Editor’s note: The transcript that Alexandra Morton refers to, in the following open letter, is actually the transcript of my January 27 radio program. While extremely quote heavy, it is highly edited, considerably shorter, and not a word for word transcript of the meeting.

To the Strathcona Regional District Board,

I read the January 25, 2023, transcript of your Members’ Report on the Open Net Pen Transition. Thank you for the care and thought you are putting into this.  The statement that logging, tourism and fish farming are critical to Campbell River’s existence must be a serious concern given all of these are facing challenges.

I heard your interest and willingness to review the science on the impact of salmon farms. I am writing because you referred to the recently released DFO (Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat) report on sea lice as a “definitive report concluding that fish farms were not infecting wild salmon”.

Recently, I received 838 pages, through the Access to information Act,  of internal DFO communications between the people involved in this study.  The lead scientist is Dr. Simon Jones at the Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo.

A March 9, 2022, early draft reports the Cermaq farms in Clayoquot Sound are contributing to sea lice infection of young wild salmon:

“…infection on wild migrating juvenile chum salmon is influenced by sufficiently high copepodid [larval lice] infection pressures derived from farmed Atlantic salmon. “

On May 19, 2022, this draft appears, with the same title and authors. Quatsino, Broughton and Discovery Islands are added and we can see edits made to this document. There is a line through this text:

Influenced by sufficiently high copepodid infection pressures derived from farmed Atlantic salmon.

And new text appears:

“The analysis suggests that the occurrence of L. salmonis [salmon louse] infection on wild migrating juvenile pink or chum salmon could not be explained by infection pressure of farm-source copepodids”.

The March 9 and May 19 versions report opposite conclusions (attached).

Among the 83 pages were the original analyses of the sea lice information. The data for the areas you represent – Quatsino, and Discovery Islands closely links farm lice infection to lice infestations on wild salmon, which is the opposite of what appears in the Sea Lice CSAS you were discussing.

After reviewing this material, members of the scientific community with a long history of sea lice research in this area, have requested the complete industry dataset so they can resolve DFO’s conflicting conclusions through re-analysis.  The First Nation Wild Salmon Alliance, 60-Nations strong, including many Fraser River Nations, is calling for an external review panel to receive the data and provide a re-analysis.

I read your support for DFO science, which makes sense, but whether you provide support to reinstate Discovery Island salmon farms and/or reissue licences elsewhere in BC is a big decision.  How DFO results got reversed between the analysis and the conclusions – is a consequential question with many implications.

Do you think it might be a good idea to ask the Pacific Salmon Foundation for their scientific evaluation of the conflicting results vs conclusions and perhaps run this by a lawyer in case this issue and your support appear in court again?

Your communities are among the most attractive to young families. These new residents bring economic activity across all sectors as many earn a living online, paying for services such as ferries, hospitals, schools, roads through taxes and building, alternative energy installation, entertainment, electricians, plumbers, local vegetables, etc., etc.  We learned through COVID just how vital our small businesses are to our lives here on the North Island.

I note that commercial fishing is no longer listed as one of your economic pillars and I hope you can find a way forward while protecting what North Islanders love best.

I suspect it is difficult to hear me without thinking of all the things that have been said about me :) But I hope you can see that I am bringing you DFO’s own conflicting statements.

Thank you again for your efforts,

Alexandra Morton

Related articles:

• 16 scientists condemn ‘scientific failings’ of ‘flawed’ DFO report – Cortes Currents
• Tussle over sea lice science unfolds as a federal decision on Discovery Islands salmon farms looms – repost from Canada’s National Observer.
• SRD to look at ‘ALL helpful information’ about fish farms – Cortes Currents

Top image credit: Rainforest at dawn in Clayoquot Sound – Photo by Billyshiverstick (Own work) via Wikimedia (CC BY SA, 4.0 License)