Testing; testing; testing
reLAKsation no 612, Callander McDowell, June 23, 2013
Anti-salmon farming campaigner, Alexandra Morton has claimed that she has detected ISA in wild Pacific salmon and that it has spread to wild fish from salmon farms, even though ISA has not been found on farms in British Columbia. Prompted by her findings, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency was commissioned, as part of a new disease surveillance programme, to test wild salmon to confirm the spread of ISA.
Now after testing 4,175 samples, that CFIA have announced that they have failed to obtain one positive result for ISA. Dr Morton (as she likes to be known) has responded by saying that she continues to get positive hits of ISA in samples that she and volunteers collected over the past two years. She said that the tests have been confirmed by several different labs and has called into question the CFIA’s research. She said that labs have found segments of the virus, arguing that you cannot have seven labs getting big chunks of the sequence and for it not to be present.
According to Seafood News.com, Washington State Department for Fish and Wildlife has also tested 900 samples which have come back negative too.
It does seem odd that the only person to identify ISA in BC is anti-salmon farming campaigner Alex Morton and no-one else. Perhaps, like the Scottish angling fraternity, she has been telling everyone for so long that salmon farming is to blame that she truly believes it whatever the real facts say.
The latest news from Canada is likely to get Alex Morton crying foul as the laboratory that detected ISA in Canada has had its reference designation withdrawn by the World Organisation for Animal Health. An audit of the laboratory has questioned its methods and the quality of its findings. The full story can be found at http://blog.farmfreshsalmon.org/?p=416
This development is unlikely to put an end to Alex Morton’s criticism of salmon farming but surely the time has come for recognition that the salmon farming industry is not the villain that the anglers and campaigners would have the public believe.
http://www.callandermcdowell.co.uk/relaks612.htm
