government and the fish farming industry (see UPDATES page), hosts our letter to government demanding the laws of Canada be applied to the salmon farming industry (see LETTER page) and is a tool to keep us in touch.

Thank you,

 Alexandra Morton

 Alex Morton explains the situation:

This film was produced by Twyla Roscovich www.callingfromthecoast.com
This is a very high resolution video that plays very well in the full screen mode.
Click this button:  for a full screen presentation of the video.

link to video

This campaign grew out of frustration – yours and mine - with our inability to get government to act to protect British Columbia’s wild salmon from devastation by industrial fish-farming. Wild salmon stocks are in exceptional decline wherever there are fish farms.  We must – and we can – turn this tide.

I’ve now studied the impact of fish farms in waters used by the Fraser River sockeye, Megin River chinook, Nimpkish River chum, south coast steelhead, coho and herring - and they are all swimming through a soup of sea lice and other farm waste. This is biological insanity.
 
The problem is not farming fish; it’s where you put the cages. Tiny newborn wild salmon are not surviving contact with the pathogens generated by enormous marine feedlots on their migration routes.

As many of you know, I applied for a permit this spring to medevac newly-hatched young wild salmon past the fish farms to safety.  The permit was denied and the process served to highlight a deep flaw in the system: no government in Canada will take responsibility for fish farms and so the industry is out of control and people like us are going in circles trying to find who is in charge.

I’ve done the science over and over again, and participated in many government processes.  Nothing changed at the government level but lots changed biologically, here in the wilderness of the Broughton Archipelago, far from the public eye. For seven springs, I watched young salmon pour from the Meetup River into fish farm effluent. That river died last fall; 89 salmon left to run home to the spawning grounds.
 

We know that our wild salmon face climate change and we need to do everything we can to remove other impediments to their survival.  Science now points clearly to industrial aquaculture on wild migration routes as a major impediment. 

The rules aren’t working, we have to challenge the rules.  I’m going to court, along with others. We believe we have a very good case, which will be unfolding in the coming days. 

Through donations to Adopt a Fry, the public has empowered this legal challenge. We’ll need you more as we move forward into BC Supreme Court.  Please let friends and colleagues know that there’s a grassroots movement gathering steam and we need help to turn up the heat.  Please donate if you can, and – just as important - let Provincial and Federal governments know what you think by simply joining Adopt a Fry. To join, go to the “join” page; to donate, press the button below.

We’ve come a long way in a few short months. 

Together, we can do this.

Alexandra Morton R.P.Bio.
www.raincoastresearch.org

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