Ludicrous campaign
By BA Pelletier, Comox Valley Echo, May 11, 2010
I read, with dismay, the publicly announced endorsement of Alexandra Morton's fight against the Salmon Farming industry, by one of our best known wildlife writers, Mr. Ralph Shaw. It is fine for a well known personality to endorse someone like Morton and to have an opinion. I totally respect that. But, I believe that Mr. Shaw didn't take the time to hear from the Salmon Farm industry's biologists, or the DFO biologists (And their surveys/research/findings). Points that Mr. Shaw makes: "There is much peer-reviewed science from all over the world that link sea lice infestations associated with open-pen fish farms, and Oceans Canada (DFO) has failed to address this problem." Well, actually DFO has addressed this and quite intensively at that. Hundreds of surveys and samplings have been done by marine biologists (without hidden agendas), around fish farms, and the level of sea lice has been found to be less than in any of the surrounding waters. Fish farms have nearly eradicated sea lice on their salmon. On a regular basis, independent biologists perform surveys at all fish farms.
Everything is looked at: PCB's, sea lice, diseases etc... If any of the fish fails the set guidelines, steps and measures are taken to correct it. There is literally almost no or very little sea lice left on salmon farms.
It is a well known fact that Alexandra Morton has been on a mission (for years), with the aid of very big money. That mission is to close all fish farms on the west coast, and she is trying to do this by spreading false information. Now, she has her nose in the coal mining! She is quite the expert, and on everything.
Morton, along with her misinformed supporters, doesn't care about jobs because she is heavily funded. Morton gets all the press and all the while glowing in her own notoriety. Like in everything though, there are two sides to an argument.
To totally attribute the decline in our Salmon fisheries to the "possibilities" of sea lice around fish farms, and that alone, is totally ludicrous. Our halibut, cod and rock fish are disappearing at an alarming rate without even going near the fish farms. Before we put 6000 people out of work, on Vancouver Island, let's be darn sure that it isn't simply due to one person's mandate and/or agenda and that we have unbiased scientific data before we do so. Morton quotes: "Fish farms pay low wages to local workers." That is totally false! An assistant manager on a fish farm (that is with about 3 years experience) makes $49,500 a year! Now that might be considered low wages to Morton, with all the grants and money that she has, but it is a good wage to a normal worker!
If you see A. Morton, ask her about all those millions of pinks that came back last year. Those same fish that she had accused the fish farms of killing, the year before!
When our little juvenile fish leave the river, they don't have a red Canadian flag stamped on them. Our so called "wild fish only" experts are so bold to think that we can control the returns on fish that migrate thousands of miles all the way to the middle of the Pacific Ocean and guarantee the number of returns, year after year.
"Our Canadian" migrating salmon species presently have to survive the deep net draggers fishing of the Japanese, Korean and Chinese fleets that are contributing to the depletion of fish stocks in the world's oceans. The uses of increasingly sophisticated industrial fishing techniques are resulting in heavy damage to precious marine ecosystems, our salmon being one of the affected species. Then the fish that makes it past the nets have to deal with the Alaskan fishing industry. This is all before they even make it back here to our rivers.
And to top it all, our (so called) salmon have had to survive the unusually high level of waters in our rivers (in the past 10 years), global warming, warmer waters in rivers and ocean, over fishing, greed, huge nets, trawlers, growing and unchecked seal population, and the good lord knows what else. Now, there appears to be more than a fish farm problem here! Remember the East coast Cod! No fish farms there, at the time.
BA Pelletier
Comox
