Aquaculture industry never refused to give up salmon samples: BCSFA
Fis, August 29, 2011
The British Columbia (BC) Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) has commented on Dr Kristi Miller’s recently testimony at the Cohen Commission by clarifying that the aquaculture industry never withheld salmon samples from federal biologists.
Four major fish farming companies have agreed to provide salmon samples to Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) researchers to help them analyze a virus that could have caused the far-reaching and precipitous drop of wild sockeye stocks.
Miller, a genetics researcher with DFO, said that the newly observed virus -- parvovirus -- "could be the smoking gun" to blame for the mass deaths of millions of sockeye salmon in recent years.
BCSFA got in touch with FIS to shed light on the issue of whether the aquaculture firms in question had refused to give federal researchers the samples they had requested.
Colleen Dane, communications manager at BCSFA, assured that at no time did the industry refuse to hand over samples.
“In fact, Dr Miller said in her testimony that our Executive Director Mary Ellen Walling had contacted her to learn more about her research and had indicated that there was interest in having farmed salmon tested for the genomic signature,” Dane stated. “Miller went on to explain that the company’s fish health staff were advised by DFO that it was not the right time to conduct the testing – that it would be best when a virus had been isolated.”
“Now that is done, industry is participating fully as was indicated all along,” she highlighted.
Under cross-examination by a lawyer for the salmon farming industry, Miller testified that, according to her data, the highest level of the mortality signature in young smolts appeared in fish that had not swam past aquaculture farms. At the same time, she noted that the virus could have originated at fish farms and that farmed fish might be transmitting the virus back and forth with wild salmon.
