DFO Is Biggest Threat to Wild BC Salmon

I have long argued that DFO has been managing salmon into extinction for the past 50 years.

I am glad to hear that others feel the same way. Tony Allard, who did a good job on stating what the Precautionary Principle means (he is a lawyer), has now come to the same realization as I and others have about DFO.

See: https://ipolitics.ca/2020/10/30/the-biggest-threat-to-wild-pacific-salmon-is-fisheries-and-oceans-canada/?fbclid=IwAR0c9AKUWV6SHqFNzS94MJy_3OmduQBGHHNbTaL2ZcKNLKp6C3D8FQWm52M&mc_cid=ac81828f2c&mc_eid=5777c92bcd.

Here is a quote: "Today, DFO does whatever is necessary to support Atlantic salmon farming along B.C.’s coast — to the significant threat of wild Pacific salmon. Only Canada allows the farming of Atlantic salmon on the migration routes of wild Pacific salmon. And, just like 30 years ago, DFO continues to rig science so it can skirt its primary duty to protect B.C.’s iconic keystone species."

The policy paper I put together as part of a Green Party committee argues that the big problems for wild salmon are: prevention of habitat destruction and restoration of habitat; DFO; fish Farms; and climage change. If you want the paper, let me know.

And here is a long post on the problems with fish farms in BC: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/07/dfos-public-consultation-on-framework.html.

Here is Allard's post on the PP: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/10/precautionary-principle-has-defined.html.

Now, more from the current article in iPolitics: "In 2015, the Federal Court found DFO had not adhered to the precautionary principle — the law of our land — when regulating the foreign Piscine orthoreovirus [PRV], saying DFO’s “arguments with respect to the precautionary principle are inconsistent, contradictory and, in any event, fail in light of the evidence.” Four months later, DFO reinstated the same policy, adopting a risk threshold that prohibited only risks that could sterilize entire populations, species, or ecosystems." And PRV is present in 90% of farmed fish.

And, of course, you should know that DFO has gone back to court to argue against the PP, when they have already lost that argument twice.

And DFO said that Discovery Island fish farms posed no threat, but failed to test for sea lice one of the most killing parasites of migrating juvenile salmon. Note that in the early 1900s, 100,000,000 - yes, that's 100 million - sockeye returned to the Fraser. In 2020, the pitiful number is 285,000 sockeye or a quarter of one percent, that is .25%.

John Reynolds, aquatic ecologist at Simon Fraser University, and chair of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) said: “We have an overwhelming weight of evidence from research coming at this from all different directions. The current open-net-pen fish-farm model that we have is not compatible with protecting wild fish.”

If you have Tony Allard's email address, let me know. He is not hard to find on the net, but his email address is.