CFIA Can't Find Disease - Updated June 19, 2013

Sign this boycott of farmed salmon products: http://salmonfeedlotboycott.com/why-boycott/.

Now, read this article about CFIA not being able to find IHN, IPN and ISA in wild and hatchery salmon in BC (they haven't tested farmed salmon): http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/b-c-wild-salmon-test-negative-for-three-diseases-1.323091.

The problem is that the CFIA was discredited in the Cohen Commission with their lab, under Gange in Moncton, NB shown by the disease experts Miller, Nylund and Kibenge to be unable to find ISA because their testing methods were not able to detect ISA and its testing machinery is too old.

So the CFIA and DFO that uses the same lab can't find ISA proves nothing. Miller's lab showed clearly that 25% of farmed chinook in Clayoquot Sound have ISA and HSMI - that is 125,000 to 250,000 fish per farm have ISA. Nylund and Kibenge have also found ISA in BC wild salmon. Miller's work goes back to 1988 in sockeye.

Do note that ISA was never in the Pacific Ocean until fish farms from Norway brought it here. The same goes for HSMI. The ISA they brought to the South Pacific caused $2 billion worth of dead fish, some quarter of a billion dead salmon. And some 13,000 employees were laid off.

As both the CFIA and DFO have been discredited, on this and other disease issues, an armslength panel of experts that are not tainted by ties to the fish farm companies from Norway is needed. It needs to be an international panel.

And the fish farms saying that they have submitted 8,000 fish for testing and not found ISA also proves nothing. The BC testing lab under Marty was shown not to be using the test he said he was using and that the probe was made in-house by a grad student. It has not been peer reviewed. So those 8,000 are discredited during the Cohen Commission and after.

Also, there is a semantic issue that must be pointed out. Marty's tables showing no disease, also notes about 1100 times the 'classic lesions of ISA'. But the semantic issue is that having the virus and having the disease are two different things. Now, the OIE that follows fish farm diseases around the world has changed its table of disease definitions and now there is a suspected category, and that is where BC falls right now.

Also behind the scenes the CFIA, that was severely criticized last year with having too cozy a relationship with a beef processor from Alberta - almost 35% of all beef in Canada, over 1500 products - is trying to get Kibenge's accreditation with the OIE taken away. This would allow it to control the fish disease issue narrative, with no other expert in Canada, even though its lab can't find ISA. It likes to say it can be 'considered' equivalent with world class standards. This is just bureacratise. The purpose in all this is to foster fish farms for international trade. Some 85% of BC farmed salmon is sold to the USA because Canadians won't eat it.

From the article above, a quote from Alexandra Morton:  “When seven labs find one thing [meaning ISA] and the one official lab reports the opposite [meaning the CFIA], the public are at risk,”

Fish Farm Salmon High In Toxic Chemicals

A current Norwegian scientist and doctor have told Norwegians that fish farm fish are so full of chemicals that they are harmful for pregnant women and children:

Here is an update on the Albany study that started the whole issue off in 2004 when fish farms neutralized a Science article by the Albany group:  http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/faqs.html. This is a fair document.


Go back and see the Spinwatch.org article on fishfarmnews.blogspot.com showing how fish farms tried to erase the results. You won't believe it. It reads like a Hollywood conspiracy theory, and yet it is true: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=1576150562295454684;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=72;src=postname.

Here is the news article in Norway, June 11 - 13, 2013:

http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/3777-norwegian-scientists-warn-against-eating-farmed-salmon.

Google this to get the news on this subject: Norwegian scientists - women, children should not eat farmed salmon.

Here is another scientific article on chemicals in farmed salmon: Environ Toxicol Chem. 2004 Jul;23(7):1672-9. 

The articles on this subject on fishfarmnews may be found here: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=4661533306819255241;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=61;src=postname. I have updated this subject into 2012..

Needless to say there is an enormous amount of evidence that fish farm Atlantic salmon are full of chemicals and should not be eaten. Don't buy it. I estimate that BC residents eat only $4.79 of farmed salmon a year. Because Canadians won't eat BC farmed salmon, 85% of it is sent to the USA market

Cruise back through my site to find all the posts on chemicals in farmed salmon.

Morton and Ecojustice take Keith Ashfield, Marine Harvest to Court Over PRV Transferred To the Pacific Ocean, May 8, 2013

I don't normally just give readers a piece to go and look at, but the Alexandra Morton taking DFO, Keith Ashfield, and Marine Harvest to court over transferring PRV - piscine rheovirus - from freshwater smolts to the BC Pacific Ocean, is very serious.

My readers are from all over the world and PRV has been identified as the number 2 fish disease killer of farmed and wild salmon. In some ways it is worse than ISA. You can read these posts:

This is on the lawyer's site, Ecojustice: http://www.huffstrategy.com/MediaManager/release/Ecojustice/8-5-13/Morton-Ecojustice-launch-lawsuit-over-transfer-of-diseased-salmon/2782.html

This is Ecojustices note of PRV facts:  http://www.ecojustice.ca/files/prv-hsmi-summary-of-facts-may-2013/.

This is Alexandra Morton's May 8, 2013 post on the court action she is taking:  http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2013/05/on-may-7-i-launched-a-lawsuit-against-the-minister-of-fisheries-and-marine-harvest-in-the-federal-court-of-canada-for-th.html

Oh, and six months after the $26 Million Cohen Commission on Fraser River sockeye and still no response from DFO..

ISA in BC Salmon - DFO States the Opposite of the Truth, April 23, 2013

As hard as it may be to be believed, DFO, April 22, 2013 in the Tumbler Ridge News: http://tumblerridgenews.com/?p=10703. stated once again that there is no ISA in BC farmed or wild salmon.

“The fact remains that there has never been a confirmed case of ISA in British Columbia salmon – farmed or wild.  Anyone who suspects a case of ISA must report it to CFIA. CFIA will then investigate. The disease must be confirmed using international World Organization for Animal Health (OIE) recognized protocols.”

One gets weary of this ongoing denial of what DFO knows to be the truth. And it is wild salmon and BC that suffer at Ottawa's hand.

But I guess I will have to state the truth once again that: the world level OIE labs, Kibenge, and Nylund have both found ISA in BC wild salmon. Miller, who works for DFO, in BC, has found ISA and HSMI in 25% of Clayoquot Sound farmed chinook salmon. And she has found ISA back to 1988 in wild salmon, particularly sockeye.


In Clayoquot Sound, the wild chinook are down to 501 fish. This is extermination level and DFO continues saying there is no ISA in BC. It is stunning. Miller's work showed 125,000 to 250,000 farmed chinook per farm having ISA and HSMI. DFO is managing BC salmon into extinction. In the Sound, there are 22 fish farms, that is how bad this is, probably 15 Million farmed salmon. Against 501 wild chinook. Little wonder the chinook are almost extinct and the Kennedy Lake sockeye run, once the largest on Vancouver Island, collapsed almost a decade ago and has never recovered. There are trillions of viral particles in the Sound.

Once again, here is another truth that cannot be changed by claiming the opposite: DFO, the CFIA, their Moncton lab and the BC testing system were all discredited at the Cohen Commission by the experts.

 It is time for BC residents to take salmon back from DFO, get the fish farms out of the water and on land, and begin the long long work of habitat restoration required - because DFO hasn't done it - to bring salmon back. They will all be dead if we don't.

64 On-land Fish Farm Systems, Comprising more than 8,100 On land Fish Farms Around the World, Updated May 2, 2013

Here are another six links to on-land fish farms. That makes 63 on-land, mostly recirculating fish farm systems I have found without really looking. They comprise some 8,100 actual on-land farms around the world.

In-ocean fish farms are old-tech dinosaurs and should be legislated out of the water to save the pristine environments, and wild fish stocks. It is so simple.

Go to this link to visit all the on-land fish farm systems I have found: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/01/key-document-34-mostly-on-land-closed.html. If you have trouble, just go to the posts for January 2012 and you will find it.


Here are the new sites. Six links, but actually sixteen more on-land fish farms:

1. Tilapia, MDM Aqua Farms, Rumsey, Alberta, Canada,  http://www.mdmaqua.ca/, website unavailable, 04/19/2013

2. Halibut, Scotia Halibut (Nova Scotia), http://www.halibut.ns.ca, landbased, Wood’s Harbour, Clark’s Harbour.

3. Sea Bream/Sea bass, Sustainable Blue, Nova Scotia, Sea Bream/Sea bass –  http://www.sustainableblue.com/, land based, recirculating.

4. Yellow Perch, Bell Aquaculture, Indiana, USA, http://www.bellaquaculture.com/about-bell-aquaculture/history-of-bell-aquaculture/. Landbased.

5. Tilapia, Canada, Courtenay BC, http://www.redfishranch.com/, Redfish Ranch.

6. Nova Scotia, 11 on-land systems raising adult fish. http://thechronicleherald.ca/novascotia/124757-inland-fish-farm-may-signal-new-wave.

Salmon Confidential - Debunking Fish Farm Claims, Mar 16, 2013

Alexandra Morton has come up with a very damning movie on wild salmon dying of fish farm diseases at: salmonconfidential.ca. It is going viral. Google: salmon confidential and look. On the other hand, fish farms are billion dollar corporations with millions spent on communications and make money from them. Everyone else is simply standing wtih wild salmon, and have no economic stake in the matter.

It is disappointing that they would put out another site - there are several others - with pretty much the same name, hoping to counter her movie at: salmonconfidential.com.

I will deal with their claims in due course, here are some:

1. Fish farms say Morton says: missing Fraser Sockeye are missing because of fish farm diseases.

Their answer is that science has shown missing fish since 1940 and that scientists claim early migration and high temperatures are the cause. HIGHLY MISLEADING. Kristi Millers work shows a viral signature of up to 35 disease outcomes in Fraser Sockeye with associated up to 90% mortality. It is the disease that is prompting early migration, during too high temperatures. And PRV or HSMI, from Norway, is the real cause of prespawn mortality en route, as it affects the heart. And her work shows that Fraser sockeye had ISA - brought to the Pacific Ocean by Norwegian fish farms - as far back as 1988.

Secondly, fish farm claimed recent science shows clearly in its abstract that prior to 2003 there was no real predictive research on prespawn mortality.

2. Fish farms say Morton says: the channels are so narrow that sockeye fry and adults are contracting diseases released from fish farms.

They say their fish are put in disease free, but are infected by wild fish. And diseased fish are removed quickly. And infections don't spread far. WRONG. 1. There is a long history of diseased farm eggs and fry entering BC. That's why ISA is here, and HSMI.2.  There is nothing wrong with nature, if fish farm fish are infected the logical outcome is to put them in closed containers on land. 3. Each fish farm puts out 60 billion viral particles in an hour and they are moved by tide and active for three weeks. Circa 2003, most fish farms on the west coast of Van Isle were infected with IHN releasing trillions of viral particles.

3. Fish farms say Morton says: Harrison sockeye which migrate out Juan de Fuca are disease free and in increasing numbers. They say there are fish farms in Juan de Fuca so salmonconfidential must be wrong. WRONG. Some of the channels north of Campbell River are perhaps half a mile wide and full of fish farms. The distance between Race Rocks and Port Angeles where there are a few fish farms is 25 miles wide and is the narrowest part of Juan de Fuca strait, which at the Pacific end is more than 50 miles from Cape Flattery to Ucluelet.

Fish farms also say there are fish farms on Van Isles west coast and so if Harrison's are doing well, salmonconfidential must be wrong. WRONG. The farms are in Sounds which are not on the open Pacific where fry migrate. But DFO's own stats for west coast Van Isle is only 6,000 wild chinook spawners, and in Clayoquot Sound where there are 22 farms each of which may contain 1,000,000 farmed fish. chinook numbers are at extinction levels - only 501 in six streams in 2012.

And, the Kennedy Lake sockeye run has collapsed, when historically it was the largest run. The Henderson Lake sockeye have collapsed, and Somass fish come from fertilized lakes. Read pages 62 - 64 in the document quoted by the fish farms as they run counter to fish farm claims.In fact, DFO's Salmon Outlook for 2013 shows the rest of west coast Van Isle sockeye numbers being rated 2 out of 4 - not good. And these are not large runs. The Hobiton historically has been 10,000 fish only.

One more thing about the Harrison's: fish farms say they migrate immediately to the ocean and that is what scientists believe explains their high numbers. WRONG. here is what the PFRCC report they refer to says on page 18-19: "A notable exception to declining escapements of Late-run populations is the Harrison Lake stock, which has had unprecedented large escapements in recent years, despite migrating upstream earlier than most other Late-run populations. The reason is not known with certainty but may be liked to the life history of this population." The other lower stock that has been wiped out is the Cultus :Lake sockey that migrate up Georgia Strait.


Also, further up the coast, the other sockeye that migrate as small fry are the Owikeno stock in Rivers Inlet that used to be the second highest commercial run in BC. They are not killed in the lake and they migrate at 2 grams - and the small size and ocean death is suggested as the reason. This stock has never recovered although the first ISA positive results in 2011 came from this stock, a disease that originates only in the Atlantic Ocean, and came here on fish farm eggs.

4. Fish farms say Morton says: the only salmon doing well are those not passing fish farms [meaning Fraser sockeye].

They say pink and chum are doing well in the Fraser. SOMEWHAT WRONG for pinks. Fraser pink are rated 4 out of 4 and 12.6 million - an average historical run. And WRONG on other counts: the PFRCC document they quote on sockeye shows drastic decline in WCVI pink numbers over the past few decades.. And the WCVI chum number for 2012 was a dismal 520,000 - a very bad number. The Nitinat alone has been as high as 1.8 million in the past. And, in fact, the common theme of DFO's salmon outlook has been steadily declining Fraser chum numbers from 1998 to 2010 which was halted in 2012 at 1 million fish escapement into the river. That is an abysmal number.

5. Fish farms say Morton says: Miller's work on SLV nails that Fraser sockeye deaths are from fish farm diseases.

They say that correlation does not mean causation, and that salmon leukemia only be linked with lymphoma-leukemia. And research shows SLV occurs in natural species. WRONG. Her work is into parvovirus and her viral signature work convinces everyone but someone who draws an income from a Norwegian fish farm giant. Also, the 1994 science cited was in part authored by Michael Kent, who, as below recanted all this work on the stand of the Cohen Commission. Miller's signature work strongly indicates PRV, HSMI and ISA. She has found ISA back to 1988 in Fraser Sockeye. She also found ISA and HSMI in 25% of farmed chinook in Clayoquot Sound - some 125,000 to 250,000 fish per farm. Additionally, SLV does indeed infect Pacific salmon - it was found in fish farms off Quadra Island raising, wait for it, chinook salmon, a Pacific species.

6. Fish farms say that Morton says 100% of sockeye exposed to SLV die, but they say it is only 72%. WEIRD ANSWER. ISA only kills 90% of farmed fish. Is 72% good?

Again, this work was in part authored by Michael Kent who recanted this work on the Cohen stand.

7. Fish farms say Morton says: SLV is like AIDS.

They say SLV is not like AIDS because it cannot infect humans. This is another WEIRD claim, so odd that it doesn't need comment.

8. Fish farms say Morton says: 100% of the sockeye passing salmon farms were getting infected with salmon leukemia virus from the farms.

Their answer is that research has shown this untrue. WRONG. the 1992 paper: 

http://cancerres.aacrjournals.org/content/52/23/6496 Is coauthored by Michael Kent. He authored about a dozen articles on SLV, salmon leukemia in farmed chinook in the narrows off Campbell River. However, in the August Cohen Commission hearings, he recanted his work, some of which he did while working for DFO on taxpayer dollars. Three other scientists also recanted their work. So this is research without standing and is noted as an advertisement in the journal because of its outside funding.

I read all 127 abstracts of Kent's papers at the time. I will go back and see which ones were written with scientists with conflicts of interest with fish farms. I recall that this list includes Saksida, but I will check, who now heads the 'research facility' for fish farms in Campbell River that DFO gave money for in 2012.

Furthermore, when the chinook farms with SLV were taken out of the Quadra Island area, suddenly sockeye were returning to the Fraser in far higher numbers.

During the Cohen Commission, one of my submissions made the point that all those who testified should be required to lay out their conflicts of interests, but this was not done. Cohen's rulings did agree with many points made in my three submissions, particularly that the Norwegian fish farms had their lawyers working full time against Cohen in his requiring the disease summary tables - which is what the whole point of their website is about - disease.

Once the summary tables were required, the fish farms told the news they were complying fully with Cohen and they were transparent. However, once Cohen moved to bring back fish farm diseases for a special December sitting, which has most of the material in Morton's new movie, Cohen made a firm requirement that the actual BC table be released. The Norwegian fish farms then had their lawyers arguing again against the release of this information, saying that Cohen had no authority to require that information. Cohen stood firm and the actual tables were placed on the record. This is a material part of the disease hearings, that Morton has shown the actual evidentiary evidence caught on tape, including, and while it sure was funny, Kim Klotins, from CFIA, who was cornered into saying that the CFIA did not want to find ISA in BC in farmed fish. It was a little unkind to replay her bugging eyes several times.

There is more to say, but this is the total of my volunteer hours today. I and BC residents simply stand for wild salmon. The fish farms have, in 2008 science, been shown to kill 50% of all wild stocks they come in contact with, largely because of their diseases:: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.0060033. Please read and form your own opinions.

Global Fish Farm Diseases - Updated May 25, 2013

Go back to the post below. It is up to 32 fish farm disease reports from around the world. This report continues to grow and was last updated on May 25, 2013. Keep watching this post, as diseases are one of the worst features of in-ocean, open-net fish farms. They can all be solved by on-land, sequestered farms.

And Skuna Bay was done for killing 65 sea lions by drowning in the past week (killed in 2010) with a $!00,000 fine.

http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/search?updated-min=2012-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&updated-max=2013-01-01T00:00:00-08:00&max-results=36