The Cohen Commission’s rules of confidentiality prevent me from talking about certain documents, but I am forwarding recent media that is in the public domain and not subject to confidentiality. This needs your response. I don’t know what ISA virus is doing in BC. Was it always here? Is the avirulent strain here? Did the Norwegian companies import it? Why are farm salmon dying of the lesions of ISA virus? Are salmon farms amplifying it, allowing it to mutate and infecting wild salmon?
What I do know is government has not said anything that reassures me that they are taking the steps to answer these questions. ISA virus was not lethal to salmon in Norway until salmon feedlots gave it the conditions that caused it to become deadly. Increased virulence occurs wherever genetically similar animals are crowded into the feedlots. The unique thing about salmon feedlots is that they pour all their untreated waste, including mutating viruses, directly into most of the wild salmon of the south coast of BC because that is where government let them put their farms.
If the leaked document really says 100% of one run of Fraser sockeye tested positive for ISA virus, we have two very big problems. One, Justice Cohen instructed DFO to provide all documents relevant to the health of the Fraser sockeye and this was not one of them. Two it means we are repeatedly finding this virus in wild salmon stocks that are mysteriously vanishing, such as Rivers Inlet sockeye and salmon dying of unknown causes just before spawning.
If it is true that Fisheries and Oceans withheld information about a virus known to have spread everywhere Atlantic salmon are being farmed I think:
1 – DFO should be suspended from managing salmon farms
2 – a volunteer board of scientists, First Nations and others with deep commitment to maintaining wild salmon should step forward to oversee the ISA virus response
3 – Every hatchery should contact me about how they can test for ISA virus, because I know all those volunteers do not want to amplify this virus. I know you have been told not to give me samples, but I can help you do this yourself. Why wouldn’t you want to know? Checking for disease in dead wild salmon is not a federal offense.
Whether or not a criminal investigation should be initiated will have to wait until we hear testimony at the Cohen Commission’s special hearings on ISA virus on December 15, 16, 19.
I want to thank ALL of you for your comments and donations and to the dedicated volunteers out in freezing weather who continue to take the highest quality possible samples from the salmon that have died after and during spawning in rivers throughout BC. We are working with two of the best ISA virus labs in the world and my deepest thanks to them as well as they are suffering verbal attack. Those researchers will be appearing at the Cohen Commission special ISA virus emergency hearings. They are traveling very long distances and I am deeply thankful.
Before you look at the ISA virus articles you should also know the industry is failing on the world market and firing people because they cannot afford to raise as many Atlantic salmon. We need to ask if they are a viable industry worth the risk?
Canada kept detection of salmon virus secret
Did Canada cover up deadly salmon virus? Report suggests yes
Unpublished DFO report finds 100% of Cultus Lake sockeye found with deadly salmon virus
Comments
2 responses to “Media on ISA virus cover up”
How totally arrogant this DFO! First they deside without any consultation from our First Nations peoples or any other stake-holders involved with the wild salmon to destroy these stocks in favor of the salmon aquaculture business. This industry is being kept alive by the use of ever increasing toxic chemical, uncompensated environmental destruction and government handouts!
Now they perceive themselves as being above the law! They intentionally withheld evidence from Justice Cohen regarding the health of the Fraser River wild salmon!
P.S. Transport Canada has started the EIA for Clayoquot Sound. Consider it a done deal they are just the rubber stamp for DFO. Just ask the people of St Mary’s Bay in Nove Scotia.
Someone has to go to jail before this will stop and the public resources will again be protected.
“The need for verification trumps trust”.
From: No virus in salmon: Canada’s claim needs U.S. verification : , SEATTLEPI.COM STAFF: Saturday, December 3, 2011
This was an article in the Seattle PI newspaper. Why the concern?
The DFO, Canadian politicians and the BC aquaculture industry can and do assert that they are right and everyone else is wrong. All three groups seem to share the same regulatory risk perspective.
One small problem.
The US regulators and politicians do not share the same perspective or are deferential to Canadian media releases.
Since the US and Canada share a Pacific ecosystem, and each have multibillion dollar salmon fishing industries, there is a political reality that both countries have to have some confidence in the respective regulatory risk assessment of economic or biological threats to the salmon industry.
The above Seattle article seems to suggest that our American friends are sceptical about the DFO regulatory culture (so are many Canadians). The above article also suggests that US fisheries regulators do not see fish disease assessment from the same perspective as the DFO.
Recent Canadian experience with the Keystone XL pipeline suggests that US interest groups are not deferential to Canadian assurances, bland or otherwise. Unless the Cohen Commission testimony comes up with some practicable solutions to bridge the risk perception divide within Canada and between Canada and the US (such as joint scientific committees), we will all be left with a sense of lost opportunity.
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