Open Net Fish Farming in The Strait of Juan de Fuca 2017

[hardee]

Open Net Fish Farming in The Strait of Juan de Fuca

This story was on King5 TV news yesterday evening. It is about Open Net Fish Farming in The Strait of Juan de Fuca

or

http://www.king5.com/tech/science/envir ... /394028523

After the last two summers up in BC waters, talking with many locals, fishermen and others, and there is huge documentation that the open pen farms are doing incredible damage to the wild salmon populations. They produce diseased fish, due to the density of the fish population, and the diseases are passed to migrating salmon who pass the farms and attract the salmon lice that affect and pass disease from the penned salmon to the free salmon. Many of those outward migrating salmon do not survive the disease to return after their salt water cycle of life.

The story ran on King5 and that is the only place I saw it. It sounds like the NOAA guy is accepting that the salmon runs are dwindling to nothing and that is OK, like there is nothing he can do about it but he has the say on whether the fish farms come in or not.

Looking at the way BC government has "dealt" with the situation, where the big aquaculture companies "pay" the government, the officials are all OK with getting $$$ for their not looking while the fish all go away.

What are the local fisherman hearing, seeing or doing regarding this? Curious if I am seeing this in a tilted view.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[hardee]

The top of an article in the Port Angeles PDN news paper.

"PORT ANGELES — A seafood company has slightly altered its proposal to move its Atlantic salmon farm operation out of Port Angeles Harbor and into the Strait of Juan de Fuca.

In addition, all of the 11 permits required for the proposed new pens, located 1.7 miles north-northeast of Green Point, have been completed.

The company is awaiting responses from the local, state and federal agencies, Alan Cook, vice president of aquaculture for Icicle Seafoods Inc. of Seattle, told about 25 people at the Port Angeles Business Association meeting Tuesday.

The rest of the article can be found here:

There are some good comments following this article.

Since I don't fish I don't know all the technical info on these farms but, once they start putting them in it won't be long and the whole place (Juan de Fuca) will be filled with fish pens, like is happening up north of the boarder.

The lack of wild salmon has affected the ocean wild life by diminishing the food supply for seals, sea lions, dolphin and orca.

Harvey
SleepyC:moon

 

[journey on]

Fish farms are expanding. I'm not sure that they can fill the San Juan Straits, bur they're everywhere else. There's fish farms in the Coronado Isles, south of San Diego They're even talking about putting them offshore of San Diego. And that's a lot of fish poop in one place.

We found then all over the west coast of Vancouver island, limiting anchoring. It was said that the farms were run by Norwegians with the work done by Colombians. There was a lot of fish food brought into Tofino and fed to the farms. That was in 2009.

Billy Proctor up in the Broughtens was having some luck in fighting the farms in Canada. I don't know where that went. Especially against the financial and political clout of the fish farmers.

If NOAA has the say so, one would expect a public hearing. Has that happened?

Boris

 

[hardee]

"Casey Jones
When and where is the public comment period? Why would the fish pens be allowed to disrupt area sport and commercal fisheries? The proposed area is prime halibut fishing, prime spot prawn fishing, prime commercial salmon fishing.
Perhaps a better solution would be to require ALL fish farms to be closed contained systems on land and require ALL water to be filtered and cleaned before being re-entered into the eco system"

Since I'm not really in the "fishermans" loop, I have not been following or looking for public comment notification. (Will be doing that now.)

In my wanderings last summer, I spent a day at Billy Proctor's, much of it discussing the fish farming affect. I was at Alert Bay on Cormorant Island when there was a big First Nations Elders meeting with attendees from all over Vancouver Island, and Southern BC (Fraser) tribes, met with Alexandra Morton when she came in on the Sea Shepherd sponsored SV Martin Sheen for the purpose of exposing the salmon farming industry for the damage it is doing to the ecology there. They had been traveling up the coast from Vancouver, documenting the fish farms, diving under them and sampling the "Poo", flying over them and filming the pens and showing the sick salmon in them.

See the Tyee News story here
OR
https://thetyee.ca/News/2016/08/02/Patr ... ra-Morton/

Here is an article about the diseases and the transfer processes.
OR
https://thetyee.ca/News/2014/06/11/Mort ... Transfers/


To me it seems that the fishing industry is going the same way that the cattle and poultry growers have gone. From grass fed, or free range to feed lot and mass produced meat. And in many of those places the food provided to get the growth on the product species is designed for fast growth and not good health of the species and so that diet is supplemented with antibiotics, fibers or chemicals. In the case of the farmed salmon, the food they are giving them is artificially colored to produce the pink meat equal to the wild salmon.

Boris, I think you are right about "the farms were run by Norwegians with the work done by Colombians", or in the BC cases worked by the natives, at least around Port Hardy. The farms were owned by Mitsubishi, managed by Norwegians, and I never found one farm that was interested in showing me what they were doing or having me in the area.

I just wanted to raise the awareness of what is in the works here in Port Angles area for those who might not be aware. If anyone knows of the public hearings and can add any info along that line I would love the hear that, and go and hear what is said.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[nimrod]

As a retired fisheries biologist, I would claim that the degradation of river & estuary habitat has a far greater impact on wild salmon production than fish farms. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a migration route. Rivers and estuaries are breeding and rearing areas.

There are many good reasons to dislike fish farms, but I don't think impacts to wild salmon production is one of them.

 

[hardee]

As a retired fisheries biologist, I would claim that the degradation of river & estuary habitat has a far greater impact on wild salmon production than fish farms. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a migration route. Rivers and estuaries are breeding and rearing areas.

There are many good reasons to dislike fish farms, but I don't think impacts to wild salmon production is one of them.

Nimrod, I agree fully that the degradation of the breeding habitat and nursery estuary environment is a huge factor. But I would respectfully disagree about the impact of fishfarms on the wild salmon survivability.

One of the places I visited last summer was "Salmon Coast Research Field Station in the Broughton Archipelago, close to Echo Bay. It was a fascinating tour, educational and different. There were scientists there from all over the country and world. The link to their website is here:

http://www.salmoncoast.org/

and they have tons of evidence based research documented. Please, take a look and let me know if you think they are onto something or way off the chart.

I have a nephew who was a fish biology ecologist and who finally left the field because he said big money was going to do what they wanted anyway and the fish won't survive the politics.

Hopefully the wild salmon will survive, but at the rate of decline that is happening now, why would we want to do anything that might impede any rebuilding of the resource.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[hardee]

Here is a link to a CBS 60 Minutes pieceon open net fish farming. It is by Dr Sanjay Gubta. It is about 18 minutes and the last interview is the most telling.

You will have to scroll down to where the "60 Minutes" screen is showing to start the segment.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[rogerbum]

As a retired fisheries biologist, I would claim that the degradation of river & estuary habitat has a far greater impact on wild salmon production than fish farms. The Strait of Juan de Fuca is a migration route. Rivers and estuaries are breeding and rearing areas.

There are many good reasons to dislike fish farms, but I don't think impacts to wild salmon production is one of them.

The biggest concern I have is the potential for pathogen evolution in these closed, relatively tightly packed environments. In nature, a fish pathogen is disadvantaged if it becomes too pathogenic as host-to-host transfer is more difficult. Hence the pathogen (virus or bacteria) won't survive if it kills it's host too quickly. In a net pen, the same pressures don't exist.

Net pens in open water are less of a concern for me than net pens near terminal fisheries. When farms are near rivers, the out migrating fry must pass near the farm. In BC, they do have data that shows that by changing the timing of when they administer the anti-lice treatment in the farms, they impact the number of sea lice on out migrating, wild salmonid fry that pass by.

 

[starcrafttom]

The problems with pen raised fish are mostly due to a lack of water flow. having then in bays and protected waters causes the pollution problems associated with net pens.

Moving these net pens in to the straits will end most if not all of those problems. Its what anti penner (?) have been calling for. You still have the problem of what to feed them? Feeding fish fish is not the best thing because of the way they catch the fish that are fed to the fish. got that.

As to fish recovery, unless we A) stop netting rivers regardless of our skin color. B) stop gill netting and C) kill about half the seals in the sound and all of them on the big C then recovery is not possible. Which was the plan all along.

.

 

[thataway]

I think some are missing the elephant in the room. Overfishing--often way at sea, but oriental ships--where there are mother ships and processing ships right there. They have been known to violate our territorial waters. These take huge amounts of the mature fish.

The reduction of fish in then PNW is only one part of the world where fish population have declined.

We have the same problem in the Gulf of Mexico--native fisheries have diminished. There are many factors, including the kill of juvenile by the shrimpers, invasive species (like the Lion Fish). Pensacola was once sustained by the snapper and grouper fisheries. Now there is repressive regulation (maybe?) by NOAA--but it may be necessary.

When I was growing up in S. Calif there was a huge fisheries industry. Gone.

We don't eat farmed fish--but fortunately live in an area where fresh seafood remains available at local markets and from local fishermen.

The Salmon fisheries is a very complex issue--We visited several fish farms in bC when we were cruising in the 90's. I was impressed with the health and precautions taken at that time. They were more than happy to show us all around the fisheries. (I don't remember the ethnic composition of the workers). Even gave us some fish food to use in our crab and shrimp pots. We asked why they didn't keep surplus food until the next season--and the general answer was that it deteriorated during that time, and would not be good. (some regulation?)

We saw the animosity between the loggers and fishermen--actual physical conflicts.

 

[localboy]

I know nothing about this except farm raised, Atlantic salmon is nasty tasting compared to wild. I defer to JD's (Nimrod's) expertise.

 

[journey on]

Well, I watched 60 min (in about 15 min) and it seems that fish farming and climate change are being treated the same way. The people in power, both Canada and the United States are treating it as a political problem. Those with the most votes/money/influence are casting doubt on both problems, which then means nothing is done. Facts are ignored.

We can spend millions researching the problem and the leaders will say the there's still doubt. When there isn't scientifically.

Kudos to Alaska for recognizing the problem.

Boris

 

[Kushtaka]

In AK we make a ton of extra salmon with additive hatcheries. These have some issues, but nowhere near the issues net pens and farming brings. Hatcheries aren't great for restoring lost runs, but can sure grow some extra fish at a pretty low cost both economically and ecologically.

As for overfishing, Bloomberg has a fairly radical idea that is gaining some traction where the world would ban all high seas fishing. This in turn would return abundance to the oceans, and allow us to take more fish closer to shore where it costs less to do so, bringing in more meat at a lower cost.

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... o-the-fish

It is an interesting idea that I think oversimplifies a lot of the issues, but something along the scale of this idea is needed to maintain anything like what we have now for my daughter's kids. I'd love to think that we could make commercial fishing a safer, cheaper endeavor without bringing home less food.

 

[hardee]

Boris, I think you hit the nail on the head. $$$$ gets it's way.

The kayakers (and others) won in the demonstration in Puget Sound, against Shell drill rigs staging here to go to the north shore oil fields. Maybe it could happen again against the open pen fish farming. If the Norwegians and Japanese want to farm fish, maybe they should take it home to their waters.

Or maybe the fish farming should be moved onto land, like the farm across from Alert Bay, where they created new jobs and saved a rivers salmon run.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[Larry H]

If the Norwegians and Japanese want to farm fish, maybe they should take it home to their waters.

Or maybe the fish farming should be moved onto land, like the farm across from Alert Bay, where they created new jobs and saved a rivers salmon run.

The Norwegians have already poisoned the native salmon in Norway, and the farms there had so much disease they had to shut down. Then they moved to Chile. Same story, damage the native fish and have to shut down due to disease in the farm fish. Now they are in Canada (both coasts), which most likely will repeat the story of Norway and Chile. So their next new place will be the USA, now starting in Port Angeles and soon to move out to the migration route in Juan de Fuca.

In BC the farms are located along all the migration routes taken by native fish. This puts sea lice(a parasite) onto the smolts(baby salmon) as they migrate to the open ocean. An adult salmon can survive many lice, but as few as 4-5 lice can kill a smolt.

Native salmon are competition to the fish farms. They don't like competition. Fish farms really don't give a rats a** about the native salmon, and want them and their fishermen to go away.

Farming salmon on land in tanks is the only way to control the problems, and protect the native fish.

 

[thataway]

A couple of questions about the on land salmon farms. Does not the sea water return to the nearby body of water? If so, is there not contamination of this water?

In my mind the farm raised salmon do not have the same texture as the "wild" salmon--probably due to the more use of muscle tissue in the wild salmon. Any comment on that issue? (It has been noted in other species).

There seem to be more healthy levels of Omega 3 in the Wild salmon.

Thanks.

 

[hardee]

From what I know of only one on land farm, the waste is collected, filtered from the water and composted. I believe the water was recycled, but don't know the particulars.

I suspect that the Omega3 might be less because the feed for the farmed salmon is geared more towards protein than fat, with added color components.

Harvey
SleepyC :moon

 

[thataway]

Harvey,
The Protein is about the same in the Wild vs farmed, but the fat is higher in the farmed (according to one source at least). (and gives the farmed more calories)

Of course the color is given by the Krill which the wild eat, so the farm raised have to be fed a dye.

 

[Larry H]

Here is a link to Alexandra Morton's blog.

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

Alexandra has written extensively about her attempts to stop fish farms in Canada. When she was younger, she studied the Orca whales in the Broughton Islands area. Then the fish farms moved in and drove the whales away with loud underwater noise designed to scare seals away from the pens. Alexandra then started studying the fish farms.

Here is a link to a post about farmed fish's influence on human health, from her blog.

http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/guide_to_safe_salmon/

A friend of mine was born in and has lived in the Broughtons his whole life. He says that the wild salmon began to decline when the fish farms moved in. The wild salmon populations have declined steadily ever since the 1990's. Greed for profit is destroying a food resource that has fed humans, bears, eagles, crabs, prawns, seals, and trees for over 10,000 years.

 

[Riverjohn]

Very bad idea with clear consequences.

Sea lice infest pen salmon with virus's.

Sea Lice die in fresh water, however they thrive is a pen with multiple targets swimming around.

Natures plan is the correct blueprint.