Tag Archives: PRV-1

Rivers & Oceans

Geneticist testifies to DFO’s failure to protect wild salmon from PRV

(Click here to access other presentations taken from the Committee.)

In the first of a series of posts gleaned from the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, a top UBC geneticist testifies on DFO’s failure to follow up on the findings of its own scientists and those from the international community, regarding the threat that Piscine Orthoreovirus or PRV  poses to the wild salmon population. The following audio is taken from the testimony that Dr Gideon Mordecai gave on Thursday, May 5, 2022. 

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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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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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Rivers & Oceans

Salmon farms infecting wild Chinook salmon, study suggests

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National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The transmission of a virus tied to kidney and liver damage in endangered Chinook salmon is being fuelled by the exchange of the disease between open-net pen fish farms and wild stocks in B.C., a new study indicates.

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