The ‘experts’ in the farmed fish industry said it couldn’t happen here. Well, it has.
BC Coast Featured
Written by Rafe Mair
Here is the story from salmon biologist Alexandra Morton:
Infectious Salmon Anemia virus has been found in two young sockeye salmon. Sheer reckless, negligent behaviour has loosed a highly infectious fish farm influenza virus into the North Pacific. I have been told over and over by industry and government that this could not happen, but they were wrong. No one has any idea what Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus (ISAV) will do in the North Pacific. We were told that it could not infect Pacific salmon, that enough tests had been done to assure us that it was not here and would not get here. Well here it is in two young sockeye. Are they the only 2 salmon in the North Pacific with ISA virus, or are they among 100s, or millions? No one knows yet. Government and the salmon farming industry are at best dangerously incompetent. Humanity is well aware that moving viruses around has caused enormous misery and death. We make horror movies about this, and yet there is no sign of a learning curve here. We have put a highly infectious marine influenza virus into the ocean we depend on. So incredibly foolish.
Read the rest of the story, here…
http://thecanadian.org/k2/item/1064-catastrophic-isa-disease-found-on-bc-coast
And this…
“This is potentially very big. It’s of big concern to us,” said John Kerwin, who supervises the fish health unit at the Washington state Department of Fish and Wildlife. “It’s a disease emergency,” said James Winton, who directs the fish health section of the U.S. Geological Survey’s Western Fisheries Research Center in Seattle. Deadly salmon virus raises concerns in Washington, BC
http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2011/10/18/2233854/deadly-salmon-virus-raises-concerns.html
More: Ashley Ahearn of EarthFix talks to David Montgomery, author of King of Fish about Sick Wild Salmon earthfix.kcts9.org/water/article/earthfix-conversations-sick-wild-salmon/
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Puget Sound |
Many questions still unanswered. In no way does this represent a “Catastrophic ISA Disease.” outbreak.
According to (SFU) fishery statistician Rick Routledge, ISA was
observed in two of 48 sockeye smolts tested recently. Scientists,
including Routledge, are warning that the results are “potentially
enourmous ones.
But David Groman, PhD, Section Head of Aquatic Diagnostic Services at the Atlantic Veterinary College in Prince Edward Island (PEI), got in touch with FIS to dispute these points.
“My impression from both looking at the image associated with the
story (spawning wild adult sockeye salmon) and reading your statement that a virus has been found in wild sockeye salmon, was that fish were dying from clinical disease and that the ISA virus had been isolated and confirmed as positive,” Groman wrote in his email.
He clarified that the samples which had been tested were from healthy
juvenile smolt sockeye salmon, not from adult specimens as it was
suggested. He also highlighted that no virus had been isolated.
“The basis for all the reporting has been due to findings using
real-time PCR testing, with no complete sequencing of the PCR products to do any strain typing of the virus,” he claimed.
STOP THE PENS !!! Planned for the Strait of Juan de Fuca.
Besides, shouldn’t non – indigenous species like the Atlantic Salmon, and the pathogens associated with them like, Salmon Anemia or ISA, which is now being introduced into the environment and is being passed onto native species from fish farms in B.C. be covered under the Injurious Wildlife Provisions of the Lacy Act
Or in the name of the mighty dollar are we really willing to take the chance of wiping out our wild salmon and everything that relies on them ?