Norway loses 54 Million Salmon in Norway in 2021, and 50 Million Cleaner Fish Every Year

To lice, disease and so on.

Hard to believe but true: https://sciencenorway.no/fish-farming-salmon/government-report-raises-fish-farm-alarm-things-are-not-going-well-for-the-norwegian-farmed-salmon/1994959?fbclid=IwAR3zoOM55iEPkJKWDeFH3c15Fr0WS6WMpBJDUOReEz8t48UWBNTZH-e0VPI.

And then, 50 million cleaner fish die every year in fish farms in Norway. So, 100,000,000, yes, that's 100 million fish dead in Norway. This should not be allowed: https://sciencenorway.no/animal-welfare-fish-farming-salmon-industry/every-year-50-million-cleaner-fish-die-in-norwegian-fish-farms/1631228.

And then there is the post I did on the major losses around the world. The list only has losses over 100,000:

And here in Canada, the govt is considering extending the licences they told us it would end:
: And Mowi recently killed 2.26M salmon in Eastern Canada due to ISA: Disease - ISA, Mowi euthanizes 2 million salmon, Canada: https://www.intrafish.com/salmon/mowi-to-euthanize-over-2-million-farmed-salmon-in-canada-after-isa-virus-discovered/2-1-1189330?utm_source=email_campaign&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2022-03-23&utm_term=intrafish_com&utm_content=aquaculture.

The situation is so bad that 75% of BC residents want fish farms out of the water: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2021/07/poll-75-of-bc-residents-against-fish.html.

KEY DOCUMENT: Aboriginals Against In-Ocean Fish Farms, Marine Harvest, Cermaq, Grieg Seafood, Norway, Updated Feb 9, 2018

I will use this post to accumulate BC First Nations who oppose in-ocean fish farms and want them on land. I am guessing it will grow very long, as my on-land fish farm list of 152 different systems, comprising almost 20,000 actual on-land farms has grown: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/05/148-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

In fact, the list got so long, I had to put up the above, second, post. Here is the link to the first:  http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/01/key-document-34-mostly-on-land-closed.html.

Fish farms like to say First Nations are happy with them. This post makes their claim counterfactual. First Nations people want fish farms put on land.

1. Aug 6, 2016:

 Eddie Gardner Living proof, coastal Indigenous people in large numbers oppose ocean fiish farms. Indigenous communities along the Fraser and Thompson rivers are in solidarity! The Wild Salmon Caravan heard the message from all those communities: Get fish farms out of the migration routes of wild salmon! First Nations opposed to open net fish farms include: Skwah, Chawathil, Cheam, Ch'iyaq'tel, Kwantlen, Sumas, Lytton First Nation, Sek'wel'wes, Neskonlith, Adames Lake, and many others! A growing number of people from all backgrounds are pressing for a BC coast free from ocean fish farms! There is a solution: sustainable land-based aquaculture!

See this dead diseased Cermaq fish farm fish:

Would you eat this? I don't think so. Would you like to be this worker? I don't think so. No wonder they get laid off.

2. From Aug 15, 2015

The Ahousaht, close Cermaq's Yaakswiss, Clayoquot Sound farm:

See:  https://itsgoingdown.org/indigenous-actions-and-blockades-in-the-pacific-northwest-continue/.

See the blood water from the Cermaq's boat, at 1:22 , minutes: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1852093671685852.  I don't think anyone would eat the fish farm fish being dealt with by this Cermaq boat in BC.

3. From April 24, 2016

A broad consensus of British Columbians and aboriginals coming together to protect wild salmon:
http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/04/wild-salmon-alliance-something-new.html. 

Among the aboriginals: Lax Kw’alaam on Lelu Island, Chief Bob Chamberlin, Chief Tyrone McNeil, Chief Darrell Bob. They spoke for two days.

4. From August 8, 2016

Chief Arthur Dick, Sointula: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1855173581377861.


 Mmm. Smells good.

5. Aug 12, 2016

"There are 27 farms in our territory and we have never given them permission to be there" Melissa Willie Dzawada'enuxw band councillor.

See: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1856828591212360.
Also: https://www.biv.com/article/2016/8/dead-wild-salmon-found-fish-farm-arent-wild-cermaq/.

6. Aug 15, 2016, 

Melissa Willie handing an eviction notice to a fish farm, and talking about the damage caused. Look at the video of the diseased dead fish. Cermaq has disputed that there are any wild salmon in the toteboxes, but that means their own fish are dead.

See: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1858719314356621.

Her comments on aboriginals taking back their territory and kicking the farms out:  “They have no right to be here. They’ve never had permission. This is the unseeded territory of the Musgmagw Dzawada’enuxw and we’re going to start acting like the landlord of this territory and it’s time to force them out of here. If you would of seen what i’ve seen today. You would feel the same way, I feel all of Canada would feel. It’s time to kick them off this territory.”

7. Aug 14, 2016: Mountain Robert on August 14, 2016 at 5:24 pm
Hereditary chiefs of Mamalilikulla(Village Island) stand with our neighbours/family on all concerns here and what we witnessed over the years. It is getting worse as evidenced by these pics and observations. We will be on the ground with them as we will get them out, Gilakasla.

8. Aug 15, 2016: The Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw People have resisted fish farms for 29 years. Yesterday, August 15th, 2016, three Traditional Leaders served an eviction notice to Cermaq/Mitsubishi fish farms.The note was sent to DFO, and the area is Kingcome Inlet.
See: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1859411434287409.

9. Aug 23, 2016 - Ahousaht Warriors of Clayoquot Sound, and Dixon Bay site, being stocked at night, a farm with too little water flow, in front of Megan River: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1862549817306904.  And then Lennie Skookum John was arrested: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1863019717259914.

10. Aug 26 - Aboriginals Arrested by Cermaq - for protesting after eviction: https://www.undercurrentnews.com/2016/08/26/protestors-arrested-at-cermaqs-canada-salmon-farms/?utm_source=Undercurrent+News+Alerts&utm_campaign=bcd20af0ee-Salmon_roundup_Aug_26_2016&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_feb55e2e23-bcd20af0ee-92426209.

11. Aug 26 - Aboriginals Arrested for Cermaq - Clayquot sound, preventing smolt planting in Dixon Bay farm: http://www.seafoodnews.com/Story/1031283/First%2DNation%2DMembers%2DArrested%2Dfor%2DBlocking%2DCermaq%2Dfrom%2DRestocking%2Dits%2DSalmon%2DFarm%2Din%2DClayoquot%2DSound.

12. Aug 27, now several other First Nations have joined: The Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw have boarded three salmon farms in their territory in the last 2 weeks. Each time more people joined and most recently many chiefs from several sister nations - Namgis, Mamalilikulla and Danaxdaxw joined them.    http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra_morton/2016/08/gotcha-2.html.

13. Aug 30, Campbell River First Nation protests fish farms in its territory: http://www.campbellrivermirror.com/news/391662311.html?mobile=true#.V8Tigt-Ap4A.facebook.
More news on this, the  Awhwaoo Tribe of the Laichwiltach nation delivered an eviction notice to Marine Harvest's main office in Campbell River: http://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/first-nation-hands-eviction-notice-to-campbell-river-salmon-farm-1.3049781.

14. Aug 31, Musgamagw Dzawa'enuxw and Namgis locking arms with Snuneymuxw, Snaw-Naw-As and Ditidaht to get salmon farms out of Musgamagw Dzawada'enuxw territory. Nanaimo: https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.morton.1671/posts/1867314640163755.

15. Sept 3, Bob Chamberlin, Secretary/Treasurer of the Union of BC Indian Chief, spoke at the Musgamagw protest in Victoria, Sept 3, 2016, on the steps of the Parliament Buildings. He said that 150 BC First Nations are against fish farms and want them out of the water. By comparison, he said, that those on the side of fish farms may total four. So, so much for fish farms claiming they have agreements with 75% of BC First Nations - it is actually 2.0%. (There are 198 FNs in BC, far and away, the most in Canada). The Victoria Nations of the Songhees and Esquimalt, accompanied and were part of the protest.

16. Aug 25, 2016, Ahousaht Arrests: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/ahousaht-first-nation-fish-farm-protest-rcmp-arrest-1.3735450. Dixon Bay is the fish farm that had IHN in 2012, resulting in 560,000 being slaughtered: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/virus-sparks-quarantine-on-b-c-salmon-farm-1.1223458.

17. Feb 9, 2018, a trove of press and video on aboriginals against fish farms, particularly during the 2010 Olympics, Bob Chamberlin et al: http://donstaniford.typepad.com/my-blog/2018/02/olympic-flashback-2010-norways-cold-shoulder-to-wild-salmon-.html.

Norwegians, Canadians Reject In-ocean Fish Farms - "An Ecological Train Wreck"

Norway, Canada, Atlantic Salmon Federation, NS and BC Public reject Norwegian in-ocean fish farms. See: http://asf.ca/death-of-atlantic-salmon-courtesy-of-norway.html

Read the ASF summary of issues in eastern North America and Norway. One commentator, Nat Reed, for Presidents Ford and Nixon, served as assistant secretary for fish, wildlife and parks:  “Norway, considered by the majority of the world as a land with a social conscience and a leader in environmental affairs, is the largest villain when it comes to allowing extensive sea and even fjord netting and permitting salmon farms often at the mouths of their once highly productive rivers . . . . They are destroying their own rivers’ salmon stocks and have even taken to intercepting the migrating salmon headed for the northern Russian salmon rivers.”

It is little wonder that Norwegians are getting a rough ride by countries where their industry uses the oceans as a free, open sewer. In NS, for instance: "...about 100 salmon farms packed into Canada’s Bay of Fundy (the highest concentration in the world) have been largely responsible for devastating wild-salmon runs. Just 40 years ago some 40,000 wild salmon returned to the inner bay. Today returns are down to about 250."



The lengthy summary document goes on, not mincing words, to say: "Saltwater salmon farming is a global disaster. Nothing poses a graver threat to Salmo salar—not global warming, not habitat destruction, not even grossly unsustainable inshore and offshore netting by Norway, Ireland, Scotland, England, Wales, Greenland and Russia."

You will recall Dan Lewis and the Clayoquot delegation went to the same Alta summit the ASF writes about. This is how bad it is in Norway: "At a conference held in Alta, Norway, this past February—attended by most movers and shakers in the Atlantic-salmon-conservation world—the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research shared data indicating that the majority of the nation’s wild salmon have been compromised by hybridizing with aquaculture escapees. An analysis of 125 of Norway’s 650 salmon rivers revealed that only 35 percent of the stocks were genetically intact. Twenty-five percent had been severely compromised, 7 percent moderately compromised and 33 percent lightly compromised."

And is there a lice problem? More unminced words: "So hideous are the lice infestations in some Norwegian rivers that hatchery smolts have to be placed in tanks, towed past the net pens out of the fjords, and released in the open sea."

And, in Norway, the industry cannot be trusted because they don't honour their agreements: "In 1994 Norway and the six other members of the North Atlantic Salmon Conservation Organization, all major producers of farmed salmon, convened in Oslo to sign an agreement ponderously entitled “The Convention for the Conservation of Salmon in the North Atlantic Ocean to Minimize Impacts from Salmon Aquaculture on the Wild Salmon Stocks.” All signatories pledged to keep net pens no closer than 30 kilometers from the mouths of salmon rivers, and all promptly reneged."

And how bad is the encroachment on wild Norwegian salmon rivers? Well:  "The Alta, famed for huge fish and generally recognized as the greatest of all Atlantic-salmon rivers, has about 150 net pens in its fjord."

How bad are things in the 'enlightened' Norway? See:  "Pathogens proliferating in crowded net pens are rampant in Norway. These include pancreas disease, amoebic gill disease and infectious salmon anemia (a fatal, hemorrhagic virus transmitted by sea lice that replicates in the gills, kidney, liver, intestine, spleen, muscles and heart). In January 2015 Norway fjords boiled with an estimated 120,000 escaped steelhead trout, some of which carried pancreas disease that may have infected salmon and sea trout and some of which doubtless tore up incubating salmon eggs while attempting to spawn. Anglers were instructed not to eat the alien trout, because they’d been fed delousing drugs. Total salmon escapes for that year were reported at 160,000—the operative word being “reported.” Scientists set the figure closer to 800,000."

And:  In 1983, 5.5 percent of adult salmon entering the Magaguadavic [NS] were net-pen escapees. Today 98 to 99 percent of all salmon in the river are escapees—every one unaccounted for…


Norway is doing one good thing: "...if escaped fish show up in a river and no company has reported a loss, Norway’s government conducts genetic testing, [and] traces the escapees to the company and fines it heavily."

The significance of the ASF brief is this: "Despite all of the ecological squalor created by Norway’s salmon farms, the country is still considered a world leader in salmon-farming best practices. That pretty much says it all about the state of the industry worldwide."

Pretty sad state of affairs. And now, in Canada we have DFO and the CFIA actively colluding to change the science on finding fish farm diseases in BC, in 2016. My article on this will come shortly.

And you will remember Cooke Aquaculture that got fined big time for using the banned chemical cypermethrin for two years, and then received $25 million from the government for plants and etc, on which it reneged:

"Cooke Aquaculture, currently the only operation in Maine, does brisk business in Maritime Canada and Chile, where it eschews the best practices it employs in Maine and where it is therefore red-listed by the Monterey Bay Aquarium. In 2013 the company was fined $490,000 for killing Atlantic lobsters with an illegal pesticide deployed against its sea-lice infestations. The same year infectious salmon anemia ravaged two of Cooke’s Canadian facilities in Newfoundland, obliging it to destroy 3,700 metric tons of product—for which it was compensated by taxpayers to the tune of $13 million. “Practices are different from region to region,” Carr said. “I think companies just do whatever they can get away with. That’s where our frustration lies.”"

And the CFIA who is trying to cover up ISA in BC, and the govt has paid a total of $177 M up to 2014: "In one recent three-year period aquaculturists who lost fish to infectious salmon anemia shook down the Canadian Food Inspection Agency for $92.7 million, a tradition the agency has found tiresome. So it recently announced that, at least for this disease, the industry is on its own."

I should add that the money no longer comes from the CFIA as my FOI request to them showed. They were unwilling, meaning they refused, to tell me who pays the slaughter money now, that we taxpayers don't want to pay to foreign, multi-billion dollar corporations.

You will remember my list of on-land fish farms - the solution:  "...land-based, closed-containment facilities are popping up around the world. There are three in Canada, four in the US, two in Denmark, two in China, one in France, one in Poland, one in Scotland and one in Ireland. Others are in the works, including a large facility in, of all places, Florida..

Well, there are actually far more than this. My link to the 151 systems, and 20,000 actual, on-land farms I have found is: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/05/148-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

Finally, how did the Alta conference sum things up? Like this: ASF’s Jon Carr and everyone else... point out: "Atlantic-salmon aquaculture in Norway is a catastrophe spreading around the globe like infectious salmon anemia... .   an ecological train wreck."

Hmm. An  ecological train wreck. I think that says it all.

Fish Farm Lice Kill 34% of Wild Salmonids

This is yet another study that shows that lice from fish farms kill wild salmonids. In this case the researchers reanalyzed a study and found a wild salmonid kill of 34%.

This has previously shown in other research. Check the Index to this site in October of 2014 to find the links to those studies.

From the study in Scotland in the immediately preceding post on this site, the paper, is item 4.

Here is a quote: "Research published in 2013 by a group of fisheries experts from Norway, Canada and Scotland re-analysing data from various Irish studies, showed that the impact of sea lice on wild salmon causes a very high loss (34%) of those returning to Irish rivers (4) ."

The reference says this: (4) M Krkosek, C W Revie, B Finstad and C D Todd (2013) Comment on Jackson et al. "Impact of Lepeophtheirus salmonis infestations on migrating Atlantic salmon, Salmo salar L., smolts at eight locations in Ireland with an analysis of lice-induced marine mortality" - Journal of Fish Diseases.

The Scotland study in the last post goes on to say that fish farms claims of no harm are not true:

"There is also clear evidence that both wild salmon and sea trout are in decline in Scotland’s ‘aquaculture zone’, whereas, generally, populations have stabilized on the east and north coast where there is no fish-farming.

After examining east and west coast catch trends, fisheries scientists from the Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (RAFTS) concluded that: “there is a clear trend of declining salmon catches, compared with catches on the East coast, in areas where the Scottish aquaculture industry operates.

The assertion by SSPO [the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation] that ‘the catch statistics show salmon farming has had no effect on wild salmon catches’ does not stand up to scrutiny. It is also apparent that the decline is greater for those areas whose juvenile fish have to swim past larger number of salmon farms in order to reach the open ocean”(5)

The fisheries scientists from Norway, Scotland and Ireland reviewed over 300 scientific publications on the damaging effects of sea lice on sea trout stocks in salmon farming areas to reach their conclusions.

So, Marine Harvest's plan to get ASC accreditation doesn't look good for their so-called 'profound' effect on their image. Fix the image, but not the problem. Sorry Jo Lunder et al, the scientists do not agree. Nor does anyone else.

Norwegians, Canadians, Europeans, Americans, First Nations Tell Norway to get Fish Farms Out of the Ocean

Please go and sign the petition that people from around the world are adding their name to. 3600 have signed so far to tell Norway to get its fish farms out of the water. Do read the comments as they truly come from consumers and citizens from around the world who are tired of the old-tech dinosaurs in-ocean fish farms. They need to be on land and closed to the environmen.

See: https://www.change.org/p/to-the-citizens-of-norway-divest-from-dirty-salmon.

Read this note from Alexandra Morton: When 63,000 diseased North American trout escaped into Norway's fjords in January, Norwegians made it clear salmon farming is threatening the last wild Atlantic salmon.  I realized both Canada and Norway are suffering bad government decisions that allow salmon farming to expand at the expense of local people and economies.  I believe we need to reach out across borders, across the world and make this industry grow up and clean up.  No more DIRTY SALMON.  

BC First Nations are against fish farms in Canada. BC has 200 First Nations, one third of all in Canada: http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/News_Releases/UBCICNews02251501.html#axzz3T927ykNl. Read their opposition to in-ocean fish farms.