65 On-land Fish Farm Systems, Oct 31, 2013

Go back and look at these previous posts.

This is the list of 65 different on-land fish farms comprising some 8100 on-land farms around the world that I have found: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/01/key-document-34-mostly-on-land-closed.html.

This is a list of more on-land fish farms: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=254807261999628982;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=9;src=postname

These posts also contain the technical papers showing that on-land fish farms make more money than the Norwegian-derivatives do in the ocean with their high environmental cost.

Here is a new, and fair comparison of on-land recirculating system versus in-ocean net-pen. It says on land is cheaper: http://tidescanada.org/wp-content/uploads/files/salmon/workshop-sept-2013/NEWD1-11TrondRostenandBrianVinci.pdf.

Cermaq Mainstream Owned by Norwegian Public - Updated Sept.24, 2013

Cermaq Mainstream is now owned 60% by the Norwegian government and hence the Norwegian public. Why are the Norwegian public exporting their diseases, environmental damage and sea lice problems around the world?

"Cermaq, 59.2 percent owned by the Norwegian state, said its second-quarter operating profit before adjustment for the value of fish stocks leapt to 229 million crowns from 60 million in the same period last year.

However, that was below analysts' average forecast of 262 million. Valderhaug said that while business was good in Norway and Canada, the company made a loss in Chile, in part because of losses to fish stocks there due to sea lice."

See: http://in.reuters.com/article/2013/08/27/cermaq-results-salmon-idINL6N0GS1JB20130827.

Cermaq lost 15% of their Chilean  stock to death by sealice. Meanwhile the Norwegian derivative companies are still putting out papers saying that sea lice don't kill salmon. In BC, Canada see the recent paper by Marty, Saksida et al on sea lice in the Broughton Archipelago.

So the Norwegians are affirming and denying sea lice effects in different countries around the world at the same time. Such contradictions are common.

Cermaq share price is: 101.0 Norwegian Kronen, and they plan to return to shareholders a total dividend of 4.5 to 5.0 billion crowns.

Shortly, I will be putting the stats together to show that fish farms are a net negative to the BC economy. This loss of 15% of farmed salmon in Chile can be rendered into an estimated dollar value in BC by multiplying: Millions of BC farmed salmon X .15 X $30 per salmon. The last value is the CFIA fee for a disease-infected salmon that is destroyed.

Critique: Mary Ellen Walling Letter to Victoria Times - Kibenge

This post contains three items: DC Reid article in the Times Colonist Newspaper, Mary Ellen Walling letter to the Times Colonist Newspaper, and my critique of Mary Ellen Walling's letter.

This is the DC Reid article:

Wild BC Salmon Lose Disease Doctor

A very important negative event occurred recently with the World Animal Health Organization (OIE) pulling Dr. Fred Kibenge’s status as the only disease reference lab in the western hemisphere for testing fish diseases, particularly, ISA from farmed Atlantic salmon.

I asked the OIE several times for the origin of the complaint but received no response. While news releases have pointed to complaints from other countries, the other factor is that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA), discredited in the Cohen Commission testimony in December 2011, has made representations to the OIE to pull Kibenge’s status. In testimony they were cornered into admitting their interests are the export possibilities of the largely Norwegian-owned farms over natural wild salmon, a clear conflict of interest. Dr. Kim Klottins said the CFIA didn’t want to find ISA in BC. The video is not pretty.

You will have recently read in the TC that they tested several thousand wild salmon – not farmed fish, the source of the Atlantic Ocean diseases, ISA and HSMI – and announced they found no ISA in BC. That should be a good thing because the two diseases could well lead to the demise of all eleven Pacific salmonid species from California all the way to Korea. But it is not a good thing.

Drs. Miller (DFO, Nanaimo), Kibenge (PEI) and Nylund (the only other OIE lab in the world, in Norway), have found ISA in BC wild salmon. During Cohen they discredited the DFO, CFIA and the BC testing systems. The CFIA and DFO use the Moncton lab under Dr. Gagne, and the experts found its procedures don’t find ISA and its equipment is poor; this means a negative response for the worst fish farm disease means nothing. These doctors have found literally tens of thousands of cases of ISA in BC, dating all the way back to 1988.

For instance, Miller’s work showed 25% of Clayoquot Sound farmed Chinook had ISA and HSMI. This means 125,000 to 250,000 fish per farm. There are 22 farms in the Sound and wild Chinook numbers are at extinction levels – only 501 fish in six rivers. The Kennedy Lake sockeye run, once the largest on Van Isle, is no more.

The CFIA is a member on the OIE council which has members from many nations. Kibenge was the lab that found Atlantic ISA, (Nylund showed it was taken from Norway), in Chile. In 2008, ISA wiped out quarter of a billion farmed salmon, a loss of $2 Billion, with 13,000 losing jobs. The CFIA with its $740 million budget apparently wants to control the narrative with respect to farmed salmon diseases in Canada, and so Kibenge lost his status as the place where wild BC salmon have been sent most frequently for testing by concerned BC residents.

I read a scientific study not long ago that says fish farms cause a loss of 50% of the wild salmon/trout where they are introduced, and this includes BC. There are, for instance, only 6,000 wild Chinook spawners on the entire west coast of Vancouver Island. You will recall the Georgia St. coho fishery tanked in the 1980s. Then there are the Owikeno sockeye in the 1990s, etc. Fewer wild salmon translates into fewer jobs in BC Stats data, for example, commercial employment is down 50%. The largest sector, sport fishing, could likely employ more people, too. 

This is the Walling letter:

Re: “Loss of wild-salmon disease doctor will have major impact,” July 16.

(1)In the column, the actions of the World Animal Health Organization in pulling the infectious-salmon-anemia reference status at Dr. Fred Kibenge’s lab are presented as a negative. In fact, the organization’s decision should be viewed as a positive one. The organization conducted an audit with an international panel of scientific experts and found a series of weaknesses affecting the quality of diagnoses performed at the lab — which led to the unanimous decision by the general assembly of the organization to delist the lab.

(2). This news should reassure the public, as it shows that labs carrying international designations are held to high standards.

(3)It is correct that several thousand wild salmon were tested and no ISA was found. Thousands of Atlantic salmon have also been tested for ISA and those tests were also negative.

(4) ISA is a concern for B.C. salmon farmers — it has the potential to have an impact on our industry. That’s why our fish are tested and why we support ongoing wild- and farmed-fish monitoring programs.

(5). All the world’s oceans are connected, so it makes sense that viruses that have been found in other areas might eventually be found in B.C. That’s why ongoing monitoring of both wild and farm-raised fish is important so if a virus that causes disease, as not all do, does appear, it is found quickly and can be dealt with
.
Mary Ellen Walling
Executive Director, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association
Campbell River

Here is my Critique:

(1). The only evidence of complaint is the CFIA letter to the OIE. The CFIA told me only one other country complained.  And, of course, the CFIA, DFO and BC testing systems were shown to be deficient. 

(2). The Kibenge lab is the one that determined the Chile ISA infection and Nylund showed the ISA came from Norway. The subject only became public after Aqua Gen who transported eggs to Chile sued Nylund for bad science. They lost.

The big Norwegian companies have taken ISA to virtually every country they have gone to set up shop. The usual scenario is refusing to accept that ISA has been taken, with, once it is found, saying, well we just have to live with this. The problem in BC is the world's greatest salmon resource, the entire Pacific Ocean  is under threat of extinction, something that has never happened before.

Tragically, ISA is now in NS, NB and NL, as well as in BC - Miller, Kibenge and Nylund have found hundreds of thousands of cases of ISA in BC

(3). The DFO, CFIA and BC testing systems were all discredited by Miller, Kibenge and Nylund during the Cohen Commission.

(4). All the testing systems have been discredited. The BC public are right to be concerned with all wild salmon being killed by farmed diseases. Salmon farms can be eliminated from the ocean in two months by pulling their leases.

Also, the public is pretty appalled when I tell them that fish farms get reimbursed with taxpayer dollars - up to $30 per fish - by the CF|IA

(5). This is a classic fantasy generated by fish farms. Marine Harvest, Cermaq Minstream and Grieg Seafood, all Norwegian origin firms, are well aware that ISA, HSMI and other diseases are carried by imports of eggs and fry, both horizontal and vertical transmission of disease - not carried by the ocean tens of thousands of miles. That's just silly. 

Fish farms sure complain when environmentalists come anywhere close to their sites under quarantine, even though they are hemmorrheging 65 Billion viral particles per hour into wild BC salmon waters. 

Go read the Spinwatch.org article on how they neutralized a Science 2004 study that showed cancer causing chemicals and other persistent organic pollutants were in Scottish, and other country, farmed fish. It reads like a Hollywood thriller conspiracy blockbuster - link in several articles on this site. You will not believe any claim by a fish farm company ever again.

See Spinwatch link:: http://www.spinwatch.org/index.php/issues/health/item/141-spinning-farmed-salmon-part-3-of-3

KEY DOCUMENT - Slaughtered, Diseased Fish Farm Salmon Compensated with Taxpayer Dollars, June 22, 2013

Like the disease post that I update continually:  (http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2012/12/key-document-global-fish-farm-diseases.html), this post will grow very long as it will document the millions of taxpayer dollars paid by government for slaughtered, diseased fish farm fish, instead of the company itself, or its insurance. No one wants open-net, in-ocean farms anymore - they are technological dinosaurs - that in BC can be eliminated in 60 days by cancelling leases.

The CFIA pays up to $30 per fish - that means $30 million per million fish - and also pays for the slaughtering process, transport of fish, including disposal of fish, disinfection of processing plants and transport ships and any equipment, like nets, that cannot be disinfected.

As a taxpayer, I strongly object to billion dollar Norwegian companies like Marine Harvest, Cermaq Mainstream and Grieg Seafood, receiving my tax money because one third to one half of all aquaculture product is destroyed by disease. Let them have insurance, and pay for dead diseased fish themselves. Let them go back to Norway.

I am also in the process of putting together the argument showing that fish farms are actually a net loss to the economy, and do not contribute anything to employment or gross provincial product in BC.

3. In Newfoundland June 7, 2013, ISA disease, up to 500,000 salmon slaughtered at Gray Aqua Group Hermitage Bay.See: http://www.undercurrentnews.com/2013/06/07/fish-at-isa-affected-farm-in-canada-to-be-culled/#.UcYW3flQHcc. See also: http://www.thetelegram.com/News/Local/2013-06-06/article-3271244/Cull-ordered-at-south-coast-salmon-farm/1.

2. NF, GAG, Butter Cove, ISA, Dec 2012, slaughtered. See above links.

1. NB, Cooke Aquaculture, ISA. diseased fish sold into the Canadian food market - because the USA will not take diseased fish. 240,000 salmon Coffin Island. See second link, above.

Norwegians Won't Eat Farmed Salmon - that Means Marine Harvest, Cermaq Mainstream, Grieg Seafood and Others - June 22, 2013

Go read this article translated into English: http://www.nosalmonfarmsatsea.com/archives/663.

Or here in Norwegian:  http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/magasinet/truer-med-aa-kaste-oppdrettslaks-ut-av-butikkene-3222842.html.

Norwegians will no longer eat farmed salmon - this in the country where this environmentally damaging industry started - and the big four food chains will no longer stock farmed Atlantic salmon.

Consumers and retailers want farmed salmon in closed containment with water recirculating systems so that the environment is not damaged, and fish can be grown without antibiotics and other chemicals.

This is what consumers want all over the world where these destructive in-ocean nets produce salmon. Norway, England, Scotland, Ireland, USA, European countries, Russia,  Canada, - both east coast and BC in the west.

If Norwegians won't eat farmed salmon, why would anyone else? Fish farms need to be in closed containment, on land, with recirculating systems, hydroponics, and energy production. Toxic chemicals are eliminated, and non-fish based feed reduces risks of cancer among other diseases. In BC fish farms can be taken out of our pristine ocean by cancelling leases - in sixty days.

Look here to see a decade's worth of science about the toxic - and cancer causing - chemicals found in open-net fish farm salmon: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2013/06/fish-farm-salmon-high-in-toxic-chemicals.html

CFIA Can't Find Disease - Updated June 19, 2013

Sign this boycott of farmed salmon products: http://salmonfeedlotboycott.com/why-boycott/.

Now, read this article about CFIA not being able to find IHN, IPN and ISA in wild and hatchery salmon in BC (they haven't tested farmed salmon): http://www.timescolonist.com/sports/b-c-wild-salmon-test-negative-for-three-diseases-1.323091.

The problem is that the CFIA was discredited in the Cohen Commission with their lab, under Gange in Moncton, NB shown by the disease experts Miller, Nylund and Kibenge to be unable to find ISA because their testing methods were not able to detect ISA and its testing machinery is too old.

So the CFIA and DFO that uses the same lab can't find ISA proves nothing. Miller's lab showed clearly that 25% of farmed chinook in Clayoquot Sound have ISA and HSMI - that is 125,000 to 250,000 fish per farm have ISA. Nylund and Kibenge have also found ISA in BC wild salmon. Miller's work goes back to 1988 in sockeye.

Do note that ISA was never in the Pacific Ocean until fish farms from Norway brought it here. The same goes for HSMI. The ISA they brought to the South Pacific caused $2 billion worth of dead fish, some quarter of a billion dead salmon. And some 13,000 employees were laid off.

As both the CFIA and DFO have been discredited, on this and other disease issues, an armslength panel of experts that are not tainted by ties to the fish farm companies from Norway is needed. It needs to be an international panel.

And the fish farms saying that they have submitted 8,000 fish for testing and not found ISA also proves nothing. The BC testing lab under Marty was shown not to be using the test he said he was using and that the probe was made in-house by a grad student. It has not been peer reviewed. So those 8,000 are discredited during the Cohen Commission and after.

Also, there is a semantic issue that must be pointed out. Marty's tables showing no disease, also notes about 1100 times the 'classic lesions of ISA'. But the semantic issue is that having the virus and having the disease are two different things. Now, the OIE that follows fish farm diseases around the world has changed its table of disease definitions and now there is a suspected category, and that is where BC falls right now.

Also behind the scenes the CFIA, that was severely criticized last year with having too cozy a relationship with a beef processor from Alberta - almost 35% of all beef in Canada, over 1500 products - is trying to get Kibenge's accreditation with the OIE taken away. This would allow it to control the fish disease issue narrative, with no other expert in Canada, even though its lab can't find ISA. It likes to say it can be 'considered' equivalent with world class standards. This is just bureacratise. The purpose in all this is to foster fish farms for international trade. Some 85% of BC farmed salmon is sold to the USA because Canadians won't eat it.

From the article above, a quote from Alexandra Morton:  “When seven labs find one thing [meaning ISA] and the one official lab reports the opposite [meaning the CFIA], the public are at risk,”

Fish Farm Salmon High In Toxic Chemicals

A current Norwegian scientist and doctor have told Norwegians that fish farm fish are so full of chemicals that they are harmful for pregnant women and children:

Here is an update on the Albany study that started the whole issue off in 2004 when fish farms neutralized a Science article by the Albany group:  http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/faqs.html. This is a fair document.


Go back and see the Spinwatch.org article on fishfarmnews.blogspot.com showing how fish farms tried to erase the results. You won't believe it. It reads like a Hollywood conspiracy theory, and yet it is true: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=1576150562295454684;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=72;src=postname.

Here is the news article in Norway, June 11 - 13, 2013:

http://www.tnp.no/norway/panorama/3777-norwegian-scientists-warn-against-eating-farmed-salmon.

Google this to get the news on this subject: Norwegian scientists - women, children should not eat farmed salmon.

Here is another scientific article on chemicals in farmed salmon: Environ Toxicol Chem. 2004 Jul;23(7):1672-9. 

The articles on this subject on fishfarmnews may be found here: http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=1880129387856188740#editor/target=post;postID=4661533306819255241;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=61;src=postname. I have updated this subject into 2012..

Needless to say there is an enormous amount of evidence that fish farm Atlantic salmon are full of chemicals and should not be eaten. Don't buy it. I estimate that BC residents eat only $4.79 of farmed salmon a year. Because Canadians won't eat BC farmed salmon, 85% of it is sent to the USA market

Cruise back through my site to find all the posts on chemicals in farmed salmon.