Sediment from logging roads is negatively impacting fish habitat, according to the most recent report from British Columbia’s forestry watchdog.

The Forest Practices Board looked at five watershed sites in the province and found that four of them were facing risk to fish habitat due to sediment coming off of logging roads. Those watersheds were the Ainslie (near Boston Bar), the Memekay (near Campbell River), the Owen (near Houston), the Pennask (near Kelowna) and the Woodjam (near Horsefly).

From the results, the board concluded that government legislation is too vague, making it hard to enforce effective sediment management.

B.C.’s Forest and Range Practices Act requires operators to ensure “primary forest activity does not have a material adverse effect on fish passage in a fish stream.”

But board Chair Kevin Kriese told The Narwhal that “material adverse effect” is hard to prove and therefore the regulation is difficult to enforce. He said the legislation should be clear about what is and isn’t required in sediment management. 

“What we think would be much more clear is to say to operators ‘you must minimize the deposit of sediment into streams,’” he said.

Kriese said there is no question that excessive sediment has a negative impact on fish. Sediment buildup can lead to shallower, warmer waters. Road infrastructure, like culverts, can cause sediment accumulation and block fish movement upstream.

(The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development did not respond to The Narwhal’s request for comment in time for publication.)

On behalf of the board, a team of three biologists and one forest hydrologist conducted rapid assessments in the five watersheds. Despite the addition of sediment from logging roads and risks to fish populations, the board found operators to be meeting or exceeding legal requirements for managing riparian areas.

However, there are many critics who say B.C.’s legal requirements for logging have been too lenient since Gordon Campbell’s Liberal government relaxed industry regulations in 2004. 

Ecojustice executive director Devon Page previously told The Narwhal, “B.C.’s forestry laws aren’t actually laws. At best, you could call them guidelines.”

Sediment can ‘smother’ salmon eggs

Increased sediment can be caused by human activities and natural occurrences like landslides and wildfires. Elevated sediment in streams can decrease the abundance of plant life, which impacts the fish that feed on those plants. 

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans reported that juvenile coho and Chinook salmon behave irregularly in streams with elevated turbidity (sediment suspended in the water) by surfacing and making themselves more vulnerable to birds. 

Sediment can also be detrimental to salmon spawning beds.

Hotter temperatures and sedimentation combined can kill salmon eggs, or “smother” them, as Misty MacDuffee phrased it. A biologist and program director for Raincoast Conservation Foundation’s wild salmon program, she emphasized the bigger picture of how logging can impact salmon and how clearcut logging impacts stream flow. 

“There are a lot of implications from logging on salmon,” she said. “Sedimentation is just one of them.”

Bringing back the trees to bring back the salmon

Scott Hinch, an ecology professor at the University of British Columbia’s Faculty of Forestry, said sediment build-up can make streams wider and shallower and even cause parts to dry up. Small pools can be filled with sediment, which Hinch said is especially dangerous for species like coho salmon, which rear there.

Hinch said that in addition to fine sediment being deposited from logging roads, they can also contribute to sediment on a larger scale by destabilizing areas with steep terrain. 

“If you build a lot of roads in a watershed, you tend to have more avalanches associated with these roads that cut across steep terrain,” he said.

Hinch said “there’s no silver bullet” to prevent sediment runoff, but ongoing monitoring to ensure the health of riparian areas that surround streams is key to their protection.

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If all goes to plan, 30,000 Chinook salmon eggs will be fertilized upstream of Dawson City this summer as part of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in First Nation’s efforts to increase stocks of the vital fish.

For roughly two decades, fewer Chinook salmon have been swimming into Yukon, spurring the First Nation to develop a plan. Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in has been laying the groundwork to establish a full-fledged egg-rearing facility — featuring the first sonar system wholly owned by a Yukon First Nation — to bolster dwindling numbers of the species along the Klondike River, a tributary of the Yukon River.

“It’s one of our main traditional food staples,” Chief Roberta Joseph told The Narwhal, noting that citizens have been asked to voluntarily refrain from fishing Chinook salmon since 2013.

“Since time immemorial our ancestors have relied on salmon. Not only is it a food staple but fishing them is a time for families to bond and pass on traditional knowledge and stories. It’s a time of healing, of renewing spirituality and connection that our people have with the land.” 

An egg incubation facility is a few years off, though. Gaps in research need to be filled. This is what the community has been trying to do for the last two years: study what works and what doesn’t via an in-stream incubation project. This will help them determine egg-to-fry survival rates, or how successful eggs are at growing into adolescence. They’re also measuring conditions such as water level, temperature and when the fish arrive. From this information they can replicate the ideal conditions for a high survival rate in the incubation facility.

But more time is needed after a poor run of Chinook in previous years has meant numbers for the project aren’t as high as hoped, said Ben Schonewille, a fish and wildlife biologist with Environmental Dynamics Inc., which was contracted by the community to help study the feasibility of the egg incubation program.

They’ve requested an extension to the in-stream incubation project for at least another year. The Yukon Environmental and Socio-economic Assessment Board is evaluating the proposal to extend right now and a public comment period will likely be launched soon, a spokesperson for the board said.

The ins and outs of the in-stream incubator  

Since July 2018, egg-to-fry survival rates have been closely monitored through this project. Eggs are taken from females and are mixed with milt (semen) from males. The fertilized eggs are placed along with sediment into an incubation vector, such as a mesh bag, and then buried in the river. Researchers then dig up the bags and are able to gauge how many eggs inside have survived to the fry stage. This is called a “green egg” process.

Eggs are collected from a Chinook salmon to use as part of the in-stream incubator project aimed at increasing the dwindling population of Chinook in the Klondike River. Photo: Environmental Dynamics Inc.

Broodstock — the group of mature salmon that will be targeted by researchers for egg and milt collection — are located by helicopter at the peak of the salmon run. 

But issues including water clarity and a lack of Chinook have slowed down tracking goals for the project, which follows a separate in-stream incubation effort in Yukon started by Teslin Tlingit Council in 2016.

The Tr’ondëk Hwëch’s project has a goal of planting a maximum of 30,000 eggs per year (to put this into perspective, one female contains roughly 5,500 eggs while spawning). Roughly a third of this goal was hit, or about 10,000 eggs planted, in both 2018 and 2019.

“We just could not catch sufficient broodstock, nor were we comfortable taking more eggs due to the poor returns to the Klondike in 2019,” Schonewille said, adding that while 30,000 eggs is the upper limit of the project, planting less than that hardly deems it unproductive.

According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, the number of Chinook salmon that make it back over the Alaskan border into the Yukon to breed — known as treaty-obligated escapements — have been less than the number that left the territory for the past 11 years.

Last year, 42,052 Chinook salmon entered Yukon, said Elizabeth MacDonald, executive director of the Yukon Salmon Sub-Committee. This fell below the spawning escapement goal range of 42,500 to 55,000.

It’s difficult to pinpoint any one reason why fewer Chinook salmon are populating Yukon rivers, but low productivity and changes to ecosystems could be playing a role. MacDonald said salmon that come back from the ocean to spawn are yielding fewer offspring compared to a decade ago.

Impacts to marine or river habitats could also be affecting their productivity.

“Definitely climate change is having an effect, and there’s a lot more people, so anthropogenic effects, not so much in our neck of the woods, but along the B.C. coast with forestry and rural development — industry, let’s say,” MacDonald said. “No one knows for sure. But there’s always a cycle to salmon. Sometimes they do well, sometimes they do poorly.”

Incubation facility hinges on sonar

Critical to Tr’ondëk Hwëch’s salmon incubation facility is the introduction of a sonar system that tracks the number of Chinook salmon in the water. “The unit looks across the river channel and records sonar files which are then reviewed by a trained sonar technician to count the number of salmon that swim past the site,” Schonewille explained.

Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in plans to have the sonar up-and-running by July 1 in Dawson City. It will be the first system of its kind wholly owned by a First Nation in Yukon, said Schonewille, noting that citizens are to be trained in how to operate it.

The goal is to ensure there’s a baseline understanding of how many fish enter the Klondike, he said, adding that it will help to determine the capacity of the watershed in the future for hosting Chinook salmon — and that the aquatic ecosystem isn’t thrown out of balance. 

“It’s really important because it provides a very accurate count of the number of fish that spawned in the Klondike in any given year,” he continued. “Once restoration work begins on a greater scale, we’ll be able to determine how successful it is.”

Salmon are inseparable from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture

The lynchpin to all of this work is a Chinook salmon restoration plan that was first released in 2017. This living document is the basis for all future work regarding salmon restoration in the area. Underpinning it is Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in’s final agreement with the Yukon and federal governments, a section of which says that the community is responsible for preserving and enhancing the renewable resource economy within its traditional territory. 

Final agreements signal that a First Nation has settled their land claims. Eleven of 14 Yukon First Nations (including Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in) have done so. They can create and enact laws, for example, and have far more jurisdiction than First Nations in southern Canada, most of which fall under the Indian Act. 

The restoration plan’s message is clear: salmon are inseparable from Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in culture.

“Culture camps that bring Elders and youth together are a venue that allows traditional knowledge to be shared and passed on to the next generation,” the plan says. “These camps include activities that focus on all things salmon — harvesting techniques, preserving your catch, setting nets and special or traditionally used camping areas along the river, as well as spiritual practices, stories and songs that teach youth respect for the salmon.”

“Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in citizens are physically, culturally and spiritually connected to the Yukon River salmon fishery.”

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Salmon at a majority of Clayoquot Sound fish farms are infected with the Norwegian strain of a highly contagious virus, according to an investigative report released Wednesday. 

The report by Clayoquot Action, a Tofino-based conservation society, says feces, flesh and scale samples from 14 out of 15 farms tested positive for the piscine orthoreovirus, a disease that gained notoriety after a video of bloody discharge from packing plants in Tofino and Campbell River went viral in December 2017.

Laboratory testing by the B.C. government showed the underwater effluent was contaminated with piscine orthoreovirus, a disease found in 80 per cent of farmed Atlantic salmon that is linked to a host of fish health problems, including heart and skeletal muscle inflammation and haemorrhages in internal organs. 

Clayoquot Action campaigns director Bonny Glambeck said it’s particularly concerning to find piscine orthoreovirus on Chinook salmon farms located along wild salmon migratory routes in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, off the west coast of Vancouver Island.

Four of the active farms the group tested are owned by Creative Salmon, the only company raising Chinook on a large scale in open net pen farms in B.C. Most B.C. open net pen operations — including 11 other active farms tested for the study, which are owned by Cermaq, a Mitsubishi subsidiary headquartered in Norway — produce Atlantic salmon, a species not native to the Pacific Coast.

“Wild Chinook salmon in Clayoquot Sound are on the brink of extinction,” Glambeck told The Narwhal. 

“This is just the final nail in the coffin with all the stresses that the wild salmon are undergoing right now.”

An open-net pen salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Clayoquot Action

Fisheries and Oceans Canada says a B.C. strain of piscine orthoreovirus has been found in salmonids off the B.C. coast since 1987 or 1977 — about the time salmon farming began — and has a “low ability” to cause disease. 

Laboratory testing commissioned by Clayoquot Action found the strain in Clayoquot Sound fish farms is a Norwegian variant of the disease, known as PRV-1a. 

Atlantic salmon eggs — 30 million of which were imported to B.C. — are the most likely source of contamination, according to the report, Going Viral: Norwegian Salmon Farm Virus Threatens Clayoquot Chinook.

“It’s very, very concerning,” Glambeck said. 

“They are essentially denying the existence of this Norwegian variant in British Columbia waters … It’s just shocking to me that they continue to deny that it is damaging and dangerous to wild salmon, pretending that it’s not happening.”

Terry Dorward, a Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation councillor, said the federal government is spreading “disinformation” about the piscine orthoreovirus variant found on salmon farms in Clayoquot Sound, whose biodiverse rainforest islands support many species dependent on wild salmon.

“This is similar to what my people — Indigenous people — experienced when we were given smallpox blankets,” Dorward told The Narwhal. “We were nearly wiped out. And I believe the same thing is happening to our wild salmon.” 

There is scientific evidence that piscine orthoreovirus is harmful to salmon. A June 2018 DFO study confirmed that piscine orthoreovirus in Pacific Chinook is strongly associated with the rupture of red blood cells, resulting in jaundice, organ failure and death.

The findings suggest that “migratory Chinook salmon may be at more than a minimal risk of disease from exposure to the high levels of PRV occurring on salmon farms,” according to the study.

Shawn Hall, a spokesperson for the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said there is “nothing new” about information in the Clayoquot Action report. 

Hall said the same variant of the virus is present in both B.C. and Norway and “is not virulent. It doesn’t make fish sick.” 

“Our fish go into the ocean without PRV, from land-based hatcheries which are based here in B.C.,” Hall said. 

“We’re not importing anything. Our fish are raised from local broodstock in local hatcheries. They go into the water without PRV and they pick it up in the ocean just as wild fish do … the strain that they found is the strain that we knew was here and it’s not causing significant issues.” 

Hall pointed to a study conducted in 2018 after fears were raised, following the video of bloody discharge at the packing plants, that wild salmon could be harmed by piscine orthoreovirus.

The study notes that piscine orthoreovirus is a causative factor to the disease Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), that fish infected with the virus may not exhibit any symptoms and that the virus appears to have far less of an impact on fish in B.C. than it does on salmon in Norway.

The study, conducted by researchers at the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences and UBC, also notes research gaps that need to be addressed “as PRV is a recently discovered virus and its pathogenicity to salmonids is still a mystery.”

Wild salmon smolts swim past the open nets of a fish farm in Clayoquot Sound. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Dorward said an agreement the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation signed with Creative Salmon has been “in limbo” since the chief and council voted last year to ask the company to remove open net pen farms from the nation’s traditional territory.

The vote followed a visit to salmon farms last summer, when Dorward said he and others saw deformed farmed fish and wild salmon swimming through open net pens.

“Over the years we’ve witnessed the collapse of the fisheries and the negative impacts it has to our coastal communities … We know there’s other factors involved, [like] climate change … Some things we can’t stop. But we can stop this particular issue of open net salmon farms,” he said.

“These organisms are extremely successful viruses that can mutate and spread. The protection of our wild salmon is at great risk here.” 

In 2018, the state of Washington announced that open net pen Atlantic salmon fish farms would be phased out by 2025. The state also stopped hundreds of thousands of salmon infected with an Icelandic strain of piscine orthoreovirus from being transferred to the farms, saying wild salmon could be at risk.

A map showing the location of fish farms in Clayoquot Sound. Sites where the piscine orthoreovirus was found are denoted in red. Map: Wilderness Committee

Clayoquot Action is one of a number of groups and First Nations calling on the federal government to prohibit the transfer of piscine orthoreovirus-infected fish to open net pen farms. 

Last year, following parallel legal cases brought forward by biologist Alexandra Morton and the ‘Namgis First Nation that aimed to prevent the transfer of smolts infected with the virus to open net pens, the courts ordered Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) to revise its piscine orthoreovirus policy and apply the precautionary principle by June 4. DFO subsequently received a four month extension from the courts. 

But during the fall federal election campaign, when there was no sitting fisheries minister, DFO said it would not screen for piscine orthoreovirus or prevent the transfer of piscine orthoreovirus-infected fish to salmon farms. 

In an emailed statement in response to questions from The Narwhal, DFO said it had determined in October 2019 that testing for the B.C. strain of PRV is not required under fishery regulations in order to authorize a fish transfer license. 

“While this decision was based on best available information and science, the department will continue to adapt its approach to managing PRV, if warranted by new science or information,” the statement said. 

 DFO also noted the World Organization for Animal Health does not consider PRV to be a reportable disease and there is no human health risk associated with the virus. 

The ‘Namgis First Nation is now taking the federal government back to court, asking for a review of the October 2019 decision to continue to allow salmon farms to be stocked with piscine orthoreovirus-infected fish. 

As a campaign promise, the Trudeau government pledged to work with the province of B.C. and Indigenous communities to create a plan to transition from open net pen salmon farming in coastal B.C. by 2025 — a commitment also outlined in the mandate letter for Bernadette Jordan, the newly appointed federal Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard.

Many people interpreted the promise to mean open net pen farming on B.C.’s coast would end by 2025. Yet Jordan subsequently clarified that she has five years to prepare for a transition, implying that open net pens could remain in coastal waters past 2025.

Dorward said the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation wants Creative Salmon either to move to closed containment systems for salmon farming or to transition to kelp farming, which he said would also create jobs, be better for the environment and help meet a growing global demand for kelp.

“We need to be more proactive and creative in finding solutions to these disease outbreaks or we’re going to completely wipe out our wild salmon which we greatly depend on on the west coast,” he said.

Glambeck said a team of staff and volunteers conducted 25 field trips to the fish farms, scattered along Clayoquot Sound’s meandering inlets, from May to December 2019. Farms were visited multiple times, she said. 

Sampling vials used by researchers with Clayoquot Action. Photo: Jeremy Mathieu

“We would use a fine mesh aquarium net on a long pole and we would go around the fish farms — very close, within a few feet of the farms — and we would just scoop up little bits of fish scales and feces and bits of flesh, the type of thing that floats out of the farms.” 

Dozens of samples were put on ice and shipped by courier to the Atlantic Veterinary College where they were tested by virology professor Fred Kibenge, chair of the department of pathology and microbiology. Kibenge, who declined to be interviewed, is editor of the journal Aquaculture.

Some of the samples were taken last November after an unseasonable algae bloom caused a massive die-off at Cermaq operations in northern Clayoquot Sound, killing 200,000 fish. Clayoquot Action sent decomposing flesh and other matter from the die-off to the Atlantic Veterinary College, where it tested positive for the Norwegian variant of PRV.

Glambeck said she first heard of piscine orthoreovirus during the Cohen commission investigation into the decline of Fraser River sockeye, when federal government genomic scientist Kristi Miller testified that she had been asked to help Creative Salmon diagnose why fish were jaundiced and discovered the company’s farmed Chinook had piscine orthoreovirus (PRV). 

“It’s a particular concern that Creative Salmon has PRV on their farms that is replicating and adapting to a specific species, and spreading through the waters of Clayoquot Sound,” Glambeck said. 

“Viruses and pathogens on these farms become more virulent with the amount of fish crowding on the farms so we’re really concerned that this virus will become even more dangerous to Chinook and other Pacific species than it is now.” 

According to the report, a salmon farm infected by piscine orthoreovirus can release as many as 65 billion viral particles an hour, which are spread far and wide by tidal currents. 

“Because fish breathe by passing water over their gills, it is dead easy for PRV to enter the bloodstream of wild fish,” the report said.

Salmon farming companies referred questions to the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association.

Updated at 2:40 p.m. on Feb. 6 to include comment from DFO, which was not able to respond to questions by our deadline. 

Updated at 12:40 p.m. on Feb. 7 to add the words “Atlantic salmon” to the following sentence: In 2018, the state of Washington announced that open net pen Atlantic salmon fish farms would be phased out by 2025.

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There was a sight for sore eyes in late July off the coast of Tofino, when a Dutch-built, Vancouver-registered 30-metre barge, Salar, was towed out of Clayoquot Sound waters, hopefully never to return.

The vessel — looking like something out of Terry Gilliam’s fantasist movie Brazil — was brought to Tofino to battle infestations of sea lice, a persistent by-product of industrial salmon farming that attacks farmed fish and, incidentally, wild juvenile salmon.

That the name, Salar, is derived from the species name for Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar, may seem a rude irony to some on the West Coast where the fabled Oncorhynchus, or wild Pacific salmon, are endangered by the industrialization of salmon rearing not just in Clayoquot Sound, but in the Broughton Archipelago on the east side of Vancouver Island.

Meares Island, immediately to the east of the resort municipality of Tofino, is among the most iconic locations on Canada’s West Coast when it comes to the protection of rare old-growth coastal temperate rainforests.

It was here that the ritual of clear-cut logging was slowed 35 years ago. The Meares Island blockade in 1984 lit a fuse that blew up into a full-scale War in the Woods that dogged successive provincial governments — Socred and NDP and Liberal alike — until much of Clayoquot Sound was “protected,” as were large swaths of Haida Gwaii and, eventually, impressive tracts of the so-called Great Bear Rainforest.

Where there was a War in the Woods, now there’s a War on the Waters.

A view of Clayoquot Sound near Tofino. Photo: Shayd Johnson

To summer tourists who savour the “eco” tourism that has taken the place of some, if not all, logging, the uncut slopes of Meares Island, and a gorgeous necklace of inlets and islets on glittering inshore waters, perfectly disguise an environmental catastrophe that constitutes, literally, a pestilence on our coast.

Parked this summer (one hesitates to use the term “moored”) in sight of the Fourth Street dock in Tofino, the Salar supplemented the onshore processing plant of Cermaq, a Norway-based salmon farming company owned by Mitsubishi that operates in Chile, Norway and Canada.

Farmed fish, packed together in their thousands in pens, like battery chickens, are subject to disease, including outbreaks of a Norwegian strain of piscine orthoreovirus, or PRV — something Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans refused to screen for before a federal court ordered it to do so.

Farmed fish are sitting ducks for sea lice, too. Industry has struggled to contain the sea lice menace.

Last year, Cermaq took to sucking afflicted fish out of their net pens and bathing them in a solution of pesticide designed to dislodge the lice. The fish went back into their pens (and eventually made their way into the mouths of consumers), the chemicals were dispersed into the marine environment and life went on.

But some lice developed an immunity to drugs used to remove them.

This year’s “solution” was to deploy the Salar, or what industry calls a “hydrolicer” that was built to pressure-wash lice to dislodge them rather than use chemicals, making it “100 per cent pollution-free and thus environmentally friendly” according to a soothing review in Fish Farming Expert.

But at least farmed fish get a shake.

Wild smolts — which have no choice other than to migrate past open net pens — pick up lice in such numbers that they cannot survive.

Clayoquot Sound wild smolts covered in sea lice, May 2019. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Regulations require industry keep parasite levels below a certain threshold. During this past spring and early summer three of Cermaq’s farms exceeded sea lice levels in violation of federal rules.

During the early summer wild salmon migration season in Clayoquot Sound, I watched filmmaker and naturalist Tavish Campbell document juvenile salmon covered in sea lice.

Sometimes ten lice clamped to one tiny smolt — fish so young they have yet to develop scales and thus are defenceless against parasitic attacks.

On an excursion for the Cedar Coast Field Station on Vargas Island, Campbell, perhaps best known for his short film Bloodwater, said, “the focus has been on the Broughton, but it’s even worse out here.”

“Clayoquot Sound is close to the point where there’s just not going to be any wild fish any more,” Tavish Campbell told me, looking up for a moment from filming chum salmon smolts he sampled.

Sea lice on a wild salmon smolt recovered in Clayoquot Sound, May 2019. Photo: Tavish Campbell

Bonnie Glambeck, a director of the conservation group, Clayoquot Action, told The Tyee, “At one point during the out-migration, sampling of smolts at the Cedar Coast Field Station found 100 per cent of the juveniles were infected with sea lice.”

Mack Bartlett, research coordinator at the Cedar Coast station, told me the effect of sea lice on wild salmon was devastating. “We have [wild fish] returning in their tens, when there used to be thousands. We could see the disappearance of chinook salmon in Clayoquot Sound if we don’t come up with a solution.”

In an open letter in the Tofino-Ucluelet Westerly News Cermaq’s managing director, David Kiemele, admitted the company was “unable to effectively manage sea lice populations for a variety of reasons” during the critical wild salmon migration period from March to June.

So much for Salar.

Sea lice on a juvenile wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago. Video: Tavish Campbell

You would think that Fisheries and Oceans Canada would shut down Cermaq’s operations pronto, but instead, the Government of Canada announced it was “moving forward on developing an action plan to address the enforcement of sea lice regulations in coastal waters.”

Which brings a tired laugh of disbelief from Homiskanis Don Svanvik, elected chief of the ‘Namgis First Nation, in Alert Bay.

“One of the biggest issues is that people don’t believe that our government would not be telling us the truth, or would not be doing all they can to help wild salmon. And in fact, they’re not.”

Svanvik’s people have been at the forefront of attempts to get fish farms out of their waters in the Broughton Archipelago, and onto dry land — as with the band-owned Kuterra land-raised salmon enterprise that has shown it can be done.

Open-net pen fish farms, Svanvik told me, “are this staging place for disease and sea lice that were never (previously) in place for the wild salmon returning and going out to sea. The logical place for those is on land, where they cannot impact wild fish.”

“They’ve got to go. Let’s get them out. Let’s not have any risk to our salmon up here.”

The key to getting fish farms out of open waters, Svanvik believes, is “when the population says no, that’s enough. You can’t do this anymore.”

Back in Tofino, in an echo of the Meares Island logging blockade a third of a century ago, signs of the salmon farming’s denouement are evident.

In late June, a new generation of protesters joined with holdovers from the War in the Woods as about 200 protesters took to local waters in the wake of the R/V Martin Sheen, a sailboat operated by the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, which has taken up the fight against salmon farms. A flotilla of small craft motored to and circled Cermaq’s farm on Warne Island.

The R/V Martin Sheen, a research vessel used as part of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society’s ‘Operation Virus Hunter,’ a campaign to document the impacts of open-net fish farms on the B.C. coast. Photo: Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation member Tsimka Martin, one of the organizers of the flotilla, co-founded a group called the Nuuchahnulth Salmon Alliance that is determined to see fish farms — 27 of them, operated by three companies — evicted from Clayoquot Sound.

“These are cess pools, we need to remove them from our waters,” she says in a video posted on the alliance’s Facebook page.

There have been public marches, a rally outside Cermaq’s plant, boardings of Creative Salmon farm operations, an Indigenous talking circle — all chapters in the textbook endgame for an industry that has worn out whatever welcome it had in the first place.

Because there are jobs involved, of course politicians will have a say.

Unlike Jay Inslee, the governor of Washington State who is clearing fish farms out of the Salish Sea and vows to keep them out, Premier John Horgan has been hesitant to make significant changes.

Indigenous political leaders are meanwhile divided. While some communities benefit economically from the aquaculture industry operating in their traditional waters, others argue the protection of wild salmon should be see as critical to both reconciliation and efforts to free Indigenous nations from their economic dependence on extractive industries.

But time is running out for all — to save salmon from going the way of the East Coast cod.

“The salmon can be a messenger,” Don Svanvik says. “When we start doing things better, they’ll be coming back more. Then we’ll know we’re headed in the right direction.”

And then perhaps the people of Clayoquot Sound — indeed all over Vancouver Island — can get back to fighting the War in the Woods, which, it turns out — a third of a century later — isn’t really over after all …

Bringing back the trees to bring back the salmon

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Clouds hang low over the hills and a sporadic, warm rain slicks the docks at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew.

It should be a good day for anglers around the small southern Vancouver Island community, which advertises sports fishing as its specialty, attracting British Columbians and tourists from around the world who want to catch salmon and halibut.

But, despite the impending long weekend that would normally see anglers flocking to Port Renfrew, more than half the marina’s slips are empty and the remainder are occupied by charter boats sitting idle, unused fishing rods pointing skywards.

In April, after most spring and summer fishing charter and local accommodation bookings had been made, Fisheries and Oceans Canada announced sweeping restrictions to commercial and recreational Chinook salmon fisheries around B.C.’s south coast due to plummeting stocks.

“Chinook are the driving force here,” explains John Wells, owner of Port Renfrew’s Hindsight Fishing Charter.

“It’s a daily income for the town … This has a ripple effect on everyone from sports stores to the marina operators,” he says.

“We rely on this. It’s our town and our livelihood and we care about this and we don’t want to lose it.”

Fishing rods sit idle at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew, following new federal restrictions on Chinook fishing. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The changes mean that Chinook caught this summer must be released and the total annual limit has been reduced from 30 to 10 Chinook per person. The commercial Chinook fishery is also closed until August 20 instead of opening in June as it usually does.

The restrictions are part of a federal government effort to reverse drastic declines in Fraser River Chinook populations and make more fish available for endangered southern resident killer whales, whose preferred diet is Chinook.

But they’ve left Port Renfrew, a village of 150, struggling to reinvent itself after earning a reputation as the fishing capital of southern Vancouver Island, with “some of the best salmon and halibut fishing in North America,” according to the town’s website.

Crab traps are a common sight on the weathered docks of the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Locals call this the Marge Simpson Rock. The waters around the rock have traditionally been a favourite fishing spot for Chinook. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Clients cancel as effect of Chinook fishing restrictions takes hold

Sports fishing for other species remains open, but the large Chinook are the lifeblood of the industry, and, in Port Renfrew, charter cancellations started immediately after the announcement, with customers making it clear they did not want to pay thousands of dollars to go home without a salmon.

A survey of 364 businesses and companies, 82 per cent of which are linked to the fishing industry, conducted for a coalition of 17 Vancouver Island chambers of commerce, found 71 per cent had cancellations after the Chinook restrictions, with 22 per cent saying bookings were down by more than 50 per cent.

A total of 96 per cent said they are losing customers and clients, with 37 per cent expecting to lay off staff and 27 per cent saying they will have to close their business this season or next.

Dan Quigley (left) is a director of the Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce who has been fishing in the area for 40 years. Quigley heads out on the water with Nolan Fisher but they won’t be bringing home Chinook due to new rules that aim to help save diminishing stocks. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Boat owners are now scrambling to explain that catch and release provides a great West Coast fishing experience, even if the fish must be returned to the ocean, and that other species also provide good sport.

But Alberta resident Jean Pigeon, throwing lines off the marina dock after returning from a guided fishing trip, says he and his friends will not pay for a fishing trip if they can’t take fish home with them.

“We almost cancelled the trip when we got the information that we couldn’t get Chinook,” Pigeon tells The Narwhal.

The group was told that fishing for species such as halibut and ling cod remains open and there are areas further afield (and more expensive to reach) where Chinook can be retained, meaning the trio is returning to Alberta with Chinook and halibut.

Port Renfrew attracts visitors from around the world. These fishermen from Alberta and Quebec almost cancelled their trip because of confusion over new fishing rules that mean Chinook caught this summer must be released. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

On the water near Port Renfrew, conversations revolve around the restrictions. Some such as Nolan and Sandy Fisher, who, enticed by good fishing, built a waterfront home in Port Renfrew, say they are satisfied to catch other species, even though they feel the federal government should be looking at bigger issues such as fish farms and cruise ships.

“I love halibut and cod and maybe we’ll get more mussels and cod,” says Sandy Fisher.

As Nolan Fisher manoeuvres his boat around the inlet, the depth sounder shows shoals of fish. “They are probably Chinook which means we could catch them, but we have to let them go,” he says wistfully.

Port Renfrew resident Sandra Fisher misses catching Chinook but says she is content fishing for halibut and cod. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Trust with DFO ‘has been broken’

Few dispute that Fraser River Chinook are in trouble, but, in a community where so many livelihoods are linked to recreational fishing, there is a visceral distrust of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and a general belief that anglers are being singled out as easy targets.

Sports fishermen say the federal government, instead of paying attention to those living in coastal communities, is listening to environmental groups or fish-farming companies, the latter of which — in a rare point of agreement — are widely believed by both conservation organizations and anglers to be negatively affecting wild runs by spreading sea lice and pathogens.

“The trust with DFO has been broken,” says Dan Quigley, a Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce director who has been fishing in the area for 40 years. “We had hoped to build some alliances, but they stomped all over that and the communications have not been good.”

Dan Quigley says trust with DFO has been broken. He believes Port Renfrew’s fishing industry can survive if people start thinking differently about fishing. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Members of Port Renfrew’s fishing community believe they are scapegoats for decades of salmon mismanagement even though the province’s recreational fishery catches less than 10 per cent of all salmon species, contributes $1.1 billion to the provincial economy and provides 9,000 jobs.

“We are the low-hanging fruit with government making it look good for the general public,” says Wells, pointing out that, when thousands of SNC-Lavalin jobs were at stake in Quebec, the federal government was anxious to take action, but DFO appears unwilling to save fishing jobs in B.C.

John Wells, owner of Port Renfrew’s Hindsight Fishing Charter, says the Chinook restrictions have had a ripple effect on businesses ranging from sports stores to marina operators. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Charter boat operators say their data shows most Chinook caught in the area are either hatchery stock or U.S. fish.

“Ninety-nine per cent of the Chinook that we intercept are American fish,” says Brent Story of Pacific Pro Charters, who says he’s seen a 20 per cent drop in bookings, forcing him to put business expansion plans on hold.

“We know what rivers the fish are from and have the data to back it up.” he says.

Pacific Chinook salmon are in ‘a critical state’

But data can be collected in several ways and Greg Taylor, fisheries advisor with Watershed Watch — a science-based charity that advocates for the conservation of B.C.’s wild salmon — says data used by charter boat operators looks at the catch across 12 months instead of the critical months when endangered stocks are passing through the area.

“The science is provided by DFO based on DNA. [Charter boat operators] actually have a significant impact on the stocks of concern — the spring and summer chinook that are endangered — when those fish are migrating through their fishery,” says Taylor, who spent 30 years in the commercial fishing industry and is a member of the marine conservation caucus, a group of nine conservation organizations mandated to provide advice to DFO.

“They are intercepting a significant proportion of those fish that are passing through in the months of May, June and July,” he says.

An added concern is the mortality rate of fish that are caught and released. While DFO estimates that 15 per cent do not survive, a recently released paper puts the mortality rates much higher, Taylor says, adding he would like to see a complete closure of chinook fishing during the critical months.

But the hard truth is that populations of Pacific salmon are shrinking and it is unlikely that the glory days of sports fishing will return in the foreseeable future.

The Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada has found that 12 out of 13 Fraser River Chinook populations are at risk. Fisheries Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, announcing the restrictions, said stocks must not knowingly be put on the path to extinction.

“The science is clear: Pacific Chinook salmon are in a critical state. Without immediate action, this species could be lost forever,” Wilkinson said.

Hammond Rocks at the edge of Port Renfrew’s bay has traditionally been a rich fishing spot for Chinook. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The ‘dragon’ of Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The quest to reinvent Port Renfrew

Quigley is one of a group of businessmen and residents leading a push to look for new directions for Port Renfrew. While he believes the fishing industry can survive if, in part, people start thinking differently about fishing, he says new strategies are needed to keep tourists in the area.

“Not everyone wants to retain a salmon. What they say is ‘the tug is the drug.’ It’s getting the fish on and releasing it. A lot of the guides now have purchased new, rubber-coated nets that help the salmon so they can take a picture of it without harming the fish,” says Quigley, a retired federal administrative judge.

“It’s a new mindset that it’s not just a meat fishery, it’s an experience. Coming out to Renfrew and enjoying the fight with the fish and then letting it go. Seeing some whales and seeing the West Coast Trail and those sorts of things,” he says.

“We’ve got to get the word out that fishing is not closed. It’s far from being closed.”

A fishing boat at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew, a town now striving to re-invent itself. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Paul McFadden, vice president of Mill Bay Marine Group, which built Pacific Gateway Marina four years ago, agrees that a partial solution is changing angler attitudes.

“We don’t have to kill the fish. Look at the Fraser River sturgeon … At the end of the day, it’s time to change the culture of the angler,” McFadden says.

Paul McFadden is vice president of Mill Bay Marine Group, which built Pacific Gateway Marina four years ago as sports fishers flocked to the town. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

The need for an economic makeover is a scenario familiar to long-time Port Renfrew residents who’ve lived through booms and busts before.

The first logging camp was built in the area in 1923 and, for decades, industrial logging provided jobs and wealth, but in 1990 Fletcher Challenge moved operations to Cowichan Lake and Port Renfrew started a sometimes painful transition to a tourism and fishing-based economy.

When the Ancient Forest Alliance started a campaign to save massive trees in the area and promote them as a tourist attraction, it was initially greeted with scorn by long-time supporters of the logging industry.

But, with a growing interest in the vital role of old-growth forests, tourists came to Port Renfrew to gaze at massive Douglas fir and spruce trees and awe-inspiring stands such as Avatar Grove.

The community started billing itself as the Tall Tree Capital of Canada and, combined with fishing and hiking, a tourism economy took root.

However, tourists gazing at trees or visiting Botanical Beach tend to come for the day or stay for one night, while anglers stay longer, either taking charter fishing trips or setting up camp for weeks at a time, Quigley says.

Still waters at the Pacific Gateway Marina in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Seagulls perch atop rocks at the Pacific Gateway Marina, waiting for the day’s catch to be gutted. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Some say B.C. government needs to take control of salmon from feds

Quigley believes a partial answer to Port Renfrew’s conundrum is for the provincial government to take control of salmon from the federal government, a change he says would provide more opportunities for local input and for pressure to be put on logging companies to restore habitat.

“The B.C. government needs to get it through their heads that these salmon are born in B.C. They are born in our streams and our rivers and they need to take jurisdiction,” Quigley says.

Quigley’s passion for fishing is reflected in wall art at his Port Renfrew home. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Dan Quigley heads downstairs in his West Coast-themed house in Port Renfrew. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

Forest clearcut near Port Renfrew, British Columbia. Photo: TJ Watt

The province has not indicated it is interested in wresting control of salmon from the federal government, but Premier John Horgan said after the restrictions were announced that he was disappointed that “years of bad decisions” have led to the need for such conservation measures and acknowledged there would be a significant impact on communities.

Adam Olsen of the B.C. Green Party agrees B.C.’s wild salmon stocks are crashing because of government policies and he believes the province has played a role.

“For decades the federal government has mismanaged the salmon harvest while the provincial government has mismanaged land-based resource harvesting and now we are paying the consequences,” Olsen wrote in his blog.

Despite the obvious need for regulation, the salmon harvest has continued as if it was the Wild West. Instead of conservation measures being rolled out over the last decade, they were dropped on fishing communities just before this fishing season, devastating coastal communities, he wrote.

DFO spokeswoman Lara Sloan said in an emailed response to questions from The Narwhal that there was consultation about the restrictions and, in February, DFO circulated a letter outlining the need for new management actions for Fraser River Chinook because of the fall assessments and poor 2018 returns.

Restrictions needed to be put in place in April to protect early migrations of the endangered Chinook, Sloan said.

Hatcheries not a silver bullet

From the fishing guides’ point of view, one of the latest slights from DFO was a decision not to fund applications for Chinook hatchery projects, even though the Sport Fishing Institute of B.C. is advocating to protect wild fish by moving the harvest away from threatened stocks and on to hatchery fish.

Sloan said the department is funding new hatchery conservation measures on at least three low-abundance stocks of Fraser River Chinook and additional use of hatcheries may be considered, but would require careful planning and evaluation.

“The ratio of hatchery-produced fish to wild fish on spawning grounds would need to be monitored to ensure genetic diversity is maintained and potential competition with wild stocks would need to be considered,” she said.

Aaron Hill, executive director of Watershed Watch, says hatcheries are needed in extreme  circumstances to keep populations from going extinct, but there is growing scientific evidence they present a risk to wild populations.

“They lower the genetic fitness of the wild populations. They are genetically inferior because they haven’t undergone natural selection and then they interbreed with the wild fish and lower their viability,” Hill says, adding that hatchery runs mean increased fishing and wild fish are then caught as bycatch.

“They also compete with wild fish for food and there’s increasing evidence that that is having a substantial impact on some populations. It’s an increasing concern with climate change because the warming ocean conditions are reducing the quantity and quality of food available  for salmon in the ocean,” he says.

Watershed Watch is asking the federal government to put all new and existing hatcheries through a full biological risk assessment.

“There are conservation benefits to hatcheries, but, if you are just putting those fish out there to catch, it’s not providing a conservation benefit, it’s providing a fishing benefit that might be detrimental,” Hill says.

A lone charter boat fishing in a regulated area far from Port Renfrew. A charter this far out could cost the operator up to $250 in diesel a day. Photo: Taylor Roades / The Narwhal

First Nations Chinook fisheries continue

Another touchy topic for many Port Renfrew fishermen are First Nations Chinook net fisheries on the Fraser, which boat owners say are pushing a wedge between communities as they are sidelined while fish heading for spawning grounds are intercepted.

“They should be letting those fish get up the river,” Wells says.

However, Sloan said First Nations openings are limited, accounting for approximately five per cent of returns, and must be allowed to meet constitutionally protected rights to harvest small numbers of Chinook for food, social and ceremonial purposes.

Under the constitution, conservation is the first priority, followed by First Nations fisheries, with commercial and recreational fisheries taking third place. Any deviation would likely spark a lawsuit against the federal government.

Murray Ned, executive director of the Lower Fraser Fisheries Alliance, which represents Indigenous communities along the river, says conservation is of prime importance and full communal fisheries are not being conducted this year.

The federal government does give permission for small ceremonial fisheries when a community member dies, in which case about three salmon are taken to feed people at the funeral, or for historical ceremonies honouring the return of the Chinook.

“It is only one person going out for about eight hours to try and capture those fish,” he says.

Mountain biking, ecotourism eyed for economic diversification

The Chamber of Commerce and a new opportunities committee is working with Pacheedaht First Nation on strategies ranging from ecotourism, with fishing guides running trips to view wildlife such as bears and cougars, to promoting Port Renfrew as the new West Coast mountain bike capital.

“Everyone wants to compare us to the next Tofino, but I think we can do much better than that. Our mountains are higher and we have one of the most gorgeous beaches on the planet and wonderful campsites,” McFadden says.

Mountain biking, one of the major growth industries, offers huge opportunities, he points out.

“We can offer trails of 385 kilometres in three different directions and we have the most frost-free days in Canada.”

That optimism is echoed by Karl Ablack, vice-president of Port Renfrew Chamber of Commerce, who heads Port Renfrew Management, which owns about 175 hectares in the area.

Ablack envisages a new town centre, surrounded by affordable housing and a multitude of tourism opportunities.

“There is definitely short-term pain … but it now gives us a reason to be talking about diversification and not relying on one industry like fishing and logging,” he says.

Taylor of Watershed Watch points out that “it took a long time to get in this terrible position and it’s going to take us a long time to get out.”

“There’s no easy answer, there’s no magic bullet,” he says. “It’s not killing seals or enhancing fish.”

“The most important, immediate solution we can have is to identify those populations of Fraser River chinook that are classified as endangered and stop killing them.”

Updated June 18, 2019, at 3:12 p.m.: The article originally stated Alberta fishermen were told they could fish for red snapper. The article has been updated to reflect the fact red snapper can not currently be retained.

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The sight of dozens of tiny chum and chinook salmon funnelled into a trap by special nets sent biologists from Raincoast Conservation Foundation into an excited frenzy of high-fives as they squelched through the muddy waters of the Lower Fraser tidal marsh.

“We were in our waders, waving our nets and jumping up and down in the estuary,” said Misty MacDuffee, Raincoast’s wild salmon program director.

As the group was setting the nets in March, weeks after knocking holes in the Steveston jetty, it was difficult to see the fish because of cloudy water, but then it became apparent that juvenile salmon were moving through the newly created passages into the relative safety of the marsh, said Dave Scott, Raincoast’s Lower Fraser salmon program coordinator.

“We were ecstatic to see it was working. Seeing those fish made us realize that what we were doing was really necessary,” he said.

Dave Scott, Lower Fraser salmon program coordinator with a team from the Raincoast Conservation Foundation, nets juvenile salmon accessing Sturgeon Bank through the recently punctured Steveston jetty. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

The importance of estuaries

It is rare for a habitat restoration project to show such instant signs of success, but creating breaches in the eight-kilometre Steveston jetty, which controls the main arm of the Fraser River as it enters the estuary, offered an almost immediate payoff.

The jetty, constructed from rock rubble between 1911 and 1933, means juvenile salmon leaving their freshwater birthplaces are blocked from the calm side channels of the estuary. So, instead of spending time growing and feeding in the brackish marshes of Sturgeon Bank, they are likely to be whooshed out into the Strait of Georgia before they adjust to salt water living.

The fish, which are less than five centimetres long at that stage in their lives, must go through physiological changes before they head out to sea.

The lower Fraser River. The Steveston jetty prevents juvenile salmon from accessing the estuary zone in Sturgeon Bank. A habitat connectivity project managed by the Raincoast Conservation Project is changing that. Map: Carol Linnitt / The Narwhal

As salmon move from freshwater, where they have been incubated as eggs, they are transformed through a smoltification process before they hit salt water, said Murray Manson, restoration biologist with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, which is funding the project through the federal government’s coastal restoration fund.

But that is not easy for small fish in the Fraser where jetties and dredging in the main channel are designed to move water to the ocean as fast as possible. The original aim was to help ships navigate their way quickly into the Strait of Georgia and stop sediment gathering in the main shipping channel.

There is one opportunity for the fish to make an exit and get into the marsh in front of Sturgeon Bank and, if they miss it, they are pushed out into the Salish Sea, MacDuffee said.

“If you are a tiny little fish who wants to stay in shallow, fresh protected water, Georgia Strait is not where you want to end up,” she said.

MacDuffee holds up juvenile salmon captured along the Steveston jetty in March. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

“They don’t want to go out there until they have been able to spend time acclimatizing and going through this physiological transformation. They are moving from freshwater, where they are always trying to keep their mineral balance and their salts held in, to going into salt water where they are always trying to keep salt from getting into their bodies. Everything has to reverse for them,” she said.

So, at a time when the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) is reporting that eight of B.C.’s chinook populations are endangered, four are threatened and one is considered of special concern, the sight of the young chinook and chum using breaches in the jetty to get to safer waters was inspiring.

“There they were, just moving through all the channels that had just been created. One of our engineers said that, if we just get all the rock and hard material that forms the jetty out of the way, nature will do the rest. Nature will carve the path through the marsh, behind the breaches,” MacDuffee said.

The initial work, researched by Raincoast biologists, saw a clamshell dredger chomping lumps out of the jetty and it is expected that when the Fraser is running high it will scour out the breaches, naturally helping the process.

A clamshell digger removes jetty materials used to modify flow of the Lower Fraser River since the early 20th century. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

The Raincoast team surveying for tiny juvenile salmon along the Steveston jetty. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

The Raincoast team in the lower Fraser River. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

Provided ongoing monitoring shows the plan is continuing to work, the 50-metre wide breaches will be deepened next year.

“The breaches are being cut in two phases. We will see how they behave over the next couple of months and then we will hopefully cut down a little deeper so (the jetty) is open over a broader range of tide cycles,” Manson said.

Development around the Lower Fraser estuary has meant dykes, fish-killing pump stations, dredging and infilling, Manson said.

“Sometimes people aren’t even aware that large areas of land used either for terminals or even neighbourhoods are built on infilled marshland that used to be tidal and used to have small channels that the juvenile chinook would move into,” he said.

“You couldn’t really plan out out a better way to try and remove a species.”

The breaches, while are unlikely to affect shipping, are likely to provide side benefits to areas such as Delta and Richmond as the changes are expected to improve the Sturgeon Bank ecosystem by washing fine sediment into the marsh instead of powering it out to sea.

“The area we are connecting the river to is really being starved of that sediment. It is being forced out into the middle of the Strait instead of helping build a healthy delta and a healthy marsh. We are hoping and expecting that by providing more fine sediment along Sturgeon Bank it will help the delta grow and the delta is the City of Richmond’s primary defence against sea-level rise,” Scott said.

A perforated Steveston jetty will provide connectivity for juvenile salmon needing to pass from the Lower Fraser River to Sturgeon Bank. Photo: Alex Harris / Raincoast

Hope for endangered killer whales

Hopes are running high that restoring parts of the Lower Fraser habitat to help struggling chinook populations will also provide more food for the dwindling population of southern resident killer whales, whose primary source of food is chinook.

“The best investment both for chinook salmon and for southern resident killer whales is in restoring wild salmon populations — getting away from hatcheries — and getting the habitat back so the salmon can come and spawn in the places they have spawned for thousands and thousands of years,” MacDuffee said.

“The recovery of wild salmon is the best hope for the southern resident killer whales.”

The three southern resident killer whale pods have been reduced to 74 animals and studies have established that the greatest threats faced by the whales are lack of prey, contaminants and noise disturbance. The whales will face additional threats from increased oil tanker traffic if the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is approved by the federal government in June.

“When we thought about priorities for the (coastal restoration) fund, right at the forefront was trying to get chinook populations in better shape, not only for the chinook, but for the species that rely on them like southern resident killer whales,” Manson said.

The initial success of the project shows that small-scale habitat restoration projects can make a significant difference, Scott said.

While big dams on rivers such as the Snake in Washington State, which block adult spawners, are an obvious impediment to salmon population recovery, smaller scale projects can have a noticeable impact, he said.

“They may not be as obvious as those really big pieces of infrastructure but these smaller ones can be really important,” Scott said.

The aim of the $75-million coastal restoration fund — part of the federal five-year, $1.5-billion oceans protection plan — is to restore vulnerable coastline areas and protect marine life and ecosystems.

In addition to the five-year Raincoast project, which is receiving $2.7 million, other projects on the Lower Fraser include a similar effort by Ducks Unlimited Canada and a project in partnership with the Fraser Valley Watersheds Coalition, to reclaim a gravel pit near Hope that has become a killing ground for young salmon.

The Tom Berry Gravel Pit, which was used during construction of the Coquihalla Highway in the 1980s, is beside the Fraser River and floods every year during the spring freshet, trapping young salmon, which are then stranded when the water recedes.

The project is returning the gravel pit to natural floodplain habitat, so small fish will be able to return to the river instead of dying in the pit.

But more needs to be done, MacDuffee emphasized.

“The most important thing is we have to stop destroying what’s left of the habitat in the Lower Fraser. There are a lot of proposals in the works right now that would erode and degrade those remaining stretches of habitat that still function,” she said pointing to LNG storage and export proposals and the Terminal Two plan, now under review, to expand cargo handling capacity at Roberts Bank.

“We have got to stop making the mistakes of the past and making decisions to facilitate industry … At a time when we need to be going in the other direction and restoring lost habitat, we are still undercutting and undermining the habitat that we have,” she said.

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Remember that picture of a baby orca flying through the air like she was auditioning for the Broadway musical adaptation of Free Willy?

In 2015 you couldn’t open a Facebook, Instagram or Twitter feed without seeing the image and smiling. This baby orca, initially nicknamed Wiggles, is J-50 — the 50th member to join J-Pod since humans started counting and cataloguing southern resident orcas.

I talked to the photographer, Clint Rivers, just after he took that astonishing shot and he glowed as he shared the day, like he’d witnessed a miracle. This baby had just learned she could fly and she kept leaping — or, to use the boring scientific term for whales defying gravity and our imaginations, “breaching” over and over and over again.

She was Joy. She was Hope. Her photo became the symbol of West Coast whales — especially since this was the famous orca breach birth baby. Elder orcas helped deliver her, using their teeth to assist her mother, Slick (J-16), with the delivery. Slick was 42 at the time — believed to be beyond her reproductive years — so Scarlet truly was a miracle baby.   

The iconic image of infant Scarlet leaping through the air raised awareness of the animals. Photo: Clint Rivers

This whale was the magic that people travel to the West Coast of B.C. and Washington to experience. She was named Scarlet — because of the scars from her delivery. Also, I suspect, because The Avengers were a thing and I’m sure Black Widow seemed like a terrible name for a cute baby whale. Although, in hindsight, that was probably the way to go.

Scarlet was born in Dec. 2014 and kicked off the great baby boom of 2015 — which was (no coincidence) about two years after a banner year for Chinook salmon — the primary diet of the endangered southern residents. That year their numbers climbed to 83.

Now there are new pictures of Scarlet going viral. If you’re not familiar with orca anatomy, she still looks adorable — a perfect baby orca. The problem is she’s not a baby and the three-year-old is the size of a one-year-old. And there’s a depression at the back of her neck.

Scientists call that indentation “peanut head” — which is more proof scientists should never be allowed to name anything that might be shared with civilians. Peanut head sounds adorable, which is not the effect you want for a term that means she’s lost so much weight we can see her skeleton.

One of Scarlet’s pod mates, 20-year-old Tahlequah (J-35) just delivered the first live baby in the southern resident population in three years. Her daughter survived about half-an-hour before dying. She never flew through the air. She was never named by humans, though I know someone suggested calling her “Extinction” and I’ve suggested “Pandora” — since she’s even got government agencies thinking outside the box.

Early deaths for orcas aren’t uncommon, but three years without adding another live member to this population is catastrophic.

While the rest of the world watched Tahlequah grieve, orca experts on the West Coast have also been haunted by Scarlet. In most stories about Tahlequah carrying her daughter’s body there’s a brief mention that another whale is in trouble.

Scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration have been following Scarlet around taking breath samples. Her breath and feces contain pathogens — another science word not meant for civilian consumption. It means germs.

Scarlet is starving and she’s sick and she’s sick because she’s starving. She’s lost 20 percent of her mass and as orcas get thinner, they live off their blubber. But the ketogenic diet isn’t a great idea for orcas since their blubber is where they store the generations of toxins we’ve dumped into the water. Orcas burning blubber are feeding off DDT, dioxins and all the other charming poisonous chemicals and plastics that are now primary links in our food chain.

NOAA and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada are looking to “intervene” to save Scarlet by feeding her live salmon and administering antibiotics. The Lummi Nation has live salmon in tanks ready to feed her. Of course, that requires finding J-Pod, who were just spotted again on Tuesday night outside Port Renfrew.      

NOAA has permission from the U.S. government to administer antibiotics and try to feed her. Canada’s department of Fisheries and Oceans announced Thursday morning that they are also cleared to assist Scarlet. But fog and choppy waters may make it difficult to spot Scarlet’s pod — nevermind get close enough to help her. Weather conditions aren’t expected to improve until Sunday.

Scarlet and her mother, J-16, swim together early in her life. Photo: John Durban (NOAA Fisheries), Holly Fearnbach (SR3) and Lance Barrett-Lennard (Vancouver Aquarium) via Flickr

Orca-advocacy organizations that might normally battle anyone looking to interfere with the whales’ lives are offering to help because, even if our governments are turning a blind eye to their environmental commitments, they’re at least finally following the Pottery Barn rule: “You Break It, You Bought It.”

Lynda Mapes, the orca reporter from the Seattle Times, wrote that she’s received private calls from politicians who can’t sleep because Tahlequah’s story is shattering them. Chances are their children and grandchildren are asking what they’re doing to help the whales. So let’s make sure every kid out there knows the flying baby whale they fell in love with is the “other orca” who’s dying.

Let’s make sure Prime Minister Justin Trudeau knows this as he decides whether it’s worth trampling the last of these black and white whales with the white elephant known as Trans Mountain — and as his government decides where to focus the funds being put into assisting the recovery of these iconic orcas.

Let’s take the moment to ask the B.C. government to look at licences for fish farms that have put wild salmon at risk.

Washington Governor, Jay Inslee, just asked his task force to consider breaching the Snake River dam. Here’s his number (360-902-4111). Here’s Senator Patty Murray’s number (206-553-5545). You can also share your thoughts with the task force online. It is accepting comments from Canadians and Ken Balcomb, founder of the Center for Whale Research, is urging us to weigh in.

Yes, there are plenty of things that need to happen to help the orcas, the Chinoook and the ocean that keeps us all alive.

But these whales are almost out of time.  If you think this world is better with the world’s most iconic orcas in it, this is the moment to demand action.

It’s up to us.

What’s the symbol you want for the future of the southern resident orcas — Tahlequah grieving or Scarlet defying gravity?

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Salmon used to be infrequent visitors to the Mackenzie River and communities of the Arctic, but more species have begun to show up in the North more often and in greater numbers than ever before.

“They’re indicating change,” says Karen Dunmall, a research scientist with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans who is overseeing the Arctic Salmon project.

The climate change they’re indicating is affecting the Arctic more potently and quickly than anywhere else. It’s manifesting in thinner ice that forms later and breaks up earlier, warmer rivers, milder winters, longer summers and changes in wildlife and vegetation across the Arctic.

Dunmall’s community-based research has found that although some salmon have been found for generations in communities across the Arctic and up the Mackenzie River, they have always been limited in numbers and species.

“Before 2004, for instance, there was the odd pink salmon that was noticed,” Dunmall told The Narwhal.

But now, every other year, salmon are being noticed by fishermen in more and more communities. They have been participating in the research, sending whole fish and heads to Dunmall for recording and analysis. 

“It started out just in the Mackenzie River Delta, and now all of the communities in the Inuvialuit Settlement Region (along the Arctic coast) have caught pink salmon.”

And it’s not just pink and chum salmon anymore: other southern species including coho, sockeye and Atlantic salmon are starting to show up as well.

The fish have now been caught as far into the Arctic as Kugluktuk, Nunavut, and as far up the Mackenzie River as Fort Good Hope, crossing the Arctic Circle as they head south.

New DNA technology finds its place in the Arctic

To get a better picture of where the salmon are going, Dunmall has begun applying a cutting-edge technology called environmental DNA, or eDNA. The technique involves taking a water sample and testing it for free-floating bits of genetic material, things like skin cells or scales that have been shed into the water.

It’s a brand new way of determining which creatures are in a body of water without ever seeing them, and due to the wide net it casts, it’s especially useful in the vast and remote Arctic.

“It’s a way of shrinking the size of the Arctic,” says Dunmall.

Environmental DNA is being deployed by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans across the Arctic to keep track of a multitude of species, both native and invasive. It helps fisheries managers focus on a particular area, armed with the knowledge that the species is there.

The government has been developing its capacity for environmental DNA monitoring since about 2013, but interest is picking up. The technology was the subject of a recent meeting between the department’s managers at various levels from across the country, in which they discussed how best to apply it.

“The collection of eDNA is relatively straightforward,” Robert Bajno, a Fisheries and Oceans scientist developing the technology in Winnipeg, told The Narwhal.

“Anyone, with a little training, can take a sample.”

All that’s needed in the field is a clean bag — the bulk of the technical work is done in the lab.

That means it’s perfect for community-based monitoring.

Old knowledge; new questions

Dunmall’s work isn’t all high-tech, though. Much of her research relies on traditional knowledge.

“Whenever I can, I talk to people about salmon. And people tell me, especially in the Mackenzie communities, that, ‘we’ve harvested salmon forever, why are we now collecting information about them? This isn’t new,’ ” she says.

Some Indigenous languages along the Mackenzie river have words for salmon, but not all. And among those that have a word for the fish, it’s only chum that is named; Dunmall doesn’t know of any local Indigenous words for chinook or coho salmon.

“But then all the other species of salmon started showing up,” she says.

One of the things she learned was that every so often, there would be years when big pulses of chum salmon would show up in the communities of the Mackenzie River. Those years are becoming more frequent. 

Karen Dunmall holds a chum salmon in Great Bear Lake, far upriver from the Arctic Ocean. Photo: Cody Dey

By comparing the traditional knowledge coming from the communities with the results she’s seeing now, Dunmall is piecing together what looks like a steady yet substantial change in the species makeup of Arctic fish populations.

That change could, in turn, help or hinder existing and future fishing economies, especially if the salmon are competing with or preying on other similar fish like Arctic char.

There is also the question of how the increasing numbers of salmon affect the predators (like wolves, eagles, bears or other fish) and prey the growing population interact with.

By cutting open their stomachs, Dunmall has determined the fish are eating when they approach the river, though it is thought that when they enter the freshwater, like other salmon, they stop eating.

That has led to a slew of other questions.

“Are they eating the same things as other fish in the area? Are they eating other fish in the area?” she asks.

Further, the scientists aren’t even sure yet where the salmon are spending their lives. That question isn’t impossible to answer: a bone in the inner ear of fish, called the otolith, picks up telltale chemicals throughout the fish’s life that can be used to retrace its path through the ocean.

Analyzing the otoliths she’s collecting is another future project on Dunmall’s mind.

Wherever the fish are coming from, they are showing up in more of the Arctic than ever before.

Pacific species have been found as far east as Cambridge Bay, while Atlantic salmon have been making their way northwest through Nunavut.

Continuing change in the Arctic climate could further accelerate the incursions of the new fish. Scientists say before long, Arctic fish stocks will likely look more and more like southern ones, and the ecosystems and people that exist there today will have to reckon with the consequences.

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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

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By Maryann Watson, Marine Scientist and Stephanie Hewson, Staff Counsel at West Coast Environmental Law

Clouds of blood pumped straight from a fish plant in B.C. made worldwide headlines last week after diver Tavish Campbell published a shocking video revealing the practice. Since then, people from all over the province have asked us at West Coast Environmental Law about its legality.

The short answer is that the practice of discharging bloodwater from fish plants is legal for now, even if the blood contains instances of PRV. Currently, the federal government regulates fish farms and animal health, while the province regulates fish processing facilities. This has created two separate systems that are not clearly linked, leaving regulatory gaps that threaten the health and habitat of wild salmon and other marine organisms.

Fish Blood From Fish Farms

It appears that under the current regulations, fish blood can legally enter the ocean from open-net pen fish farms. The federal Fisheries Act prohibits unauthorized deposits of blood and other biological substances into the water (which likely qualify as "deleterious substances" under the Act), except when they come from fish farms directly. Under the Aquaculture Activities Regulation, fish farms can deposit fish blood and other matter (such as fish feed and feces) directly into the sea, though they must monitor for disease and other parameters, and to minimize the impact of the discharge.

Fish Blood from Fish Processing Facilities

It appears that fish blood can also legally enter the ocean from fish processing plants. Though the Fisheries Act prohibits the deposit of "deleterious substances," there's an exception when the release is authorized. It is not clear whether this exception includes provincial authorizations. The provincial Ministry of Environment regulates wastewater discharge from these plants through permits under the Environmental Management Act. We looked at the permit held by the Brown’s Bay fish processing facility, which requires the company to follow provincial and federal procedures when dealing with diseased fish, bloodwater treatment and disease monitoring.

Though the permit does not name the procedures that the company should follow, the practice captured in Tavish’s footage may violate the 1975 non-legally binding Fish Processing Operations Liquid Effluent Guidelines, which restrict the discharge of bloodwater and require treatment of contaminated process water.

What About PRV?

Both fish farms and fish processing facilities must monitor fish and fish blood for disease. So why is it legal to discharge bloodwater that contains PRV, despite the fact that it has been linked to HSMI?

Although discarding diseased fish parts into the water is prohibited under the federal Health of Animals Act and its regulations, PRV and HSMI are not listed as reportable diseases under the Act. So it appears that under the current regulations, it is legal to discharge fish processing water that contains instances of this virus.

This is a bigger issue than just one processing plant: over 80% of farmed salmon in BC carry PRV. However, under current regulations, farmed fish are not tested for the virus. Scientist Alexandra Morton and Ecojustice are in court with the federal government arguing that the government has been acting illegally by issuing licences allowing the transfer of farmed salmon without testing for the virus. Transferring fish into fish habitat or fish farms that carry disease or disease agents is prohibited in the Fishery (General) Regulations under the Fisheries Act.

The "bloodwater" dump exposes weaknesses in the fish processing regulatory system @WCELaw https://t.co/bZoKCZFqGf

— DeSmog Canada (@DeSmogCanada) December 6, 2017

What Can be Done?

Wild salmon are under assault from a slew of forces: pollution, changing ocean conditions, warmer waters, and possibly open-net pen aquaculture itself, as the 3-year judicial inquiry led by Mr. Justice Cohen found back in 2012. Protecting wild salmon appears to have been lost in the complex division of responsibilities between the provincial and federal governments for oversight of fish farming operations.

Though this fish processing plant may have been treating the bloodwater to the standard of the current regulations, it is apparent that these laws are not strong enough to protect wild salmon from disease.

Members of the Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw and ‘Namgis nations have been occupying fish farm sites in the Broughton Archipelago off northern Vancouver Island since August, and want the fish farms removed from their territory. Tavish’s video and First Nations’ occupation of fish farms highlight the environmental and public health risks associated with aquaculture on the Pacific coast, from both cultivation of fish and fish processing. We, like many others, are concerned about the lack of adequate regulation, oversight and enforcement at all stages of fish farming and processing.

Though the Province is responsible for inspecting some of these facilities, ultimately the protection of fish and fish habitat in marine environments falls to Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO). As a DFO workshop noted back in 2003, we need to address public concern about fish plant effluents, “perhaps the least examined source of marine environmental effects,” and find solutions that include changing the law.

Thankfully, following the release of this footage, the provincial and federal governments both announced investigations into the regulatory requirements for fish processing plants. A month ago the BC government launched a review of the Province’s animal testing laboratory which conducts diagnostic testing on farmed salmon. While the reviews from both governments are a welcome step, there is a larger problem of under-enforcement and regulatory omission, and a need for a hard look at the industry.

There are many plants and fish farms that require action from both levels of government, including clearer regulations and regular inspections and enforcement. The development of a federal Aquaculture Act is an opportunity to introduce stronger standards for this industry and better protections for wild and farmed fish.

We’ll be examining solutions to the issue of bloodwater discharges that may affect not only wild salmon health, but the health of other marine organisms. West Coast is willing to assist with the government-led review processes, and encourages both governments to look at the entire aquaculture industry closely, with the goal of ensuring our laws are up to the task of not only protecting but restoring our wild salmon.

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