Author: Alexandra Morton

Government Scientists reverse findings when ordered to release data. Scientific Fraud? Homiskanis (Don Svanvik), Alexandra Morton Summary In 2023, the Canadian Scientific Advisory Secretariat (CSAS), Canada’s highest science authority, reported that salmon farms do not elevate sea lice infections on wild salmon.  This finding opposite to research published over several decades by Canada’s leading universities…

 What are the 2024 salmon returns telling us? Homiskanis (Don Svanvik), Alexandra MortonJanuary January 2025 Figure 1. Unexpected, large returns of chum, and other salmon, occurred throughout east Vancouver Island, the adjacent mainland inlets and Puget Sound in 2024, this marine corridor is where most salmon farms have been recently closed. DFO forecasted poor chum…

Dear Premier David Eby, I am writing to inform you that your Minister of Environment and Climate Change, George Heyman and his ministry are under investigation for refusing to screen farm salmon blood for the virus PRV before it is being released by the Brown’s Bay Processing Company into the Fraser River salmon migration route…

Dear Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, I am writing to you as you are BC’s senior federal cabinet member.  In a matter of weeks your government will receive a DFO memo on what to do about salmon farms.  Prime Minister Trudeau said they needed to get out of BC waters by 2025, clearly the industry doesn’t want…

February 5, 2024 Dear Minister Diane Lebouthillier, J'espère que votre année commence bien et en bonne santé. Nous vivons certainement une période tumultueuse et j’apprécie les personnes comme vous qui ont le courage de s’engager dans un leadership en ce moment de l’histoire de l’humanité. As I understand it, all federal salmon farm licences in…

Dear Minister Diane Lebouthillier, Thank you for your willingness to travel to BC and meet with myself and many others.  Not an easy trip in winter.  I greatly regret not being able to take you up on your offer to meet, it seems my grandchildren passed me a cold. My exposure to salmon farms began…

Open Letter to Prime Minister Trudeau and Fisheries Ministers past and present: August 14, 2023 Dear Prime Minister Trudeau, Joyce Murray, Bernadette Jordan and Minister of Fisheries Diane Lebouthillier, I am writing to thank you for your roles in what is rapidly becoming one of the most remarkable environmental successes we have seen in this…

A short video with the crew I work with to monitor the health of young wild salmon in the Discovery Islands since 2005    

Dear Dr. Simon Jones, I write to you again regarding scientific conclusions that you provided on impact of the salmon farming industry that do not appear to be supported by your own research.  While you continue to refuse to answer my letters, they provide a public record of DFO Aquaculture’s suppression of scientific evidence of the…

May 5, 2023 Dear Minister Joyce Murray; Every measure that protects life in the ocean is so critical. I have copied you and your staff on my emails to DFO regulators and scientists, but with all you must deal with I am not sure the overarching pattern is clear.  The evidence of out-of-control regulatory capture…

To: The Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister Natural Resources   Dr Paul Snelgrove Departmental Science Advisor for BC Estelle Couture, National Manager Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) Alain Magnan, BC Coordinator Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat (CSAS) I am writing to you to request your assistance in upholding scientific integrity in the government of Canada.  Prime Minister Trudeau has expressed that he wants…

Dear Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray, Before bringing forward another episode of concern regarding the integrity of your aquaculture staff here’s a recap: Your senior virologist Dr. Kyle Garver continues to state the virus PRV from Norway does not cause disease, even though he has test results from Norway reporting the opposite. When Garver found “live” PRV…

Dr. Simon Jones: Jan 24, 2023, the BC Salmon Farmers Association released the Canadian Science Advisory Secretariat Science Response (CSAS) titled Sea lice on Atlantic Salmon farms and wild Pacific Salmon in British Columbia. This report communicated that sea lice on salmon farms are an insignificant risk to young wild salmon The advisory’s conclusion states: “No statistically…

Hello Dr. Kyle Garver, Over the past 6 years you have become the lead DFO Science virologist propping up the assertion that the foreign virus PRV is not causing any disease in salmon in BC.  As I uncover the record, your statements appear at every turn to discredit reports by other scientists that PRV is…

Below is how the salmon farming industry failed to control their sea lice, breached their licences, applied for toxic drugs. No charges were laid. DFO awarded a farm that breached it licence permission to put even farm fish in their pens in Clayoquot Sound.  Is this collusion?  Maybe.  But it is certainly the road to…

The Minister of Fisheries Joyce Murray is currently travelling across Vancouver Island meeting with First Nations and others about the transition of salmon farms.   I have a lot of respect for her doing this, something I have never seen any other minster do. However, the person running these meetings with the Minister is Brenda McCorquodale…

When wild salmon go missing it is difficult to pinpoint the cause.  Fishing and climate change are the go to culprits. I believe that when salmon go missing it's a good idea to screen the population for pathogens – easy to do and it narrows the search for the cause. However, salmon disease became a…

 Download Briefing Here  

May 31, 2022   Dear Kerra Shaw, Brenda McCorquodale and Minister Joyce Murray,   Below is a series of events clearly demonstrating the current state of salmon farm management in British Columbia.    On March 3, 2022 Aquaculture Management Division veterinarian Dr. Laura Sitter wrote the an email to Kerra Shaw reporting the Cermaq farm Bawden…

On January 24, 2022 fish farm company Mowi sent a letter to the DFO Aquaculture Management Division explaining that the company could not meet new regulations. A few weeks later DFO was circulating draft regulations internally that had weakened the regulations by removing the requirement to keep sea lice on farm salmon below three motile…

March 11, 2022 Dear Minister Joyce Murray. On March 3, 2022, I met with members of your Aquaculture Management Division (AMD). They said they are recommending 6-year licences be issued to the salmon farming industry when all the BC licences expire this summer.  That’s three years past the mandate issued by the Prime Minister to…

February 2, 2022 Dear Minister Joyce Murray, Hopefully your staff are briefing you on the developing sea lice situation in BC salmon farms.  I would like to add my observations. From December 1 – January 22 Mowi treated its farms in Quatsino Sound with freshwater baths.  A few weeks later two of those farms are…

Today, Nov 25, 2021, the BC Salmon Farmers Association put out a report that attempts to discredit me and my research.  Their point – I am wrong – closing salmon farms in the Discovery Islands made no difference to the health of young wild salmon swimming past Campbell River last spring.     The BC…

Sea lice Discovery Islands 2021 April 6-25, 2021 The impact of the December 2020 Minister’s decision to honour First Nation requests to prohibit salmon farm restocking is having a significant positive impact. Sea lice infection of wild salmon in the Discovery Islands is very low compared to years where more salmon farms were active, particularly…

Of all the things I describe about salmon farming in my new book Not on My Watch, the disease outbreaks, sea lice infestations, subversion of science, rubber-kneed politicians, catastrophic damage to wild salmon, the First Nation uprising… the one thing the industry has managed to respond to is my description of being followed by a…

Below is the summary of all lice numbers reported on Atlantic salmon farms throughout BC (Figure 1). The data comes from the Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg websites.  Only salmon farms that are certified, or where certification is pending are reported weekly.  This leaves quite a few farms that are reported only monthly.  Some certified farms…

The data below comes from the websites of Mowi, Cermaq and Grieg.  This is self – reporting.  We know this reporting can be 50% lower than is actually occurring in the farms but it is informative[1]. The dotted line is the threshold put in place by the Province of BC in 2003 to protect wild…

Dear Senior DFO staff,I have read 12 years of your internal conversations about how you and your predecessors have suppressed the growing evidence that salmon farming is causing serious harm to wild salmon.  Your emails are available through the Access to Information Act.  I have come to the following conclusions:·      You were given an impossible mandate,·      You have…

  Download Morton report- What is happening to Fraser sockeye Aug 16 (00372318) copy    

  The document below was sent to DFO's new Senior Aquaculture Management Coordinator. This is the story of what happened when the Minister of Fisheries told DFO to make fish farm sea lice regulations stronger and they got weaker. Below are DFO's own words taken from 2,500 pages of internal documents. I acknowledge the effort…

    January 4, 2021 Dear Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan: Thank you again for your decision to respect First Nations and remove salmon farms from the Discovery Islands over the next 18 months.  I can see from local and international media and social media that this decision is both widely applauded and fiercely attacked.  As…

The operation of eighteen salmon farm sites in the Discovery Islands region is under review through DFO consultation with 7 Nations that have overlapping territories in the Discovery Islands; Kwiakah, We Wai Kai, We Wai Kum (Laich-kwil-tach Nations) and Komox, Homalco, Klahoose, and Tla’amin.  All the federal licences of these farms which are owned by…

The salmon farm licences in the Discovery Islands are going expire on December 18.  DFO is consulting with seven First Nations; 4 Coast Salish and 3 Laich-kwil-tach prior to renewal.  The salmon farming industry is losing control of their sea lice.  DFO is trying to cover for them, but it is starting to get obvious. …

    Below is a letter I sent to some Members of Parliament on Sept 18th. It details the latest DFO impropriety in the regulation of salmon farms.  A DFO scientist failed to bring critical information to a committee struck to advise the minister of fisheries.  The fish virus PRV is not a local virus,…

      March 11, 2020 Dear Carmel Lowe; I am writing to resign from the Fish Health Committee which you are co-facilitating – effective immediately. I am resigning to ensure that my name does not endorse two of the outcomes of this committee; the revisions to the salmon farm Sea Lice Conditions of Licence,…

Today DFO is holding its’ 4th closed-door review on whether the virus PRV is causing disease in BC. They have barred access to several members of the DFO Fish Health Committee, who organized this workshop. At issue is deep disagreement within DFO – is PRV killing wild salmon or not? Some DFO scientists report PRV…