The psychology underlying people's behaviour is as fascinating as the things they do. “Change blindness” is a case in point. Psychologists describe it as the inability of people to notice anomalies, differences and the unusual in their surroundings. The obvious, it seems, is not always obvious...For example, we seem to have an inherent inclination to overlook or rationalize as normal the weather abnormalities that arise from global warming. If this strategy doesn't serve to diminish the significance of an extreme weather event in our minds, we excuse it by extending the range of normality — a once-in-a-century event occurring once every ten years is deemed normal.
Read this story from CBC.ca on the quarantining of a fish farm owned by Mainstream Canada in Dixon Bay near Tofino, BC, following the discovery of an outbreak of the lethal IHN virus. (May 18, 2012)
B.C.'s salmon farming industry is on high alert after the discovery of a lethal fish virus at one farm on the west coast of Vancouver Island.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has quarantined the farm at Dixon Bay, north of Tofino. Mainstream Canada, which runs the operation, says it will destroy its entire stock of 560,000 one-kilo-sized salmon, to prevent the disease from spreading.
The company says Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) was detected during routine testing May 14.
"This is code red," Mainstream spokeswoman Laurie Jensen says.
IHN attacks the fish's blood, and usually kills the animal within a week of exposure. It can kill up to 100 per cent of the populations that become infected, and it spreads rapidly.
"This is not good news for the fish or for the companies." Jenson says. "We will contain this however way we can."
Jensen says boats and visitors have been barred from the site, while the company awaits results from the National Aquatic Animal Health Laboratory which is attempting to culture the virus from farm samples.
But Jensen says an independent lab has already used samples to sequence the virus, which spreads rapidly if not contained.
"So we are just going to depopulate," Jensen says, adding, "we will lose money. It's in the millions. There's a lot of money at stake, but money is not our issue right now."
Jensen says the company will also have to destroy any equipment that can't be disinfected, such as nets.
Justice Cohen ruled today that he will not reopen his Inquiry into the Decline of the Fraser Sockeye citing the amount of work the commission team is faced with to meet the twice-delayed September 30, 2012 delivery date. The Commission notes that they have heard evidence on disease. The application to reopen the Inquiry was made by the Aquaculture Coalition (Alexandra Morton) after discovery that nearly 100% of BC farm salmon are testing positive for the Norwegian piscine reovirus. Research published as recently as April 12, 2012 confirms association between this virus and a disease called Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI).
Read this story from the Vancouver Sun on the recent discovery of a disease fatal to fish in Atlantic farmed salmon in Clayoquot Sound. (May 16, 2012)
For the first time in nine years Atlantic salmon farmed in British Columbian waters have tested positive for a virus that can be rapidly fatal to them, but is endemic in wild Pacific salmon and largely a low risk.
Mainstream Canada announced today that fish at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino tested positive for Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN). The virus is harmless to humans, but attacks the kidneys and spleen of salmon and can lead to rotting flesh and organ failure. IHN has been present in the waters of B.C. for hundreds of years and wild salmon have developed a resistance to it, though young salmon and sockeye can be vulnerable to it, according to fish virologist James Winton.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency will arrive at the farm tomorrow for testing as Mainstream waits to see if and how many of the roughly 500,000 farmed fish on site will have to be culled.
"This year now turns out to be a very bad year for IHN virus and we still don't completely understand why," said Winton, on the phone from Seattle where he works for the U.S. Geological Survey. "A lot of the sockeye were coming back with higher percentages and higher amounts of the virus, so it's not surprising that we're seeing a cycle again in some of the farms.
"Atlantics - they haven't evolved with this virus so they're sort of susceptible to all strains of [IHN]."
Mainstream spokeswoman Laurie Jensen said the virus may have been passed on to the contained salmon by a wild fish species passing through the area and that IHN is "a fact of farming and husbandry."
Mainstream operates 27 farms in B.C., and 17 of those in the Tofino area. Those 17 are conducting IHN tests of their fish Jensen said.
If IHN is discovered, a company must call in the CFIA as well as Fisheries and Oceans Canada.
Civil Disobedience has had successes in the past in BC but too often there have been one or two who have refused to obey the law and once they have been jailed, the protest has petered out. We must organize such that scores, even hundreds, defy the law and are ready to do time. There has been very little by way of organization in the overall community but First Nations appear to be ready and, if nothing else, the rest of us must be prepared to support them and face the same consequences. Our first step must be, in my view, a clear statement by environmental organizations and individual British Columbians that we will stand shoulder with First Nations - and we at the Common Sense Canadian plan to meet with their leaders and see how we can help.
Read this profile by the Globe and Mail's Mark Hume of marine biologist Alexandra Morton's decades-long struggle against the Norwegian open net salmon farming industry. (April 20, 2012)
Alexandra Morton sits at her kitchen table and tries to ignore the e-mails pouring in to the laptop open in front of her. She is looking out the picture window at Rough Bay, which is tranquil this morning, reflecting a vivid blue sky and the snow-capped mountains of northern Vancouver Island.
“That's where I want to be,” she says wistfully, as if the sea, which washes ashore 10 metres from her tiny cabin on Malcolm Island, is somehow unreachable because of the life she has chosen.
Her idea of a perfect day is to rise at dawn and head out in her boat, Blackfish Sound, wandering until she finds a tide line where a rich seam in the ocean currents is marked by a ribbon of flotsam. Then she turns off the engine and drifts with a hydrophone hung over the side of the boat.
“You can hear herring. They sound like lemons being squished. You can hear the whisk, whisk, whisk of otter feet,” she says. “You can hear whales, and you can even hear the rocks rolling on the pebble beaches.”
But the days when she can escape to that idyllic world are few, says Ms. Morton, who is tied to her computer, afraid that if she rests, she may fail at her self-appointed task of removing open-net salmon pens from coastal waters.
Read this story from The Province on the confirmation of piscine rheovirus in farmed salmon sold in BC supermarkets. (April 14, 2012)
A newly identified Norwegian virus that affects salmon has made its way into Canadian markets, with test results confirming the presence of the virus in 44 out of 45 farmed salmon bought from Vancouver supermarkets.
The piscine reovirus, which causes heart and skeletal muscle inflammation in salmon, was found in fish bought by advocacy group SalmonAreSacred.org. The stores' seafood departments told the group the fish were B.C.-raised farmed salmon, SalmonAreSacred said in a news release.
Alexandra Morton, the biologist who discovered the infected fish, questioned if that information from store staff was accurate.
The virus is considered a "major challenge" in Norway, infecting more than 400 farms since its first appearance in 1999. Since then, it has also spread to the U.K, and as of last year, Chile.
"If they were imported, that is a huge concern," said Morton.
The origin of the infected fish, which has yet to be confirmed, will dictate whether the Canadian fish industry is at risk or if imports need a more thorough scanning process. The virus has not yet been found in Canadian farmed or wild fish populations, Morton suggested, but she is fearful it will show up.
Based on the diversity in the shape and size of the fish, Morton's impression is that they're coming from different farms.
"I bought these fish from several different stores on several different days and they all are coming up positive with the virus," she said. "They also looked different — long and skinny in some stores and quite large in others."
She said the salmon could have come from a number of places, including Norway, Chile and Eastern Canada, although there is no proof of the virus' existence there.
Morton explained that identifying the source of the salmon, whether imported or not, is "very important," as the disease itself could live in just an egg.
"These are questions that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and Department of Fisheries and Oceans should be answering, and potentially the supermarket."
She said the solution that the industry should be imposing is to identify the source of the disease, temporarily contain it, then kill off the infected fish — all in a transparent process.
The resignation of John Van Dongen from the Liberal caucus to become an instant one-man Conservative caucus has, for me at any rate, put the focus on John Cummins...How does Mr Cummins welcome to his new caucus a man who was so steadfast in his defence of fish farmers he even warned them when the enforcement officers were coming and had to resign in consequence? Is that the Cummins integrity we hear so much about?
Read this article by Charlie Smith in the Georgia Straight on one key difference between BC Conservative Party Leader John Cummins and his new MLA and BC Liberal defector Jon Van Dongen. (March 27, 2012)
B.C. Conservative Leader John Cummins and his party's new MLA, John van Dongen, were very chummy yesterday in front of the media.
And why not? Van Dongen, a former B.C. Liberal cabinet minister, had crossed the floor to the B.C. Conservatives just in time for crucial April 29 by-elections in Chilliwack-Hope and Port Moody–Coquitlam.
As I watched the televised news coverage last night, I was left with a question: how will these two fast friends get along when it comes to fish farming?
In 2003 as a member of the Commons fisheries committee, Cummins wrote a dissenting report attacking the federal role in aquaculture...
...As B.C.'s minister of agriculture, food and fisheries, van Dongen was the cabinet minister who lifted the provincial moratorium on fish farms in 2002.
In a widely distributed opinion editorial, van Dongen contradicted some of the points made by Cummins in his later report.
Listen to Damien Gillis and CHLY's "A Sense of Justice" host Rae Kornberger's recent wide-ranging discussion on the war being waged against fish by both the Canadian and BC Governments. The pair cover everything from Stephen Harper's underhanded plan to gut the fisheries act in order to pave the way for oil pipelines and other major industrial projects that would harm fish habitat, to news on the impacts of salmon farms and private river diversion projects on wild fish. (March 14, 2012 - 46 min)
Even without considering the environmental costs and risks of producing and transporting oil and gas, opening our markets to Asia and elsewhere is an unwise strategy for British Columbians and Canadians. The oil and gas industry should be jubilant at the prospects of pipelines and tankers. But everyone else in this country should be worried. The social and economic costs of a few closed salmon farms in BC would pale beside the damage inflicted by higher energy prices.
30 year-old William Housty's powerhouse presentation to the National Energy Board's Enbridge hearings in his community of Bella Bella. William describes the history, language and culture of his people in fascinating detail - and how the proposed Northern Gateway Pipeline and Tar Sands supertankers transiting the waters of his people's territory would destroy their traditional way of life.
Highlights from this week's National Energy Board hearings in Bella Bella on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline and supertankers on BC's coast. Powerful testimony from three members of the Heiltsuk First Nation, sharing their experiences with the sea.rn
The Heiltsuk First Nation learned late Monday that scheduled National Energy Board hearings on the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline will resume Tuesday in Bella Bella, following their cancellation Monday in the wake of a peaceful demonstration to which the Joint Review Panel overreacted.
Close to 2,000 people turned out on a rainy Monday afternoon in Vancouver last week to speak out against Tar Sands oil tankers on BC's coast. The occasion marked the 23rd anniversary of the disastrous Exxon Valdez Oil Spill. The crowd gathered at the Art Gallery to hear from guest speakers like 350.org's Bill McKibben and members of the Heiltsuk First Nation of Bella Bella, who coorganized the rally, along with ForestEthics and Greenpeace.
Rueben George of the Tsleil-Waututh (Burrard) First Nation and Ben West of the Wilderness Committee discuss Kinder Morgan's quiet plan to twin its existing Trans Mountain Pipeline from the Alberta Tar Sands to Vancouver - which would result in up to 300 supertankers a year plying the waters of the Burrard Inlet and South Coast.
Eleven year-old Ta'Kaiya Blaney of the Sliammon First Nation sings her hit song "Shallow Waters" to some 2,000 people outside the Vancouver Art Gallery. She tells the audience one year ago on this day she was chased from Enbridge's Vancouver office when she tried to present her song to company officials.
World renowned climate activist Bill McKibben of 350.org lent his voice to the "Our Coast, Our Decision" rally in Vancouver Monday. McKibben told the crowd of close to 2,000 outside the Vancouver Art Gallery, "This is one of these great moments in human history and you guys are absolutely at the white, hot centre of it."
Rafe Mair pulls no punches in this, the second of a two-part interview with BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix - grilling the potential future premier of BC on Liquid Natural Gas, fracking, the proposed Enbridge pipeline and salmon farms.
Marven Robinson, a spirit bear guide from the Gitga'at Nation of Hartley Bay, speaks to Damien Gillis in Prince Rupert the day after the big rally he helped organize against Enbridge on Feb. 4, 2012.
In the first of a two-part interview, Rafe Mair grills BC NDP Leader Adrian Dix on private power, Site C Dam and BC's flawed environmental assessment process. What will the NDP do with existing and future private river power projects (a.k.a. IPPs) if they form the next government - and where do they stand on Site C Dam?
The beating of drums echoed throughout the seaside community of Prince Rupert, BC, on February 4 as thousands of First Nations and BC citizens banded together to express their opposition to the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway twin pipelines from the Alberta Tar Sands to nearby Kitimat on BC's central coast.
The various spokespeople for supposed "grassroots" pro-Tar Sands and pipeline organization EthicalOil.org have steadfastly maintained their campaign has no connection to the oil and gas industry or the Harper Government. But as the links between these groups continue to pile up, that contention becomes harder and harder to swallow.
In the wake of the bogus deal Enbridge attempted to foist on the Gitxsan people of Northwest BC last month to help pave the way for its controversial proposed Northern Gateway pipeline, the community has banded together in inspiring fashion - with camcorders and the Web as their weapons of choice.
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.
See how the Gitxsan are banding together in a moment of crisis, following the unauthorized deal with Enbridge signed by rogue treaty negotiator Elmer Derrick.
