Read this blog post from Alexandra Morton, claiming that she and her research team have found ISA virus in farmed Atlantic salmon sold at three T&T Supermarket stores in Vancouver. (March 13, 2012)
Today I received ISA virus positive test results from the international ISA virus OIE Reference lab in eastern Canada.
The ISA virus positive fish were 5 Atlantic salmon I purchased from three different T & T supermarkets around the lower mainland and one chum salmon from the Vedder River. There is no evidence ISA virus harms humans.
These samples were in much better condition than the Rivers Inlet sockeye smolts that tested positive last year, and so further testing is underway to sequence the virus. Once completed this will better inform us of where this virus is coming from.
When my colleagues and I got ISA virus positive test results last December, the BC Minister of Agriculture and Lands, Don McRae said: “Reckless allegations based on incomplete science can be devastating to these communities and unfair to the families that make a living from the sea. Since Premier Clark is currently on a trade mission to China, I have personally asked her to reassure our valued trading partners that now as always BC can be relied upon as a supplier of safe, sustainable seafood..” Now we have ISA virus positive results from a Chinese supermarket chain in BC. The gills were intact in these fish and from speaking with the people behind the seafood counter we believe these fish were reared in BC marine feedlots. The CFIA will be able to tell us where they came from, or perhaps the market will let us know. If these fish were shipped in from outside BC they should not have had the gills left in them.
Read this story from the Winnipeg Free Press on a suspected outbreak of the deadly ISAv salmon virus at a Cook Aquaculture open net pen salmon farm in Nova Scotia. (Feb 17, 2012)
HALIFAX - Cooke Aquaculture says it has a suspected outbreak of the infectious salmon anemia virus at one of its fish farms in Nova Scotia.
In a statement today, the seafood company says it destroyed fish contained in two cages at one of its fish farming sites after routine tests and surveillance of its stocks on Feb. 10.
But the company declined to say where the outbreak is suspected.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency is investigating, but it too declined to say where the suspected outbreak is located.
Con Kiley, director of the agency's aquatic animal health program, says the location can't be made public due to privacy concerns.
Kiley says the virus is not a human health or food risk, but according to the agency's website, it can kill up to 90 per cent of infected fish, depending on its strain.
He says tests will be conducted at a federal lab in Moncton, N.B., to confirm whether the virus is present.
The source of the infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) now being found in BC's wild salmon is almost certainly from imported Atlantic salmon eggs, the international trade that has provided coastal salmon farms with most of their stock. The salmon farming industry, of course, is still denying that ISAv is here, although evidence given at the Cohen Commission's extraordinary three days of hearings on December 15th, 16th and 19th essentially obliterates that defence.
Of four labs testing for ISAv in wild fish samples, the only one seemingly unable to find it is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's facility in Moncton, New Brunswick, a lab whose detection capability is known by experts to be notoriously insensitive and inconsistent - an inaccuracy compounded by attempting to use degraded tissue samples. Research tests by a reputable lab in 2004 found 100 percent infection in Cultus Lake sockeye - inexplicably never pursued by federal agencies responsible for the health of wild salmon. Testimony from Dr. Kristi Miller showing genomic markers in archaic samples of BC wild salmon indicates that ISAv has been here since 1986.
Documents presented at the Cohen Commission suggest that the arrival of ISAv coincides with the early importation of Atlantic salmon eggs to West Coast salmon farms. Supporting this connection is a recorded litany of warnings from experts in BC's Ministry of Environment (MOE) and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), all alarmed about the inherent danger of importing exotic diseases to the West Coast ecology through Atlantic salmon eggs. This evidence is worth noting.
1982: representatives of Canada's government meet with Norwegian and Canadian business interests to consider "alternative approaches to inspection and certification of salmon culture facilities" for the importation of Atlantic salmon material from Norway.
1984: Canada's DFO approves limited importation of Atlantic salmon material, an event that is not announced publicly.
1985: 300,000 eggs are imported, subject to a "Draft Importation of Salmonids Policy" requiring a 12 month quarantine. But Dave Narver of MOE expresses concern to his Assistant Deputy Minister about the policy. "I am getting increasingly anxious about our importing of Atlantic eggs," he writes. "My concern is shared by many of my colleagues in both provincial and federal agencies. The fish health measures agreed to jointly by DFO and ourselves in the fall of 1984 are not foolproof. They are based on statistical sampling, so we are taking a risk when it comes to the introductions of virus. That means a risk to the nearly one-billion-dollar wild salmonid fisheries of British Columbia." An additional 130,000 Atlantic salmon eggs are imported from Scotland.
1986: Narver reiterates his concerns to Pacific Aqua Foods about an unsigned and non-public policy. "We are deeply concerned with the fact that the risk of exotic diseases is dependent on both the number of imports and their size. Government has made a commitment to support aquaculture, but surely not at the risk of a nearly $1 billion resource in the wild salmon fisheries of British Columbia. The direction the aquaculture industry wants us to go will insure that we import unwanted diseases that can impact on government hatcheries and wild stocks." Narver sends a similar letter of concern to Stolt Sea Farm Canada Inc. "To start with a general comment, I am disappointed with what appears to be the prevailing attitude of a number of companies, that fish health regulations to protect wild stocks are great, but if we continue the way the aquaculture industry seems to dictate, we can expect to introduce new diseases." 1,144,000 eggs are imported from Scotland.
1987: Federal-Provincial Policy for the Importation of Live Salmonids is signed, but quarantine time is reduced to 4 months to reduce the industry's cost of dealing with waste water. Pat Chamut of DFO expresses a trade concern. "If challenged in court over denial of any imports, what is the legal likelihood we would be successful in denying imports?" 1,281,000 eggs are imported from Scotland and Washington State.
1990: Salmon farmers in the US claim Canada's import restrictions are a trade barrier. Chamut reiterates his concerns to the Policy Division of Pacific Rim and Trade. "Continued large-scale introductions from areas of the world including Washington State, Scotland, Norway and even eastern Canada would eventually result in the introduction of exotic disease agents of which the potential impact on both cultured and wild salmonids in BC could be both biologically damaging to the resource and economically devastating to its user groups."
1991: Numerous warnings are written by DFO and MOE officials, all concerning the dangers of importing diseases from foreign salmon eggs - a danger compounded by trade agreements allowing the salmon farming industry to import larger numbers of eggs. Narver's letter from MOE to DFO is typical for 1991. "The proposed revisions not only open the window indefinitely but essentially allow for unlimited numbers of eggs. I know your Department argues that this has to done to avoid a Free Trade ruling." Subsequent to these warnings comes a 1991 letter from BC Packers' Director of Aquaculture to DFO. "As we have no other disease-free source available [other than Iceland] anywhere in the world, I am requesting that you reconsider your position, particularly in the light of the expected change in the DFO regulations." Regulations are duly relaxed and from 1991 to 2010 at least 23 million eggs are imported into BC waters, mostly from sources other than Iceland.
This evidence from the Cohen Commission confirms that international sources of eggs were known to be rife with disease and that the aquaculture industry was perfectly willing to import these eggs, despite known risks and repeated warnings. Given trade agreements and the political leverage of the salmon farming industry to reduce precautionary regulations - the direction it "seems to dictate", in Dave Narver's damning words - the arrival of ISAv and other exotic diseases in BC's marine ecology was inevitable.
Judge Bruce Cohen obviously thought that recent evidence of the Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISAv) in BC's wild salmon was serious enough to warrant a reconvening of his Commission of inquiry into the mysterious disappearance of Fraser River sockeye. The three days of exceptional December hearings were revelatory, confusing and clarifying. We have ISAv in BC waters but we don't have disease. We have different labs getting positive and negative test results on the same fish samples. We have critically important research curtailed just when such vital information is most needed. We have intimations of openness in a practice of obstruction and censure. And we have huge financial benefits accruing to corporate interests if BC's farmed and wild salmon can be marketed free of the stigma of disease.
The salmon farming industry has been habitually skewing information to bolster its practices and image - it's been doing this for decades. And, as recent history has revealed, the credibility of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has been compromised by its conflicting mandates of managing wild salmon and promoting salmon farming. Now we discover that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has its own conflicting mandates of suppressing pathogens while enhancing marketing opportunities for fish products. Consequently, when a viral disease is reported and the commercial value of fish is threatened, the CFIA assumes a defensive position by questioning the findings of the testing labs, by re-testing the degraded samples of infected fish with its notoriously inaccurate technology, and then recording "inconclusive" results as "negative".
This strategy is evident in an e-mail from a CFIA executive, Joseph Beres, to his colleagues, congratulating them on a conference call to the media that was intended to quell concerns about allegations of ISAv in BC salmon. "It is clear that we are turning the PR tide to our favour," he writes, "and this is because of the very successful performance of our spokes at the Tech Briefing yesterday...Congratulations! One battle is won, now we have to nail the surveillance piece, and we will win the war also." This is the response of a promoter concerned about reputation and market, not the response of a scientist concerned about the danger of an ecosystem-threatening virus.
This might explain why the CFIA didn't submit to the Cohen Commission evidence of ISAv in more than 100 wild salmon a decade ago. And why DFO advised its molecular geneticist, Dr. Kristi Miller, to curtail her research on ISAv - precisely the opposite of how prudence and science should respond to such an urgent situation.
Indeed, the Cohen Commission has exposed a systemic history of closeted secretiveness, hidden motives and contrived deception, all exposed since the initial October revelation that ISAv has been found in wild BC salmon. Dr. Sally Goldes, a 17-year fish health section head for the BC Environment Ministry, testified during the reconvened Cohen inquiry that "current Canada Fish Health Protection Rules do not provide a high level of regulatory security against the introduction of ISAv into British Columbia." To underscore her concern, she noted, "If you really look closely at the regulations, from a scientific basis, there is not the high degree of protection that the government, and particularly DFO, states that they have." In her opinion, the DFO and CFIA press conference that announced no ISAv in BC "was entirely premature." In other words, ISAv could have leaked into BC waters from Atlantic egg sources used by salmon farms, and government agencies are systematically hiding that possibility.
Dr. Kristi Miller, one of the key DFO scientists in this process, took the initiative to do her own testing on wild and farmed salmon. She concluded that an ISA virus, or something that is 95 percent similar to the strain afflicting farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway, Scotland, Maritime Canada and Chile, is present in BC waters. And her review of DFO's archival fish samples shows that markers for ISAv have been present in BC since 1986 - shortly after Atlantic salmon were first farmed here. A study by Dr. Molly Kibenge suggested that ISAv was here in 2004. Despite a UN convention that requires "evidence or suspicion" of ISAv to be reported, this was never done. Neither was evidence of ISAv reported to the initial phase of the Cohen Commission hearings.
Complicating the issue is a technical definition of "disease". The CFIA takes the position that a suite of characteristics are needed to classify ISAv as such. Dr. Miller recognized this criterion in her testimony to the Commission when she said, "And obviously we have not established that [ISAv] causes disease." Without evidence of dying or debilitated fish, there is no "disease". But evidence does exist. A postdoctoral fellow working with Dr. Miller, Brad Davis, notes ample data suggesting "that the virus is causing enough damage to elicit a strong response in salmon.... Therefore, we cannot at this point assume that this virus does not cause disease in these fish." Regular reports cite adult Fraser River salmon inexplicably dying as they migrate upstream, sometimes just days before spawning. Cultus Lake salmon have long been exhibiting the same strange behaviour. Until now, no explanation has been available.
The CFIA has pledged to investigate by subjecting 7,700 salmon to more than 20,000 tests over the next two years. But this does not promise to clarify the mystery of BC's disappearing wild salmon. The CFIA's self-declared "surveillance objectives are to determine the absence/presence of three diseases of trade significance... [and] to support international trade negotiations by making [a] disease-freedom declaration that will stand international scrutiny." If the CFIA's version of science is to start with a trade-friendly conclusion and then research to support it, this does not bode well for BC's wild salmon and the entire marine ecology founded on this iconic fish.
It wasn't until the final hours of the final day of the Cohen Commission into declining Fraser River sockeye, last Monday, that it truly became clear to me. After all the hundreds of thousands of pages of documents and thousands of hours of testimony made public by the Inquiry; after all the back and forth in the media about what has been happening to our wild fish - the whole issue will likely come down to how well First Nations, concerned conservationists and citizens work together to force real change on the Harper Government and that sorry, malfunctioning institution know as the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
It was at this point that the appalling ignorance and disrespect at DFO and the Canadian Food Inspection Agency with regards to First Nations were lain bare before the Inquiry (articulated in this strongly-worded rebuttal from the Assembly of First Nations). Nicole Schabus, counsel for the Sto:lo Tribal Council and Cheam Indian Band - whose traditional territories encompass much of the Lower Fraser Basin - was grilling DFO's Simon Jones about his lab's discovery of an alarming number of Cultus Lake sockeye with indications ISA virus in the early 2000s. Jones' post-doctoral student at the time, Dr. Molly Kibenge, had tested 64 out of 64 sockeye from the endangered Cultus stock positive for the virus.
The finding was later questioned in an email between Kibenge and Jones made public by Canada's Counsel in the waning moments of the Inquiry - suggesting there may have been a problem with the test itself - but that would seem to argue for a fresh round of tests at the time, not the offhand dismissal of the troubling result, which is what in fact happened. Dr. Jones declined to publish Kibenge's paper back in 2004 and furthermore neglected to pursue any follow-up tests - or even to disclose his lab's findings to the Inquiry when it scheduled extra hearings to deal specifically with ISAv. Dr. Jones also failed to disclose these findings to Ms. Schabus' client - despite the fact DFO took fish from their traditional territory for testing; and the fact the First Nation had been desperately searching for answers to the collapse of the Cultus stock and working hard to rebuild it.
But while DFO didn't see fit to disclose its findings to the Stol:lo, it did notify representatives of the aquaculture industry at the time, the Inquiry learned - yet another slap in the face to First Nations.
Under questioning from the Sto:lo's lawyer, DFO senior manager Stephen Stephen fell back on his default defence throughout his appearance at the Inquiry: "I want to reiterate, we do not report unconfirmed results.” Dr. Kim Klotins of the CFIA, seated next to him chimed in, "We did not involve the Stol:lo Nation – I didn’t realize there was an agreement with them." Ms. Schabus fired back, “Not an agreement – an obligation!” (emphasis added).
Later, Krista Robertson, counsel for the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council (the Broughton Archipelago First Nations), asked Dr. Klotins whether the CFIA had consulted First Nations in the development of its "surveillance plan", which will only begin to sample and test a few hundred fish for ISAv this Spring (they have yet to conduct a single sample and test of their own!). After much hemming and hawing, Dr. Klotins conceded, "We have not yet engaged in discussion with First Nations. We're just putting that plan together and information will be put out in the New Year."
Robertson continued, "Did you have communication with the First Nations in Rivers Inlet [where the ISA positives in Oct 2011 were reported]?" "No," replied Dr. Klotins. Clearly, the CFIA could use a tutorial about its constitutional requirements in dealing with First Nations in BC. Judging by Dr. Klotins' performance on the stand, it is as though they've never even heard of title and rights - nor would it appear have many of DFO's higher-ups.
The Inquiry also saw an email communication between a First Nations
fisheries officer asking a DFO representative whether his organization
could offer any help in sampling wild sockeye to test for ISAv this
Fall following the discovery of the virus in wild BC salmon. The DFO officer replied simply, "At this point in time we do not feel
that more sampling for ISAv is warranted."
Earlier on, under questioning from Leah Pence, counsel for the First Nations Coalition, Stephen Stephen had acknowledged DFO has not been communicating at all with First Nations with respect to ISAv. When Ms. Pence showed evidence that the BC Salmon Farmers' Association's chief flack Mary-Ellen Walling had been included in a technical briefing regarding ISAv on November 10, 2011, Dr. Klotins had nothing but empty stammering to offer in response.
In the brief time the three lawyers representing First Nations had with the witnesses on this final day of the Commission, a clear pattern emerged, wherein fish farmers enjoy far more inside access and special privileges with regards to ISAv and other important matters to do with wild salmon than do First Nations with constitutionally enshrined legal rights. And no one among the DFO and CFIA representatives on the stand had a remotely plausible explanation for this discrepancy.
Much has been made over the years by the likes of BC Conservative Party Leader John Cummins - who was unquestionably instrumental in making the Commission happen in the first place, in his former career as a federal Conservative MP - about abuses of the Food, Social and Ceremonial (FSC) fisheries by First Nations. The representative for the Fisheries Survival Coalition at the Inquiry, Phil Eidsvik, drew plenty of media attention when he questioned Ernie Crey, fisheries advisor to the Sto:lo Tribal Council, on the subject this past summer.
Mr. Eidsvik pressed Mr. Crey about a Globe and Mail article in which DFO alleged a "black market" has sprung up around the FSC fishery, whereby salmon for food and cultural practices, to which First Nations have a legal right, are being improperly sold for profit. Mr. Crey downplayed the allegation on the stand. “When we do sell fish that we catch, we do so under agreements with Fisheries and Oceans Canada. We also have food social and ceremonial fisheries. Those fish are intended for just what it’s described as,” Crey told the Inquiry. Mr. Eidsvik pressed on, asking whether the Sto:lo ever suffered from a lack of fish specifically due to these sales. “Not that I’m aware of,” Mr. Crey replied.
I don't intend to wade into the complex legal debate about First Nations' rights or lack thereof to sell FSC fish. Moreover, I'd be prepared to wager there are in fact abuses that occur within aboriginal fisheries - just as there are amongst commercial and sports fisheries. How many sporties sneak a barbed treble hook on the end of their line when they're beyond the watchful gaze of fisheries officers - or stuff an extra Chinook or two in their cooler at the end of the day?
But those who choose to hang the whole mystery of disappearing Fraser sockeye on abuses within different fisheries are misguided in doing so; more importantly, they're missing a golden opportunity presented by the Cohen Commission to deal with a much larger problem confronting our precious sockeye: namely, salmon farms. For never has there been a better window to clear the migratory routes of our Fraser sockeye of these virus and parasite breeding factories than now.
But it won't happen with Justice Cohen's non-binding recommendations, due out this summer (I'll be surprised if the Commissioner can meet this revised deadline, especially in view of all the new eye-opening material and testimony entered into the record during the final three days of the Inquiry - dealing specifically with ISA virus). No matter how strong Justice Cohen's report turns out to be, Stephen Harper can hardly be expected to implement it in full - nor, specifically, to take decisive remedial steps against the impacts of fish farms without the full force of media and public pressure.
The most instructive models to inform the path forward for dealing with open cage feedlots come from the campaigns currently being waged against the proposed Prosperity Mine and the Enbridge pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Kitimat. Both have been - I would suggest - highly successful thus far; both involve squaring off against unsympathetic provincial and federal majority governments and large, wealthy resource corporations. Both have one more crucial thing in common: the unification of First Nations - holding constitutionally entrenched legal rights to their ancestral lands, waters and traditional ways of life - with environmental groups and non-aborigial citizens.
In the case of Taseko Mines' proposed Prosperity Mine - in the Tsilhqot'in Plateau, west of Williams Lake - the project's first iteration was rejected by none other than the Harper Government's Ministry of Environment, following a strong opposition campaign led by the local First Nations, but supported by nearly every major environmental group in BC and legions of non-aboriginal citizens. When the company tried recently to begin work on a modified version of the mine - after being granted premature permits by the trigger-happy provincial Clark Government - it again ran smack into a wall. This time it came in the form of an injunction obtained by the Tsilhqot'in peoples at the BC Supreme Court, once again demonstrating the power of First Nations' legal rights, backed up by vocal, committed non-First Nations supporters.
Of course, the Enbridge saga is far from over, but the historic banding together of 131 First Nations across Alberta and BC - again, backed by a large coalition of conservation groups, wilderness tourism operators and tens of thousands of highly mobilized citizens - will prove to be an insurmountable barrier for the pipeline, I would argue. The specific structure of this Enbridge opposition campaign - namely the "Save the Fraser Declaration", a pledge to protect the waters, salmon, and traditional way of life of these communities and territories from the threat of an oil spill - could be easily adapted, or repeated in some form, to address the impacts of salmon farms.
The coalition is there already; its power has been demonstrated. All it would take would be for many of the same First Nations in the Fraser and Skeena watersheds to unite in opposition to salmon farms - with the full support of conservation groups, wilderness tourism operators and citizens, just as they have done with the Enbridge issue - and the Norwegian aquaculture behemoths would be facing a very comparable challenge to that which Enbridge now faces.
There is of course one major challenge to such a coalition - deeply embedded in the political protocols of First Nations. That is, First Nations don't believe they should tell their neighbouring nations how to conduct themselves within their own territories. So while many First Nations are squarely opposed to the salmon farming industry, there are a few - around Campbell River, near Port Hardy, in Clayoquot Sound and near the village of Klemtu on the central coast, for instance - which have working relationships with the industry. But much like a pipeline or tanker traffic, what happens with fish farms within a given territory has effects which ripple beyond that nation's borders.
And so, there is room - even a strong need - for diplomacy here. Such are the revelations of government cover-ups, the insulting special treatment of fish farmers and the severity of new viruses that have emanated from the Cohen Commission that no longer can these matters be left unspoken. It is time for the nations of the Fraser and Skeena basins to engage in a frank discussion with their neighbours who inhabit the migratory pathways of sockeye on the coast in order to ensure that wild salmon are adequately protected for the benefit of all First Nations and non-aboriginal peoples.
The highlight of the big rally for wild salmon in Victoria, led by Alexandra Morton in the Spring of 2010, was the coming together of First Nations and other fisheries groups who've long been at loggerheads over the sort of petty divisions alluded to earlier here. At this historic event were longtime rivals John Cummins and Ernie Crey, who crossed the Salish Sea together on the same ship, guiding a canoe filled with diverse supporters of wild salmon who had just paddled down the Fraser River - hosted by the Sto:lo and other First Nations along the way - to make their way to the provincial capital.
There was Hereditary Chief Frank Nelson of the Musgamagw peoples of the Broughton standing alongside old Billy Proctor - a veteran commercial pink salmon fisherman from the same region. Billy declared, "There's been some divisions over the years, but it's great to see us all getting together at last," inspiring one of the day's biggest cheers. Nelson followed, telling the crowd of over 5,000, "We've always been told that our drums beat like a heartbeat amongst our First Nations people. But I've heard all of us beating together on the drum today. We shall move forward to make every effort that Alexandra has done to ensure there is a place for our children."
They all spoke of putting the past behind them and uniting in a common cause to rid our waters of fish farms.
That was less than two years ago, but so much has changed in that time. It is now clear from the Cohen Commission that we have more viruses affecting our wild fish than we'd even imagined. It is obvious that the DFO and CFIA see themselves far more are protectors and promoters of the salmon farming industry than as guardians of our wild fish and the public interest. It is also obvious that neither department, nor the salmon farming industry, views First Nations with anything less than complete and utter disrespect. And it is plain to see that our wild fish are dying more of greed and politics than they are of any natural cause.
So now is the time for First Nations - with their undeniable legal strengths - and all concerned conservation groups, businesses that depend on the health of our wild salmon and the ecosystems the support, and the citizens of British Columbia to come together as one and force the Harper Government to make good on the promise of the Cohen Commission and to take decisive action to rid our coastal waters of Norwegian fish farms.
It is only by our collective success or failure to bring about this result that we will be able to judge the true value of the Cohen Commission - and our own commitment to saving our treasured wild fish.
Watch this series of clips by independent filmmaker Craig Delahunt from the Cohen Commission, including a key hour of testimony from the final day of ISAv hearings and interviews with experts outside the Commission.
Read this bombshell report from the Chilliwack Times on the revelation of a 2004 report that shows a 100% ISA virus infection rate in 100 sockeye samples taken from Cultus Lake in 2004. A must-read!
"A seven-year-old unpublished report indicates 100 per cent of a
sample of Cultus Lake sockeye tested positive for a potentially deadly
salmon virus. The undated report (likely from 2004) produced at a
Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) station in Nanaimo, tested wild
Pacific salmon-sockeye, chinook and pink- from various locations,
including Cultus Lake.
Twenty-two per cent of the salmon, or 117
out of more than 500 samples tested positive for ISA, with more than
half of the positive tests from the Fraser River. And more than
half of all the positive test results came from the 64 out of 64 samples
of Cultus Lake sockeye found with ISA virus." (Dec. 6, 2011)
Read this bombshell story from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on a recently leaked Department of Fisheries and Oceans report which shows ISA virus was found in several species of BC and Alaskan wild salmon in 2004. The report was deliberately covered up by DFO and is only now coming to light, years later.
"A 2004 draft manuscript, leaked out of Canada's Department of
Fisheries and Oceans, indicates that the deadly infectious salmon anemia
virus was identified eight years ago in coho, pink and sockeye salmon
taken from southern British Columbia, Southeast Alaska and Bering
Sea waters. Testing done in 2002 and 2003 'lead us to conclude that an
asymptomatic form of infectious salmon anemia occurs among some species
of wild Pacific salmon in the north Pacific,' said the manuscript. But a senior official at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans
recently rejected a request to submit the manuscript for publication." (Nov. 29, 2011)
Read Alexandra Morton's latest blog post, alerting Federal Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield to the biologist's recent discovery of more wild BC salmon infested with the deadly Infectious Salmon Anemia virus.
"Dear Minister Ashfield,
I would suggest you stop treating us like fools. Your attached letter is grossly inadequate. Download Initial Request for 2011-001-03100.pdf (440.4K)
Show us your Moncton test results because your lab is the only one that
cannot find ISA virus. I would also suggest you stop obsessing over
the quality of the River Inlet samples and go out and get your own
samples. You have an entire department at your disposal.
You can stop calling the 1st Norwegian tests a "negative" result. Be
more accurate and call them what they are - a weak positive. Download Report 021111.pdf (22.0K) You can't wave a magic wand and make black white." (Nov. 25, 2011)
The recent news that the European strain of Infectious Salmon Anemia virus had been found in two Rivers Inlet sockeye smolts sent a shiver of fear throughout the North Pacific region. The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) dutifully notified Japan, Russia and the United States, the countries with an economic interest in the safety, security and health of wild salmon and other marine fish. The US states of Oregon, California, Idaho and Alaska all expressed alarm, one defining the situation as an "emergency".
The immediate panic subsided with the CFIA's recent announcement that re-testing of the sockeye samples did not find ISAv. Were the samples now too old? Had they been improperly stored? Could the original tests, done by one of the world's reference labs for ISAv, have been faulty? Were the CFIA's tests faulty? Why had the many tests done on farmed fish not detected ISAv? Why had the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) not been testing for the disease in wild salmon? Why did no federal agency have a protocol for responding to an ISAv emergency?
As this mystery deepens, the undisputed evidence of ISAv as an international threat was made abundantly clear. BC and its Norwegian salmon farming corporations, together with Canada's DFO, are playing a high-risk game with extremely serious consequences. Should protective measures fail, an unleashed exotic virus in the North Pacific would be a serious international incident with immeasurable consequences and inestimable costs. Is the gamble worth it?
Meanwhile, more positive tests have been reported for the European strain of ISAv in Pacific wild salmon on the Harrison River, a tributary of the Fraser that is 600 km from Rivers Inlet. A group of worried people led by Alexandra Morton netted a dead, unspawned coho salmon. It's heart and gill tissue tested positive for ISAv. So did the gill tissue of a "severely jaundiced" Fraser River chinook and a "silver-bright" chum salmon. Finding the virus only in the gills of these fish suggests they were recently infected with ISA (alexandramorton.typepad.com).
Undoubtedly, these tests will be contested. But, as Alexandra Morton writes in her blog (Ibid.), the arrival of ISAv is inevitable.
"I don't know how no one saw this coming...Every country with salmon farms has taken this path. I am so exhausted with trying to explain this to Ministers, bureaucrats, streamkeepers, environmentalists, fishermen. People just don't want to believe it...
Look, it is simple. Salmon farms break the natural laws and viruses, bacteria and parasites are the beneficiaries of this behaviour. If you move diseases across the world and brew them among local pathogens, in an environment where predators are not allowed to remove the sick - you get pestilence. There is no other outcome.
The reason I can see this, and where we are headed, is not because I am particularly bright, it is because I have taken great care not to allow myself to become dependent on anyone's money. I am not climbing any social ladder. I don't want to be a politician, academic, or CEO of a 'save the environment' company. I just want to be able to live between Kingcome and Knight Inlet and not watch it die."
Her indictment rings too true to be refuted. The salmon farming corporations owe their allegiance to shareholders perpetually hungry for higher profits. In the particular case of ISAv, they are creating a false assurance that will eventually release its viral tragedy. Politicians in power - local, provincial and federal - are busy juggling image, votes and economic considerations. Government bureaucrats and employees are reluctant to rile their political masters. And the majority of the public don't have the attention or imagination to comprehend and stop this promised catastrophe. The result will be yet another environmental mess.
Are we now witnessing the beginning of this shadowed future? We don't yet know for certain. As Morton writes so candidly in her blog, she had the premonition of defeat, believing she has "failed in the mission that has consumed my life. I wish now I had put the blinders on and continued studying whales, because it does not matter how the fish die, whether by sea lice, or viruses, they will be dead."
If the fish die, her failure will be our failure. Because we live on a planet in which all the parts are interconnected, when we threaten or diminish wild salmon, we do the same to ourselves. Their vulnerability is our vulnerability. Or, to put it more ominously, as we dismantle nature's services, corporate services will rise to fill the void. So the gracious bounty that once was given freely will then be subject to price and profit, a cost that we will pay in currency, dignity and servitude. If ISA is now brewing in our West Coast waters, it will be a classical example of how, piece by piece and place by place, we are dismantling the ecology of our planet. Such a "pestilence" will mark an erosion of our innocence and freedom, a diminishment of ourselves that could have been prevented if only we had possessed a modicum of perspective and caution.
Morton suggests a strategy for prevention and hope. Get the salmon farms out of our marine environment. Now. Immediately. Eliminate the only known source of ISAv and the unnatural concentrations of fish that breed mutations and virulence. This may also mean closing hatcheries for wild fish, too. Should the virus be here, then maybe - just maybe - it will dilute and dissipate in nature's forgiveness. And if it is not here, the scare was real and instructive, a useful reminder that our folly is as far away as a single virus.
