A majority of B.C.’s fish processing facilities are out of compliance with their permits and some are discharging effluent “acutely lethal to fish,” according to a provincial audit report released Wednesday.

“This audit clearly tells us more work needs to be done to ensure our coastal waterways are safe for all wild fish stocks,” B.C. environment minister George Heyman said in a statement.

“The industry has been largely operating under an outdated permitting regime, going back several decades.”

The environment ministry conducted the audit after an underwater video filmed by photographer Tavish Campbell showed a stream of bloody effluent pouring into the water from farmed salmon processed by the Browns Bay Packing Company near Campbell River.

The bloody wastewater was tested and found to contain piscine reovirus (PRV). The virus has been linked to a potentially deadly disease known as HSMI that causes heart lesions and organ hemorrhaging in fish, heightening concerns about the impact of open-net pen salmon farms on the health of diminishing wild salmon populations.

Waste from fish processing plants includes “offal and other solids created during eviscerating, skinning and, filleting and also the process water that is used in fluming, butchering and cleaning,” according to the audit report.

The audit found that 72 per cent of the processing facilities examined were out of compliance with their permits, also noting that most of those permits lack the “foundational requirements” for environmental protection.

“Permits that are decades old aren’t satisfactory to protect the environment,” Heyman told The Narwhal.

“We need to review our permits more frequently.”

The ministry will begin that process by focusing on the highest volume fish processing plants, Heyman said.

Farmed salmon represent almost 70 per cent of all seafood processed at B.C.’s facilities, which also process wild salmon, other wild finfish, farmed trout, and other seafood. The audit examined 18 facilities, five of them exclusively dedicated to processing farmed salmon.

While the majority of the infractions were administrative, such as failing to post signage, more serious violations included poor effluent discharge quality and exceeding permitted discharge volumes.

Sixty per cent of the facilities whose effluent was examined as part of the audit were out of compliance with discharge volumes, including the Browns Bay Packing Company, and 50 per cent were out of compliance with discharge quality standards.

“The results of the fish toxicity tests show that four out of six effluent samples taken are acutely lethal to fish in the lab environment, meaning that the toxicity tests resulted in 50 per cent or more fish mortality,” the audit report stated.

No assessment for the presence of PRV was conducted.

Campbell commended the environment ministry for commissioning the report, calling it a “good first step.”

“I found it very distressing to dive in Brown’s Bay and see this blood coming out and have an idea that it was infected with this virus that was harming wild salmon. It feels good that there’s been a response,” he told The Narwhal.

“But it’s certainly not the end to my work to try to bring about more awareness of these viruses.”

Campbell said he’s surprised and dismayed that the audit used outdated information on PRV, drawing on a March report by the B.C. Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences instead of a paper published in May by scientists from DFO and the Pacific Salmon Foundation that highlighted a link between PRV and disease in Chinook salmon.  

“They’re not taking into account the latest science that says that PRV is a risk to wild salmon.”

“We’re calling on the government to recognize that these viruses, and especially PRV, do pose more than a minimal risk of harm to wild salmon,” he said.

The audit pointed out that the only test method currently available for PRV involves detecting genetic material present in effluent, and that B.C. lacks adequate lab capacity to monitor and report on viruses.

Heyman said the ministry is aware of the most recent study on PRV and “that’s exactly why we want to work with the federal government to reduce the impacts of PRV on fish stocks to the greatest extent possible.”  

Green Party MLA and environment spokesperson Sonia Furstenau said the audit findings illustrate why the government should adopt recent recommendations to reform B.C.’s professional reliance model, which puts industry in charge of its own environmental monitoring.

“Many British Columbians were horrified, like I was, to see Tavish Campbell’s videos of blood water effluent that prompted this audit,” Furstenau said in a statement.

“It is no wonder people don’t trust the process when we must rely on private citizens and the media to bring such serious issues to light.”

The audit comes on the heels of an announcement by the B.C. government that starting in 2022 it will only grant tenures to salmon farm operators who have reached agreements with First Nations.

Heyman said the government is taking immediate steps to ensure permits are updated and strengthened at fish processing facilities.

Among the environment ministry’s new recommendations are to modernize existing permits to include “additional environmental protection provisions, such as more rigorous discharge requirements and increased monitoring,” and to require fish processing facilities to review and update their standard operational procedures “to reduce the volume and maximize the safety of effluent discharged into the environment.”

Furstenau said adopting both the professional reliance recommendations and the environment ministry’s recommendations “will go a long way to restoring the public’s trust that government is looking out for their health and safety, as well as the long-term sustainability of our natural resource sector.”

Campbell, a campaign spokesperson for the environmental group Wild First, said the farmed salmon industry must be transitioned out of the water and onto the land.

“That really is the only solution to stopping the spread of these viruses — to grow these salmon in closed containment systems on land.”

“When we’re talking about the blood water I think it’s really important to acknowledge the fact that even if the processing plants improve the treatment of their effluent these farmed fish that are infected with PRV are still being raised in open net pens, just miles down the channel from these processing plants.”

Adam Olsen, Green Party MLA and agriculture spokesperson, pointed to the release of infected blood from farmed fish as another reason why the NDP government should keep its promise to transition away from open-net pen finfish aquaculture.

“Wild salmon are culturally, economically and environmentally essential to our province, yet we are allowing them to be hit at every stage of their development,” said Olsen. “Now we learn they have also been exposed to ‘acutely lethal’ levels of effluent.”

Of 91 different groupings of B.C. wild salmon, only 28 are expected to have sufficient numbers for a healthy population in 2018, according to DFO.

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New research has found the highly-contagious piscine reovirus — found in most farmed Atlantic salmon in B.C. — is linked to a disease in wild chinook salmon that ruptures red blood vessels and causes organ failure.

The smoking-gun research, led by Canadian scientists at the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative, established the long-suspected link and found infection from farmed salmon could seriously threaten B.C.’s shrinking wild salmon populations.

“It’s the same strain of virus,” Kristi Miller, a scientist for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and one of the authors of the paper, told The Narwhal.

But while B.C. continues to allow salmon farms to restock with fish that could be infected with piscine reovirus, or PRV, Washington State has prohibited Cooke Aquaculture from transferring 800,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon from a hatchery to ocean net pens because of disease risks.

The Washington fish were found to be carrying an Icelandic strain of the virus and presented an “unacceptable risk of introducing an exotic strain of PRV into Washington marine waters,” said Ken Warheit, a fish health manager with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“This would represent an unknown and, therefore, unacceptable risk of disease transmission,” he said.

Washington has passed legislation to phase out open net fish farming by 2022 following the escape of about 240,000 Atlantic salmon from collapsed Cooke Aquaculture pens. Escaped fish caught by fishermen in Juan de Fuca Strait tested positive for the virus according to the Wild Fish Conservancy, a science and wild-fish advocacy organization.

Tests have found that the strain of the virus found in B.C. originates in Norway, meaning it is equally as exotic as the strain found in the Washington fish, independent biologist and wild fish advocate Alexandra Morton told The Narwhal. Morton questions how much more scientific evidence is needed before Fisheries and Oceans Canada moves the open net pens out of the ocean.

“Washington State is leading the way again with decisive action against the risk of PRV-infected farm salmon to wild salmon,” Morton said, emphasizing that Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc is ignoring his mandate letter, which says he must use science to preserve wild salmon.

“His blind obedience to the needs of this dying industry has become an international embarrassment to Canadians and one of the biggest threats to wild salmon on this coast,” she said.

Morton won a 2015 lawsuit in Federal Court when Justice Donald Rennie said the minister must obey Fisheries General Regulations and ordered the ministry to begin testing hatchery fish to ensure they were not transferred to ocean pens if they had piscine reovirus.

But Marine Harvest, the largest fish farm operator in B.C, argued testing would severely impact the company. So far, mandatory disease testing has not taken place.

“I took the minister to court and I won and he refuses to acknowledge this decision so I am being forced to go through the process of taking him to court again,” Morton told The Narwhal.

“It’s an outright violation of the law. This is exactly how the North Atlantic cod went down. The government ignored their own scientists,” she said.

Morton’s second lawsuit and a lawsuit filed by the ‘Namgis First Nation, aiming to stop infected farm salmon from entering their territory, will be heard in September.

The fish farming industry in B.C. has recently been under siege, with increasing calls for the farms to be moved into closed-containment pens.

The Pacific Salmon Foundation, a partner in the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative, called for a move to closed containment following publication of the new scientific paper.

“The results of this study are significant because they show — for the first time — strong evidence that the same strain of PRV that causes heart and skeletal muscle inflammation disease in Atlantic salmon is likely to cause disease in at least one species of Pacific salmon,” said Brian Riddell, president of the Pacific Salmon Foundation.

“These findings add to the existing concerns about the potential impacts of open net salmon farming on wild Pacific salmon off the coast of B.C.”

ICYMI: Ancient Glass Sponge Reef Smothered By Salmon Farm Waste in B.C.

B.C. Salmon Farmers Association countered with an attack, calling the foundation’s recommendation to move to closed containment “premature and misguided.”

The research is not yet complete and does not show direct evidence that salmon farms are negatively affecting the health of wild salmon, the association said in a news release.

“Also the [Pacific Salmon Foundation] fails to consider the real-world reality that the technology to move to large-scale closed containment farming is still evolving…so this move would effectively shut our industry down,” said spokesman Shawn Hall.

Adding fuel to the debate, federal Environment Commissioner Julie Gelfand found in a highly critical report that Fisheries and Oceans Canada is not adequately managing risks associated with salmon aquaculture.

The ongoing problem of sea lice, first identified by Morton in 2001, sprang to prominence once again, with a recent epidemic of lice at Cermaq Canada farms in Clayoquot Sound sparking a Fisheries and Oceans Canada investigation.

All eyes are on the provincial government as it considers 22 licences in the Broughton Archipelago that are up for renewal in June.

‘Namgis hereditary chief Ernest Alfred told The Narwhal that the provincial decision will be a test of whether the province genuinely wants better relations with First Nations.

“We have given them little or no choice…But there is a very slim chance that the government might renew those licences and that really scares me,” he said.

On Friday, the B.C. Supreme Court ordered First Nations protesters, including Alfred, to leave the area where they have been occupying Marine Harvest’s docks, pending a June 25 hearing of an application by the company for a broader injunction.

The court has already turned down a request by the company for an injunction that would prevent the public from coming within 20 metres of its open-net pens, saying the order does not limit use of open water outside the company’s farms.

Alfred said the protests will continue from another area.

“They don’t own this land and they don’t own our waterways,” he said.

Marine Harvest spokesman Jeremy Dunn said in a statement that the company wanted the injunction to protect employees.

“Meaningful dialogue with First Nations in the Broughton Archipelago, where we have been operating salmon farms for 30 years, remains a priority for Marine Harvest. Unfortunately, our efforts to date have not been successful, but we remain hopeful,” he said.

Morton is pleased with the attention now being focused on salmon farms, but worries that action on getting fish farms out of the water where young fish migrate will not come soon enough.

“I just hope it’s not too late,” she said.

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The province has given the go-ahead for Cermaq Canada to use up to 2.3 million litres of a pesticide called Paramove 50 to remove sea lice from fish at 14 salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound, but opponents fear the mixture of hydrogen peroxide, surfactants and other chemicals will harm other species and weaken the immune system of farmed fish, making them more likely to contract diseases that could infect wild fish.

Bonny Glambeck, co-founder of Clayoquot Action, a group circulating a petition against use of the pesticide in Clayoquot Sound, said studies show the pesticide can persist in the surface layer of the water, home to marine organisms, such as Dungeness crab, prawns, young salmon and herring.

“Right now the wild salmon smolts are migrating and using the shallow areas to make their way out to the ocean and this is where it will end up when it is dissipating,” she said.

The bigger problem is that it can suppress the immune systems of farmed salmon for two weeks and that means they are more susceptible to viral outbreaks such as piscine reovirus, Glambeck said.

“So just as the young salmon are passing by the farms, we could shock these farmed fish into getting PRV or that becoming HSMI (heart and skeletal muscle inflammation disease) which is deadly to wild salmon,” she said.

Recent studies have confirmed a link between PRV, which is common among farmed salmon, and HSMI.

Although the hydrogen peroxide mixture, called Paramove 50, has been used at other sites in B.C., it has never before been used in Clayoquot Sound and the provincial government says steps are being taken to ensure the pesticide is well-diluted before it is discharged.

A permit application, submitted by Cermaq to the B.C. Ministry of Environment, requests permission to use the pesticide between January 10, 2018 and January 9, 2021 at fish farms in Fortune Channel, Bedwell Sound, Cypress Bay, Herbert Inlet, Millar Channel and Shelter Inlet.

A proposal to pour pesticide directly into pens protected with tarpaulins was turned down and the province is demanding that a well boat be used to reduce the amount of pesticides and minimize the effect on other marine organisms.

“The treatment bath, inside the well boat, will begin naturally breaking down as additional seawater is added before it’s filtered and discharged into the ocean far from shore,” Environment Minister George Heyman said in an e-mailed statement.

In 2011, over 13,000 farmed Atlantic salmon were killed at an east coast fish farm after a well boat treatment that used Paramove 50, according to an incident report filed with Health Canada.

In Norway, 126,000 farm fish died in 2016 during delousing treatment, an event fish farming company SalMar said was likely due to overexposure to hydrogen peroxide.

The government is continuing to look at whether sea lice treatments are scientifically supported and consistent with international best practices and a new interim policy, to guide statutory decision-makers, demands more stringent information-gathering and reporting, Heyman said.

That interim policy will be reviewed “over time” to ensure it is having the desired effect, he said.

“We take very seriously the concerns related to sea lice treatment expressed by First Nations and the public as the the protection of our waters and health of our wild fish stocks is paramount,” he said.

The pesticide Paramove 50, which stuns sea lice, meaning they fall off fish as they rub up against each other, is being used instead of antibiotic insecticides administered in feed, because, globally, sea lice are becoming resistant to antibiotics given to farmed fish.

However, Cermaq says the company wants to use Paramove 50 because the hydrogen peroxide bath treatment has a low environmental impact and is a more natural way to manage sea lice than feeding pesticides.

“It’s important that, as farmers, we have multiple tools in the box to allow us to effectively manage sea lice on our marine farms,” said Cermaq Canada managing director David Kiemele in an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada.

“The request and subsequent approval for the use of Paramove 50 was our first step in achieving a multi-faceted approach to integrated pest management,” said Kiemele, adding that hydrogen peroxide has been used internationally and in other areas of B.C. without negatively affecting the environment.

The Cermaq website points out that “hydrogen peroxide is almost the same as water, with just one more oxygen molecule,” and that, as long as the treatment is used properly, there are no risks to wild or farmed fish.

The Cermaq website emphasizes that fish farmers take good care of their fish, which are their livelihood, and many steps are taken to ensure the treatment is done properly.

However, for Glambeck, the heart of the issue is that the discussion should not be about the best poison to put in B.C.’s coastal waters, but how to move fish farms out of the ocean.

“It will be a couple of years and then another chemical will be needed. We need to look for long term solutions,” she said.

“The problems of disease and sea lice are global fish farm problems that the industry has not been able to solve — and they are not trying to solve them because of concern about the environment but because it is costing them a lot of money — so the industry globally now is looking towards closed containment,” she said.

Land-based farms are the answer, for the industry and for wild fish, and both levels of government should be working at a transition strategy to support fish farm workers and communities, Glambeck said.

Two major land-based fish farms are opening in Maine, with the global trend towards land-based containment, and B.C. is going to be left out of the game if companies insist that ocean pens are the only way to go, she said.

“We are going to be stuck with 1980’s technology. Our governments need to be investing in moving this industry forward into the new millennium,” Glambeck said.

“At the same time we are losing our wild salmon and allowing them go the same way as the East Coast cod. All the markers are there, the science is there to show we really need to intervene and get these farms out of the ocean,” she said.

Doug Donaldson, Minister of Forests, Land and Natural Resource Operations, who is in charge of provincial aquaculture tenures, has said that the province is interested in moving to closed containment and, with 22 fish farm tenures coming due for renewal in June, both the industry and environmental groups will be watching closely.

Image: Atlantic salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Clayoquot Action

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Laboratory testing by the B.C. government has confirmed tens of thousands of litres of bloody effluent released into the ocean from two fish processing plants contained a dangerous virus prevalent in farmed Atlantic salmon in B.C.

Two fish processing facilities that service the farmed fish industry, the Brown’s Bay Packing plant near Campbell River and the Lions Gate Fisheries plant in Tofino, were inspected by the province in early December and laboratory results confirmed the presence of piscine reovirus (PVR), the B.C. Ministry of Environment told DeSmog Canada.

Piscine reovirus, which affects 80 per cent of farmed Atlantic salmon, was first detected in B.C. fish farms in 2011 but has since been detected in wild cutthroat and steelhead trout as well as wild chinook, sockeye coho and chum salmon. The virus is linked to a host of health problems for fish, including heart and skeletal muscle inflammation and haemorrhages in the internal organs.

Underwater footage captured by Tavish Campbell in November brought increased public scrutiny to the release of ‘bloodwater’ discharge from B.C. fish processing plants, prompting elected officials to reevaluate the environmental risk associated with the practice.

At the time of filming, Campbell gathered samples that the Atlantic Veterinary College found to contain piscine reovirus. The province has now confirmed those findings.

“I would have been surprised if they didn’t find it,” Campbell told DeSmog Canada.

An while he’s glad government is committed to reviewing the fish processing plants, Campbell said the threat of viral infection for wild salmon starts with the fish farms themselves.

“Certainly these plants are one source of infection for wild salmon. They need to be dealt with,” Campbell said. “But it’s really not good enough while there’s all these infected fish in the water just up the passage.”

B.C. has experienced a surge of public opposition to fish farming in recent months. Several First Nations, which have been occupying fish farm operations in the Broughton Archipelago since September, met with provincial cabinet ministers last week to discuss whether or not the government will renew aquaculture tenures for major farmed salmon producers, Marine Harvest and Cermaq.

Farmed Atlantic salmon infected with piscine reovirus. Photo: Alexandra Morton

Fish plant effluent pipes a known danger to wild salmon

There are currently 109 fish processing plants in B.C., 28 of which have provincial permits under the Environmental Management Act to release effluent into ocean waters.

The provincial discharge permit for the Brown’s Bay Processing plant, obtained by DeSmog Canada, shows that in 1989 the province granted the facility permission to release 28,000 litres of effluent every day.

“British Columbians expect their government to ensure any discharge into the water is safe, and does not threaten wild salmon,” B.C. environment minister George Heyman said in a statement provided to DeSmog Canada.

“The previous government ignored the issue and failed to update regulations or even regularly conduct inspections,” Heyman said.

The most recent inspection of the Brown’s Bay facility occurred in 2013.

“That isn’t good enough, and that is why, in December I announced an immediate review of fish processing plants, which will include audits of 28 facilities, as well as strengthening requirements to ensure wild salmon are protected,” Heyman said.

The province will review whether effluent released from the 28 plants is causing harmful pollution, whether the current permits contain provisions to protect the environment, whether permit holders are in compliance with existing rules and whether or not the rules set out in the permits reflect best practices to protect wild salmon stocks.

Michael Price, salmon researcher and PhD candidate at Simon Fraser University, said while he isn’t surprised government has confirmed the presence of piscine reovirus in bloodwater, he is surprised it has taken so long for B.C. to address the release of untreated effluent into fish habitat.

B.C. fish farm in the Okisollo Channel. Photo courtesy Tavish Campbell

Price conducted research in 2010 that found effluent from facilities processing farmed fish contained live sea lice and viable sea lice eggs, which indicated the discharge was not being treated to kill pathogens. His research further found the release of sea lice-laden effluent was occurring in sockeye salmon migratory routes and rearing habitat.

“That to me is probably the most frustrating. Many of us have had concerns that virulent pathogens are being distributed into nursery waters of juvenile salmon for nearly eight years now,” Price told DeSmog Canada.

Effluent released from fish processing plants is also not screened to limit the amount of tissue of infected fish being released into the ocean, Price said.

“And we know this is exactly how pathogens are transmitted: through mucus and slime and the tissue of infected fish.”

The release of untreated effluent is not permitted in European countries where fish farming takes place, Price noted.

“They have biosecurity practices in place in Scotland, Norway, other countries where there’s an aquaculture industry. These farmed salmon companies know this, these are the rules they play by there,” Price said.

“And we know this is exactly how pathogens are transmitted: through mucus and slime and the tissue of infected fish.” https://t.co/yMXxoiUW0K

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) February 5, 2018

Feds launch scientific review of aquaculture industry

On February 2, the federal government announced an independent expert panel would review the farmed fish industry and make recommendations “on the appropriate use and consideration of scientific evidence in protecting the marine environment in decision-making on aquaculture.”

The panel will be led by Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Dr. Mona Nemer, who will deliver a final report to fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc and science minister Kirsty Duncan. The report will also be made publicly available.

LeBlanc acknowledged “Canadians have real concerns around aquaculture.”

“We look forward to the recommendations of the panel led by the Chief Science Advisor on how science can be better applied to decision making and communicated to the public in support of sustainable aquaculture,” he said in a statement.

Price, who has published research on the federal government’s failure to monitor B.C.’s wild salmon stocks, said he is uncertain about the intended outcome of the new expert panel.

Price said many of the 75 recommendations made by the 2012 Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, headed by Justice Bruce Cohen, have yet to be followed.

The Cohen Commission cost taxpayers more than $37 million.

“I don’t think we want to waste taxpayer dollars repeating that proces,” Price said. “I would think that first step would be to implement the recommendations of this inquiry when it comes to aquaculture.”

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Wild salmon swimming past B.C. fish farms are at high risk of picking up a virus that causes weakness and affects their ability to reach spawning grounds according to new groundbreaking research published this week in the scientific journal PLOS One (Public Library of Science One).

The study found the percentage of wild salmon infected with piscine reovirus (PRV) was much higher in wild salmon exposed to a large cluster of salmon farms along the B.C. coast than in those that were not.

“In my view allowing piscine reovirus to flow from salmon farms into the marine environment will be viewed as an environmental crime of the highest order,” independent biologist and study author, Alexandra Morton, told DeSmog Canada.

ICYMI: Disturbing New Footage Shows Diseased, Deformed Salmon in B.C. Fish Farms

Morton’s concern that enough isn’t being done to protect wild salmon stocks is in line with concerns from some coastal First Nations, which in August occupied two fish farms on the Central Coast over their opposition to open-pen farms.* In early December, environmental group Pacific Wild released footage showing clouds of blood emanating from fish plants on Vancouver Island; subsequent testing revealed that that blood, too, contained the virus and other parasites.

The new study also found infected wild salmon were less likely to make it back to high-elevation spawning grounds.

“This study provides the first evidence that exposure to farmed Atlantic salmon is associated with infection of wild Pacific salmon with PRV, a virus of significant concern to both the aquaculture industry and wild fisheries management and that PRV infection may impair the capacity of wild salmon to complete a challenging spawning migration, with the potential for population-level impacts,” the study concludes.

Alarmingly Low Salmon Stocks in B.C. Stoke Fish Farming Concerns

The findings come at a time of alarmingly low salmon returns in B.C. and, adding weight to the concerns, are recent scientific findings that PRV is linked to heart and skeletal muscular disease (HSMI). Although HSMI has not been found in wild salmon it was found at a fish farm in the Discovery Islands between 2011 and 2013.

HSMI makes the fish lethargic — something that is not necessarily a problem for penned fish, but is usually fatal for wild salmon, which are in danger of being eaten by predators such as eagles, seals or killer whales if they lie around on the surface, independent biologist and study author, Alexandra Morton, told DeSmog Canada.

“And we know the fish don’t even have to get HSMI. PRV lodges itself in the red blood cells and affects the ability to carry oxygen from the gills to the tissues,” Morton said.

If the infection progresses, the salmon’s heart and swimming muscles become damaged leaving the fish very weak.

Salmon farming companies would not give Morton access to their fish, so the team of scientists bought 262 farmed salmon and 35 farmed steelhead from supermarkets. Tests found PRV in 95 per cent of the salmon and 69 per cent of the steelhead.

Farmed salmon tested for study. Photo: Alexandra Morton

Highest Density of Infected Wild Salmon Near Highest Density of Fish Farms

The scientists then looked at wild salmon infection rates and found that the highest percentages of infected fish were in high-density fish farm areas such as the Broughton Archipelago, where 45 per cent of the wild fish were found to have the virus.

Wild fish around the Discovery Islands — where the Cohen Commission concluded that diseases from farmed salmon could have an irrevocable impact on Fraser River sockeye returns — were found to have a 37 per cent infection rate and 40 per cent of returning salmon in the lower Fraser River were infected.

ICYMI: Ban on New Fish Farm Permits Sidelined as Escaped U.S. Farmed Salmon Increase in B.C. Waters

However, as Fraser salmon made it to the upper reaches of the river, the infection rate dropped by about 50 per cent.

“This suggests that salmon infected with PRV are less capable of swimming up through strong rapids in places like Hells Gate and therefore unable to reach their spawning grounds,” said study co-author Rick Routledge, Simon Fraser University professor emeritus.

In contrast, in areas furthest away from salmon farms, such as the Skeena and Nass, the infection rate dropped to five per cent.

This is the first study in the world to compare infection rates in wild fish to infection rates in farmed fish and the difference between the north and south is startling, said Morton, an outspoken opponent of open net pen fish farms.

One oddity found in the study was that in Cultus Lake, where, last year, sockeye were listed as endangered, 76 per cent of the trout were found to be infected.

That will need further study, but the hypothesis is that the trout were infected by salmon that travelled through the Discovery Islands and the virus was then incubated in the lake, Morton said.

“It’s a durable virus, a nasty little thing and it can exist for quite a long time outside the fish. It’s shed in the feces and urine,” Morton said.

A recent, video-gone-viral showing “blood water” being pumped into the ocean near Campbell River from Brown’s Bay Packing Company, a farmed fish processing plant, shocked British Columbians — and effluent samples analyzed by the Atlantic Veterinary College tested positive for PRV.

Morton said her research was completed before the video was taken, but effluent from the processing plant could be contributing to the high PRV rate in the Discovery Islands. The discharges are currently being tested by provincial investigators.

The peer-reviewed study is being strongly criticized by the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association which issued a press release accusing Morton of using weak correlational data to draw strong conclusions.

“This paper is part of a deliberate activist campaign led by Alexandra Morton and can hardly be taken as unbiased research,” said Jeremy Dunn, the association’s executive director.

The release says it is impossible to sample fish in a supermarket and make claims about the exposure of wild salmon to a pathogen.

BCSFA says that PRV commonly affects Atlantic salmon raised in open net pens around the B.C. coast, but say it is rarely associated with any sort of sickness and, although research is continuing, results so far show the virus “has little to no effect on an animal’s fitness.”

The presence of PRV has been linked to HSMI in farmed fish in Norway where the number of HSMI infected salmon farms rose to 181 by 2014. The presence of HSMI in Norway has caused fatalities in farmed fish according to company Marine Harvest.

But that same causal connection has not been proven in B.C. or replicated in laboratory settings, according to the industry association.

Morton said that, after the virus was first identified in Norwegian fish farms in 1999 it moved rapidly through the industry, appearing in the United Kingdom, Ireland and Chile. Most salmon-farming companies operating in B.C. are Norwegian-owned and previous research found the strain of PRV identified in her study originated in Norway, she said.

“This work is a strong indicator that [federal] management of salmon farms is not consistent with law, the precautionary principle or the mandate handed down by the Prime Minister of Canada that [the Department of Fisheries and Oceans] use science to manage fish stocks,” Morton told DeSmog Canada.

Morton and Ecojustice are currently arguing in Federal Court that the government is acting illegally by issuing licences allowing juvenile farmed salmon to be put into ocean pens without testing for the virus as transferring diseased fish into wild fish habitat contravenes the Fisheries Act.

Salmon-farming companies Marine Harvest and Cermaq have joined DFO in contesting the lawsuit and claim their businesses would fail if the court says they cannot put infected fish in the ocean.

* Correction Dec. 15, 2017: Due to an editor's error a previous version of this article stated First Nations occupied B.C. fish farms in October. They in fact began their occupation in August.

Image: B.C. farmed salmon. Photo: Tavish Campbell

The Narwhal’s reporters are telling environment stories you won’t read about anywhere else. Stay in the loop by signing up for our free weekly dose of independent journalism.

Footage of bloody discharge being released into B.C.’s coastal waters from farmed-fish processing plants by photographer Tavish Campbell has made international headlines and prompted the promise of further investigation from both provincial and federal governments.

But critics say that while governments are eager to stem a wave of concerns arising from the footage, not enough is being done to protect B.C.’s threatened wild salmon populations from the threats of the farmed-salmon industry that stem from the use of open net pens.

In addition to the footage, Campbell collected samples of the discharge that laboratory testing found contained Piscene Reovirus, a disease carried in an estimated 80 per cent of Atlantic farmed salmon on the B.C. coast. The virus is linked to the presence of heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, a deadly condition found in B.C. wild salmon stocks.

B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman said the ministry dispatched inspectors to the Brown’s Bay processing plant near Campbell River to determine the contents of the effluent being released and take further samples if necessary.

“I think the bottom line for us is we want to make sure anything being dumped into our oceans is free of contaminants, fee of pathogens and not a threat to wild salmon,” Heyman told DeSmog Canada in an interview.

The Brown’s Bay processing plant received a discharge permit from the B.C. government in 1989, granting the company permission to release 28,000 litres of effluent every day. There are 109 fish processing plants in B.C.; if they are all releasing roughly the same as the Brown’s Bay plant, that’s ten Olympic swimming pools of effluent being released into B.C. waters daily.

The Brown’s Bay plant was inspected in 2013, and found to be out of compliance with the province’s environmental laws. According to Heyman no further inspection took place at the time.

The permit, which Heyman said does not reflect modern conditions and standards, is currently under review. He added there are older permits for additional fish processing plants the government will also place under review.

“We are looking at conditions that reflect today’s reality and today’s expectation and that’s that what is dumped in the ocean is clean and not a threat to wild salmon,” Heyman said. “So we’ll be looking at it from that perspective as well as from First Nations who are being consulted we’ll look at best practices around the world around discharges into the ocean.”

Bloodwater Not Only Threat Wild Salmon Face

Campbell said that while a review of B.C.’s out-of-date permits is warranted, the release of contaminated effluent is just one threat the farmed-salmon industry poses to wild salmon stocks.

“The bloodwater is certainly a point source for infection but if we get rid of the bloodwater the problem doesn’t go away because ultimately these juvenile wild fish are still swimming past the open net pens and picking up these viruses and diseases,” Campbell told DeSmog Canada.

Aaron Hill, ecologist and wild salmon policy analyst for the Watershed Wild Salmon Society, agreed.

“It’s really hard to quantify exactly where this wastewater discharge lands on the threat matrix but we know that salmon farms host a number of viruses and parasites that are transmitted to wild fish and harm wild fish,” Hill told DeSmog Canada.

“Many of our salmon populations are in really bad shape due to a number of factors,” Hill said, saying climate change is considered the number one threat to wild salmon.

“We can’t flip a switch and make the oceans more productive or make rivers cooler and safer for fish. But we can get these farms out of the ocean and onto land. We can stop bloody diseased waste from being piped into the water.”

Many of the companies operating farmed salmon open net pens in B.C. are Norwegian, the country behind many of the farmed salmon operations worldwide. Currently Norway does not allow for the discharge of fish processing waste into the ocean.

B.C.’s Environmental Monitoring and Enforcement Weak: Furstenau

British Columbia has a poor record of monitoring and enforcing its own environmental laws due to staff and budget cuts, according to Green Party MLA Sonia Furstenau.

“While I appreciate the Minister of Environment’s immediate response to the videos, we need a government that works to proactively protect our environment, not one that waits for the public to prove that we’ve got a problem,” Furstenau said during Wednesday’s question period in the house.

“Is the minister going to expand his review to cover every plant that releases effluent into wild salmon habitat to ensure it’s not contaminated, or will Mr. Campbell need to keep testing the blood water?”

The B.C. Ministry of Forests, Lands and Natural Resource Operations is responsible for leases and tenures for fish farms. Ocean discharge permits are managed by the province’s environment ministry.

However, regulation and promotion of the aquaculture industry falls to federal jurisdiction under the Fisheries Act.

Heyman said his ministry has been in contact with Environment Canada as well as local First Nations to discuss the effluent permits and Campbell’s footage.

“It’s important that all parties with jurisdiction take a unified approach to protecting wild salmon. That’s our expectation and we hope the federal government will join us and work with us and First Nations to protect wild salmon.”

Federal Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr said his ministry is also investigating the results of recent samples taken from the discharge pipes — and is open to potential changes under the Fisheries Act that would prevent the release of contaminants that could further threaten B.C.’s struggling wild salmon populations.

Campbell said he doesn’t see a way for open net fish farms and healthy wild salmon stocks to coexist. He hopes recent outrage over the outfall pipes will add to growing calls to move the aquaculture industry on land.

“I think the writing is on the wall for this industry. They can’t keep continuing to operate in the way they have been with open net pens in the water,” Campbell said.

“There’s too much opposition to it and there’s too much science saying if that’s going to happen we’re basically sacrificing our wild stocks.”

Permit 8124 – Brown Bay Fish Processing Plant by DeSmog Canada on Scribd

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Underwater footage shows farmed-salmon processing plants releasing untreated effluent directly into B.C. coastal waters in Campbell River and Tofino.

The footage, recorded by photographer and filmmaker Tavish Campbell, shows the bloody discharge billowing into ocean waters via underwater pipes.

The Atlantic Veterinary College confirmed samples of the effluent contained Piscine reovirus, a virus first found in B.C. farmed Atlantic salmon in 2011 but has since been detected in wild Cutthroat and Steelhead trout as well as wild Chinook, Sockeye Coho and Chum salmon.

Piscine reovirus is linked to heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, a condition that causes lesions in the heart and skeletal muscle, accumulation of fluids in body cavities, pale hearts, enlarged spleens and haemorrhages in the internal organs.

Researcher and wild salmon advocate Alexandra.Morton, who also examined the processing plant discharge, said the samples contained intestinal worms from farmed salmon.

Morton told CTV News she believes the release of bloody effluent could spread Piscene reovirus to wild salmon species.

“You are distributing the virus in a way that nature could never possibly do, and the risk to wild salmon is just astronomical,” she told CTV.

Campbell’s footage shows the discharge occurring at the Brown’s Bay Packaging plant in Campbell River. The company said it has obtained a effluent permit from the province.

B.C. Environment Minister George Heyman recently told reporters he recently became aware of the “very graphic” footage.

“We began investigating it and also checking about the lab tests that have been performed on some of the effluent,” Heyman said, adding the permits granted to Brown’s Bay Packaging were granted to the company decades ago.

“We are going to ensure, as we review the permit and put conditions on the permit, if necessary, that any discharge into the water is safe and will not contaminate wild salmon.”

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The federal government is playing a shell game, claiming to have acted on most of the Cohen Commission recommendations, but failing to fully implement many of them, say critics, pointing to lack of action on fundamental issues such as fish farms and removing responsibility for the promotion of salmon farming from Fisheries and Oceans Canada.

“They are being very disingenuous by deeming some of the recommendations irrelevant or saying they have addressed them when they have not implemented them,” said Chief Bob Chamberlin of the Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwas’mis First Nation and chairman of the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance.

The 2012 Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, headed by Justice Bruce Cohen, cost taxpayers more than $37 million and came up with 75 recommendations designed to save wild salmon runs after the disastrous 2009 sockeye run.

The recommendations, ranging from habitat protection to government accountability, were all but ignored by the previous Conservative government and some deadlines had lapsed by the time the Trudeau government promised to follow through on Cohen’s recommendations.

Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc said last month that the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) has now acted on 64 of the 75 recommendations. Also, the government is drafting a five-year Wild Salmon Policy implementation plan and putting $40 million annually, for five years, into research, science and monitoring of Pacific salmon.

That amounts to meaningful progress toward completing the Cohen Commission recommendations, according to LeBlanc, but Aaron Hill, executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, sees it differently.

“They are making progress, but it’s not as impressive as their announcements would indicate,” Hill told DeSmog Canada.

A report compiled by Watershed Watch puts it more bluntly, saying the federal report lacks meaningful substance.

“It also attempts to replace the true intentions of fully implementing Justice Cohen’s recommendations with simply acting on the recommendations (meaningfully or not.) Canadians truly deserve an independent assessment of the recommendations, not slick messaging,” it says.

For both Chamberlin and Hill, government’s failure to close down open-net fish farms on wild salmon migration routes or separate responsibility for promoting the farms from DFO’s duty to protect wild salmon illustrate the half-hearted response to the Cohen recommendations.

The decades-long battle over open-net pen farms is again heating up, with First Nations occupying fish farms off northeast Vancouver Island and an injunction application by the company, Marine Harvest, seeking to remove the protesters.

Currents of dissatisfaction have reached the offices of provincial ministers, briefly taken over by fish farm opponents who reminded the province of its commitment to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and election campaign promises made by some NDP ministers to scuttle open-net fish farms.

The province has the authority to issue farm licences.

Meanwhile, Premier John Horgan has twice assured the Legislature this week that wild salmon are his priority and Agriculture Minister Lana Popham has sent a sharp letter to Marine Harvest reminding the company of its obligations to First Nations, after the company restocked farms with fish that will not have grown to harvest size before the licences expire.

So, why is the federal government not implementing all the commission’s recommendations and taking action on salmon farms, rather than responding with a press release, Chamberlin asked.

“How can they not listen to the clear message that we do not give any consent to having these farms in our territory?” he asked.

Despite increasing discontent and a growing body of scientific evidence that fish farms are posing serious threats to wild salmon, it does not seem that the government is willing to take action, Hill said.

Cohen recommended that, if salmon farms in the Discovery Islands were found to pose more than a minimal risk to the health of migrating sockeye salmon, they should be closed, but Watershed Watch points out that DFO has delayed any meaningful action.

As #SalmonFarm Tensions Escalate, Watchdog Finds Feds Failed to Fully Implement Cohen Commission Recs https://t.co/IESVs0PIQE #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 19, 2017

“Salmon farms in the Discovery Islands have not been removed, despite new scientific evidence identifying new disease risks from salmon farms,” says the report, pointing to a research paper identifying heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) on a B.C. salmon farm.

In an e-mailed response to questions from DeSmog Canada a DFO spokeswoman said the government has put limits on salmon farming operations in the Discovery Islands until September 2020 and multi-year licences will not be available.

“During this time, additional scientific research will be conducted and a disease risk assessment process will be completed. In the interim, licence holders are required to submit health data to DFO, which is then posted on the DFO website,” she wrote.

As for removing salmon farming from DFO’s mandate, “no further action is required on this recommendation as responsibility for production and export is split between several different departments,” according to DFO.

The commission’s recommendation for an independent audit “is considered acted upon” as DFO complies with all external reviews and access to information requests related to the Cohen Commission, says the opaque statement.

“DFO is acting on the intent of this recommendation through the development of the Wild Salmon Policy implementation plan and the associated commitment to public reporting on the status of the implementation on an annual basis,” it says.

A sticking point for both levels of government is that some First Nations support farms in their territories because they provide jobs.

However, Chamberlin regards that as a red herring and said, in addition to resolutions from major First Nations organizations, 90 per cent of B.C. First Nations oppose open-net fish farms.

If the government is anxious to create jobs in First Nations communities, all of Cohen’s recommendations should be met, creating tourism and bear-watching opportunities as wild runs recover, and then resources should be put toward developing a closed containment industry, he suggested.

John Reynolds, professor of aquatic ecology and conservation at Simon Fraser University, believes the federal government should be given credit for moving in the right direction and trying to catch up after years of inaction by the previous government.

However, there has been a nebulous response to many of the recommendations, such as the independent audit, rather than the focused response Cohen asked for, he said.

“For example, Cohen had very specific comments about the need for habitat protection and the government’s response is that, in many different ways, they are working on that,” Reynolds said.

“These are not the kind of targeted, easily-evaluated programs that I believe Commissioner Cohen had in mind.”

Government has made it clear it will not be following some key recommendations, such as creating a new position to oversee funding and implementation of the Wild Salmon Policy, said Reynolds, adding that he does not understand the explanation that government ‘does not work that way.’

“The intent was very, very clear and I don’t believe that after two-and-a-half years of deliberations and all the expert witnesses that Commissioner Cohen called from all levels of government that this recommendation should be quite so easily dismissed,” Reynolds said.

“It makes me uneasy. I really think there should be someone whose job is to oversee the wild salmon policy.”

Image: Open pen fish farm. Photo: Friends of Clayquot Sound

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Fugitive fish from a collapsed salmon farm in Washington State are showing up in the waters off Campbell River, Tofino, Sechelt and Saanich, but, last week, delegates at the Union of B.C. Municipalities convention side-stepped a debate on salmon farm licensing.

Instead, an emergency resolution from the Victoria council asking the province to deny any more open-net aquaculture permits and to phase out existing open-net operations in favour of land-based pens, was referred to the Association of Vancouver Island and Coastal Communities for further discussion.

The Victoria resolution, which also called for a transition plan for workers and adequate consultation with Indigenous governments, said the proliferation of open-net fish farms, stocked with Atlantic salmon, threatens local waterways and wild fish “undermining the economic, social and ecological wellbeing of local communities.”

Opponents of salmon farms fear that Atlantic salmon, packed into pens open to the ocean, spread diseases and sea lice to wild stocks. Escaped farmed Atlantic salmon from the Washington State fish farm, owned and operated by Cooke Aquaculture, have traveled as far as 250 kilometres over the last month. 

Between 2011 and 2017 there have been only three confirmed reports of Atlantic salmon off the B.C. coast, according to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. As the CBC reports, since August 19 the federal government has received reports of 40 sightings.

Ban on New #FishFarm Permits Sidelined as Escaped US #FarmedSalmon Increase in BC Waters https://t.co/sMMEN4XlUe @JeremyLoveday #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) October 1, 2017

First Nations-led protests against salmon farms are continuing at two Marine Harvest fish farms off north-east Vancouver Island and the resolution points out that many fish farms were built in Indigenous territories, without consultation “undermining the shared objective of reconciliation and respectful relations between indigenous and non-indigenous governments.”

Victoria Councillor Jeremy Loveday was hoping the emphasis on finding alternatives for fish farm workers and the shock value of Atlantic salmon turning up in communities around the B.C. coast would be enough to gain the support of delegates.

“In my opinion this is not a satisfactory result. I would have liked to have had a discussion on the floor at UBCM,” Loveday told DeSmog Canada.

“I thought that, after the accident, people would be more willing to have this discussion and put their foot down and say enough is enough,” he said.

But, even though it seems the future of wild fish is at stake and the resolution suggested a job transition plan, some delegates, from municipalities with open net fish farms in their area, worried about job loss, Loveday said.

“There was a sentiment within UBCM delegates that they weren’t supportive of the motion at this time… Some are just opposed and others want more time for discussion,” he said.

Controversy over open-net fish farming has raged for more than three decades, with a resolution similar to the Victoria motion endorsed by UBCM in 2006, but concerns reached a new peak this summer.

In addition to the escape of an estimated 165,000 Atlantic salmon from the Puget Sound farm, a video released to DeSmog Canada, showed blind, diseased and deformed fish in B.C. fish pens.

The video was shot by Ernest Alfred, a traditional leader from the ‘Namgis, Tlowitsis and Mamalilikulla First Nations, who is now leading protests at the farms on Swanson and Midsummer islands.

“We don’t want fish farms in our territory and we’re going to sit here until they’re all gone,” said Alfred.

On Thursday the group Fish Farms Out Now! occupied the offices of Agriculture Minister Lana Popham while members of the Friends of Clayoquot Sound occupied the office of Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation Minister Scott Fraser to put pressure on the provincial government to remove open-pen fish farms from territories where no free, prior and informed consent has been given.

The occupations are the first in a series of escalating actions, said a news release from the groups.

Popham said in a statement that she is committed to working with First Nations, the aquaculture industry and Fisheries and Oceans Canada “to ensure B.C.’s aquaculture sector is environmentally sustainable and respects First Nations rights while continuing to provide good jobs for British Columbians.”

In a Facebook posting Popham said the aquaculture file is complicated.

“In the next couple of weeks myself and the Premier will be sitting down with First Nations to have a government to government discussion — the beginning of a new relationship,” she wrote.

“I have also requested that federal Fisheries Minister (Dominic) LeBlanc and the industry join us at another meeting as soon as possible.”

The last new permits for fish farms in B.C. were approved in 2015 and a committee looking at wild salmon and the aquaculture industry is expected to submit a report to Popham by the end of November.

Image: Farmed salmon in a B.C. fish pen. Photo: Courtesy of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society and Tamo Campos.

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New footage released to DeSmog Canada shows deformed and disfigured salmon at two salmon farms on the B.C. coast — just as British Columbia reels from news of the escape of up to 305,000 Atlantic farmed salmon from a Washington salmon pen.

Wild salmon advocate and fisheries biologist Alexandra Morton said she was shocked by the footage.

“I was shocked and frankly disgusted,” Morton told DeSmog Canada. “These fish have open sores, sea lice, blisters all over their skin and a disturbing number of them are going blind.”

Morton said the footage also gives an indication of what is now travelling through Pacific waters after the escape of potentially hundreds of thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon in the San Juan Islands just east of Victoria. Atlantic salmon are considered invasive in Pacific waters.

“Now you have potentially 300,000 farmed salmon traveling with wild salmon. We know that is what they do.”

The footage was shot at two salmon farms owned by Grieg Seafood and located near Broughton Island, B.C., in the traditional territory of the Musgmagw Dzawada’enuwx Nation.

The nation has been vocally opposed to fish farming in its traditional waters for 30 years and has handed out eviction notices to fish farming corporations.

“These fish are really sick,” Ernest Alfred, member of the Nagmis and Lawit’sis from Alert Bay, says in the footage. “These fish are polluting the environment that we call home.”

Greig Seafood did not respond to requests for comment.

In a B.C. Salmon Farmers Association statement provided to DeSmog Canada, executive director Jeremy Dunn said, “abnormalities in farm-raised salmon are rare, but — as with any species — do exist for several reasons: growth deformities from birth, mechanical damage resulting in an injury, or poor performers that are outcompeted for food by more aggressive fish.”

Dunn added if individuals are displeased with farmed salmon brought to market he “recommend they return it to the place of purchase.” *

Alfred and Awahawoo Hereditary Chief George Quocksister Jr. shot the footage while travelling to fish farms aboard the research vessel Martin Sheen, provided by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

‘It’s a Mess Every Way You Look at It’

“When I say there is disease in these farmed salmon, this is not a guess,” Morton said. “Over 80 per cent of farmed salmon are infected with piscine reovirus.”

Morton is currently fighting the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Fisheries Minister Dominique Leblanc in court to prevent more Atlantic salmon infected with the virus from being placed in B.C. waters.

Morton said the fish pens are a highly concentrated source of waste and disease that threaten other species.

“From a biological point of view this footage gives you an idea of the scale of the pathogens coming out of these farms and we know that a single particle in this ocean can travel 10 kilometres in a short amount of time.”

It’s been a tough week for wild salmon.

While major salmon fisheries in the Fraser and Skeena rivers are closed due to low returns, a new study released this week revealed the federal government has failed to monitor the majority of struggling stocks on B.C.’s north and central coast.

Meantime, fishermen are being called on to catch as many of the escaped Atlantic farmed salmon as possible.

Morton expressed concern that fishermen will be mixed up with struggling Fraser sockeye salmon that may be caught as bycatch.

“It’s a mess every way you look at it.”

Farming Salmon On Land Reduces Risks

Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch Salmon Society, told the CBC an easy solution to the multiple problems posed by salmon farms is to move pens onland and out of wild salmon waterways.

“We can farm salmon on land where they’re not going to pose any risks to our wild salmon populations.”

Disturbing New Footage Shows Diseased, Deformed #Salmon in BC #FishFarms https://t.co/XIlbwq74ji #bcpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 23, 2017

“Escapes aren’t the only risk,” he added. “There is growing evidence that these net pens spread diseases, viruses and parasites to our wild salmon populations that make it harder for many of our at risk populations to rebuild.”

Alfred said the window to protect wild salmon stocks in B.C. is closing.

“You know, when I think about our people’s history, I think about the colonization, the stripping of our rights, the stripping of our identity, the fact that our language is disappearing, the potlatch ban, the fish is all we have left and they can’t take our fish.”

“We don’t exist here without our fish.”

* Updated August 23, 2017 at 4:54 pm PST to include a statement from Jeremy Dunn of the B.C. Farmed Salmon Association.

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Canada has failed to monitor and gather data on 50 per cent of all managed salmon populations on B.C.’s north and central coasts, according to a study released Monday in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences.

Researchers from Simon Fraser University found the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) is monitoring fewer streams now than before the introduction of a wild salmon policy in 2005 that was designed to assess the health of wild salmon populations and aid those deemed at risk.

“Our knowledge of salmon populations in B.C. is eroding,” study co-author and Simon Fraser University researcher Michael Price told DeSmog Canada. “And it’s really frustrating.”

A number of salmon fisheries, including the Fraser and Skeena River sockeye fisheries, closed due to low salmon runs this summer.

Price and co-researcher John Reynolds found that since the 1980s, annual counts of spawning streams have declined by 70 per cent.

“You can’t manage salmon populations if you don’t know how they’re doing,” Reynolds said.

The study, conducted in partnership with Raincoast Conservation Foundation biologists Misty MacDuffee and Andy Rosenberger, found 42 per cent of salmon populations considered threatened would have improved had commercial fisheries been strategically reduced, study co-author and Simon Fraser University researcher Michael Price told DeSmog Canada.

Budget cuts to DFO, especially during the years of the Harper government, have played a role in poor management, Price said, but added it’s about more than just money.

“They are not taking a strategic approach to salmon management. You can’t just blame budget cuts.”

Price said there was hope after the adoption of the wild salmon policy that things would be different.

“So I was surprised to see now how bad things have gotten particularly in terms of visits to spawning streams and just gathering basic information,” he said.

Without new federal support, historical salmon population data is at risk of becoming irrelevant, Price added.

Amid Closure of BC #Salmon Fisheries, Study Finds Feds Failed to Monitor Stocks https://t.co/OdESMK2vc8 #bcpoli @DFO_MPO #cdnpoli

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) August 21, 2017

Salmon Fisheries Closed Across B.C.

The report comes at a time that several salmon fisheries have been closed due to low returns. Salmon fishing contributes about $500 million and roughly 4000 full-time jobs to the B.C. economy.

In previous years, an estimated 4.5 million sockeye have returned to the Fraser watershed during spawning season. This year only about one-third of that is expected.

Price said some test are performed to gauge the general size of returning salmon populations based on a daily catch plugged into a population formula.

This year those tests were used to hit pause on a few major commercial fisheries, which Price said will provide some relief to populations.

But much more detailed and consistent information is needed on specific “conservation units,” which Price said can be made up of anywhere between one and 200 salmon populations.

“We show that 10 of 24 Conservation Units assessed as Red (Poor) would have improved in status had Canadian fisheries been reduced over the last decade,” Price and Reynolds wrote in their study.

A more cautious approach to fisheries, which targets abundant populations while allowing vulnerable populations to recover, would help maintain commercial fisheries while protecting threatened fish, the study suggests.

“We need to assess the health of populations and act on those considered red, poor or threatened,” Price said.

Price emphasized the answer doesn’t necessarily lie in ending commercial or recreational fishing, but in targeting healthy populations while giving unhealthy populations time to rebound.

Climate Change ‘Greatest Threat’ to Future of Wild Salmon

Climate change is “arguably the greatest threat to the future of wild salmon,” the study states.

Price said warmer temperatures translate into earlier spring melts, longer ice-free periods on lakes, low water flow in rivers, high stream temperatures, disease and plankton blooms can all affect wild salmon health.

A second study, also released Monday by researchers at the University of British Columbia, found warmer, less-oxygenated waters are expected to dramatically shrink the size of fish.

“Fish, as cold-blooded animals, cannot regulate their own body temperatures,” explains William Cheung, co-author of the study and associate professor at the Institute for Ocean and Fisheries and director of science for the Nippon Foundation-UBC Nereus Program.

“There is a point where the gills cannot supply enough oxygen for a larger body, so the fish just stops growing larger.”

Cheung and study lead author Daniel Pauly estimate fish will shrink 20 to 30 per cent if ocean temperatures continue to climb due to climate change.

Price said broad-reaching salmon conservation is the best insurance against climate change and the affects it will have on populations.

“With climate change we don’t know exactly what affects it will have on what populations, so the best insurance is in diversity and abundance. Some of those smaller populations today that we might deem insignificant may hold the genetic key that we’ll rely on in the future.”

Lack of Salmon Data ‘Problematic’ for Major Project Approvals

A lack of adequate baseline data is “problematic” when it comes to assessing the impact of major projects such as pipelines, salmon farms and LNG projects, Price said.

“How are we going to know whether a project is going to impact a given population if we don’t have basic information on how well that population is doing before a project came online?” he said.

Greg Knox, executive director at SkeenaWild Conservation Trust, said the federal government has put a lot of resources into supporting mining and oil and gas projects.

“It’s obvious they’re putting more effort into moving large scale development forward than assessing the impacts of development on wild salmon,” Knox said.

“Maybe it’s just easier not to know. But it does pose the question whether they do have any interest in protecting salmon and salmon habitat over large-scale projects.”

B.C.  saw more progress on wild salmon policy implementation under the Harper government than so far under Trudeau, Knox said. “Under the Trudeau Liberals we’ve see a continuation of cuts for science and stock assessment and no resources towards implementing the wild salmon policy.”

He added much of the work of conservation groups, local communities and First Nations goes ignored by the federal government. “There is a lot of data out there they don’t incorporate and there is a lot of capacity in First Nations communities and citizen science that exists.”

Price said he believes local, place-based conservation and management is at the heart of effective salmon policy.

“It may seem daunting when you think of monitoring the nearly 3,000 spawning populations in B.C. and all of these streams,” he said.

DFO could partner with more with non-profits, local First Nations and academics and engage more in citizen science, Price said. We’ve had this paternal relationship with DFO for a long time now and it’s time for that to switch,” he said. “A more inclusive process would be a more healthy process for all.”

*Article updated August 23, 2017 at 10:37am PST to include mention of Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s partnership in the study.

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