Suzuki Foundation Concerned Over Handling of Diseased Farm Salmon

VANCOUVER - Assurances given by lawyers for a salmon farming company to BC Supreme Court that every effort would be made to ensure that waste from diseased salmon would not spill into the ocean turned out to be worthless says a Foundation representative who watched the fish being unloaded.

"I am very concerned about how these fish were transferred from the boats to the fish plant," said fisheries and aquaculture specialist Lynn Hunter who watched three seine boat loads - 1.6 million fish - of diseased Atlantic salmon being pumped ashore.

"Liquid spilled into the ocean while the fish were being pumped from the boats and there is slime floating on top of the water under the dock," Ms. Hunter said. "Fish also spilled from the containers when they were being loaded on to trucks and plant staff then sprayed the area with a disinfectant substance."

On February 8, aquaculture company Heritage Salmon Ltd. confirmed that 1.6 million Atlantic salmon smolts from one of their farms, weighing about 250,000 kilograms, had the highly contagious Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis (IHN) virus.

The fish were brought to a plant on the Fraser River near Vancouver, but the Foundation and the Musqueam Indian Band obtained a court injunction prohibiting the unloading because of concerns the disease would enter the Fraser, the largest salmon-producing river in the world.

The injunction was lifted after the court received assurance the fish would be handled in the safest way possible. The fish were then unloaded at a plant on Vancouver Island. Heritage veterinarian, Dr. Paul Hardy Smith, swore to the court on Feb. 11 that "every effort will be made to avoid any spillage or splashing of water associated with the salmon."

"From what I saw I do not believe that Dr. Hardy-Smith's sworn affidavit to the court was upheld," Ms. Hunter said, adding that a crowd gathered around the fish plant to watch the unloading and that residents of Parksville, on mid Vancouver Island, are very concerned about the disease entering their watershed and local creeks.

"There were assurances that Department of Fisheries and Oceans staff would oversee this operation and once infected material started spilling they should have stopped the operation," she said.

The Foundation will follow up with the federal and provincial ministers of fisheries to demand they ensure this virus does not spread in the water or on land.

On April 30, British Columbia will lift a six-year moratorium on new salmon farms and give farms more self-regulating opportunities.

"Incidents like how this disease was handled show that this industry is unsustainable and the moratorium should not be lifted," Ms. Hunter said.

For more information, please call Jean Kavanagh at 604-732-4228 ext. 229

Court injunction stops dumping of disease-laden fish waste into the Fraser River

The Supreme Court of BC injunction was obtained at 10:30 p.m. on Friday, Feb. 8 after the Foundation learned that infectious waste - including water, blood and fish parts would run from the plant into the Fraser River, the world’s largest salmon producing river. The fish came from a Heritage Aquaculture site off northern Vancouver Island and were to be delivered to the Bella Coola fish plant on the Fraser River.

We were incredulous when we learned that enormous amounts of fish containing a highly contagious salmon disease, particularly for sockeye, was simply going to be brought, untreated, into the Fraser the largest sockeye river in the world, said biologist Otto Langer, the Foundation’s director of marine conservation.

Several DFO officials indicated to Foundation executive director Jim Fulton that they were concerned about this dumping into the Fraser, but the Department did nothing to stop it.

We were not able to get the Department of Fisheries and Oceans or provincial environment or fisheries officials to halt the boats coming into the Fraser so we went ahead with the Musqueam Band and Sierra Legal Defense to make sure this diseased waste was not dumped into the Fraser, Mr. Fulton said.

Mr. Langer was one of three people who provided an affidavit to Justice Holmes. In part his affidavit reads: In my extensive experience as a fisheries biologist, there is a potential that the release of fish, fish parts, or fish blood from the infected fish into the Fraser River could materially increase the risk of infecting wild salmon or other wild fish in the Fraser River with IHN.

This is the department that is supposed to be protecting the public interest when it comes to the health of our oceans and prime salmon rivers like the Fraser, said Mr. Fulton. And where were DFO officials on Friday when this was happening? Who knows, but it took a Native Band and two non-profit environmental organizations to protect the hugely important Fraser habitat.

The injunction was applied for in the name of the Musqueam Indian Band because of the threatened interference with their aboriginal rights to fish recognized by the Supreme Court of Canada in the 1990 Sparrow case.

Band lawyer Lewis Harvey told the court: The Supreme Court (of Canada) found that the Musqueam had proven an aboriginal right to fish, including a right to fish for salmon, for food, social and ceremonial purposes in their traditional fishing grounds at the mouth of the Fraser River.

He continued: The Musqueam are very concerned about any risk of harm to the wild salmon species upon which they depend for their traditional and commercial harvesting rights. In particular, the Musqueam are very concerned that the introduction of the virus IHN into the waters of the Fraser River could cause devastating and irreparable harm to salmon stocks and the Musqueam salmon fisheries.

The Foundation believes that the fish should be unloaded for processing on the ocean or in a salt water inlet so that critical wild salmon in the Fraser will not be exposed to this infectious disease.

In my opinion, transferring the infected fish to one of these facilities would present a reduced risk of infecting wild salmon stock with IHN, compared to transferring the infected fish to a processing facility on the Fraser River. The Fraser River is a bottleneck for the migration of salmon. Up to a billion fry come down the Fraser River each year. It is the largest salmon producing river in the world, Mr. Langer said in his court affidavit.

While IHN virus does occur in the wild, the tightly packed conditions on salmon farms provide optimum breeding grounds for disease, especially in introduced Atlantic salmon.

The province has just lifted the moratorium on new salmon farms and the fisheries and environment ministers tell us that their plans for the industry to regulate itself will be better for the environment. Well here was a company that was prepared to take infected fish into one of our most important rivers and that’s irrational and wrong, Mr. Fulton added.

The court injunction expires on Wednesday, Feb. 13 at 4 p.m. The Foundation, the Musqueam Band and Sierra Legal will continue work this week to ensure the fish are disposed of in the most environmentally safe way possible, Mr. Fulton said.

We now expect DFO and the province to do their jobs properly and not blindly promote the salmon farming industry, he said.

For more information and to arrange interviews, please contact Jean Kavanagh, David Suzuki Foundation, at 604-732-4228 ext. 229.

Visit the David Suzuki Foundation website at www.davidsuzuki.org.

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