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.

Read more: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/story/2012/05/17/bc-salmon-farm-quarantined-lethal-virus.html

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.

Greenpeace co-founder Rex Weyler summarizes the enormous costs of an oil spill in Vancouver - including cleanup, tourism, fishing and other economic losses, health impacts and other incalculable costs..."The City of Vancouver passed a motion this month demanding that Kinder Morgan pipeline company carry full liability to cover the costs of an oil spill in our Vancouver Harbour. The request is just common sense but demonstrated very uncommon courage in the public political realm. So, how much liability would Kinder Morgan – the now notorious ex-Enron billionaires from Texas, who bought BC Gas and flipped it for the pipelines – need to carry to indemnify our city from the ravages of an oil spill? Well, for starters, some $40 billion, as I will explain here."

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 story and listen to audio clip from CBC.ca on former Conservative Fisheries Minister Tom Siddon's outspoken opposition to Stephen Harper's proposed gutting of the habitat protections of the Fisheries Act in his omnibus Budget Bill. (May 1, 2012)

The former Tory minister responsible for the current Fisheries Act is openly criticizing his successor over proposed changes to the legislation.

Tom Siddon, who was minister of Fisheries and Oceans from 1985 until 1990 for Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservatives, says he is extremely concerned by the amendments being championed by Keith Ashfield, the current minister.

“The minister of fisheries is the one remaining and most powerful person in Canada to protect this marvelous, historically important resource we have in Canada – our fishery. That’s his job,” he said Tuesday during an interview for CBC Radio's The Current.

Omnibus Bill C-38, which is before Parliament this week, covers an array of legislation, including changes to the Environmental Assessment Act, the National Pipeline Act and the Canada Oil and Gas Exploration Act. Although the changes to the Fisheries Act are not the only flashpoints, they have hit a nerve with critics.

Read story and listen to audio clip: http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story/2012/05/01/tom-siddon-fisheries-act-criticism.html

A large part of the beauty and international appeal of British Columbia’s West Coast can be found in the natural environment of Howe Sound. Over the past 20 years, Howe Sound has been the subject of millions of dollars in reclamation projects to restore its health, paid for by industry and you the taxpayer. Regrettably an Alberta based company has proposed a large scale gravel mining and crushing facility at McNab creek that will set back these rehabilitation efforts, especially for local salmon populations. This proposal comes at a time when the recovering health of the Sound has led to sightings of Pacific white-sided dolphins and grey and killer whales for the first time in decades. We should not allow this progress to be placed at risk.

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 story: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/one-womans-struggle-to-save-bcs-wild-salmon/article2409621/  

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.

World Rivers Day founder and Chair Emeritus of BCIT's Rivers Institute Mark Angelo and prominent fish biologist and BCIT professor Dr. Marvin Rosenau have launched a dynamic new initiative to conserve the enormous ecological values of a critical stretch of the Fraser River just East of Vancouver. Known as the Gravel Reach or, "Heart of the Fraser" for its prime spawning habitat - home to dozens of species of salmon, trout, sturgeon and other lesser known but ecologically significant fish - the region between Mission and Hope is threatened by a laundry list of industrial impacts.