Scientists unsure what hints of virus means for B.C. salmon
Gordon Hoekstra, Postmedia News, Thursday, December 15, 2011
VANCOUVER - B.C. sockeye salmon have tested positive in a Department of Fisheries and Oceans lab for pieces of a virus known to kill Atlantic salmon, the Cohen Commission was told Thursday.
It has been present in B.C. for at least 25 years, the inquiry heard.
While the Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA) virus has not been proven to kill wild Pacific salmon, the virus has devastated salmon farms in Norway, Chile and Eastern Canada.
The commission, which is examining the collapse of the 2009 Fraser River sockeye salmon run, added three days of evidentiary hearings in Vancouver to examine new information about recent testing for the ISA virus.
In early November, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's national aquatic animal health program said there were no confirmed cases of ISA in wild or farm salmon in B.C. after some positive lab tests of sockeye from Rivers Inlet were reported.
On Thursday, the test results revealed at the Cohen inquiry were produced in a DFO lab in Nanaimo, B.C., headed by DFO scientist Kristi Miller, one of four experts testifying at the inquiry.
There was not agreement, however, among the scientists on the significance of Miller's results.
"I clearly believe there is a virus here that is very similar to ISA in Europe," Miller told the inquiry.
She also said that subsequent testing of tissues samples dating back to 1986 in British Columbia also showed evidence of the genetic material for the ISA virus.
But Miller added that more comprehensive information on the virus is needed to determine exactly how it will be classified.
"And obviously we have not established that it causes disease," said Miller.
When the samples used at Miller's lab were tested at DFO's lab in Moncton, N.B., the results were negative for ISA.
And Norwegian scientist Are Nylund, who testified by video from Norway, said he sees no "hard" evidence of ISA in Pacific Salmon so far.
There are only indications of the virus, said Nylund, a fish disease biologist at the University of Bergen.
But professor Fred Kibenge, who heads up the Atlantic Veterinary College at the University of Prince Edward Island, said he believes there is evidence of the genetic material of ISA virus.
"Whether it's ISA or ISA-like virus needs more work," added Kibenge.
Miller made headlines earlier in the Cohen hearings when she testified that a newly discovered virus - not the ISA virus - could be the "smoking gun" in the 2009 collapse of the Fraser River sockeye.
Miller, similar to other DFO scientists, has been forbidden to speak freely or publicly about her research other than at the Cohen hearings.
B.C. Salmon Farmers Association executive director Mary Ellen Walling said in an interview Thursday she is confident federal and provincial testing has shown there is no ISA in salmon farms in B.C.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper called the inquiry after sockeye returns to the Fraser fell to about one million from an anticipated 10 million in 2009.
