Tag Archives: Pathogens in salmon

Rivers & Oceans

47 days until a decision must be made: sea lice and pathogens

As we get closer to June 30, when the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has to decide whether to reissue the licenses for 79 British Columbian salmon farms, independent biologist Alexandra Morton points to yet more problems. 

A recent Global and Mail article revealed the existence of a decade old Department of Fisheries (DFO) report about the ‘transmission of the PRV virus from farmed to wild salmon.’

Morton said the fish farm industry has exceeded the three lice per fish threshold every week since the out-migration season began on March first. Two to five active farms have exceeded that limit every week, for the past five weeks. Morton claims that no sooner had the industry brought the lice on one farm under control, than another exceeds the limit. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Twelve fish farm applications: are fish farms really leaving BC’s open waters by 2025?

BC Salmon farming companies applied to put in a new fish farm between the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago and expand their existing facilities at 11 other locations around Vancouver Island. 

Two of the expansions, at Dixon Bay and Plover Point in Clayoquot Sound, have already been granted. 

“We had a promise from federal government whereby they said in mandate letters to the minister of fisheries,  they were going to transition the open net salmon farming industry out of BC by 2025,” explained Stan Proboszcz, Science Advisor of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

Asking the feds to not renew BC fish farm licenses

Twenty businesses and organizations are recommending that the federal government not renew BC fish farm licenses, when they come up for renewal next year. 

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Rivers & Oceans

PRV spreads from salmon farms to wild Chinook, study says

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“Our findings show that salmon farms are, indeed, a source of infection for wild fish. Viruses leave a genetic fingerprint. The genetic fingerprint shows that the same viruses that are on the farms are in the wild fish. All the evidence suggests that the virus is being transmitted from the farm to wild fish. I haven’t seen any evidence that says that’s not happening,” said Dr Gideon Mordecai, a viral ecologist at the University of British Columbia and the lead author of a paper published in Science Advances last month.

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