PRV Found in BC, Judge Tells DFO, Fish Farms They Can't Put Diseased Fish in the Sea

Here is the kind of uncritical news on the internet that fails to groundproof what fish farms say.

Judge Rennie ruled that BC fish farms couldn't put diseased fish in the pristine BC ocean. It told DFO it had four months to put regs in place.

But on Seafood News, their version is:

http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/974908/75113/Anti-Salmon-Farm-Activists-Win-Court-Victory-in-BC-as-Court-Buys-Disputed-Claim-About-Transfers.

Anti-Salmon Farm Activists Win Court Victory in BC, as Court Buys Disputed Claim About Transfers

SEAFOODNEWS.COM [The Canadian Press] May 8, 2015 

[This court ruling was a victory for anti-salmon farming activists in BC.  However it is unclear about the practical effect, because the virus in question is naturally occuring in BC waters and existed long before salmon farms were introduced.  The actual charge of illegally moving 'sick' fish, was due to the presence of this naturally occuring virus which is not identified as a disease by salmon farmers. JS]

The problem is that PRV is a Norwegian Atlantic disease and the claim it is in BC naturally is bull. Norwegian PRV causes HSMI and is one of the recent, big killers of farmed salmon. Miller's work in the Cohen Commission showed that as high as 90% of wild Fraser sockeye were infected with this disease, after passing fish farms.

And fish farms not identifying it as a disease matters little, as it is DFO's responsibility and the OIE to make this determination. Also fish farms trade on the semantic issue that, as they claim, a fish can have the virus but not the disease. They are the only people in the world who construe the disease this way. It is a killer in Norway and BC wild salmon have been shown to have it, too.