CERMAQ LICE - Peroxide, SLICE, Paramove 50, Lufenuron, Hydrolicer - Lice Out of Control, Clayoquot Sound, Updated June 12, 2019

DFOs Failure to Use, and Refusal to Acknowledge Lack of, Evidence and Science

Not to mention that fish farms kill wild salmon. See the Clayoquot Sound story below.

We tend to think of an animal acquiring resistance to a chemical as a difficult thing. But it is not. If a lice chemical is applied and kills many lice, the ones that don't get killed just carry on, and that is all that resistance is: the louse doesn't get killed. They live and breed as normal, and all their offspring are 'resistant'. It is that simple - the ones that don't die are resistant. Duhh.

And each female can produce 1,000 eggs, meaning if each salmon in an average farm had only one female louse each, that could mean 1,000 X 600,000 = 600 Million lice. In Clayoquot Sound there are roughly 20 farms, meaning 12 Billion lice in one year. Talk about a Silent Spring, and shake your head. It becomes harder and harder to consider voting Liberal in the next federal election in October 2019.


Go read/scan this document on the chemical nature, problems, uses, and so on of/with Paramove 50, which is a fancy name for peroxide, or H2O2: https://manualzz.com/doc/7565353/interox-%C2%AE-paramove%E2%84%A2-50-section-1--identification-of-the. I am surprised that a company could be allowed to give a trade name to a simple chemical, when they are not doing anything to change it.

This is probably the simplest chemical that could be used, composed of only oxygen and hydrogen and would oxidize things, as in an acidic reaction. But read all the problems:

Here is the toxicity of Paramove 50, Salmosan and AlphaMax to crustaceans: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0044848613005735.

These are the chemical constituents and application doses:  "AlphaMax® is applied at 2 μg L^− 1 as deltamethrin, Salmosan is applied at 100 μg L^− 1 as azamethiphos and Interox®Paramove™50 is applied at 1200–1800 mg L^− 1 as hydrogen peroxide"

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Moving on, here is Living Oceans summary of the lice problem in Clayoquot Sound, BC, 2018: https://livingoceans.org/media/releases/lousy-choices-parasitic-lice-out-control-salmon-farms.

A lice load as small as one louse per one fry can be lethal. Hear what the actual loads were:

“Eighteen years after this issue was brought to DFO’s attention there is still no protection for wild salmon,” said Alexandra Morton of Raincoast Research. “Independent researchers in Clayoquot Sound documented 96% of the wild juvenile salmon were infected with an average of over 8 lice per fish.  One of the fish they recovered had 50 lice.  I don’t hold hope that much of this generation of wild salmon survived.”

This is a link to the Living Oceans document, Lousy Choices: https://livingoceans.org/media/reports-publications/lousy-choices-drug-resistant-sea-lice-clayoquot-sound.

Among other things, it shows that DFO and the industry tried to ignore drug resistance, and DFO falsely maintained that no resistance had come from SLICE use. DFO, however, knew all along that drug resistance had been shown as far back as 2013 in Klemtu, and refused to acknowledge it. This is a failure to use 'evidence and science' which DFO's minister, Jonathan Wilkinson claims DFO uses unfailingly. Not so.

Let's say it like it is: DFO's stance was false. It refused to use the science. It refused to reveal the science, and when on the BC minister's committee on fin fish aquaculture, it failed to report resistance, as late as 2018. That is: it maintained a falsehood for five years.

From the Living Oceans report, P 15: The evidence points plainly to one of two things: an attempt to mislead the Minister’s Advisory Council [BC Ministry of Agriculture] and concerned members of the public; or an inexcusable failure to communicate critical information about drug resistance to senior officials within the DFO.


And this conclusion from the report: "The sea lice management policy of Fisheries and Oceans Canada has long been criticized for lack of scientific underpinning and a failure to come to grips with impacts on wild juvenile salmon at the most sensitive period in their life cycle. It has brought us to a place where we are left with lousy choices, simply put: increasingly toxic chemicals being dumped directly into the marine environment, or escalating impacts on wild juvenile salmon--or both."

To investigate Lufenuron, Google:  https://www.bing.com/search?q=Lufenuron++-+toxicity&pc=MOZD&form=MOZLBR. It is used in flea chemicals to prevent chitin formation at molting, so the arthropod dies.

This paper on Lufenuron shows negative effects on fish: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0045653516309286.

These are:

"Fish exhibit behaviors associated with stress when exposed to lufenuron." This would mean they release cortisone and become susceptible to disease, an example would be HSMI.

"Histological analysis showed lamellar aneurysm and blood congestion in fish gills." This would lead to difficulties in breathing and gaining oxygen.

"The ERG analysis was indicative that lufenuron promoted damage in fish retina." This would lead to blindness.

"Lufenuron is used against arthropods, but had a series of toxic effects on fish." Used on lice ,but toxic to fish, such as wild salmon.

They say it should not be released in the ocean: "This concerns about the use and discard of lufenuron, and indicates the requirement of environmental actions to prevent potential contamination of aquatic biota."

Clayoquot Action says this about lufenuron:  "There are human health concerns with use of the drug, which resides in the fat of treated animals. The flesh of treated fish cannot be consumed by humans for 350 days after treatment. This raises questions around how Lufenuron-treated fish will be disposed of in the event of a mass die-off, and in the event of an escape, whether Lufenuron-treated fish might be eaten by a predator which could later be caught for human consumption."

You may read their entire text here: https://clayoquotaction.org/tag/cermaq/. March 23, 2019.

CA says: "Last year [2018] saw salmon lice numbers in Clayoquot spike to levels never before seen in British Columbia, up to 55 lice per farmed fish—eighteen times the threshold for treatment set out by Department of Fisheries (DFO). Independent monitoring found wild salmon juveniles had lice counts as high as 50 per fish.

Cermaq is unable to control their salmon lice epidemic in Clayoquot Sound. Their 2018 lice outbreak likely devastated last year’s wild salmon cohort, and their 2019 numbers are already up to 5 times the DFO limit, right at the beginning of the wild salmon out-migration window.

And the emergency request for Lufenuron, that Norway refused to sanction for lice use, had to be obtained in an access to information request - as in not transparent - and DFO, among other things, described Clayoquot lice numbers as “shockingly ugly”. The ATIP document further states “Theoretically [Lufenuron] should prevent lice colonization up to the beginning of the out-migration window, but this will be our first field trial of it in BC”.

Yes, it is alarming that DFO says this so casually.

And Cermaq's hydrolicer did not arrive in 2019, and it can lead to fish deaths on its own.

The point is to tell Minister Wilkinson to take fish farms out of the water and set up on land. This is easily done as my list of on-land fish farms is closing in on almost 300 different farms around the world, yes, 300. There is no need to kill BC salmon and our ocean. It could all be done on land.

See:  https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

Now, on the issue of evidence and science, here is a previous post that shows DFO doesn't use evidence and science when it suits their purposes, and there are a dozen examples in the post: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/02/evidence-and-science-based-decisions-at.html.

Wake up DFO, Cermaq's lice are out of control once again in 2019:  https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2019/05/29/cermaq-hit-by-second-successive-annual-lice-outbreak-at-canadian-farms/.

Here is the CBC take on 2019 lice, from my BAD NEWS BITES post:  130. CBC on Cermaq Lice in Clayoquot: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/conservation-groups-sound-alarm-over-another-sea-lice-outbreak-in-clayoquot-sound-1.5151478?utm_source=Watershed+Watch+Email+List&utm_campaign=16383a9768-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_29_09_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_405944b1b5-16383a9768-166907249&mc_cid=16383a9768&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.

Here are some other posts from my BAD NEWS BITES post on Clayoquot lice:

153. More Clayoquot Sound Lice - 2019, write Jonathan Wilkinson, DFO: https://salmonpeople.ca/salmon-lice-epidemic-action?utm_source=Clayoquot+Action+Supporters&utm_campaign=ab4cfde166-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_30_09_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f4a18024b0-ab4cfde166-112597521.

And: "Researchers sampling wild smolts are finding up to a 100% infection rate, with counts as high as 20-50 lice per smolt—this is unprecedented in BC. One to three lice is a fatal load for tiny young salmon without protective scales. This means salmon farms are pushing Clayoquot Sound wild salmon to extinction."

And: "Making matters worse DFO staff report that DFO sea lice regulations are unenforceable. Their hands are tied as sea lice pour out of the farms.  The salmon farming industry helped write these regulations."

152. Sea Lice 'Out of Control' - Clayoqout Sound, BC, 2019: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/sea-lice-outbreaks-put-b-c-s-salmon-population-at-risk-1.4429185?fbclid=IwAR3vkASJC2sm4-zpMt8_ydc9FBgMhC4K_-SAsZplyufPufEOWjnMMfsEfYU&utm_source=Clayoquot+Action+Supporters&utm_campaign=ab4cfde166-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_30_09_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f4a18024b0-ab4cfde166-112597521.

151. Sea Lice Put Wild Salmon at Risk - BC, Clayoquot: https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/sea-lice-outbreaks-put-b-c-s-salmon-population-at-risk-1.4429185?fbclid=IwAR3vkASJC2sm4-zpMt8_ydc9FBgMhC4K_-SAsZplyufPufEOWjnMMfsEfYU&utm_source=Clayoquot+Action+Supporters&utm_campaign=ab4cfde166-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_05_30_09_36&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_f4a18024b0-ab4cfde166-112597521.

188. Cermac Lice, Antibiotics Soar - BC, Clayoquot: https://www.fishfarmingexpert.com/article/cermaq-operations-in-british-columbia-taking-steps-to-tackle-sea-lice/?utm_campaign=newsletter__05_06_2019&utm_source=netflex&utm_medium=email.

 201. Sea Lice Problems - BC, Nootka Sound, etc. Read Alex Morton's take on drug resistance, DFO trying to hide it and fish farm companies quoting the regulations to show they don't have to do anything. You won't be amused: https://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2019/05/sea-lice-control-built-to-fail.html.

 202. BC Lice Story Follows Cermaq to NS - CDN: http://www.southcoasttoday.ca/content/sea-lice-epidemic-haunts-nova-scotias-newest-farmed-salmon-giant?fbclid=IwAR1JrXAuHRyOPesaKwu-0n2MVAYtOgn7aykaNC3B78K1324jBAFBMLRtpCE.


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Cermaq's new Hydrolicer has arrived in Tofino:  https://salmonbusiness.com/cermaq-canadas-new-hydrolicer-will-be-in-operation-in-july/.

Oh, and there is a new invention on the street that, without chemicals, expensive well-boats and etc., kills up to 10,000 lice a day, by zapping them with laser beams: https://salmonbusiness.com/lice-lazer-creator-shortlisted-for-this-years-european-inventor-awards/. Cermaq doesn't seem to know this option exists, but should be on land anyway.