Jordan Cuts Commercial Harvest 60% to Save Wild Salmon

I have written on fisheries issues in newspapers, magazines and books for 40 years.

Reducing commercial fisheries 60%, as this articles suggests, will not bring salmon back, as the root issues are not addressed. This approach is just like killing off east coast cod.

In a nutshell, the four big problems with wild salmon are:

1. Habitat restoration and prevention of destruction;

2. DFO;

3. Fish farms; and,

4. Climate change.

My cut-to-the-chase solution for moving fish farms to land is:

1. Retrain in-ocean staff to work on-land. DFO pays.

2. Make in-ocean licences $1M with on-land $0. Then raise the in-ocean licence toward what these same companies pay in auctions in Norway of $32- $40-million.

3. Give fish farms $1M to set up on-land in BC.

4. Alternatively, rent out Crown land at low or no cost for, say. 10 years.

Similarly, the hundreds of millions that DFO has earmarked for wild salmon recovery largely miss the target.
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See this very long article for an in-depth look at DFO problems in these regards: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/07/dfos-public-consultation-on-framework.html.

See this very long article on its leaky strategies: http://onfishingdcreid.blogspot.com/2018/12/options-for-made-in-bc-wild-salmon.html.

See this short article on the precautinoary principle: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2020/11/dfo-is-biggest-threat-to-wild-bc-salmon.html.
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Reference News Piece, June 30, 2021: https://www.intrafish.com/salmon/canada-to-close-60-of-2021-commercial-salmon-fisheries-pulling-emergency-brake-on-stock-decline/2-1-1032777?utm_source=email_campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2021-06-30T16%3A00%3A05.915Z&utm_term=intrafish_com&utm_content=salmon.

Escaped Atlantic Salmon Invade BC Rivers - John Volpe. NEW PAPER

Volpe has a new paper out on the invasion by leaked Atlantic farmed fish in Vancouver Island Rivers: https://www.academia.edu/17616905/Occupancy_dynamics_of_escaped_farmed_Atlantic_salmon_in_Canadian_Pacific_coastal_salmon_streams_implications_for_sustained_invasions?email_work_card=view-paper.

In a nutshell the results show: 37% of rivers have multiple year classes of Atlantics, meaning they are established breeding populations. In rivers with multiple Pacific Species, the results show 97% Atlantics, a staggering number.

Chronic low-volume escapes of salmon from farms into Pacific waters (‘‘leakage’’) are typically undetectable (Britton et al. 2011). Analysis of escape-reporting from farmers indicates that reports greatly underestimate the true number of Atlantic salmon inadvertently released from open-net pen rearing sites (Morton and Volpe 2002).

We systematically snorkel-surveyed 41 known Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.)-supporting rivers and creeks on Vancouver Island over a span of 3 years. We estimated and accounted for imperfect detections using multi-season occupancy models.

So what did they find?

Volpe says: "We detected Atlantic salmon in 36.6 % of surveyed rivers. After accounting for imperfect detection, occupancy models estimated that over half of surveyed streams across the study area contained Atlantic salmon, and that 97 %of streams with high native salmon diversity were occupied by Atlantic salmon.

And he offers a caution: "Even in intensive snorkel surveys, Atlantic salmon are detected in occupied streams only 2/3 the time, suggesting abundance and distribution of non-native salmon is greater than indicated by the only existing data."

Here is his most important point: "Further, Atlantic salmon are more likely to occupy streams with high native Pacific salmon diversity— and more likely to maintain occupancy across years— potentially increasing competitive pressure on native salmonids."

And this point is highly important as well: "These data for the first time show that Atlantic salmon occupy Pacific coastal rivers for multiple years. The impact of Atlantic salmon occupancy in British Columbia rivers must be factored into policy decisions regarding the future of salmon farming in the provincial waters.

And DFO aint doing this despite Minister Jordan's recent decison to move fish farms out of the Discovery Islands.

Just how bad is the DFO system? Volpe offers these comments: "The current Fisheries and Oceans Canada escapes-reporting system—the Atlantic Salmon Watch Program—has been effectively abandoned and was shown to under-represent Atlanticsalmon encounters by at least 40 % when it wasoperational (Morton and Volpe 2002). The lack of monitoring of salmon escapes and invasions indicates a failure of current management practices and a lack of oversight of escapes."

Most Popular Posts in May, 2021

These are the most popular posts, as in, most visited posts on Fish Farm News in May of 2021.
1. The solutions to salmon exploitation: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2019/07/dfos-public-consultation-on-framework.html.

This is a long post that critiques DFO on its second-rate public plans.

2. GOOD NEWS POST: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2021/05/good-news-post-now-more-than-thousand.html.

This is all the good news on on-land fish farms around the world. The stunning part of this is that I now have more than 1,000 articles/news/papers on on-land, proving that on-land is mainsream and anyone who claims otherwise is simply wrong. If it is a fish farms company like MOWI, that is a public face answer when behind the scenes they know perfectly well that on-land is taking over the industry.

3. And the perennial most viewed article on this site is my post on the 365 on-land fish farms I have found around the world: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

4. A BC Plan to Bring Back Wild Salmon covers all issues succinctly: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2018/02/wild-bc-salmon-plan-contact-your-mla.html.

5. Handling, Stress Affect Farmed Salmon - : https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2021/06/handling-stress-affect-fish-farm-salmon.html.

6. Fish Farm Problems on a Global Scale - This is one of the most important posts on this site. It completely destroys the fish farm claim of 'jobs and revenue'. It also has the most important paper I have ever read on fish farm issues, including jobs, and also social indicators, which is rarely covered. It is the Inka Milewski, Ruth Salmon (Yes, Salmon) one and if you read only one paper this year on these issues, it should be theirs: https://www.blogger.com/blog/statspost/week/1880129387856188740/4647012937687712362.

Handling, Stress Affect Fish Farm Salmon - Cortisol Level, Lice Level, Surface Level Restricted or Not

Read the article: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jfd.13286?fbclid=IwAR1M68aJEHbyDIWllfmpwAK1H1hUioR0rVV4vW5_aEN5gwU4GXKifBltsok.

The point was to establish lice levels and stress levels in farmed salmon under different circumstances.

They concluded:

Our experiments investigated the effect of handling and overcrowding combined with a restricted access to the surface on the attachment of L. salmonis copepodids to Atlantic salmon, suggesting a role of fish stress state in this interaction. Long-term overcrowding had no effect on L. salmonis attachment and did not influence the first stage of the infestation behaviour of the sea louse: recognition and attachment. Nevertheless, overcrowding and restricted access to the surface were shown to increase the N:L ratio of Atlantic salmon, indicative of a long-term stress state in these salmon, thus possibly raising concern about fish welfare after aquaculture procedures that could limit surface access and intensify local fish crowding. Importantly, this study shows that handling procedures influence the susceptibility of Atlantic salmon to L. salmonis copepodids, also proposing an increase in plasma cortisol as one possible aetiology. Many of the current lice management strategies may, paradoxically, increase reinfestation risk by handling or otherwise stressing the salmon. As recently stated by Overton et al. (2019), “the push for effective lice control and preventive strategies that have acceptable fish welfare outcomes are more important than ever,” emphasizing the need for a holistic approach to manage sea lice infestation in Atlantic salmon aquaculture.

In other words, lice are not good for farmed salmon, handing isn't good for farmed salmon, stressing farmed salmon is not good for farmed salmon. Need more be said?

Oh, okay, that includes on-land farmed salmon, except there are zero lice, and there is zero treatment for lice on-land, thus reducing stress, as in cortisol levels.