Subject: "B.C. salmon fishery's decade of decline": Globe & Mail

Please find enclosed a press update from B.C. including:

"B.C. salmon fishery’s decade of decline - In 10 years, the Fraser River’s fish stocks have plummeted. A look at the precarious state of the salmon fishery" (The Globe & Mail, 25th December)

"Alexandra Morton responds to funding question" (Campbell River Mirror, 24th December)

"Think-tank takes closer look at salmon: More research is needed to figure out what's happening with sockeye stocks" (Burnaby Now, 23rd December)

"Fish Choices: Fresh or Frozen? Farmed or Wild?" (New York Times, 22nd December)

"Fish conflict focus narrows" (Alberni Valley News, 17th December)

"Closed Fish Farms Controlled By Government" (The Fish Site, 16th December)

Please pass on other press articles.

Best fishes for 2010 and a belated Merry Fishmas!

Don

The Globe & Mail, 25th December 2009

B.C. salmon fishery’s decade of decline

In 10 years, the Fraser River’s fish stocks have plummeted. A look at the precarious state of the salmon fishery

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.

2005 – With 12 million forecast, the run reaches just seven million sockeye, of which 3.3 million escape to spawn – half of what biologists had hoped for.

2006 – Just over half of the 17 million sockeye forecast show up, but fishing is allowed and the number of spawners is more than a million below target. The Sierra Club reports 38 sockeye runs as endangered, and Stephen Harper writes to the Calgary Herald: “In the coming months, we will strike a judicial inquiry into the collapse of the Fraser River salmon fishery.” Commercial fishers and the Stó:lô Tribal Council object, and the Prime Minister doesn’t follow through.

2007 – Broad fishing closures are imposed when only 1.4 million sockeye return to the Fraser.

2008 – Commercial fisheries are closed (after a harvest of 500,000) when estimates show another poor return, just 1.6 million. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature puts Pacific sockeye on its “red list” of threatened species, and scientists report that young fish in the Fraser are being infested with sea lice as they migrate north.

2009 – Between 11 and 13 million fish are expected, but just 1.3 million arrive, the least since 1941.

The agency created by Premier Gordon Campbell in 2004 to examine potential conflicts between wild and farmed salmon runs out of money and closes. Researchers report catching Fraser sockeye near fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago, raising more concerns about sea lice infestation. Mr. Harper presses ahead with his judicial inquiry. “We are very concerned,” he says, “about the low and falling returns of sockeye salmon in British Columbia.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/decade/decade-news/bc-salmon-fisherys-decade-of-decline/article1405130/

Campbell River Mirror, 24th December 2009

Alexandra Morton responds to funding question

Re: Open Letter to Alexandra Morton: Where did Raincoast Research Society Get $613,009 Since 2000?

Krause is not accurate saying the letter is calling for closure of fish farms, it says removal from wild salmon migration routes and enforcement of the Fish Act.

I am guessing the industry may feel that if the Fish Act was enforced on them they can not survive? This will be resolved in the courts, because the courts seem eager to grapple with this.

The funds were from the Tides Foundation, when I was part of CAAR, and Vancouver Foundation and many private individuals in B.C. who are very concerned about wild salmon and like my approach, using science to measure impact of the industry.  

The funds went to the field projects that produce 15 scientific papers, i.e. fuel, deckhands, equipment. If you look at what DFO spent for the same field seasons, I am very frugal. Yes there was, for a salary for me, approved by the directors of the society, but with the economic downturn that no longer exists and I fund myself by selling my books, t-shirts, my home. I used to correspond with Krause but stopped because she refuses to accept my answers and keeps looking for something else.  

The letter and signatures are not a part of Raincoast Research, which solely does research.

Krause never acknowledges, the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society at www.adopt-a-fry.org which does not issue receipts and has been funded by over 1,000 small donations. This money has been used for the legal proceedings which will put fish farms on a level playing field with Canadian aquaculture and fisheries.

At the recent DFO meetings in Campbell River, the Canadians who are farming salmon on land in tanks report they are completely marginalized by the province, that they cannot even get a meeting with the province and yet feel they have a viable industry which answers all of the environmental issues.

Why is it the Province of B.C. will not even meet with them?  I have never opposed Canadian aquaculture. The entire issue is the enormous scale of the Norwegian industry which is very aggressive worldwide and clearly does not allow competition, be it here, Chile, Norway etc.

In regards to Krause: do what you feel is right, but she is mixing the two organizations, and never reveals her employment record with the Norwegian industry.

The folk hero status I am experiencing is generated by this kind of thing.  The fish farm industry simply needs to say the words: Yes, we know our industry causes problems and here is what we are going to do about it. They need to remove themselves from the most valuable wild salmon habitat.

Instead they are obstinate, behave like bullies and their only strategy is to try and damage the opposition. The more they do this, the more people support what I am doing.  

Now a group of scientists which I was part of want to see a migratory corridor opened for the Fraser sockeye without fish farms.

Attacking me is counterproductive, but they are too big to see this.

Alexandra Morton

Burnaby Now, 23rd December 2009

Think-tank takes closer look at salmon

More research is needed to figure out what's happening with sockeye stocks

Jennifer Moreau

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.

The think-tank came up with several conclusions, mainly that the 2009 forecast was overly optimistic because it failed to adequately account for decreased productivity of the Fraser River sockeye.

Productivity, which is reflected by the number of adults produced per spawner, has been declining since the mid-1990s to the point where the fish are almost unable to replace themselves.

According to the think-tank, overfishing is not the reason productivity is declining. In fact, the government responded appropriately by restricting fisheries to protect the number of spawners.

Whatever happened, occurred when the juvenile fish headed out to sea.

"The conclusion was it did happen in the early period while they hit the ocean," Angelo said, adding the deaths could have been tied to ocean conditions and they haven't ruled out problems associated with fish farms and pollution.

"There is a need for more research," Angelo said.

Most of the research the DFO does is in fresh water, he added - little is done in the salt-water environment.

"I think that has to change."

In November, the federal government announced it would launch a judicial inquiry into the declining sockeye stocks.

The inquiry's report will be submitted to the government on or before May 1, 2011.

But that's a long way off for Angelo.

"Many are worried we may end up waiting for the next year-and-a-half doing little while the inquiry is underway," he said.

Results from the think-tank will be published in mid-January in the hopes the government may take action soon, Angelo said.

Angelo also chairs the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council.

Burnaby SFU's John Reynolds, Patricia Gallaugher and Richard Routledge were also on the steering committee.

Gallaugher is director of the Centre for Coastal Studies, Routledge is a statistics and actuarial sciences professor, and Reynolds is the Tom Buell B.C. Leadership Chair in Salmon Conservation.

The think-tank event was co-hosted by the SFU's Centre for Coastal Studies and the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, an independent, federally funded group that provides salmon advice to the government and public.

jmoreau@burnabynow.com

For more on this story, and other issues of importance in Burnaby and B.C., see Jennifer Moreau's blog, Community Conversations, at www.burnabynow.com. Look under Blogs on the right-hand side of the NOW's main webpage.

http://www2.canada.com/burnabynow/news/story.html?id=e17c1430-806d-43e8-aa3d-6ea2587f8568

New York Times, 22nd December 2009

Letters

Fish Choices: Fresh or Frozen? Farmed or Wild?

To the Editor:

“Catch of the Freezer” (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/09/opinion/09scholz.html) makes a valid point about the ecological benefits of switching to frozen fish. I disagree, however, with its playing down of the importance of choosing wild salmon over its farmed equivalent.

Salmon farms in Chile, Norway and British Columbia have been shown to contaminate the estuaries in which they are contained, and to transmit parasites to wild salmon stocks. Furthermore, salmon farms constitute an inefficient use of marine biomass. It currently requires approximately four pounds of (often unsustainably harvested) smaller fish to produce one pound of farmed salmon. This places additional pressure on species like herring, anchovies or krill, which are near the bottom of the marine food chain.

If consumers really want to make conscientious food choices, they will eat frozen wild salmon.

Peter Broderick
Portland, Ore., Dec. 9, 2009

The writer is a commercial salmon fisherman.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/23/opinion/lweb23fish.html?_r=1

Alberni Valley News, 17th December 2009

Fish conflict focus narrows

To the Editor,

At the National Aquaculture Strategic Action Plan Initiative meeting in Campbell River, Grieg Seafood stated that they cannot release disease information because it could threaten the share value of their stocks. This simple revelation brings the entire conflict over salmon farming into focus.

Privatization of our oceans means we lose our right to protect our fisheries. The Fraser River and U.S. Lake Washington sockeye collapsed while other south coast sockeye, the Okanogan, Columbia, and Somass sockeye did much better than forecast.

This means it was specifically the south coast stocks passing through Norwegian fish farm waters that failed.

It is completely unacceptable that we are left to guess about disease transfer from millions of Atlantic salmon simply to protect the interests of European shareholders.

Minister Steve Thompson’s first commitment is to Canadians.

He must contact the Canadian salmon farmers, meet with them and given them a chance to resolve this issue.

Alexandra Morton

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/albernivalleynews/opinion/letters/79554217.html

The Fish Site, 16th December 2009

Closed Fish Farms Controlled By Government

CANADA - In the new year, the federal government will assume control over all sea-based aquaculture operations, including fish farms.

According to the Campbell River Mirror, the changeover was ordered by the British Columbian (BC) Supreme Court, which ruled that fish farms are a federal responsibility.

Currently, the provincial government oversees the siting, licensing and monitoring of fish farms which typically raise non-native Atlantic salmon in open-net sea pens.

Critics and some scientists say fish farms contribute to the proliferation of sea lice which harm, or kill, young migrating wild salmon. They are also critical of fish farm escapements, the drugs used to treat farm salmon and the possible spread of infectious disease from farms to wild fish, to name a few of the many complaints.

Almost all the BC fish farms are run by Norwegian-based companies – Marine Harvest, Grieg and Cermaq (Mainstream) – which have Canadian offices in Campbell River. Fish farming proponents say these companies operate a billion-dollar industry in BC which provide jobs and tax money, and they do their best to mitigate environmental issues.

However, for many years these companies have faced pressure from opponents to change open-net sea pens into closed containment systems. The companies have conducted tests, but say closed-containment is too expensive and is not economical at this time.

“If the industry is going to operate in our territory, they must be in closed containment,” said Bob Chamberlin, chief of the Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-kwa-mish First Nation, one of the industry’s harshest critics.

He attended the meetings – revolving around the Federal BC Aquaculture Regulation and Strategic Action Plan Initiative discussion document – and urged the government to force fish farm companies to change to close containment systems.

http://www.thefishsite.com/fishnews/11411/closed-fish-farms-controlled-by-government