BAP Awards Not Awards - Updated July 5, 2012

July 5, 2012. One day after Marine Harvest took credit, as below, for BAP certification in BC, CTV has reported on fish farm diseases: Marine Harvest alone spent $12 million last year to clear out infected fish [Kudoa] and provide refunds for tainted products, and there are estimates that Kudoa affects 20 to 50 per cent of all salmon farmed in the province.


Read this:http://bc.ctvnews.ca/parasite-ridden-salmon-sold-in-b-c-stores-1.864202.


So, what is it that BAP awards mean? Not much.


Now, read my July 4 post on the BAPs

Read this:  http://www.canada.com/Marine+Harvest+gets+certification/6880995/story.html.

Marine Harvest et al have been trumpeting the past couple of weeks around the globe in news reports about receiving the really worthwhile BAP awards. The problem is that the BAPs are not awards at all.

The industry got together and made the organization then they all put money into it. And they now get the BAP certification from themselves. Don't be fooled. Nothing has changed. Fish farms only want to be in the ocean to use it as a free, open sewer.They should be on land.

You may recall it is only a couple of weeks since 7 fish farms in BC and Washington tested positive for viral diseases. And remember that at the recent Cohen Commission in December, 2011 testimony showed that 25% of Clayoquot farmed chinook tested positive for HSMI and ISA. (This is a huge problem for wild fish, and my bet is that the Clayoquot Sound chinook and Kennedy Lake sockeye are in trouble because of billions of viruses in the non-flushing Sound).

In truth, Marine Harvest Canada is in trouble. It lost money in Q1, of 2012, -.6%, its only major operation around the world to post a loss. And they let go 60 employees at Christmas time. And are reducing orders for smolts.

And, by the way, the CEO of Marine Harvest, Alf Helge, in Norway has just complained about fish farms refusal to bring forth sea lice data. See: http://viewer.zmags.com/publication/84be8a79#/84be8a79/16.

You see, 40% of farms don't report lice and the government doesn't follow up. Meanwhile, here in BC Canada, Marine Harvest has just pulled out of a joint study with environmental groups studying, wait for it, ... that sea lice do not cause problems with wild fish or transfer diseases. Same fish farm company, completely different response.

What Marine Harvest did get out of the five year agreement with the Suzuki Foundation and so on in BC is not being criticized in the press. I would say that lucky outcome has ended.

Oh, and you will remember that Marine Harvest plead guilty in December of 2011 of having wild salmon and herring in its nets in BC - having for almost two years previous, protested its innocence. And in Ireland, Scotland and Norway, in the past year nearly 500,000 farmed salmon escaped from fish farms. Hmm.

The BAPs don't mean much.