Legacy - July 2013

Issue 21

July 2013

Legacy Š Wild Game Fish Conservation International

The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation Published by volunteers at:

Wild Game Fish Conservation International Mature Subject Matter

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Legacy Wild Game Fish Conservation International Wild Game Fish Conservation International (WGFCI): Established to advocate for wild game fish, their fragile ecosystems and the cultures and economies that rely on their robust populations.

LEGACY – The Journal of Wild Game Fish Conservation: Complimentary, no-nonsense, monthly publication by conservationists for conservationists LEGACY, the WGFCI Facebook page and the WGFCI website are utilized to better equip fellow conservationists, elected officials, business owners and others regarding wild game fish, their contributions to society and the varied and complex issues impacting them and those who rely on their sustainability.

LEGACY features wild game fish conservation projects, fishing adventures, accommodations, equipment and more. Your photos and articles featuring wild game fish from around planet earth are welcome for possible inclusion in an upcoming issue of LEGACY. Your “Letters to the Editor” are encouraged.

Successful wild game fish conservation efforts around planet earth will ensure existence of these precious natural resources and their ecosystems for future generations to enjoy and appreciate. This is our LEGACY.

Wild Game Fish Conservation International Founders

Bruce Treichler

Jim Wilcox

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Contents WGFCI Outreach via Legacy and Facebook _________________________________________________________ 8 We’re writing for wild game fish conservation _______________________________________________________ 9  WGFCI letter to BC Premier Christy Clark – Remove Open Pen Salmon Feedlots ___________________________ 9  WGFCI letter to US Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington State) – Remove Open Pen Salmon Feedlots ______ 10  WGFCI letter to US Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray (Washington State) – Response to “Salmon Confidential” critics _________________________________________________________________________ 11

Community Activism, Education and Outreach: ____________________________________________________ 12       

Leave this world better than when you found it _________________________________________________________ Salmon Confidential Screening, Port Townsend, Wa. ___________________________________________________ Wild Pacific Salmon Need You – Salmon Are Sacred ____________________________________________________ Friends of Clayoquot Sound – Keep it Wild _____________________________________________________________ Spirit of Wild Salmon Gala – A Huge Success – Watch video here________________________________________ Dr. Alexandra Morton: “We’re going to win” – Watch video here _________________________________________ Salmon Confidential: View documentary, Sign up for salmon, Community outreach, Donate, More _________

12 13 14 15 16 16 17

Fundraising______________________________________________________________________________________ 19  Fishing the Chehalis__________________________________________________________________________________ 19

Seafood consumption: Food safety and health _____________________________________________________ 20        

Food for thought _____________________________________________________________________________________ Enjoy seasonal wild Pacific salmon dinners at these fine restaurants:____________________________________ PROUD TO SUPPORT WILD SALMON – Original art by Leanne Hodges __________________________________ Wild Salmon Supporters – View entire list here _________________________________________________________ Doctors and professors: – Do not eat farmed salmon ___________________________________________________ Norway Lobbied to Raise Toxin Level in Salmon Feed __________________________________________________ Four of Norway’s biggest supermarket chains threaten to stop selling farmed salmon! ____________________ Top 10 most unhealthy, cancer-causing foods – never eat these again! __________________________________

20 21 22 23 24 26 27 30

      

Farmed Fish Production Overtakes Beef _______________________________________________________________ Walmart Recalls Frozen Smoked Salmon Products For Listeria __________________________________________ Seafood Labeling Law Signed in Washington State _____________________________________________________ Sainsbury’s admit ‘mislabeling’ Scottish salmon _______________________________________________________ Globalized food system based on the intensive exploitation of resources ________________________________ Target and Other Retailers Reject GE Salmon as FDA Nears Decision on Approval ________________________ Healthy choice — farm-raised Atlantic salmon__________________________________________________________

32 34 35 36 38 40 41

Impacts of open pen salmon feedlots ______________________________________________________________ 42  N.L. salmon farm quarantined _________________________________________________________________________ 42  Farmed salmon test positive for infection ______________________________________________________________ 42  Closed aquaculture technology is functioning __________________________________________________________ 43  Hybridization between genetically modified Atlantic salmon and wild brown trout reveals novel ecological interactions _______________________________________________________________________________ 45  GM salmon can breed with wild fish and pass on genes _________________________________________________ 46  GM salmon can breed with wild fish and harm ecosystem, warn scientists _______________________________ 48  Farmed salmon killed by disease leaps to 8.5 million ___________________________________________________ 49

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!  Morton versus the Department of Fisheries and Oceans ________________________________________________ 52  Wild Salmon in Trouble – Watch video here ____________________________________________________________ 55  Salmon virus – KIRO Radio interview __________________________________________________________________ 56  Biologist claims deadly disease found in British Columbia salmon_______________________________________ 57  More ISA in Newfoundland ____________________________________________________________________________ 59  ISA suspected in northern Norway ____________________________________________________________________ 60  Facts are important — so let’s see them _______________________________________________________________ 61  Salmon farmer convicted over seal risk nets ___________________________________________________________ 63  Concern Over Chile’s Antibiotic Use, ISA Cases not Reported? __________________________________________ 64  How Norway Is Killing Your Sushi _____________________________________________________________________ 65  Wild salmon vulnerable _______________________________________________________________________________ 67  VIEWPOINT | What’s wrong with industrial salmon net pens?____________________________________________ 68  Marine Harvest agrees to limit pesticides and seal killings ______________________________________________ 70    

Remote Tasmanian town to be transformed by fish farms _______________________________________________ Lipstick on a Pig - WWF's Makeover At Marine Harvest __________________________________________________ Salmon Farming Kills just like tobacco (Don Staniford, GAAIA) __________________________________________ Alex files Lawsuit against Minister of Fisheries & Marine Harvest Canada ________________________________________

71 72 73 74

   

Tools of the trade ____________________________________________________________________________________ Response wasn't complete ___________________________________________________________________________ Dr. Alexandra Morton Talks: Video series ______________________________________________________________ Fish farm feast for 400 yachtsmen _____________________________________________________________________

75 75 76 77

Climate Change __________________________________________________________________________________ 78  Global warming is displacing BC’s iconic fish species __________________________________________________ 78  Climate Change Threatens Extinction for 82 Percent of California Native Fish ____________________________ 80

Energy production and wild game fish: Oil, Coal, Hydropower, Wind, Natural Gas ____________________ 82 Oil – Drilled, Fracked, Tar Sands _________________________________________________________________________  Leading climate scientist: Canada’s tar sands makes climate change ‘unsolvable’ ________________________  Hundreds of pipeline safety checks missed ____________________________________________________________  Pipeline in Alberta spills 9.5 million litres of waste water ________________________________________________

83 83 85 87

 Energy trade key to Canada’s economy ________________________________________________________________ 89  B.C. has left Northern Gateway door open, federal resources minister says ______________________________ 91  Canada’s climate performance is the worst in the Western World ________________________________________ 92 Coal ___________________________________________________________________________________________________ 93  BNSF RAILWAYS, COAL SHIPPERS SUED IN FEDERAL COURT FOR WATER CONTAMINATION VIOLATIONS _________________________________________________________________________________________ 93  China’s hunger for American coal in doubt _____________________________________________________________ 95  The World’s Biggest Coal Company Is Turning To Solar Energy To Lower Its Utility Bill ___________________ 97  Environmental groups oppose $15-million coal shipment plans_________________________________________ 100 Hydropower and water retention ________________________________________________________________________ 101  Inslee and Kitzhaber can lead a Columbia resolution ___________________________________________________ 101  Holmes Hydro can proceed without environmental assessment ________________________________________ 102

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!  With natural gas prospects, Susitna dam not needed __________________________________________________ 104  Anglers, Tacoma Power hash out Cowlitz River fishing concerns _______________________________________ 106  Chiang Mai village fighting dam project on the Mae Khan ______________________________________________ 109  Bonamici, Merkley offer support for Scoggins Dam seismic fixes still in the works _______________________ 111  Petronas expects to invest up to $16 billion in LNG export facility in B.C.________________________________ 113

Forest Management and Wild Game Fish _________________________________________________________ 115  Conservation groups challenge 'green' forest product certification _____________________________________ 115  Kilmer’s Wild Olympics stance unchanged ____________________________________________________________ 117

Government action/inaction and wild game fish ___________________________________________________ 119  I Don’t Pay Attention to Politics… ____________________________________________________________________ 119  Harper Blocks Interview With Scientist On Oilsands ___________________________________________________ 120  State appeals federal ruling on salmon-blocking culverts ______________________________________________ 122  B.C. formally rejects Northern Gateway pipeline as proposed___________________________________________ 123    

Harper pushing made-in-Canada pipeline as Obama mulls Keystone ____________________________________ Elwha turnaround: Baby hatchery fish fare better in muddy river this time _______________________________ Coast guard takes brunt of fisheries department cuts __________________________________________________ Land-based salmon farming not viable: Newfoundland and Labrador government _______________________

124 126 129 131

 Wild Salmon Dying of Politics ________________________________________________________________________ 132

Mining and wild game fish _______________________________________________________________________ 133  Chuitna Citizens Coalition – No mining through salmon streams. _______________________________________ 133  Sounding Off Against Mining Clayoquot ______________________________________________________________ 134

Pesticides, pollution and wild game fish __________________________________________________________ 135  Pesticide find raises concerns over Bantry salmon farm plan ___________________________________________ 135  $500,000 Fisheries Act fine for illegal pesticide use on salmon farm_____________________________________ 137

Wild game fish management _____________________________________________________________________ 138    

A New Idea to Protect Wild Salmon ___________________________________________________________________ New Era of Fisheries Policy Needed to Secure Nutrition for Millions_____________________________________ Endangered Ocean Creatures Beyond the Cute and Cuddly ____________________________________________ Extremely Rare Giant Oarfish Caught on Camera in Gulf of Mexico _____________________________________

138 140 141 144

 Responsible Commercial Fisheries co-exist with Recreational Fishing __________________________________ 146

Local Conservation Projects _____________________________________________________________________ 147  Clallam removing two Dungeness buildings out of future restored floodplain ____________________________ 147

Conservation-minded businesses – please support these fine businesses __________________________ 149  Denise Lake Lodge __________________________________________________________________________________ 149  Bravo Restaurant and Lounge________________________________________________________________________ 150      

Emerging Rivers Guide Services _____________________________________________________________________ Ocean Ecoventures _________________________________________________________________________________ Costa Rica Wild Fishing _____________________________________________________________________________ Cabo Sails __________________________________________________________________________________________ Vedder River Inn ____________________________________________________________________________________ Portage Bay Café and Catering - LOCAL, ORGANIC, SUSTAINABLE ____________________________________

151 152 153 154 155 156

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners _________________________________________________ 158 WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations: _____________________________________________________ 158 Featured Artists: ________________________________________________________________________________ 159  Leanne Hodges – “Revive”___________________________________________________________________________ 159

Featured Fishing Photos: ________________________________________________________________________ 160  Fishing with friends on Charterboat Slammer – Westport, Washington __________________________________ 160  Best practice – Prepare yourself and your equipment before this happens to you ________________________ 161  Brian Reid: Rooster Fish (25+ lbs), south of Los Barriles, Mexico _______________________________________ 162  William “Woody” Woods: 225-pound halibut caught in Strait off Sequim (May 31, 2013) __________________ 163

Recommended Reading _________________________________________________________________________ 165  Alexandra Morton: Listening to Whales _______________________________________________________________ 165

Video Library – conservation of wild game fish ____________________________________________________ 166 Final Thoughts: _________________________________________________________________________________ 167  Open pen feedlot salmon – a societal scourge. ________________________________________________________ 167

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Legacy Forward The July 2013 issue of Legacy marks twenty one consecutive months of our webbased publication, the watchdog journal published by Wild Game Fish Conservation International. As usual, no holds are barred in this issue.

Legacy is published each month to expose current and planned actions that impact the future of wild game fish and their ecosystems around planet earth to our growing audience. Legacy is also utilized to promote the many benefits of healthy populations of wild game fish. Please share this uniquely comprehensive publication with others far and wide as it includes something of interest and importance for everyone.

Our hope is that those who read Legacy will come to understand that what is good for wild game fish is also good for humans. Similarly, what is bad for our planet’s wild game fish is also really bad for humans!

It’s exciting that a growing number of recreational anglers and others around planet earth are passionate about conserving wild game fish and their continued availability for this and future generations to enjoy and appreciate. Just as exciting is that growing numbers of consumers and retailers are paying close attention to the impacts each of us have on global resources through our daily activities and purchases.

We continue to urge our global audience to speak out passionately and to demonstrate peacefully for wild game fish and their ecosystems; ecosystems that we are but one small component of.

As recreational fishermen, conservation of wild game fish for future generations is our passion. Publishing “Legacy” each month is our self imposed responsibility to help ensure the future of these precious gifts that have been entrusted for safekeeping to our generation.

Bruce Treichler

James E. Wilcox Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

WGFCI Outreach via Legacy and Facebook

The June issue of Legacy is being read in these countries

4,400+ WGFCI Facebook friends

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

We’re writing for wild game fish conservation

 WGFCI

letter to BC Premier Christy Clark – Remove Open Pen Salmon Feedlots May 19, 2013

Premier Clark, Congratulations on your recent election to continue serving as British Columbia's Premier.

Your responsibilities are many and complex - the way you address them will be your legacy. More than that, your political actions will impact British Columbia, the Pacific Northwest, North America and our world for decades to come.

This is why, Premier Clark, with all due respect, that we urge you to employ the precautionary principle, especially with your actions that could adversely impact British Columbia's remaining wild natural resources and all that rely on them.

Honourable Christy Clark

As an international organization that strives to conserve wild game fish, it concerns us deeply that Canada and the United States of America, with their once abundant, God-given, wild natural resources continue to blatantly disrespect these gifts as our governments seek short term, greed driven gains at the expense of our natural blessings.

Once our wild natural resources are gone, they will be gone forever, Premier Clark. Will this be your legacy?

You, as an important elected leader in our region must act wisely to conserve this region's wild natural resources for this and future generations.

Wild Game Fish Conservation International respectfully suggests that one action that you take immediately is to remove open pen salmon feedlots from British Columbia's uniquely productive wild Pacific salmon migration routes. The salmon feedlot industry is devastating BC's iconic wild Pacific salmon and all that rely on these life giving creatures.

Removing open pen salmon feedlots from British Columbia will certainly be a positive action that you and BC could take immense pride in, Premier Clark.

Your leadership will be required to make this happen.

Thank you, Premier Clark.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler and James Wilcox Co-founders Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 WGFCI

letter to US Senator Maria Cantwell (Washington State) – Remove Open Pen Salmon Feedlots May 22, 2013

Senator Cantwell, There are growing concerns around the world regarding the many negative impacts of open pen salmon feedlots on ecosystems, cultures, communities and economies.

It is imperative that your leadership be employed to remove open pen salmon feedlots from America’s wild salmon migration routes on our east and west coasts.

Your leadership and diplomacy are essential to removing the impacts of foreign-owned, open pen salmon feedlots from American-origin wild salmon and anadromous trout and all that rely on them.

Similarly, it is vitally important that you and your colleagues ensure that problematic (diseased, chemical-ridden) open pen salmon feedlot origin (domestic and foreign) salmon do not enter America’s markets and restaurants.

American citizens and our wild natural resources expect and deserve protection from the societal scourge of open pen salmon feedlots. Anything less is unacceptable.

Thank you, Senator Cantwell.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler and James Wilcox Co-founders Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Senator Maria Cantwell

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 WGFCI

letter to US Senators Maria Cantwell and Patty Murray (Washington State) – Response to “Salmon Confidential” critics

May 23, 2013 Senators Cantwell and Murray, By now, you and your staff have learned of, and probably viewed, “Salmon Confidential”, the recently released documentary regarding the economic, social, political and economic impacts of open pen salmon feedlots. As a reminder, Salmon Confidential is viewable online at: http://salmonconfidential.ca You no doubt have been contacted by critics of the information presented in this important documentary.

Senator Cantwell

Senator Murray

With all due respect, I urge you and your staff to read Dr. Alexandra Morton’s responses to the criticisms raised by unidentified individuals and organizations solely to discredit Dr. Morton and her many years of scientific research to identify and understand the true causes of declining wild Pacific salmon populations.

Dr. Morton granted authorization to share her responses to these criticisms with you. They are available at: http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/alexandra _morton/2013/05/in-answer-to-the-controversyaround-salmon-confidential.html Thank you for your continued dedication to restoring and conserving North America’s wild salmon and their fragile ecosystems, Senators Cantwell and Murray.

Sincerely,

Bruce Treichler and James Wilcox Co-founders Wild Game Fish Conservation International

Dr. Alexandra Morton Marine Biologist

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Community Activism, Education and Outreach:  Leave this world better than when you found it

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Salmon Confidential Screening, Port Townsend, Wa.

SOLD OUT

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Wild Pacific Salmon Need You – Salmon Are Sacred

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Friends of Clayoquot Sound – Keep it Wild

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Spirit of Wild Salmon Gala – A Huge Success – Watch video here  Dr. Alexandra Morton: “We’re going to win” – Watch video here Over 200 attendees participated in the inaugural “Spirit of Wild Salmon” Gala – we networked with fellow conservationists, heard from key scientists and were entertained by several passionate performers. The take away from the Gala is that many people rely on sustainable populations of wild salmon – these same people are coming together as the Department of Wild Salmon to ensure that these gifts from God will be here until the end of time. Below are a few photos from the 2013 “Spirit of Wild Salmon Gala”.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Salmon

Confidential: View documentary, Sign up for salmon, Community outreach, Donate, More

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

OLYMPIA CHAPTER OF TROUT UNLIMITED June 26, 2013 7:00PM NORTH OLYMPIA FIRE STATION 5046 BOSTON HARBOR ROAD NE PINNIPED AND AVIAN PREDATION IN THE LOWER COLUMBIA RIVER

Sea lion

Caspian Tern

Program: The public is invited to the June 26th meeting of the Olympia Chapter of Trout Unlimited for a presentation by Sandra Jonker, refreshments, and fishing equipment raffle. Current conditions of managing for salmon recovery in the lower Columbia River could not be more complex. ESA-guided recovery plans have been developed throughout the Columbia River basin; to restore important habitat, improve dam passage survival, re-tool hatchery programs to assist wild populations, reducing predation, and closing or reshaping fisheries to focus on selectively harvesting healthy hatchery fish. These are comprehensive recovery plans that identify and provide an implementation strategy to reduce all sources of mortality throughout the salmon’s life cycle.

This presentation will provide an update on the status and challenges that come with managing predation from Caspian terns, double-crested cormorants, and sea lions in the Lower Columbia River.

Bio: Sandra Jonker is currently the Wildlife Program Manager for Southwest Washington with the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife. She received her French and International Baccalaureate in philosophy and biology in St. Germain en Laye, France, and earned her B.S. and M.S. in Wildlife and Fisheries Biology at the University of Massachusetts (UMASS) at Amherst. She concluded 2 years of academic training with the Human Dimensions Research Unit at Colorado State University and then completed her Ph.D. in Wildlife and Fisheries Conservation at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She subsequently served as a Postdoctoral Research Associate with the Human Dimensions Research Unit in the Department of Natural Resources at Cornell University. She has lived and worked in Africa, Asia, Europe, and the United States on a variety of wildlife, habitat, and human–wildlife issues that include work on endangered as well as game species.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Fundraising

 Fishing the Chehalis

Mike Kancianich of MK Sport Fishing has generously offered the following fishing trip to be auctioned to support the Fishing the Chehalis efforts.

August 16, 2013 Buoy 10 - up to six people.

Bid details are available at Piscatorial Pursuits as an auction / fund raiser for those who would like to bid. If you’re not a PP user you can e mail me and I will place your bid for you.

As in all things with FTC the proceeds will go directly to the FTC efforts to give sport fishers a voice in harvest allocation and preserve salmon resource.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Seafood consumption: Food safety and health

 Food for thought

Eating Feedlot Salmon is...

Gambling with YOUR Health What Happens in Norway Should…

Stay in Norway

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Enjoy seasonal wild Pacific salmon dinners at these fine restaurants:

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 PROUD TO SUPPORT WILD SALMON – Original art by Leanne Hodges

Editorial Comment: When making your next dining reservations for yourself, you and your loved one or a party, please be sure to look first at the restaurants that do not offer open pen feedlot salmon on their menu.

This is a simple way that we can thank these businesses for their significant dedication and commitment to our iconic wild Pacific salmon.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Wild Salmon Supporters – View entire list here

Eddie Gardner: BAD CHOICE! So called “Fresh Farmed Atlantic Salmon Steak Tip" is very fatty and this absorbs high concentrations of PCBs. For your health and for the well being of the marine habitat, do not purchase this product.

Nikki Lamarre: They couldn't pay me to eat that!

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Doctors and professors: – Do not eat farmed salmon Alarm to women, youth and children.

June 10, 2013

WARN: Doctor Anne-Lise Bjørke Monsen and chief physician Bjørn Bolann is critical to children and pregnant women consuming farmed salmon.

Consumption of fish and other seafood in Norway is higher than in many other countries. On average, Norwegians eat fish equivalent of two fish meals per week.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The Food research company Nofima writes that high levels of contaminants have been found in several fish species caught in northern European waters, and hence also in fishmeal and fish oil that are based on industry and fish by-products.

Norway has become a salmon-eating nation, and farmed salmon has become the new favorite .

Only last year Norway produced about 60 percent of the world production of Atlantic salmon, which is equivalent to 1.1836 million tons of fish.

Norwegian health authorities are recommending Norwegians to eat seafood three times a week. But it is far from everyone who thinks farmed salmon should have a permanent place at the dinner table.

- Salmon feed detrimental Consultant Anne-Lise Bjørke Monsen of clinical department at Haukeland University Hospital in Bergen, is one of the six independent health experts VG has spoken to.

She advises several groups not to have farmed salmon in their diet at all.

- I do not recommend pregnant women, children or young people eating farmed salmon. It is uncertain with regards to both the amount of toxins salmon contains and how these chemicals affect children, adolescents and pregnant, says Bjørke Monsen to VG. She refers to the so-called persistent organic pollutants (POPs), fed to salmon at the fish farm, meaning these are harmful to young bodies – especially infants.

- The kind of contaminants that have been detected in farmed salmon have negative effects on brain development and is associated with autism, AD / HD and reduced IQ. We also know that they can affect other organ systems in the body’s immune system and metabolism, says Bjørke Monsen.

According The Senior Physician the harmful contaminants transfer, which may not be dangerous for a human adult, to the newborn through breast milk.

- The substances are stored in fat tissue, and when you are pregnant and starting to breastfeed, then a lot of fat is mobilized that allows toxins passed to the child.

- If you start eating salmon when you are small and are pregnant when you are 25, you have a pretty significant stock in the body already, says Bjørke Monsen.

She explains that the toxins are stored to a large extent in the fat on the human body.

Long degradation rates - And the degradation time is long. In ten years only half of the pops-toxins is broken down. When women have children, they detoxify: Up to 94 percent of the toxins will then disappear from the female body. What is worrying is that a very large part of it will disappear through breast milk, which is fatty and good.

- This means that your baby gets a “toxic load” from the mother who has been taking it in over the last 10-20 years, and this at the beginning of life, something we warn strongly against. Therefore we do not recommend that pregnant women any consumption of farmed salmon, that is salmon, because pretty much everything we are offered of salmon is farmed, says Bjørke Monsen.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Norway Lobbied to Raise Toxin Level in Salmon Feed After yesterday’s debate on the danger of eating farmed salmon due to high level harmful pollutants, it was revealed Norwegian authorities have lobbied in EU to allow more toxin level in salmon.

June 11, 2013 According to Aftenposten’s report, Norway has for years tried to get the EU to allow ten times more toxin (Endosulfan) in salmon than previously allowed. Now, Norway has received approval in the EU. In the consultation document from the FSA shows that there are economic reasons why Norway is eager to raise the limit.

"The limit value for the concentration of Endosulfan in feed for salmonids is of great economic importance for the aquaculture industry in the short and longer term," stated in the letter.

Endosulfan was previously forbidden to use in feed for all salmonids, but research has shown that fish can withstand poison through better feed than by being exposed to it in the water.

Opposition parties criticizes fisheries minister for not taking the debate seriously. Many fear all the debate about potential hazards of eating farmed salmon can have negative consequences for the Norwegian salmon export.

Alexandra Morton: “SICK, SICK, SICK! There is nothing redeeming about this industry - lice infestation, viruses, GMO, toxins in the feed!!!!

This is so offensive, do they think about the people that are eating this?

They colour it pink and fool people into thinking it is healthy when actually it is a swimming GMO corn cob full of chicken feathers.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Four of Norway’s biggest supermarket chains threaten to stop selling farmed salmon!

The following is a translation of an article which has appeared on the website of Norwegian National TV2. It has kindly been translated by Niels Ploughman on our behalf. A link to the original version is at the end of the post.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Threatening to ban farmed salmon from foodstores The 4 big foodstore chains in Norway threaten to ban farmed salmon from their foodstores if the fishfarmers do not change their production to closed pens and guarantees that the fish are safe to eat.

“Today we shall have lightly salted cod, and for tomorrow I have bought a filleted trout” – says Unni Flatholm – one of the many shoppers in Lagunen Storcenter in Bergen.

She never buys farmed salmon.” No – I don´t like it – we never know what we are getting” – says Unni Flatholm. Elin Moe Ranzinger shares her concern. “I want to know what substances in the fish I expose my family members to. I am not interested in fish treated with antibiotics – so I do not buy farmed fish – she says.

She finds it scary that the fish farming industry for years have struggled with diseases, salmon lice and pollution.

Could limit the sale: Antonio Soares – from Portugal manages a food chain store that makes a living by supplying food items that consumers can trust. As managing director of ICA, he has over the years taken part of a process, all large food chain stores take part in.

For the first time he is willing to share his concerns. “If fish are susceptible to certain diseases, they try to prevent these diseases with meds and substances that are suspect – not only for the consumer, but also for the environment.

Norwegians spend 130 Billions NKR each year on food. 4 big food chain stores: Rema 1000, ICA. Norgesgruppen and Coop – more or less control most of the food retail market. According to ICAs managing director – it gives them the power to make demands to their suppliers. Both for ICA in Norway, Sweden and Netherlands. The main company and the store owners, can decide to limit the sale or even ban the sale of certain products – as we have done sometimes.

Demands closed fish Farms: ICA demands that the salmon farming industry becomes environmental sustainable within 3 years.

Prototypes of closed, recirculated fish farms have been developed, but the fish farming industry has shown very little interest in investing in these.

Let us find solutions that makes salmon farms sustainable. That is what we are asking. The ideal are closed salmon farms – that prevent salmon from escaping and polluting the water around the fish farms.

Intensive meeting activity: TV2 is aware that large interest groups from both the fish farming industry and the food chain stores have met several times during this spring with high ranking government officials from the department of health and the fishing department.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Kurt Oddekalv from the Environmental Association has also taken part in meetings where he has given the food retail market organisations his assessment of the situation. Kurt Oddekalv says various actions will be taken if the food chain stores are not using their power to make demands to the fish farming industry.

Thomas Angell says :”We have chosen to take the concerns of the environmental association seriously and are working together with the Food inspection and Department of fishing to find out if farmed salmon and cod are safe for human consumption and how these fish are produced.

The Fish Export lobby says: We have tried to provide the Food Chain Stores with facts. Salmon are off course a 100 percent safe product. When Mr. Oddekalv and others make monstrous claims, we have been in dialogue with the food inspections and the department of health, since they are the authorities responsible for food production – says Director Terje Martinussen.

Threatened with lawsuits: From the main office of the Environmental Association in Bergen, Kurt Oddekalv is leading the campaign for sustainable fish farming.

Late April he received a letter from a law firm hired by the national fish farming industry (FHL) – They want to sue us because we demand that the food retail stores stop selling farmed fish. And that is correct. They also want to sue us because we we want to force the fish farming industry to change their production so it becomes more sustainable, which is also correct. The only solutions to the problems the fish farming industry creates is that we demand that they follow the rules all other production industries must follow. Closed production facilities, where all water is purified before discharged – says Oddekalv.

The communications director of FHL, Are Kvistad says. We risk loosing jobs along our shores and jobs in our districts if we are damaged by misleading information. That is why we have sent a letter to the environmental association – to end their campaigns. More than 150 countries import both wild and farmed fish from Norway, with a value of 26 Billion NKR. So it is big values that are at stake if the market situation changes. We do follow the Norwegian authorities rules for fish farming – Are Kvistad says.

ICAs managing director Antonio Soares however thinks that sustainable fish farm production demands more than that. “Sometimes the law and regulations protects you from a legal standpoint.

But responsible companies should see further than that. They should look forward and see what they are leaving behind for the next generations.

A customer – Arne Arneson rolls his shopping cart towards the parking lot. He thinks that consumers in the future will pay more for fish that are produced more ethically and has a high quality.

“We can afford that” – he thinks.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Top 10 most unhealthy, cancer-causing foods – never eat these again!

June 4, 2013 The statement “everything causes cancer” has become a popular hyperbole, and one that some people use as rhetorical fodder to excuse their own dietary and lifestyle failures, particularly as they pertain to cancer risk. But the truth of the matter is that many common food items have, indeed, been scientifically shown to increase cancer risk, and some of them substantially. Here are 10 of the most unhealthy, cancer-causing foods that you should never eat again: 1) Genetically-modified organisms (GMOs). It goes without saying that GMOs have no legitimate place in any cancer-free diet, especially now that both GMOs and the chemicals used to grow them have been shown to cause rapid tumor growth. But GMOs are everywhere, including in most food derivatives made from conventional corn, soybeans, and canola. However, you can avoid them by sticking with certified organic, certified non-GMO verified, and locally-grown foods that are produced naturally without biotechnology (http://www.naturalnews.com).

2) Processed meats. Most processed meat products, including lunch meats, bacon, sausage, and hot dogs, contain chemical preservatives that make them appear fresh and appealing, but that can also cause cancer. Both sodium nitrite and sodium nitrate have been linked to significantly increasing the risk of colon and other forms of cancer, so be sure to choose only uncured meat products made without nitrates, and preferably from grass-fed sources (http://www.organicconsumers.org/foodsafety/processedmeat050305.cfm).

3) Microwave popcorn. They might be convenient, but those bags of microwave popcorn are lined with chemicals that are linked to causing not only infertility but also liver, testicular, and pancreatic cancers. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recognizes the perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) in microwave popcorn bag linings as “likely” carcinogenic, and several independent studies have linked the chemical to causing tumors. Similarly, the diacetyl chemical used in the popcorn itself is linked to causing both lung damage and cancer (http://www.drweil.com/drw/u/QAA400701/Microwave-Popcorn-Threat.html).

4) Soda pop. Like processed meats, soda pop has been shown to cause cancer as well. Loaded with sugar, food chemicals, and colorings, soda pop acidifies the body and literally feeds cancer cells.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Common soda pop chemicals like caramel color and its derivative 4-methylimidazole (4-MI) have also specifically been linked to causing cancer (http://www.naturalnews.com/031383_caramel_coloring_cola.html) 5) ‘Diet’ foods, beverages. Even worse than conventional sugar-sweetened soda pop, though, is “diet” soda pop and various other diet beverages and foods. A recent scientific review issued by the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) of more than 20 separate research studies found that aspartame, one of the most common artificial sweeteners, causes a range of illnesses including birth defects and cancer. Sucralose (Splenda), saccharin and various other artificial sweeteners have also been linked to causing cancer (http://www.dailymail.co.uk).

6) Refined ‘white’ flours. Refined flour is a common ingredient in processed foods, but its excess carbohydrate content is a serious cause for concern. A study published in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Mile Markers, and Prevention found that regular consumption of refined carbohydrates was linked to a 220 percent increase in breast cancer among women. High-glycemic foods in general have also been shown to rapidly raise blood sugar levels in the body, which directly feeds cancer cell growth and spread (http://www.naturalnews.com/001812_cancer_prevention.html).

7) Refined sugars. The same goes for refined sugars, which tend to rapidly spike insulin levels and feed the growth of cancer cells. Fructose-rich sweeteners like high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS) are particularly offensive, as cancer cells have been shown to quickly and easily metabolize them in order to proliferate. And since cookies, cakes, pies, sodas, juices, sauces, cereals, and many other popular, mostly processed, food items are loaded with HFCS and other refined sugars, this helps explain why cancer rates are on the rise these days (http://www.naturalnews.com/038071_cancer_sugar_sweets.html).

8) Conventional apples, grapes, and other ‘dirty’ fruits. Many people think they are eating healthy when they buy apples, grapes, or strawberries from the store. But unless these fruits are organic or verified to be pesticide-free, they could be a major cancer risk. The Environmental Working Group (EWG) found that up to 98 percent of all conventional produce, and particularly the type found on its “dirty” fruits list, is contaminated with cancer-causing pesticides (http://www.ewg.org/foodnews/list/).

9) Farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is another high-risk cancer food, according to Dr. David Carpenter, Director of the Institute for Health and the Environment at the University of Albany.

According to his assessment, farmed salmon not only lacks vitamin D, but it is often contaminated with carcinogenic chemicals, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), flame retardants, pesticides, and antibiotics (http://www.albany.edu/ihe/salmonstudy/pressrelease.html).

10) Hydrogenated oils. They are commonly used to preserve processed foods and keep them shelfstable. But hydrogenated oils alter the structure and flexibility of cell membranes throughout the body, which can lead to a host of debilitating diseases such as cancer. Some manufacturers are phasing out the use of hydrogenated oils and replacing them with palm oil and other safer alternatives, but trans fats are still widely used in processed foods (http://www.naturalnews.com/010095_hydrogenated_oils_unhealthy.html).

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Farmed Fish Production Overtakes Beef June 12, 2013

The world quietly reached a milestone in the evolution of the human diet in 2011. For the first time in modern history, world farmed fish production topped beef production. The gap widened in 2012, with output from fish farming—also called aquaculture—reaching a record 66 million tons, compared with production of beef at 63 million tons. And 2013 may well be the first year that people eat more fish raised on farms than caught in the wild.

More than just a crossing of lines, these trends illustrate the latest stage in a historic shift in food production—a shift that at its core is a story of natural limits.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

As the global demand for animal protein grew more than fivefold over the second half of the twentieth century, humans began to press against the productivity constraints of the world’s rangelands and oceans. Annual beef production climbed from 19 million tons in 1950 to more than 50 million tons in the late 1980s. Over the same period, the wild fish catch ballooned from 17 million tons to close to 90 million tons. But since the late 1980s, the growth in beef production has slowed, and the reported wild fish catch has remained essentially flat. (See data.)

The bottom line is that getting much more food from natural systems may not be possible. Much of the world’s grassland is stocked at or beyond capacity, and most of the world’s fisheries are fished to their limits or already crashing. Overstocked rangelands become obvious as the loss of protective vegetation leads to soil degradation, which at its worst can cause punishing dust and sand storms.

Overexploited fisheries are less readily visible, but fishing patterns over time reveal that more effort is required to achieve the same size catch as in years past. Boats are using more fuel and travelling to more remote and deeper waters to bring in their haul. Fishers are pulling up smaller fish, and populations of some of the most popular food fish have collapsed.

Historically, people’s taste in eating animal protein was largely shaped by where they lived. In places with extensive grasslands, like in the United States, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia, people gravitated toward grazing livestock. Along coasts and on islands, as in Japan, wild fish tended to be the protein staple. Today, with little room for expanding the output from rangelands and the seas, producing more beef and fish for a growing and increasingly affluent world population has meant relying on feedlots for fattening cattle and on ponds, nets, and pens for growing fish.

While open waters and grasslands can be self-sustaining if managed carefully, raising fish and livestock in concentrated operations requires inputs. Grain and soybeans have been inserted into the protein production food chain.

Cattle consume 7 pounds of grain or more to produce an additional pound of beef. This is twice as high as the grain rations for pigs, and over three times those of poultry. Fish are far more efficient, typically taking less than 2 pounds of feed to add another pound of weight. Pork and poultry are the most widely eaten forms of animal protein worldwide, but farmed fish output is increasing the fastest.

Average annual growth rates over the last five years have mirrored the relative efficiency of feed use, with the global production of farmed fish growing by nearly 6 percent a year, poultry by 4 percent, and pork by 1.7 percent—fast outpacing beef, which barely increased at all.

As grain and soybean prices have risen well above historical levels in recent years, the cost of producing grain-eating livestock has also gone up. Higher prices have nudged consumers away from the least-efficient feeders. This means more farmed fish and less beef. In the United States, where the amount of meat in peoples’ diets has been falling since 2004, average consumption of beef per person has dropped by more than 13 percent and that of chicken by 5 percent. U.S. fish consumption has also dropped, but just by 2 percent.

Beyond economic considerations, health and environmental concerns are also leading many people in industrial countries to reduce their beef intake. Meanwhile, fish are touted as healthy alternatives (save for the largest types, which have accumulated mercury from environmental pollution). Diets heavy in red meat have been associated with a higher risk for heart disease and colon cancer, among other ailments.

READ ENTIRE TREE HUGGER ARTICLE HERE

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Walmart Recalls Frozen Smoked Salmon Products For Listeria May 28, 2013 Walmart is among the retailers recalling frozen cold-smoked salmon products made by Salmolux of Federal Way, WA. The products are being recalled for potential contamination with Listeria monocytogenes, which can cause serious and sometimes fatal infections. Almost 5,000 pounds of the recalled products were distributed under the brand names Sea Passion, Jensen’s Old Fashion Smokehouse and Raley’s to retail stores in the followings states: AR, AZ, CA, ID, MI, NV, NY, OH, OR, WA .

No illnesses have been reported with this recall, however symptoms of listeriosis, which include high fever, severe headache, stiffness, nausea, abdominal pain and diarrhea, can take months to develop. Among pregnant women, Listeria can cause miscarriage or stillbirth.

Young children, seniors and those with compromised immune systems are also at special risk with listeriosis.

The recall was issued after a problem was discovered during a routine test by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The frozen recalled products are packed in vacuum bags with the lot number 10803 on the back the packages. The Sea Passion products under recall include: 1-pound packages of Keta Lox with the UPC 0 16468 44294 8; 2-pound packages of Keta Lox Trim or Salmon Lox Trim with no UPC; 3 0z. Keta Retail Box with the UPC 0 16468 44543 7; 3-pound Atlantic Salmon Tray with no UPC; 4 oz. Wild Keta Lox with the UPC 0 16468 44305 1; and 8 oz. packages of Salmon Lox Norwegian Style with the UPC 0 16468 44328 0. The Raley’s product under recall is 4 oz packs of Atlantic Lox with the UPC 0 46567 50029 4. The Jensen’s Old Fashion Smokehouse product under recall is 4 oz- packs of Sockeye Nova Lox with the UPC 6 33243 24684 5. Cold smoked salmon trays weighing 500 g were also distributed to food service.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Seafood Labeling Law Signed in Washington State May 22, 2013 A law to help protect consumers from being victims of seafood fraud was signed into law this week in Washington state by Gov. Jay Inslee.

This July 2009 photo shows Justin Hall throwing a salmon to a co-worker behind the counter at Pike Place Fish Co. at the Pike Place Market in Seattle.

The bill requires all fresh, frozen or processed fish and shellfish to be labeled by its common name as defined by the state’s Department of Fish and Wildlife.

If the name of a particular fish species is not defined by the department, the market name as outlined in the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s guidelines can be used.

The bill comes in response to a push by advocacy groups such as Oceana to have more straightforward labeling of fish. Oceana and other groups and media outlets have conducted studies showing up to one-third of all the seafood sold in the U.S. in supermarkets and restaurants is mislabeled, either intentionally or unintentionally.

“This bill is a win for seafood processors, fishermen, consumers, and, ultimately, healthy and productive oceans,” Whit Sheard, a senior advisor with Oceana, said in a statement.

The bill also includes restrictions on which species can be called “halibut” and requires salmon be labeled by their scientific or common names to avoid confusion among consumers who may be wanting to buy wild salmon and instead wind up with farmed salmon.

Chris Bell, sustainability officer at the Pike Place Fish Co. in Seattle, said the law will help give assurance to consumers the fish they are buying is not being misrepresented. Pike Place Fish Co. was already putting country of origin and whether the product is wild or farmed on its labels–”all the stuff the bill is telling other seafood sellers to do,” Bell said.

“It’s a great thing,” Bell said. “It is important in our industry to have people who can come up to us and know what they are buying is what we said it is.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Sainsbury’s admit ‘mislabeling’ Scottish salmon SUPERMARKET giant Sainsbury’s has admitted “an error” over the mislabeling of farmed Scottish salmon.

They made the confession after the Salmon and Trout Association (STA) filed a formal complaint with the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards against the chain’s “erroneous claims” concerning the geographic origin of the fish.

The STA, which campaigns to protect wild fish stocks, claimed Sainsbury’s had misled the public on farmed salmon sold under its premium Taste The Difference brand.

Fish advertised as being from “fast-flowing seawater locations off the isles of Skye, Lewis and Uist”, were instead from Loch Fyne, in Argyll on the Scottish mainland.

This, the STA claims, is from “less fast-flowing waters” more prone to diseases such as sea lice.

A spokesman for the supermarket admitted: “Unfortunately, there has been an error in the information on the packaging of some our Taste the Difference salmon products in recent months.

“We are now resolving this and sincerely apologise to customers, who can be reassured that there has been no impact on our industry-leading sourcing standards.”

She added: “We are very proud of our record on responsible sourcing of fish.

“Sainsbury’s is the country’s largest retailer of RSPCA Freedom Food Salmon and all our Scottish Salmon is farmed to a number of independent standards.”

Guy Linley-Adams, Solicitor to the STA Aquaculture Campaign, welcomed the admission by Sainsbury’s, and invited supermarket bosses to now “enter into a discussion about sourcing standards of farmed salmon”.

He said: “The STA’s complaint shows that it is time for the supermarkets to take responsibility for what they are selling and how they market it.

“This complaint to the Advertising Standards Authority and Trading Standards is about Sainsbury’s and the claims made on its packaging and on its website.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

“Quite apart from issues of identifying exactly where its farmed salmon comes from, the STA believes Sainsbury’s must substantiate its ‘responsible sourcing’ assertions with hard facts about named farms and not just general assurances.

“Without this, discerning consumers may not have confidence in what they are being asked to buy.”

He said: “It is good that they have obviously spotted an error in the geographic location of the fish farms.

“All the producers and supermarkets put a premium on salmon sourced from the Hebrides.

“These were marketed as being from fast-flowing seawaters off Skye, Lewis and Uist. But they were stamped as being from Loch Fyne, which has a reputation for sea lice.

“The problem with Loch Fyne is it is a narrow sea loch, and wild salmon and trout have a problem getting past these farms, which are prone to sea lice.”

He claimed sea-lice numbers on farmed fish in excess of industry thresholds, benthic pollution with sea-lice treatment chemicals in excess of Environmental Quality Standards, escapes of farmed fish, unsatisfactory organic pollution of the sea-bed with uneaten food and faeces and farmed salmonid diseases have all been recorded in Loch Fyne.

Mr Linley-Adams added: “Sainsbury’s are not alone in failing to come clean about their Scottish farmed salmon products.

“Claims by other supermarkets of salmon being ‘responsibly farmed’ or ‘responsibly sourced’ are vague and inadequate.

“The supermarkets clearly know there is an issue here – after all, we don’t see ‘responsibly farmed’ sweet corn or tinned tomatoes on the supermarket shelves, do we?”

Hughie Campbell Adamson, Chairman of S&TA Scotland, said: “Supermarkets have a duty to be honest and transparent about the food they sell.

“Farmed salmon, grown in open-net marine cages, can come at a heavy environmental cost, not least in its impact on wild salmon and sea trout.

“We do not need ‘greenwash’ or vagueness here. We need hard data against which to judge these farms.

“For example, we believe that Sainsbury’s should now require all the farms from which it sources its farmed salmon – as a condition of supplying salmon to Sainsbury’s – to publish weekly farm-specific sea-lice parasite counts against which claims made by the fish-farmers can be properly assessed.”

The STA was established in 1903 to address the damage done to rivers by the polluting effects of the Industrial Revolution.

It has worked to protect fisheries, fish stocks and the wider aquatic environment on behalf of game angling and fisheries.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Globalized food system based on the intensive exploitation of resources

Wild Atlantic and Farmed Salmon Not On My Plate  Bluefin Tuna  Tropical Farmed Shrimp  Wild Atlantic and Farmed

Salmon  Swordfish  Atlantic Cod  Sharks and Skates`

Scientific Name Salmo salar

Commercial Names Farmed salmon, Atlantic salmon, sake (sushi)

Issues…

Once a luxury food reserved for special occasions like Christmas and New Year’s Eve, salmon has gradually become available year-round in supermarkets, in large quantities and at reasonable prices (for the budget of the average Western family). But we should not be deceived by this availability: Salmon is anything but a sustainable fish.

…with Wild Atlantic Salmon Stocks The stocks of wild Atlantic salmon have been reduced to dangerously low levels. The reasons are many: overfishing, pollution, environmental changes, aquaculture, habitat deterioration and disturbances of migration routes. Wild Atlantic salmon stocks in North America, Europe and the Baltic have been over-exploited since the 19th century and in many regions the species has disappeared completely.

…with Farmed Salmon Environmental Effects Even though wild Atlantic salmon stocks have been drastically depleted, farming represents a poor alternative, given the environmental havoc it causes.

Responding to market demand, in the last ten years aquaculture has increased by over 400%. The majority of salmon are raised in open pens and cages along the coast, where the fish are targeted by predators such as seals and sea birds, who attempt to get through the nets.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

As a result, many salmon escape from their enclosures. These escapees threaten the wild species, increasing competition for food and for places to spawn and fertilize eggs.

Fish farms pump uneaten food, a massive amount of excrement and often pesticides and antibiotics directly into the ocean, polluting the water. Farmed salmon suffer from parasites and diseases that can pass to the wild fish, further threatening their populations.

Additionally, the huge quantity of wild fish needed to feed farmed salmon (it takes between 2.5 and 5 kilos of wild fish to produce 1 kilo of farmed salmon) means that aquaculture consumes more fish than it produces, further increasing pressure on wild species.

Health Though often recommended as one of the best animal sources of omega-3 fatty acids, salmon should not be eaten frequently. Like all the large fish near the top of the food chain, salmon flesh contains significant amounts of mercury and other pollutants. Additionally, the disinfectant and antibiotic residues left in farmed salmon can affect consumers’ health and increase their resistance to antibiotics.

Advice and Alternatives 

Don’t eat wild Atlantic salmon and farmed salmon.



The Monterey Bay Aquarium in California recommends wild Alaskan salmon as an alternative.



Consult online guides for other sustainable alternatives in your region.

“While in certain places some forms of aquaculture can provide an important food source, they must be developed in a responsible way.

The rapid growth of intensive aquaculture for species with high commercial value intended for export, such as salmon and shrimp, has already caused dreadful environmental damage and the displacement of many local farmers and fishers whose livelihoods have been destroyed.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Target

and Other Retailers Reject GE Salmon as FDA Nears Decision on Approval MAY 30, 2013

Target Corporation has signed on to a pledge to not sell genetically engineered salmon in its department stores nationwide, joining nearly 60 other grocery chains such as Trader Joe’s, Whole Foods and Aldi, as part of the Campaign for GE-Free Seafood led by environmental organization Friends of the Earth.

Three other regional retailers threw in their pledges on Wednesday as well. H-E-B, Giant Eagle and Meijer each added their locations to the total of 4,662 grocery stores in the U.S. that will not carry GE salmon, should the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approve it.

The FDA is expected to deliver its final decision on GE salmon approval soon. The public comment period on the FDA’s draft environmental assessment and finding of no significant impact expired on April 26, after tallying up more than 1.8 million comments.

GE salmon has been under consideration by the FDA since 1996, when AquaBounty, creator of the AquAdvantage salmon, first applied for approval. If approved, the Massachusetts-based company plans to breed its GE fish in Canada’s Prince Edward Island and raise them in farms in Panama for sale in the U.S. The salmon is a modified Atlantic salmon that takes a growth-promoting gene from Chinook salmon and a gene from the eel-like ocean pout that allows it to grow year-round. The result is a salmon that grows to full size in 18 months instead of 3 years.

Groups opposed to GE salmon say that if the fish escaped into natural ecosystems it could spread its genes and out-compete natural salmon. AquaBounty contends there is virtually no chance of that happening, as all the fish are bred to be sterile and all female, along with being raised in landlocked tanks that don’t touch natural waters. All fish will also be slaughtered and processed in Panama before being shipped to the U.S. The announcement that Target and other retailers would reject GE salmon coincided with the publication of a study in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society that found hybrids between AquAdvantage salmon and wild brown trout acquired the ability to grow faster than hybrids between trout and non-GE salmon. The study, which is the first of its kind, also found that those GE hybrids out-competed the wild varieties for food.

In a response to the study, AquaBounty said that while the authors acknowledge the GE hybrids would be “improbable in nature,” the study failed to mention that the hybrids would be sterile.

In the FDA’s draft environmental assessment on GE salmon, published in May 2012, the agency said did not expect AquAdvantage to impact wild salmon stock if the company properly followed its proposed procedures.

The agency has also concluded the salmon would be as safe to eat and nutritionally equivalent to non-GE Atlantic salmon.

The pledge for GE-free seafood campaign, led by Friends of the Earth, is supported by more than 30 consumer and environmental groups. The campaign asks grocery stores, restaurants, chefs and seafood companies to pledge to not knowingly purchase or sell GE seafood.

“Since these fish will likely not be labeled, consumers have to rely on retailers like these to reject unwanted and unnecessary GE fish,” said Heather Whitehead, online campaigns director for the Center for Food Safety in an press statement. “We will continue to pressure other retailers to side with consumers.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Healthy choice — farm-raised Atlantic salmon May 17, 2013 U.S. producers of farm-raised salmon are working hard to help fill today's growing demand for seafood. USDA nutritionist Susan Raatz, physiologist Matthew Picklo, and cooperators have found that farm-raised Atlantic salmon maintains its healthy levels of omega-3 fatty acids when baked.

Two omega-3 fatty acids, EPA (eicosapentaenoic acid) and DHA (docosahexaenoic acid), are abundant in oily fish such as salmon, tuna, mackerel, and herring. Some data have shown that consuming 250 milligrams daily of EPA and DHA—the amount found in a 3-ounce salmon fillet—is associated with reduced risk of heartdisease.

Raatz and Picklo are with the ARS Grand Forks Human Nutrition Research Center in Grand Forks, N.D. ARS is USDA's chief intramural scientific research agency.

Editorial Comment: This article contains multiple over simplifications:

• Lifestyles

including adequate exercise, low stress, limited alcohol and smoking, proper diet and more are required in order for omega-3 fatty acids from fish to have any role in reducing risk of heart disease.

• Open

pen salmon feedlot products are actually unhealthy choices as they are known to contain cancer-causing pathogens and multiple toxins.

• Reputable sources strongly recommend that we limit consumption of wild salmon and avoid eating pen raised Atlantic salmon

Buyers Beware!

While eating seafood rich in omega-3 fatty acids is known to reduce risk of heart disease, it has not been known whether baking causes loss of omega-3s in farm-raised Atlantic salmon. The team also examined the extent to which baking Atlantic salmon alters healthful fatty acids through oxidation that leaves unhealthy compounds, such as toxic omega-3 oxidation byproducts.

The researchers demonstrated that baking salmon to the proper temperature does not decrease its content of beneficial omega-3 fatty acids. They found that baking actually decreases the presence of fatty acid oxidation byproducts. Preparing the fish based on restaurant and safety guidelines—to a tender-but-safe 145 degrees Fahrenheit rather than overcooking—was a key factor, according to authors.

The research was published in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Impacts of open pen salmon feedlots

 N.L. salmon farm quarantined Industry expects confirmation of infectious salmon anemia June 3, 2013 A Gray Aqua salmon farm on Newfoundland's south coast is under quarantine as officials test for infection.

The Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association confirmed on Monday that infectious salmon anemia is suspected at the farm in Hermitage Bay. If confirmed, it would be the third outbreak in Newfoundland in less than a year.

"We do presume that it is going to come back positive, and so efforts are being made to see what we can do in terms of de-population. So as soon at that cull is ordered by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, then we will be ready to go," he said.

Couturier said the industry expects a decision later this week.

Industry facing challenges

Couturier said the south coast is the hub of the province's salmon farming, which has produced hundreds of jobs and revived about a dozen communities.

"It's been growing for the last 30 years, and in the last decade, really, we've grown to an industry that is worth almost $200 million to the rural economy of Newfoundland and Labrador," he said.

But the industry does face some new challenges.

The federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans recently confirmed that some salmon caught at the mouth of the Garnish River on the Burin Peninsula escaped from an aquaculture farm.

Critics fear that type of incident could threaten wild salmon populations.

The industry is also fighting a disease problem.

Infectious salmon anemia was confirmed at a Gray Aqua site near Conne River in July 2012, which led federal officials to order the destruction of hundreds of thousands of salmon at the site.

In December 2012, more fish were destroyed after another outbreak at a Cooke Aquaculture facility in Hermitage Bay. While scientists have said those infected fish are safe to eat, the CFIA has not approved their sale in stores.

 Farmed salmon test positive for infection June 6, 2013 Fish from a Gray Aqua salmon farm on Newfoundland's south coast have tested positive for infectious salmon anemia.

The Newfoundland Aquaculture Industry Association says the Canadian Food Inspection Agency confirmed the test results on Thursday.

The federal agency has issued an eradication order to destroy the fish at the company's Hermitage Bay site.

It's the third such outbreak in Newfoundland in less than a year.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Closed aquaculture technology is functioning June 7, 2013 Salmon fishing with a rod was previously reserved for the upper class. Now close to 80, 000 people in Norway fish for salmon every summer. The past 25 years I have observed that greed cultures destruction have turned arrows pointing down for wild salmon, sea trout and remaining biodiversity – but there are bright spots.

The salmon farming industry has had tremendous growth since the early 70s. In 2012 it produced 1,183,000 tons of farmed salmon to an export value of 29.6 billion. In ten years, consumption of salmon in Norway has increased by nearly 90 percent. Last year, consumption of salmon in Norway increased by 23 percent. This contributes to create jobs while other sectors is suppressed. There is no doubt that aquaculture is important for business, but I am in fundamental disagreement with the mayors Helge Njåstad (FRP) in Vats and Hans Stølan (Ap) of Frøya, who has previously stated that we can sacrifice wild salmon if necessary to produce farmed salmon.

Environmental impact Diseases in aquaculture include diseases furunculosis, PD (pancreas disease), ISA (Infectious Salmon Anemia) and a huge increase in the number of sea lice. In an attempt to take control of these adverse side effects enormous amounts of delousing agents (3 tonnes a year) are being used.

Surveys done by the Norwegian Institute for Water Research shows that the drugs could endanger shellfish and crabs. Norwegian Fishermen’s Association fears for their members livelihood and therefore they call out for shutdown of use of delousing agents in aquaculture industry.

In February 2011, 175 000 farmed salmon escaped from SalMar at Hitra in Sør-Trøndelag. This escape is equivalent to the total annual appearance of wild salmon in Trondheim Fjord, which is one of the greatest wild salmon areas in the world. Once over 12,000 salmon escaped from a fish farm at Osholmen Hitra a conequenc of a net that was not properly mounted, prosecutor Nils Kristian Grønvik in Sør-Trøndelag Police said to Dagens Næringsliv: “If this is not a crime, there is not much that is criminal offense “.

Escapings of farmed salmon has been and is a major problem In 2010, 70 000 PD-infected salmon escaped from Sjøtroll facilities in Sveio. There has also been detected PD in a fish farm belonging to Marine Harvest in Nærøy Nord-Trøndelag. They had to slaughter 700 000 salmon. The salmon disease PD is spreading further and further north, there are now 138 plants that are “carriers” of the virus infection.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Recently emergency slaughter of 69,000 salmon was carried out, at the fish farm in Mortsund in Lofoten after the detection of infectious salmon anemia (ISA).

Earlier research has shown that up to 70% of the salmon taken in Fiskumfoss in Namsen is farmed.

Some of these fish carry lice and are infected with deadly diseases that can infect wild salmon.

Escaped farmed salmon threaten the unique local salmon populations by genetic pollution, and the spread of lice and diseases.

According to the Directorate of Fisheries own figures, there has been a vast improvement from 2006, when 921,000 farmed salmon escaped. 2012 reports are counting 38,000 escaped salmon. It is also worth mentioning that in 2012 133,000 rainbow trout and 55,000 cod escaped. The figures are based on breeders’ own reports. Regardless 38,000 escaped farmed salmon, 38 000 too many.

Public Health Researchers believe that farmed salmon is becoming a swimming vegetable full of bad fats and harmful toxins. U.S. researchers published a study in the prestigious journal Science in 2004 in which they discourage people from eating farmed salmon more than once a month and referred to the high levels of PCBs, dioxins and other toxic substances. A recent study by the University of Bergen has shown that mice developed type 2 diabetes and obesity when they were fed farmed salmon. The researchers also suggested that frequent consumption of farmed salmon would increase the risk of developing cancer.

Technology I mean, despite the above, that aquaculture industry is important for the business community in Norway – but it must be legitimate to require that commercial activities are conducted in a more sustainable manner. If no are stricter standards will be the industry’s own path. There are many who have criticized and demanded land-based aquaculture or closed containments. Ratings based on figures from 2010 estimate that Norwegian salmon farming has the potential for savings, with closed aquaculture technology, in size 7 billion per year. In addition, the savings with respect to the major environmental costs imposed on society, as pointed out by the Auditor General’s report from 2012.

Akvadesign in Brønnøysund has succeeded in large-scale farming of salmon in enclosed sea sites.

According to the National Veterinary Institute there was not found a single lice on the 80,000 salmon that were in the closed plant from May to October.

The aquaculture industry’s zoning corresponds to the size of the runways at Gardermoen Airport. All indications are that the extent will continue to escalate so closed containments is very likely the best solution – even through an economic perspective. I hope the rest of the industry choose to be part of this technological development.

Closed systems alone will not be able to turne farmed salmon into lucrative food, but it’s a good start.

An initiative that is not only environmentally friendly, but also profitable for the industry. SV’s fight to get farming industry into closed systems is therefore not a threat to the industry, but is one of many necessary measures to make fish farming sustainable.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

ď ś Hybridization

between genetically modified Atlantic salmon and wild brown trout reveals novel ecological interactions Krista B. Oke, Peter A. H. Westley, Darek T. R. Moreau and Ian A. Fleming

May 29, 2013

Abstract Interspecific hybridization is a route for transgenes from genetically modified (GM) animals to invade wild populations, yet the ecological effects and potential risks that may emerge from such hybridization are unknown.

Through experimental crosses, we demonstrate transmission of a growth hormone transgene via hybridization between a candidate for commercial aquaculture production, GM Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar) and closely related wild brown trout (Salmo trutta). Transgenic hybrids were viable and grew more rapidly than transgenic salmon and This image of transgenic salmon next to an unmodified salmon of other non-transgenic crosses in hatchery-like the same age shows how the GM fish grow far more quickly conditions.

In stream mesocosms designed to more closely emulate natural conditions, transgenic hybrids appeared to express competitive dominance and suppressed the growth of transgenic and nontransgenic (wild-type) salmon by 82 and 54 per cent, respectively.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first demonstration of environmental impacts of hybridization between a GM animal and a closely related species. These results provide empirical evidence of the first steps towards introgression of foreign transgenes into the genomes of new species and contribute to the growing evidence that transgenic animals have complex and context-specific interactions with wild populations.

We suggest that interspecific hybridization be explicitly considered when assessing the environmental consequences should transgenic animals escape to nature.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 GM salmon can breed with wild fish and pass on genes May 29, 2013 The potential risks of genetically modified fish escaping into the wild have been highlighted in a new study.

Scientists from Canada have found that transgenic Atlantic salmon can cross-breed with a closely related species - the brown trout.

The fish, which have been engineered with extra genes to make them grow more quickly, pass on this trait to the hybrid offspring.

The research is published the Proceedings of the Royal Society B..

However, the biotech company AquaBounty, which created the salmon, said any risks were negligible as the fish they were producing were all female, sterile and would be kept in tanks on land.

The transgenic salmon are currently being assessed by the US authorities, and could be the first GM animals to be approved for human consumption.

Salmon-trout hybrids Continue reading the main story “Start Quote The GM hybrids also outgrew the GM salmon” Darek MoreauMemorial University of Newfoundland In the wild, Atlantic salmon very occasionally mate with the brown trout, successfully producing offspring.

But the researchers found that in the laboratory, the genetically modified salmon could do the same.

Of the 363 fish analysed at the start of the experiment, about 40% of the hybrids carried the modified genes.

The researchers found that these young fish developed extremely quickly.

Dr Darek Moreau, from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, said: "[Under hatchery conditions] the transgenic hybrids grew faster than the wild salmon, wild trout and wild-type hybrids.

The GM hybrids also outgrew the GM salmon."

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

In the wild, Atlantic salmon will sometimes mate with the brown trout When the fish were placed in a mocked-up stream inside the laboratory, the researchers found that the hybrids were out-competing both the genetically modified salmon and wild salmon, significantly stunting their growth.

"This was likely a result of competition for limited food resources," explained Dr Moreau.

The researchers said this study highlighted the ecological consequences should genetically modified fish get into the wild.

They acknowledged that the risks of such an escape and subsequent encounter with a brown trout were low, but said this information should still be taken into account by those who are regulating GM animals.

Ron Stotish, CEO of AquaBounty Technologies Inc, said: "It is worth noting that in 1995, Peter Galbreath and Gary Thorgaard of Washington State University published research that the Atlantic salmon-brown trout hybrid is sterile. If this holds true, such a hybrid would pose little ecological threat as the fish would not reproduce.

"Moreover, AquaBounty has stipulated that we will market only sterile, all female AquAdvantage salmon - with specific tests being performed on every commercial batch of fish to assure our product meets our specifications."

He added: "Overall, the study seems to present no new evidence for any added environmental risk associated with the AquAdvantage salmon."

The US Food and Drug Administration is currently in the final stages of considering whether the transgenic salmon can go on sale.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 GM salmon can breed with wild fish and harm ecosystem, warn scientists May 29, 2013 Genetically modified salmon could escape into the wild with devastating consequences for the ecosystem, a new study has warned.

Researchers from Canada say that there is a risk of GM salmon mating with the closelyrelated brown trout species to produce a hybrid fish. GM salmon grow faster than normal salmon and scientists observed that their hybrid offspring grow even faster allowing them to out-compete existing species for food.

In a mocked-up stream in the laboratory the GM offspring took the majority of available food, significantly stunting the growth of GM salmon and wild salmon. This highlighted the ecological consequences should genetically modified fish get into the wild, the scientists said.

Dr Darek Moreau, from the Memorial University of Newfoundland, Canada, said: "This was likely a result of competition for limited food resources."

The GM salmon was created by biotech firm AquaBounty. The company said the risks to the environment were negligible as the fish were all female and sterile. Additionally they would be kept in tanks on land.

The US Food and Drug Administration is at its final stage of considering whether GM salmon should go on sale.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Farmed salmon killed by disease leaps to 8.5 million February 10, 2013 The number of salmon killed by diseases at Scottish fish farms leapt to over 8.5 million last year, sparking fresh doubts about the sustainability of the £1 billion industry.

New figures released by the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (Sepa) reveal that losses from all salmon farms have reached nearly ten per cent of their production. The main problem has been the spread of Amoebic Gill Disease, blamed by some on the warmer seas caused by climate pollution.

A mountain of 13,627 tonnes of dead fish had to be disposed of in 2012 by 230 fish farms along the west coast and on the islands, compared to 9,717 tonnes in 2011 and 7,159 tonnes in 2010. The worst problems were in Shetland, where 2.4 million salmon died.

The mass mortalities – known in the industry as morts – have also raised questions about how such large amounts of diseased waste are safely disposed of, and how the process is regulated. Sepa and local authorities both say it is not their responsibility.

Farmed salmon is Scotland’s single largest food export, with a worldwide retail value of over £1 billion and major sales in the US, China and France. Production has risen fivefold since 1990, and now involves 27 companies employing more than 1,000 people in rural areas to produce over 158,000 tonnes of salmon a year.

The industry, backed by the Scottish government, is hoping to continue the boom with a further 50% increase in the production of all farmed finfish by 2020. But such ambitions may now suffer because of the mounting mortalities, and the financial problems they are triggering.

Two of the leading Norwegian-owned fish farm companies, Grieg Seafood and Marine Harvest, have recently reported major production losses from diseases in Scotland. Analysts have suggested that the industry could forfeit more that £30 million in revenue.

Sepa released detailed information about the deaths at fish farms over the last three years in response to a request from the Sunday Herald. The figures showed that the huge weight of prematurely dead fish that had to be disposed of nearly doubled between 2010 and 2012.

It was Grieg Seafood, which owns Hjaltland Seafarms in Shetland, that suffered the most mortalities, losing a massive 4,661 tonnes of salmon at 35 farms. Seven of the ten fish farms with the worst mortality rates were run by the company.

Second in the dead fish league was the foreign-owned Scottish Salmon Company, with 2,374 tonnes of mortalities at 39 farms. The other major operators – Meridian Salmon, Marine Harvest and Scottish Sea Farms – also suffered major losses (see tables below).

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Amoebic Gill Disease can suffocate fish by blocking their gills, and can also render them too weak to withstand the chemical treatments commonly used to combat sea lice infestations. In the last few years, the disease has spread from Tasmania in Australia to America and Europe, and was first reported in Scotland in 2011.

Anglers and environmentalists pin the blame on the intensive production methods used in salmon cages, and are demanding a halt to the industry’s expansion plans. “It is clear from these massive mortality figures, that there are major problems,” said Hugh Campbell Adamson, the chairman of the Salmon and Trout Association in Scotland.

“Any intensive farming system, whether on land or in the sea, is highly prone to disease outbreaks.

When a large number of animals or fish are closely confined, the likelihood of endemic disease is greatly increased.”

He was worried that the diseases could spread to wild fish. “Until it is crystal clear what is causing these deaths, and whether that cause of mortality is transferrable to wild fish, then surely the government and the industry must stop any expansion.”

The association’s aquaculture lawyer, Guy Linley-Adams, argued that salmon farms had to be kept apart from wild fish. “It must mean aquaculture in closed containment, where there is a biological separation between farmed and wild fish,” he said.

Don Staniford from the Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture warned that diseases were crippling the salmon farming industry. “Scottish salmon farming's debt and mort mountain is piling up higher than Ben Nevis,” he said.

“The stench is so powerful that the CEOs of the Norwegian companies controlling over 80% of the industry can smell dead farmed salmon from their head offices in Norway where they are counting their losses in the millions.”

Grieg Seafood declined to comment, referring inquiries to the Scottish Salmon Producers’ Organisation (SSPO). It argued that the survival rate of farmed salmon was “vastly higher” than wild salmon.

“A proportion of the elevated mortality during the last year is a consequence of an influx of naturallyoccurring amoeba from the wild marine environment which has impacted global fish populations and has recently arrived in Scotland,” said the SSPO’s chief executive, Scott Landsburgh.

“Naturally occurring losses are unfortunately a part of all animal production,” he added. “With as much as 240,000 tonnes of farmed salmon growing in Scottish waters at any one point, the losses represent a small percentage of total production.”

The Scottish Salmon Company pointed out that that was trying to keep mortality rates as low as possible. “We ensure that all fish stocks are rigorously monitored so that fish mortalities are identified and disposed of quickly, in accordance with industry regulations agreed with statutory environmental agencies,” said the company’s chief executive, Dr Stewart McLelland.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The huge rise in fish farm deaths year 2012 2011 2010

tonnes of dead fish

number

13,627 9,717 7,159

8.5 million 6.8 million 5.5 million

The companies with the most dead fish company Hjaltland Seafarms Scottish Salmon Company Meridian Salmon Marine Harvest Scottish Sea Farms Loch Duart Others

tonnes of dead fish in 2012 4,661 2,374 1,913 1,897 1,659 822 301

number 2.4 million 1.5 million 1.8 million 1.4 million 0.8 million 0,5 million 0.2 million

The 10 farms with the most dead fish site

company

Swining Voe Site 3, Collafirth Ness, Shetland Setterness South, Shetland Skewart Holm, Linga, Shetland Trilleachan Mor, North Harris Collafirth Delting Site 3, Shetland Setterness North, Shetland Linga South, Shetland Brindister Crossroads, Shetland Sron, Lochalsh Cava South, Orkney

Hjaltland Seafarms Hjaltland Seafarms Hjaltland Seafarms Scottish Salmon Company Hjaltland Seafarms Hjaltland Seafarms Hjaltland Seafarms Hjaltland Seafarms Marine Harvest Meridian Salmon

source: Scottish Environment Protection Agency

tonnes of dead fish 551 514 495 490 448 366 297 248 234 226

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Morton versus the Department of Fisheries and Oceans Both sides likely to quote Cohen report in federal court case June 13, 2013

The community of Echo Bay sits on the west side of Gilford Island, one of a group of islands comprising the Broughton Archipelago near the northern tip of Vancouver Island on B.C.’s Central Coast.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

In 1984, this remote settlement became the home of biologist Alexandra Morton, originally from the United States, who moved there to study a pod of orca whales living in the area. In the late ’80s, as aquaculture companies began opening up salmon-farming operations in the waters Morton had come to call home, her professional focus shifted from studying orcas to studying the effects these farms were having on the local ecosystem.

Morton had no choice but to shift focus; the orca whales left shortly after the salmon farms arrived.

Morton says the whales fled the underwater acoustic devices used to keep seals from preying on farm fish, so she turned her attention to investigating the influences farms were having on wild salmon stocks. Her research has resulted in multiple papers published in peer-reviewed scientific journals, Science among them.

Although the scientific community has not always unanimously agreed with Morton, the byproducts of salmon farms that, in Morton’s opinion, pose threats to wild salmon are manifold — from epidemics of sea-lice that kill juvenile salmon, to escaped Atlantic salmon competing with wild populations. Now, however, Morton is convinced that farmed salmon are spreading harmful diseases to their wild cousins along the coast of B.C. Sufficiently convinced, at least, to take legal action in order to prevent an aquaculture company from putting what she says are lethal-disease-carrying fish into B.C. waters.

Morton, represented by Ecojustice environmental group lawyer Margot Venton, filed a lawsuit on May 7th in a Vancouver Federal Court against both the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) and Marine Harvest Canada, a subsidiary of Norwegian aquaculture giant Marine Harvest. The lawsuit contests Marine Harvest’s right, provided under a license issued by DFO, to transfer fish infected with a virus called piscine reovirus (PRV) from land-based hatcheries into open-pen fish farms.

PRV was only recently identified, in 2010, but some studies have fingered it as a potential cause of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI), a disease that has been found to cause up to 20 per cent mortality among diseased fish in Norwegian salmon farms. Morton is concerned that, if it hasn’t already, the presence of PRV in farmed salmon in B.C. could lead to an HSMI outbreak in wild fish.

Morton did not respond to attempts to contact her in time for this publication. However, in a recent press conference held to discuss the lawsuit, she said, “[PRV] started in Norway and it spread rapidly; they’ve been unable to control it. It damages the muscles and the hearts of the fish, to the point where scientists don’t even think they can make it to rivers and if they do, that they might not even be able to swim up the rivers.”

Morton also said that after learning PRV was present in fish originating in Marine Harvest’s Dalrymple Hatchery in Sayward, B.C., “[She] asked [the DFO, the province of B.C. and Marine Harvest], ‘Please don’t put [PRV] in the water. It is too dangerous,’ but they went ahead and did that. It’s on the Fraser sockeye migration route, and it is a serious threat.”

The “Fraser sockeye” are a population of sockeye salmon that enter the Fraser River at its confluence with the Strait of Georgia, just south of Vancouver, before travelling upstream — in some cases as far as 800 km — before spawning. Over 10 million Fraser sockeye were expected to return to the river in 2009, and when only 1.4 million fish showed up, a federal inquiry was held to try and find out why. The inquiry was led by B.C. Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen and was dubbed the Cohen Commission.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Morton, who participated in the commission, points to salmon farming as a major factor in the decline of Fraser sockeye stock, but Commissioner Cohen did not confirm this. He concluded that “Data presented during this Inquiry did not show that salmon farms were having a significant negative impact on Fraser River sockeye.” Other scientists involved in the Commission also disagree with Morton’s assessment.

Gary Marty is a veterinary pathologist (specialist in the diagnosis of animal disease) who has been the B.C. Ministry of Agriculture’s fish pathologist since 2004. In an email, Marty pointed out that, contrary to what Morton has said, “Just because PRV was first identified in Europe, that does not mean that PRV originated there.” In other words, PRV may have been present in B.C. salmon all along.

When PRV was first reported in 2010, Marty went through 625 samples archived from B.C. salmon farms in 2009 and 2010. The samples were taken from both healthy fish and fish that had died. He found that roughly 80 per cent of fish across both groups tested positive for PRV, indicating that PRV, although certainly present in farmed fish, didn’t appear to be related to mortality. Additionally, Marty points to a recent study published in the Journal of Fish Diseases led by scientists at the Norwegian Veterinary Institute. The study found no indications of HSMI in wild fish in Norway — despite finding PRV. Marty’s message is straightforward: PRV in farmed salmon does not appear to lead to HSMI in wild salmon. In fact, in Norway, where the disease HSMI was first identified, “authorities place no restrictions on moving PRV-positive fish from freshwater to saltwater if the fish have no associated disease,” wrote Marty. HSMI has never been found in any species of Pacific salmon.

Such arguments may have little bearing where Indigenous sovereignty is recognized however, unless First Nations groups agree.

In its final report, published in the fall of 2012, the Cohen Commission made it clear that there was no “smoking gun,” no single cause of declining Fraser sockeye. Instead, the report emphasized that the decline was probably a result of a combination of multiple influences throughout the lifecycle of the fish, including aquaculture, but also warming rivers and streams due to climate change, and increased human activity along the Fraser River watershed.

The report called for increased federal funds for implementing a comprehensive approach to wild salmon conservation, carried out under the jurisdiction of the DFO. The report also notes the “DFO has not yet completed research into the effects of diseases and pathogens from fish farms on Fraser River sockeye,” and that as a result, “significant scientific uncertainty remains around the effect of salmon farms on Fraser River sockeye salmon.” In terms that seem especially prescient in the context of Morton’s lawsuit, the report advocates precaution.

“Mitigation measures should not be delayed in the absence of scientific certainty.”

Chief Bob Chamberlin, Vice President of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, also spoke at Morton’s press conference. Referring to the Commission’s findings, he said, “In my mind, there are some very clear recommendations to safeguard wild salmon, and it is now time to do something.”

After the Fraser sockeye numbers in 2009 capped a decline spanning almost a decade, the 2010 return came in as the highest since 1913, at 29 million fish.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Wild Salmon in Trouble – Watch video here

Alexandra Morton:

Claudette Bethune:

“Dear Norwegian Government: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuoxLiUBdvg&featu re=youtu.be This salmon feedlot near Kingcome Inlet is full of salmon from the Atlantic and they look sick. Even feedlot salmon don't generally fin on the surface.

If they are infectious, they have exposed every young salmon swimming out Wakeman and Kingcome and many of the young salmon swimming out of Knight Inlet and Tribune Channel.

We have had it with suffering the degradation of our home, the wild salmon and our coastal economy so you can make money off sick looking fish.

These do not appear wholesome to eat, and they do not belong where the people of this region depend on wild salmon.

I would like some of these fish to test.”

“Given what we have to lose by eating this 'food', when will they be held accountable for such gross negligence?

"The fundamental concern over the agricultural use of antibiotics arises from the potential that resistant bacterial strains can be transferred to humans via direct contact, or ingestion of food derived from treated animals.

This is a legitimate concern as epidemiological and microbiological data show that resistant bacteria from food animals can reach humans via the food supply.

And most classes of antimicrobials used in animals have human counterparts.” http://www.fda.gov/ForConsumers/ConsumerUpdate s/ucm349953.htm

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Salmon virus – KIRO Radio interview May 26, 2013

Editorial Comment: Note to KIRO Radio (Seattle) following yesterday's salmon feedlot interview: Thank you for your discussion yesterday regarding the impacts of open pen salmon feedlots on wild salmon, their ecosystems, cultures, communities and economies.

This issue has global implications that are apparent wherever and whenever open pen salmon feedlots are established. Clearly there is muzzling of scientists and collaboration between governments and industries.

Hopefully KIRO will conduct an in-depth investigation into the open pen salmon feedlot industry as human health, ecosystems and cultures are many times more important than short term gains by foreign corporations.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Biologist claims deadly disease found in British Columbia salmon May 28, 2013 Editorial Comment: Biologist Alexandra Morton says she's found evidence of Infectious Salmon Anemia in salmon in British Columbia, which she fears could impact populations of farmed salmon as well as harm native Pacific salmon species.

"It's going to impact the salmon farming industry terribly and it's a wildcard as to what it's going to do to the wild salmon," she says.

Morton tells KIRO Radio's On the Water that she contacted two labs well versed in the virus, one in Canada and one in Norway to test samples of B.C. fish. She sent them wild samples and also samples taken from supermarkets as she did not have access to take samples from salmon farms.

"It's very hard to get a farmed salmon off of a farm unless you are with the government, so I began to access them from the supermarkets," says Morton. "Since then, some of the samples have tested positive for the ISA virus."

But many officials disagree with Morton's results and say there has been no evidence that ISA is in salmon in B.C. "All laboratories that have been testing with this agree there have been no cases of the ISA in British Columbia," says Dr. Gary Marty, a fish pathologist with the B.C. Animal Health Centre.

"We test several hundred fish a year that die on the farms for that virus and those test results have consistently come back negative, no virus."

There is considerable evidence to prove without a shadow of a doubt that open pen salmon feedlots negatively impact ecosystems, cultures, communities and economies.

We know full well that the open pen salmon feedlot industry: • Pollutes marine water and the ocean floor with a cocktail of chemicals, feed, feces, dead fish and more.

• Enables salmon lice infestations that harm and kill wild salmon.

• Enables European salmon viruses that kill Atlantic salmon (wild and farmed) and may significantly harm wild Pacific salmon.

• Kills marine mammals with their nets and via predator control with guns.

• Enables Atlantic salmon to escape into wild salmon ecosystems.

• Distributes infected, chemically salmon to markets and restaurants

treated

• Enables navigation hazards for military, commercial and recreational watercraft.

Any one of the above points is justification to not permit open pen salmon feedlots to be sited in wild salmon Migration routes The ongoing research indicates that: • Diseased and chemically treated salmon impact human health • European salmon Pacific salmon.

diseases

impact

wild

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

"We're pretty confident it's not in here. The restrictions on moving fish are considerably more tight than say moving people back and forth so I'm pretty confident we're not going to see ISA here for a long time as long as everyone follows the regulations in place."

Morton says she disagrees with Dr. Marty but it's difficult for her to officially confirm the virus is in B.C. salmon because she does not have access to salmon in farms.

"The trouble with the rules in Canada right now, and the definition of 'confirmed,' is you basically have to catch the virus alive. And given the type of access I don't have to salmon farms, all we're dealing with is pieces of the virus."

Dr. Marty explained B.C.'s policies on who can investigate and diagnose diseases in fish.

"We have a law in British Columbia, it's called the Veterinarian's Act, and if you're going to do diagnosis of disease and interpretation of the results, by law you need to be a veterinarian. So the farmers have that right to work with a licensed veterinarian and accredited veterinary diagnostic lab," says Dr. Marty. "That means if someone who is not a veterinarian, like Alexandra Morton, wants to do research, they're going to have to get the approval of the farms."

Morton is also publicizing her fear that any ISA present in farmed Atlantic salmon in B.C. could be picked up by Pacific salmon. But Dr. Marty says an ISA outbreak in Chile had no impact on Coho in the area.

"The disease only affected the farmed Atlantic salmon and did not ever affect any of the Coho salmon in Chile. So that gives us an idea that this is a disease of farmed Atlantic salmon and it is not a disease of concern for Pacific salmon species."

Morton has released a documentary called "Salmon Confidential" which covers her research and what the film calls a "government cover up of what is killing BC's wild salmon."

But Stewart Hawthorn, Managing Director at Grieg Seafood BC, tells On the Water the film is full of inaccuracies.

"It's selectively edits quotes from people to make it look like they're saying something that they aren't.

It's full of innuendo. It's simply misinforming people and creating fear where there shouldn't be fear."

But Morton continues her quest to encourage more tests and says B.C. could be headed for devastation like what happened in Chile if they ignore the potential of the disease's presence in the area.

"This is exactly what happened in Chile. They didn't think they had it and it ended up they did and it caused $2 billion in damage there," says Morton. "I think it's one of those cases where nobody wants to face that it could be here."

Listen to the full discussion on this week's On the Water podcast. Subscribe to KIRO Radio's On the Water to keep up with all the Northwest boating and sea news.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 More ISA in Newfoundland May 30, 2013

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) has confirmed Newfoundland’s third outbreak of infectious salmon anemia in two years.

This latest outbreak of ISA, which can kill fish but is not harmful to humans, has occurred on the South Coast at an unidentified facility Tests are being conducted and aquaculture industry spokesman Cyr Couturier told NTV news that his association believes the infection came from wild salmon.

Recently, farmed salmon escapees have been found by anglers in Newfoundland to be mixing with wild fish About 800,000 salmon were affected by outbreaks at Cooke Aquaculture and Gray Aquaculture in 2012 and were ordered destroyed.

Couturier told NTV that such a forced slaughter in this case would result in millions of dollars in losses.

The provincial government said strict biosecurity protocols remain in place at the site.

A major outbreak ISA in Shelburne Harbour in 2011 resulted in the destruction of more than 500,000 fish.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 ISA suspected in northern Norway April 29, 2013

Salmon at a farm in Lofoten, northern Norway, are suspected to have contracted infectious salmon anemia (ISA), said the Norwegian Food Safety Authority.

The site, Kolvikodden in Vestvagoy, belongs to Lofoten Sjoprodukter.

NFSA is in the process of setting up a control area consisting of a control zone and a surveillance zone. All involved actors in the areas have been warned, it said.

The diagnosis is based on clinical findings, heightened mortality, typical tissue changes at autopsy and immunological analysis. The ISA virus was detected in samples from 10 fish, said NFSA. Speaking to Kyst.no, Lofoten Sjoprodukter said ISA was suspected, but added that heart and skeletal muscle inflammation (HSMI) had not been excluded as a possibility.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Facts are important — so let’s see them Last week, former fisheries minister Trevor Taylor used his column space in this paper to tear a strip off the Liberals’ Jim Bennett for asking questions about the aquaculture industry in this province.

Taylor was at pains to point out that he’s not a particular expert: “Admittedly, I am no fisheries scientist, but in the 20-odd years I have been associated with the fishery I have seen a good many scientific papers.” He didn’t mention that, of course, he was at one point acting minister of fisheries and aquaculture, directly responsible for the conduct of the regulated aquaculture industry, at a time when the provincial government was a crucial equity investment partner in the industry.

One of the cornerstones of Taylor’s argument seems to be that anyone questioning the effects of aquaculture should have the facts.

“It is appropriate to demand high standards of our aquaculture industry. In spite of being one of the best run in North America, our industry undoubtedly can do better. It is also important to deal with facts when demanding accountability,” he wrote.

That’s a good point. Let’s deal with facts and accountability: for one, Taylor suggests that things like sea lice are naturally occurring; that’s true enough.

Are they a problem for aquaculture programs here? Let’s see.

Ask the provincial department of fisheries under the province’s access to information law, as someone recently did, for the province’s sea lice monitoring records for the years 2008 to 2012 and you’ll get this answer: “The department has identified aquatic animal health information as highly confidential and has implemented policies and security protocols in order to protect this information.

As stated under Section 9(4) of the Aquaculture Act, information prescribed as confidential shall not be released to the public.”

The short answer? The information was not released, in part because the commercial interests of the aquaculture industry would be affected. (These are not my access to information requests: they are requests made to the department by an unnamed third party and posted on the province’s public engagement website.)

How about a request for details of bacterial kidney disease in farmed finfish in the province?

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

“The department has identified aquatic animal health information as highly confidential and has implemented policies and security protocols in order to protect this information. …”

How about a request for details on mortality rates for farmed salmon for the years 2011 and 2012, and the causes of death for those fish?

“The department has identified aquatic animal health information as highly confidential and has implemented policies and security protocols in order to protect this information. …”

Taylor says in his column that he’s read about mortality rates in wild fish: “There is one thing they all have in common: they have an estimate of natural mortality. The estimate varies but is generally around the 20 per cent mark. Approximately 20 per cent of fish in the wild die of natural causes every year.” He makes no mention of the fact that the corresponding mortality rates in farmed salmon are a state secret in this province.

The bottom line? The department has flatly refused to release information, even under access law.

So, if you actually want the facts while demanding accountability, something former-minister-of-theCrown Taylor finds so vital, you might have a hard time finding them.

He’s of the opinion the information is all right there. Talking about infectious salmon anemia, for example, he says “Salmon that become infected and die in a farm are documented and declared; it is public knowledge.”

Really? Finding information on aquaculture problems in this province is like pulling teeth. My bet is that even a former fisheries minister couldn’t get the answers.

But first, you know, he’d actually have to ask a question or two.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Salmon farmer convicted over seal risk nets May 28, 2013

A Shetland salmon farmer has been convicted of using nets which could kill grey and common seals.

Graham McNally, 52, was the first person in the UK to be convicted of using nets for the purposes of trapping and killings seals.

He was charged under the Conservation (Natural Habitats) Regulations 1994 and fined £800 at Lerwick Sheriff Court.

McNally pleaded guilty to using two illegal nets around salmon cages in 2011.

The Crown Office said salmon farmers were encouraged to deter seals seen around their fish "by using non-lethal measures".

Information had been received by the Scottish SPCA that nets had been placed around a number of salmon cages at two salmon farming sites in an effort to kill seals which had been attacking fish.

An examination of the two nets concluded that the design of the nets was such that they were likely to catch and kill seals.

Craig Harris, procurator fiscal, wildlife and environment, said: "Seals are protected by law and may only be killed or taken in accordance with a licence.

"To do otherwise is a serious offence that will not be tolerated."

Scottish SPCA Ch Supt Mike Flynn said: "We welcome today's conviction, which is a landmark for seal conservation in Scotland and the UK. "Common seal numbers are decreasing and the illegal trapping and killing of seals is contributing to their decline."

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Concern Over Chile’s Antibiotic Use, ISA Cases not Reported?

April 25, 2013

CHILE – Concern is growing in Chile over the large ammounts of anti-biotics being used in fish farms to fight Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) which is thought to have never left the Los Lagos and Aysen regions.

The Chilean Economy Minister, Pablo Longueira, referred to the overuse of antibiotics by the salmon industry and stated that “the government has not had any salmon vaccinated, unlike Norway who developed a vaccine.”

According to experts, the overuse of antibiotics in the industry could cause people to become resistant to them, reports BioChile.

Mr Longueira said that a total of 325 tons of antibiotics are poured into the salmon industry per year in the 2200 miles of sea between Los Lagos and Magallanes.

The heavy use of antibiotics also raises concern that many ISA outbreaks in the area may be going unreported.

Biologists and experts say the ISA virus has never left the area and it is still finding ISA present in farms in the Los Lagos and Aysen regions.

Disagreeing with scientists, Mr Longueira said he was unaware of the presence of the virus in these regions and believes that it is a resurgence of the virus, which the government could have controlled if a vaccine had been developed fast enough.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 How Norway Is Killing Your Sushi May 23, 2013 In a clean environment, fish is one of the healthiest foods you can eat. Most fish is rich in protein, vitamin D, and omega 3 – all essential nutrients for losing weight, increasing performance, and being bulletproof! Unfortunately, because of the Norwegian-led fish-farming industry and modern pollution, its no longer safe to assume you’re eating a nutritious, disease and poison-free fish… unless you know exactly where it came from.

Long story short: Avoid farmed fish the same way you avoid industrial red meat, insist on wild-caught sockeye salmon, and boycott Norwegian fish products because their global fish farms have killed 90% of local healthy salmon populations, including the ones 15 minutes from my house. Bastards!

Why wild caught salmon are a godsend, while farm-raised fish are a curse Wild caught sockeye salmon is one of the most Bulletproof foods: One of the best sources of omega-3 fatty acids – Omega-3 fatty acids are essential to a healthy diet because the body is incredibly bad at manufacturing them on its own, and we know that omega-3 fatty acids upgrade the body by reducing inflammation, helping to reduce the impact of excess omega-6, improving blood circulation, optimizing blood pressure, and healing scar tissue.1 Great source of protein – Wild caught fish provides high-quality, complete proteins that contain all the necessary amino acid building blocks to build and replace protein in the body.

Sockeye salmon actually has slightly more protein than other fish like haddock. Wild caught salmon also tend to have less fat striations compared to farmed salmon because wild caught fish are healthier, fitter fish overall (See picture at right).

Highest amounts of antioxidants – Many of the plankton that sockeye salmon eat are bright red (an indicator of high antioxidant content), which is why sockeye salmon have such a bright, deep orange color compared to other salmon (See picture above).3

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Lowest mercury count – Wild caught sockeye salmon have the lowest mercury levels than any other salmon. Its mercury content is extremely low because it lives for a short time in mostly fresh water, and unlike other types of salmon, it eats only plankton – not other fish, which would expose it to the mercury that those fish absorbed.4 It’s NOT farmed-raised fish – To AVOID mercury, other toxins, and unknown viruses as much as possible, it’s important to stay AWAY from farm-raised fish and choose to buy fish that was caught in the wild.

Farm-raised fish are a curse on salmon species, food supplies, ecosystems, and potentially our own health. Here’s why5: Fed soy and poultry liver – Farmed salmon in particular is fed soy and rendered poultry litter (that’s used for henhouse bedding, complete with chicken manure!). Farm-raised fish are also fed conventionally grown grains that contain harmful pesticides and mycotoxins and are probably GMOs. Universally lower levels of omega-3 fatty acids - Like commercial beef, farm-raised fish is often raised on grain feed. This results in the omega-3 fatty acids becoming malformed and mostly devoid of benefit.

Given high doses of pesticides and antibiotics - A lot like concentrated animal-feeding operations (CAFOs), thousands of farm-raised fish are crammed into pens, which leads to the growth of diseases and parasites that require antibiotics and pesticides.

Disease carrying monsters! – On offshore fish farms, nitrogen and phosphorous from feed and waste lead to algae blooms that create breeding grounds for bacteria, viruses, and diseases. These algae blooms almost always contaminate surrounding waters where native or wild fish live.

Norwegian companies are to blame for disappearance of 90% BC’s wild salmon In the last decade in British Columbia (where I live), the count of wild sockeye salmon has fallen 90%. These native sockeye salmon are dying mysteriously before they even have the opportunity to spawn. This pre-spawn mortality is epidemic and is basically killing an entire keystone species of salmon. Over 10 million fish have vanished without a trace.6 While investigating this mysterious travesty, researchers and biologists like Alexandra Morton discovered that BC’s wild salmon are testing positive for dangerous European salmon viruses associated with salmon farming worldwide – most notably in Norwegian fishfarming companies.

In 1990, Norwegian fish farming companies put clusters of fish farms all along the narrow channels of BC’s Fraser River, right through wild salmon migration routes, not far from my house.

READ ENTIRE BULLETPROOF EXECUTIVE ARTICLE HERE

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Wild salmon vulnerable May 19, 2013 A LEADING wild salmon charity in Scotland has admitted failing to protect the species after a study revealed that more than half of fish farms are near rivers with fragile native salmon stocks.

The Rivers and Fisheries Trusts of Scotland (Rafts) has received hundreds of thousands of pounds of public money to investigate the impact of aquaculture on wild salmon. The body aims to produce a map showing the location of fish farms along the west coast and the rivers where salmon stocks are most fragile.

A leaked paper reveals a “disproportionately high” number of farms are operating near rivers where wild salmon numbers are in decline. It reveals 57% of all aquaculture operates in 19% of the most sensitive waters identified by Rafts, and 24% of farms operate in the top 4% of most sensitive waters.

They include Loch Ewe in Achnasheen.

The paper, by Callum Sinclair from Rafts, concludes that government support for an expansion of the farmed salmon industry means “it is not possible to have the industry removed from large areas of the west coast simply by wishing that to be the case”. However, Sinclair concedes not enough has been done to challenge the spread of fish farms.

“We as a sector have failed to prevent aquaculture developments taking place in important locations,” he said.

Critics of coastal fish farms say wild salmon are in decline because they run the gauntlet of about 400 fish farms along the west coast of Scotland to reach feeding grounds around Iceland and the Faroe Islands, through water the farms have polluted with sea lice. They want aquaculture production to move to closed facilities. In the meantime, it is hoped the salmon map may help prevent new farms being sited in sensitive locations.

The Scottish government aims to expand salmon production sustainably by 4% a year from 154,000 tonnes in 2010 to 210,000 tonnes by 2020. In January 2011, the Scottish and Chinese governments signed a salmon export deal.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 VIEWPOINT | What’s wrong with industrial salmon net pens?

May 21, 2013

A recent “Viewpoint” in the Record presented the “happy face” that the Atlantic salmon net pen industry likes to show. Yet the state of Alaska has banned industrial salmon net pens. County commissions of Whatcom, Jefferson and Island County have all banned industrial finfish net pens.

Opposition to net pens has come from the Jefferson County Marine Resources Committee and a technical group with the Northwest Straits Commission. All Island County commissioners supported prohibiting these floating fish feed lots in the new Shoreline Master Program. Yes, Democrats, Republicans and Tea Partiers all. Usually in disagreement, this has been the one issue where they all agree.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Why? A typical industrial net pen operation will have up to 1 million pounds of non-native Atlantic salmon confined in two acres of pens discharging all of its waste directly into Puget Sound. This is like raising 5,000 pigs on a two-acre floating raft with no waste collection. The fish in 12 net pen operations weigh as much as the human population of Victoria, B.C., our northern neighbor that has been rightly criticized for years for failing to treat its sewage. Net pens are the only type of marine aquaculture that must obtain permits under the federal Clean Water Act. They are not fish “farms” anymore than a cattle feedlot is a “farm.” They are feedlots.

The problems don’t end with the untreated sewage. Keeping tens of thousands of fish in dense confinement produces perfect conditions for breeding disease and parasites that threaten native wild fish. Last spring, net pen operators off of Bainbridge Island had to prematurely “harvest” about 1 million pounds of fish due to an epidemic disease that first afflicted net pens in B.C. And yes, the fish were sold for human consumption.

Besides the immediate threat of disease transmission to wild fish, they serve as incubators for the rapid evolution of novel, more virulent diseases. And parasitic salmon lice on the confined fish are disseminated to wild salmon that pass near the pens, causing serious impacts to migrating salmon runs. Twenty-one of the 23 runs of native salmonids listed under the endangered species act migrate through Island County marine waters. The mouths of the Skagit, Stillaguamish and Snohomish Rivers, with the healthiest remaining salmon runs in Puget Sound, are directly across from Island County. We should not expose our wild fish to the disease and parasites in these industrial fish feedlots.

And then there’s the problem of Atlantic salmon escaping. These non-native fish have now been found in 83 rivers and streams on Vancouver Island. And they have successfully reproduced in three.

A U.S. Forest Service study looking at the threat of escaped Atlantic salmon establishing in the wild concluded that “long-term risks may be substantial if fish continue to escape from marine rearing pens or freshwater hatcheries.”

Net pens constantly “leak” non-native Atlantic salmon. Its only a matter of time before they establish in the wild.

The reason that industrial net pens are profitable for their operators is because the environmental costs are passed on to everyone else. The industry pays nothing for its large release of untreated sewage into Puget Sound and the larger Salish Sea. It pays nothing for threatening wild fish with disease and parasites. It pays nothing for continuing releases of non-native fish. We need to end these subsidies.

Whidbey Environmental Action Network frequently criticizes our elected officials for placing claimed short-term economic benefits over long term ecosystem health and productivity. But in this case, the Island County commissioners have done the right thing by refusing to subsidize industrial fish feedlots with pollution of Puget Sound and threats to our wild fish. The state Dept. of Ecology needs to hear that we support the ban on net pens in the new Island County Shoreline Master Program.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Marine Harvest agrees to limit pesticides and seal killings May 21, 2013 One of the world's largest fish farm companies, Marine Harvest, has voluntarily agreed to much tougher limits on its pesticides use and seal killing by joining a strict new environment scheme.

Marine Harvest will join the Aquaculture Stewardship council, a new accreditation scheme championed by WWF, after coming under repeated attack for heavy use of toxic chemicals, seal-killing and major outbreaks of sea lice and salmon diseases.

The Norwegian-owned company, which grows 25% of all Scotland's farmed salmon, has promised to put all its UK fish farms through ASC accreditation by the end of this decade in what supporters of the scheme believes could transform the environmental sustainability of salmon farming.

It will force the firm to put a strict cap on escapes of farmed salmon – a problem with critics believe threatens the survival of wild salmon stocks – and cut chemical treatments. Under the scheme, the killing of seals as a precautionary measure to protect salmon will be drastically reduced but not entirely stopped. It would also require the company to only use fishfeed derived from Marine Stewardship Council-accredited wild fish stocks or other, non-wild sources of protein.

The move follows increasing criticism by environment and conservation campaigners about the Freedom Foods scheme operated by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which only applies the minimum legal standards on environmental protection and has been widely criticised for failing to penalise fish farms that breach standards.

Under the ASC scheme, said Lang Banks, director WWF Scotland, the company's farms would lose it accreditation if it fails to meet standards.

Guy Linley-Adams, of the Salmon & Trout Association, which has been highly critical of the fish farming industry, said: "This isn't the end of the story. Marine Harvest still have fish-farms in the wrong places, as do all fish-farmers. They are too near to wild salmonid rivers threatening wild fish conservation and those farms need to be relocated."

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Remote Tasmanian town to be transformed by fish farms June 13, 2013

The south west of Tasmania is one of Australia's last great wilderness areas.

In the 1980s, it was at the centre of a long-running conservation battle that saved the Franklin River from a hydro-electric scheme.

The area has remained a sleepy backwater ever since, but that's about to change.

There are plans for a major expansion of fish farming in Macquarie Harbour, where the Franklin River ends.

This week the Tasmanian Government announced it would chip in seven million dollars to build an aquaculture hub in the small town of Strahan.

The hub will include a new jetty, administration building and training centre.

An alliance of three major salmon producers has already begun a sixty million dollar expansion of fish farms in Macquarie Harbour.

Conservationists fear this will pollute the pristine waters of Macquarie Harbour.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Lipstick on a Pig - WWF's Makeover At Marine Harvest May 22, 2013

Whilst Marine Harvest was completing the final stages of their hostile takeover of salmon farming giant Cermaq in Norway, WWF Scotland was applying the finishing touches to agreen makeover.

The Guardian newspaper reported (21 May):

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Salmon Farming Kills just like tobacco (Don Staniford, GAAIA)

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Alex files Lawsuit against Minister of Fisheries & Marine Harvest Canada Watch video by Twyla Roscovich here

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Tools of the trade

BY ALEXANDRA MORTON, COURIER-ISLANDER May 8, 2013

In regarding to the Ian Roberts letter on the film Salmon Confidential.

Ian Roberts works for Marine Harvest in "communications and media" and so it's his job to refute the film sweeping across North America revealing his industry and its government handlers in a bad light.

But when Roberts suggests the $26 million Cohen Commission gave salmon farms a clean bill of health, that is not accurate.

Cohen recommendation #14 was that licences to farm salmon in BC be one year in duration only.

This is a crippling blow to an industry that requires over a year to grow a single generation of farm salmon. The industry is complaining bitterly about this very tight restraint, because it means their licence could be pulled mid-cycle to protect wild salmon.

Then in recommendation #19 Cohen gives DFO a time limit to provide convincing evidence that salmon farms have less than minimal impact on wild salmon or they should cease to operate in the narrows off Campbell River. Cohen is clearly very concerned and has provided tools that a responsible government could pick up to protect the legacy, economy and ecology of BC from this 98% Norwegian industry that has never co-existed with wild salmon anywhere in the world.

Hopefully, BC will elect a government who will take up these tools and use them to the benefit of all British Columbians present and future.

 Response wasn't complete

BY IAN ROBERTS, COURIER-ISLANDER May 17, 2013

It is unfortunate that Alexandra Morton's response to my serious concerns about errors and omissions in her documentary film about salmon farming only questions my ethics and principles ("Tools of the trade", May 8). I would have hoped that a response would have answered my specific concerns.

Again, my concerns about Morton's documentary are; it seriously doctors the court testimony of a key witness at the Cohen Inquiry; it purposely hides the final fish health lab report that confirms a fish disease to be negative (that is, no disease); it omits to tell the whole story about how Harrison sockeye migrate from the Fraser River. Many other errors are discussed at www.salmonconfidential.com. These errors are very, very significant and an unsuspecting audience should know they are watching a documentary that is not just biased, but fictional.

Yes, Ms. Morton, I do work for salmon farming company Marine Harvest - as my letter clearly stated.

I am a College graduate of aquaculture and I have been farming salmon in British Columbia for over 20 years - much of that time helping First Nation partners build their capacity for salmon aquaculture.

My depth of knowledge about salmon aquaculture enables me to speak on the topic, which includes recognizing your errors and correcting them. Unfortunately, these corrections and clarifications have become a full-time job lately.

I am very comfortable with my moral principles. These principles apply to how I live my life and the way I communicate my career - and would extend to documentary film making, should I ever produce one.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Dr. Alexandra Morton Talks: Video series

Dr. Alexandra Morton Marine Biologist

Alex Talks 1

Alex Talks 4

Alex Talks 2

Alex Talks 5

Alex Talks 3

Alex Talks 6 (June 11, 2013)

Watch “Salmon Confidential” Here It’s important that YOU share this video with others http://salmonconfidential.ca/

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Fish farm feast for 400 yachtsmen June 7, 2013 Editorial Comment: (as posted on the Facebook site for Van Isle 360 International Yacht Race)

A SALMON farm in BC is hosting competitors in the bi-annual Van Isle 360 International Yacht Race around Vancouver Island.

On June 11, 42 boats and almost 400 sailors will dock at Marine Harvest's Hardwicke Farm near Sayward for a feast of farmed salmon.

The dinner is also a fundraiser for the Sayward Community Recreation Association.

"We are always thrilled to be able to host the Van Isle 360," said Mary Ellen Walling, Executive Director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association. "It gives us a chance to showcase one of our farms and meet some wonderful people."

Dietary warning for skippers and crew, BC salmon farmers are supplying their contaminated, diseased feedlot salmon for you to eat. Open pen salmon feedlots are a plague for human health (viruses, antibiotic resistant bacteria, PCBs, etc) and to wild salmon and anadromous trout, their ecosystems, cultures, communities and economies due to the practices of chemically treating salmon diseases, parasites and even to add artificial color to their product's flesh. Thousands of marine mammals (whales, dolphins, seals, sea lions, otters) and sea birds are intentionally killed by open pen salmon feedlot staff to maximize financial gains for foreign-owned corporations through the sale of these dangerous products.

Join with countless millions around the world to protect your health and the BC environment by rejecting the offer of open pen feedlot salmon. Clearly, Van Isle 360 International can ill afford to be associated with industries responsible for devastating BC's world renowned, uniquely beautiful marine ecosystem.

Hosting 400 people on a salmon farm takes a lot of co-ordination. Farms are designed to have a small footprint and space is a valuable commodity.

"It's all about timing," said Valerie Lamirande, Events Co-ordinator for the BCSFA. "We make sure we work with the farm staff to time it so that the feed shed is almost empty so we have somewhere to put all the guests and we have a great group of volunteers who come out to help everything run smoothly."

This will be the first of two stops where sailors will be greeted by BCSFA members. On June 18, Creative Salmon, based in Tofino, will be providing barbequed Chinook salmon from its farm to feed the participants as part of a celebration dinner at the tour stop in Ucluelet.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Climate Change

 Global warming is displacing BC’s iconic fish species May 20, 2013

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

As the ocean grows warmer due to climate change, iconic B.C. fish species such as salmon and eulichan are being forced from their normal habitat as they seek cooler waters or are displaced by warm-water species, according to a study by researchers at the University of B.C. Global fisheries are increasingly dominated by tropical and sub-tropical fish as warm-water species expand their range toward the Earth’s poles in response to rising temperatures, said William Cheung, co-author of the study published in Nature this week.

“In B.C., we are seeing more warm-water species in the catch,” said Cheung.

The impact of the warm-water species in the waters of temperate regions is not known, he said. But the warming effect is believed to be affecting salmon abundance as fish are physically stressed by heat and forced into deeper or more northerly waters, affecting their ability to reproduce and ward off disease.

“Global warming is one of the factors linked to the collapse of the Fraser River sockeye,” he said.

“For salmon and many other species there is a narrow temperature range that they can live in due to limitations in body function,” said Leung. “Warm water causes them to suffer poor growth and reproduction and they may die from the heat stress.”

Previous studies suggest shellfish species such as mussels and urchins that inhabit the rocky shores of B.C. waters are already being adversely affected by temperature and acidification due to global warming, raising fears the entire food chain could be disrupted.

While some fin fish and invertebrate species can move to deeper cooler water, others are bound to their coastal habitat — to specific feeding and inshore spawning grounds — and may perish if they are forced out by rising temperatures.

Eulichan thrive in brackish estuaries where salt and fresh water mix, but the distribution of the fish is shifting north as waters warm, he said.

“The effect of climate change on fish is not just coming, we can see that it has been happening for 40 years,” said Cheung, an assistant professor at UBC’s Fisheries Centre.

Cheung and co-author Daniel Pauly analyzed catch data on 990 marine fish and invertebrates in 52 marine ecosystems from 1970 to 2006.

Over time, the catch composition in temperate regions is increasingly dominated by warm-water fish as cool water species are displaced or move deeper into the ocean or toward higher latitudes seeking temperatures suited to their physiology.

The study suggests that as waters warm in tropical regions and enclosed water systems, fewer of the local species will be equipped to survive the higher temperatures, leading to reduced catches, with serious implications for food security in equatorial countries, Cheung said.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Climate Change Threatens Extinction for 82 Percent of California Native Fish May 30, 2013 Salmon and other native freshwater fish in California will likely become extinct within the next century due to climate change if current trends continue, ceding their habitats to non-native fish, predicts a study by scientists from the Center for Watershed Sciences at the University of California, Davis.

The study, published online in May in the journal PLOS ONE, assessed how vulnerable each freshwater species in California is to climate change and estimated the likelihood that those species would become extinct in 100 years.

The researchers found that, of 121 native fish species, 82 percent are likely to be driven to extinction or very low numbers as climate change speeds the decline of already depleted populations. In contrast, only 19 percent of the 50 non-native fish species in the state face a similar risk of extinction.

Peter Moyle with a pikeminnow "If present trends continue, much of the unique California fish fauna will disappear and be replaced by alien fishes, such as carp, largemouth bass, fathead minnows and green sunfish," said Peter Moyle, a professor of fish biology at UC Davis who has been documenting the biology and status of California fish for the past 40 years.

"Disappearing fish will include not only obscure species of minnows, suckers and pupfishes, but also coho salmon, most runs of steelhead trout and Chinook salmon, and Sacramento perch," Moyle said.

Fish requiring cold water, such as salmon and trout, are particularly likely to go extinct, the study said. However, non-native fish species are expected to thrive, although some will lose their aquatic habitats during severe droughts and low-flow summer months.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The top 20 native California fish most likely to become extinct in California within 100 years as the result of climate change include (asterisks denote a species already listed as threatened or endangered):                    

Klamath Mountains Province summer steelhead McCloud River redband trout Unarmored threespine stickleback* Shay Creek stickleback Delta smelt* Long Valley speckled dace Central Valley late fall Chinook salmon Kern River rainbow trout Shoshone pupfish Razorback sucker* Upper Klamath-Trinity spring Chinook salmon Southern steelhead* Clear Lake hitch Owens speckled dace Northern California coast summer steelhead Amargosa Canyon speckled dace Central coast coho salmon* Southern Oregon Northern California coast coho salmon* Modoc sucker* Pink salmon

The species are listed in order of vulnerability to extinction, with No. 1 being the most vulnerable.

Climate change and human-caused degradation of aquatic habitats is causing worldwide declines in freshwater fishes, especially in regions with arid or Mediterranean climates, the study said. These declines pose a major conservation challenge. However, there has been little research in the scientific literature related to the status of most fish species, particularly native ones of little economic value.

Moyle saw the need for a rapid and repeatable method to determine the climate change vulnerability of different species. He expects the method presented in the study to be useful for conservation planning.

"These fish are part of the endemic flora and fauna that makes California such a special place," said Moyle. "As we lose these fishes, we lose their environments and are much poorer for it."

Co-authors of the study were postdoctoral students Joseph Kiernan, Patrick Crain and Rebecca Quiñones of the Center for Watershed Sciences at UC Davis.

Funding for the study was provided by the California Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission Instream Flow Assessment Program.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Energy production and wild game fish: Oil, Coal, Hydropower, Wind, Natural Gas

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Oil – Drilled, Fracked, Tar Sands

 Leading

climate scientist: Canada’s tar sands makes climate change ‘unsolvable’ May 19, 2013

Major international oil companies are buying off governments, according to the world’s most prominent climate scientist, Prof James Hansen.

During a visit to London, he accused the Canadian government of acting as the industry’s tar sands salesman and “holding a club” over the UK and European nations to accept its “dirty” oil.

“Oil from tar sands makes sense only for a small number of people who are making a lot of money from that product,” he said in an interview with the Guardian.

“It doesn’t make sense for the rest of the people on the planet.

We are getting close to the dangerous level of carbon in the atmosphere and if we add on to that unconventional fossil fuels, which have a tremendous amount of carbon, then the climate problem becomes unsolvable.”

Hansen met ministers in the UK government, which the Guardian previously revealed has secretly supported Canada’s position at the highest level.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Canada‘s natural resources minister, Joe Oliver, has also visited London to campaign against EU proposals to penalise oil from Alberta’s tar sands as highly polluting. “Canada can offer energy security and economic stability to the world,” he said. Oliver also publicly threatened a trade war via the World Trade Organisation if the EU action went ahead: “Canada will not hesitate to defend its interests.”

The lobbying for and against tar sands has intensified on both sides of the Atlantic as the EU moves forward on its proposals, which Canada fears could set a global precedent, and President Barack Obama considers approving the Keystone XL pipeline to transport tar sands oil from Canada to the US gulf coast refineries and ports. Canada’s president, Stephen Harper, was met by protesters when he visited New York last week to tell audiences that KXL “absolutely needs to go ahead”.

Canada’s tar sands are the third biggest oil reserve in the world, but separating the oil from the rock is energy intensive and causes three to four times more carbon emissions per barrel than conventional oil. Hansen argues that it would be “game over” for the climate if tar sands were fully exploited, given that existing conventional oil and gas is certain to be burned.

“To leave our children with a manageable situation, we need to leave the unconventional fuel in the ground,” he said. Canada’s ministers were “acting as salesmen for those people who will gain from the profits of that industry,” he said. “But I don’t think they are looking after the rights and wellbeing of the population as a whole.

“The thing we are facing overall is that the fossil fuel industry has so much money that they are buying off governments,” Hansen said. “Our democracies are seriously handicapped by the money that is driving decisions in Washington and other capitals.”

The EU aims to penalise oil sources with higher carbon footprints, as part of a drive to reduce the carbon emissions from transport called the fuel quality directive (FDQ). But Canada, supported by the UK, is fiercely opposed: “We are not saying they should not move to reduce emissions,” said Oliver.

“But the proposed implementation of the FQD is discriminatory to oil sands and not based on scientific facts.” However, Europe‘s commissioner for climate action, Connie Hedegaard, said the FQD was “nothing more, nothing less” than accurate labelling and putting a fair price on pollution.

Hansen, who informed the US Congress of the danger of global warming in 1988, has caused controversy before by saying the “CEOs of fossil fuel companies should be tried for high crimes against humanity” and calling coal-fired power plants “factories of death“. In April, he stepped down from his NASA position after 46 years, in order to spend more time communicating the risks of climate change and to work on legal challenges to governments.

Hansen has started a science programme at Columbia University, the first task of which is to produce a report to support suits filed again the US federal government and several state governments. It is being pursued by the Our Children’s Trust charity and is based on a trust principle recognised in US law.

“We maintain that the atmosphere and climate are held in trust by the present generations for the future generations and we do not have the right to destroy that asset,” Hansen said. “Therefore the courts should require the government to give a plan as to how they are going to ensure that we still have that asset to pass on to the next generation.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Hundreds of pipeline safety checks missed June 5, 2013

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Alberta’s 2011 Plains Midstream oil spill was so big the provincial oil regulator had to halt hundreds of planned inspections to deal with it.

In April 2011, 23,000 barrels of oil spilled from a Plains Midstream pipeline near Peace River in northern Alberta – the second-largest spill in Alberta history.

“We were pulling staff to manage that from all over the province,” said Energy Resources Conservation Boardspokesman Darin Barter.

That had a direct effect on the regulator’s operations: No one was available to inspect pipelines under construction.

(Barter couldn’t say how many of the board’s 60 inspectors were kept busy at the Plains spill over the following several months.)

Plains Midstream, which faces a trio of charges in connection with the spill, did not respond to questions; it has said it’s reviewing the charges and “will respond formally with our position in due course.”

Read: How good are Alberta’s energy regulators?

Board staff inspected 459 pipelines under construction in 2010, but only 9 in 2011, according to figures obtained by the Alberta NDP through Freedom of Information legislation. 8,721 kilometres of new pipeline were built in Alberta that year – a level of construction on par with the previous few years.

But the low number of construction inspections in 2011 is highly unusual.

“It’s a significant drop. It’s really something,” Barter said. “That’s an anomaly, given the size of that spill and the manpower that we dedicated toward it.”

Pipeline construction inspections are comparatively low-priority, Barter said. “We focus on the highest-risk areas.”

“The risk of a failure because of corrosion or any other reason is pretty low on a brand-new pipeline.”

Other types of pipeline inspections, such as operations inspections and failure investigations, actually increased slightly between 2010 and 2011.

Read: What it’s like when oil runs through your backyard That spill made the board change the way it responds to major spills: Its “Incident Command Structure” “ensures that the right people are in the right place at the right time, and that the lines of communication are clearly laid out if an incident should occur,” Barter said. “This results in regulatory effectiveness during and beyond an incident.”

ERCB has 60 front-line field inspectors. And despite the 2011 staff shortage, Barter said the board has sufficient resources to deal with crises like this and still carry on its normal operations – it doesn’t need more.

“For 75 years, we’ve been conducting inspections in Alberta. We’ve adjusted staffing levels and targeted inspections as required. As resources change, as technology changes, we’ll adapt as we need to.”

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 Pipeline in Alberta spills 9.5 million litres of waste water JUNE 12, 2013

A pipeline operated by a Texas-based oil company has leaked 9.5 million litres of industrial waste water in northern Alberta.

The Energy Resources Conservation Board says the spill was first reported by Apache Canada Ltd. on June 1.

The pipeline breach is about 20 kilometres northeast of Zama City, a remote community near the Northwest Territories boundary.

Apache says it has stopped the leak and is working to contain and clean up the spill that covers a 42hectare area.

Waste water that is extracted during oil and natural gas operations contains oil, salt and other minerals.

Apache says the nearby Zama River has not been affected by the spill.

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Source: theglobeandmail In a statement, Apache said the spill affected an area of 42 hectares, roughly the area of 52 CFL fields. It is located some 20 kilometres north of Zama City, Alta. It is more than double the size of a Plains Midstream Canada oil spill in April, 2011, a spill initially called the largest in Alberta in nearly four decades. It comes at a time of continued sensitivity to spills, as the risks of pipeline transportation capture public concern amid applications by the oil industry for a series of controversial new pipelines.

The Apache spill, however, is of a different nature. Where Plains spilled oil, Apache spilled produced water, a non-potable substance that flows to the surface with oil and natural gas. It contains salts, minerals and hydrocarbons – the latter are typically removed so they can be sold. Apache said “the water release at Zama involved produced water that had already been treated to remove hydrocarbons.”

Apache spokesman Paul Wyke called it “salty water,” that contains what he called “trace amounts” of hydrocarbons. “Ongoing sampling will help determine that composition,” he said.

In the U.S., companies have historically been allowed to release some produced water into saltwater bays. In Alberta, it is typically reinjected below the surface. U.S. research has found that produced water, also called oilfield brine, contains elevated levels of salt, some heavy metals, radioactive isotopes and relatively small concentrations of oil and grease, up to 25 parts per million. Its release into marshes, even in small volumes, can quickly kill vegetation, creating “burned” areas that “may take years to revegetate,” according to research published by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the early 1990s.

The Apache spill took place in an area rich with wetlands. The company said this week it had not hurt wildlife or reached the Zama River, although the Alberta government said it had affected tributaries.

Water monitoring is ongoing.

Neither Apache nor the Alberta government initially disclosed the spill, which was only made public after someone reported it to a TV station late last week. The National Energy Board, by comparison, sent out a news release Tuesday after a spill of five to seven barrels of oil at an Imperial Oil Ltd. refinery in Sarnia, Ont. Bob Curran, a spokesman with the Energy Resources Conservation Board, Alberta’s energy regulator, said there was no reason to make a broader public notification of the Apache spill.

“There were no real public impacts. There were some people that were kind of nearby and they were notified,” he said earlier this week.

He questioned the relevance of the spill’s size to its public importance.

“Volume isn’t always indicative of the severity of a spill,” he said. “You can have small volumes that get into a waterway that are much more problematic than larger volumes that are mostly contained on a lease site.”

Asked about the Apache spill, Jessica Potter, a spokeswoman for Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development, said this week that “we know it has entered some of the water bodies. What we are working on is to delineate and determine just what potential impact there may have been.”

Apache had installed some drainage culverts, she said, to contain the spill.

Some 150 people are involved in the cleanup effort, Mr. Wyke said.

The duration of the spill – how long it was leaking before it was detected – has not been disclosed.

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 Energy trade key to Canada’s economy Crude oil, mostly sold to the United States and shipped by pipeline, accounts for 20 per cent of exports May 28, 2013 We are a nation whose economy is buoyed by its exports.

Resource commodities such as oil, gas, lumber, copper and coal travel beyond our borders by rail, by road, by sea, by air, and by pipeline — supporting a large number of wellpaying jobs and delivering revenue to government.

Exports of crude oil, most of it travelling to the U.S. via pipeline, accounts for roughly 20 per cent of Canada’s total net exports, Scotiabank vice-president and commodities analyst Patricia Mohr said in a recent interview.

“The size of our domestic market, in terms of what consumers can really contribute, is quite small relative to our exports,: Mohr said. “We are an exporting nation.”

“Within our Scotiabank commodity price index, the weight of crude oil and refined petroleum products is 28.5 per cent of Canadian net exports, of all commodities and resource-based manufactured goods.

“What I find is the general public doesn’t connect the dots between how the economy is doing and the ability of government to fund social services: build hospitals, build roads, provide pensions to old-age pensioners,” Mohr said. “There is a direct connection here between how we do as an exporting nation and our ability to provide social services. I think it’s quite important, and it doesn’t seem to be well understood.”

Pipelines ultimately are the pack horses of the Canadian economy.

Mohr is closely following the public debates, both here and south of the border, over proposed pipelines that would carry western Canadian oil products, including bitumen from the oilsands, and create access to markets beyond the U.S. Midwest where almost all of Canada’s oil is sold.

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In a recent report, TD Economics suggested if major pipeline construction and expansion projects are not built, “Canada would forgo as much as $1.3 trillion of GDP (in 2010 Canadian dollars) and $276 billion in taxes from 2011-35.

A U.S. government decision is expected this year on Keystone XL, a $7-billion pipeline that would connect heavy crude producers in Alberta’s oilsands to refiners along the U.S. Gulf Coast in Texas.

Two lines proposed for British Columbia, Enbridge’s $6-billion, 1,177-kilometre Northern Gateway project from Bruderheim, Alta., to the B.C. central coast at Kitimat and Kinder Morgan’s plan to twin and expand the capacity of its Trans Mountain line from Edmonton to Burnaby Mountain, would give producers another option: shipping large volumes of crude oil to refiners in Asia.

There is an economic incentive for new pipelines.

They would carry much larger volumes of oil to the B.C. coast, and from there to new markets in Japan, China and South Korea, than Trans Mountain’s existing line can accommodate.

They would give Alberta producers more leverage to chase optimal prices for their product rather than selling into a U.S. market that sometimes is glutted and in any case is less likely in future to rely on imported oil.

Enbridge Northern Gateway president John Carruthers said in an interview that if western Canadian oil producers were to gain access to markets in Asia, they could realize an average revenue gain of $2 to $3 a barrel over the longer term.

At a projected 525,000 barrels per day through Northern Gateway, that would be a lot of money, perhaps $1 million to $1.5 million in extra value for each 24-hour shipment.

“We have been very fortunate that we sat atop the world’s largest market for our oil,” Carruthers said.

“The United States has a world of options in terms of where they access oil, but we only have one (for selling it). We are the most trade-dependent of the G8 countries and oil is our largest, most important export and it’s tied to one market and that market has matured.

“So it’s critical that we access alternative markets. Of course we have to address the risk side as well.

But there are huge benefits.”

Other analysts have observed if Canadian producers have the capacity to shift their product over to buyers in Asia, the revenue uplift can go substantially higher, perhaps as much as $10 a barrel during those periods when the U.S. pipeline and refinery system is in a relative glut or when refineries are offline for maintenance.

“When you become dependent on a particular export outlet, if the supply-demand balance becomes ample, then it becomes a buyer’s market and you have to accept discounts. That’s what has happened to us,” Mohr said.

Not everyone agrees with this scenario.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

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 B.C. has left Northern Gateway door open, federal resources minister says Safety, consultation at top of list, according to Joe Oliver June 11, 2013 MONTREAL — The federal government believes British Columbia “could change its mind” on Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline project and is working to ensure the province’s five conditions of approval are met.

“I have spoken to Rich Coleman [B.C’s new minister of natural gas and formerly minister of energy, mines and natural gas] and listened to what was said,” Joe Oliver, the federal minister of natural resources, said in an interview.

“What they basically did was reiterate the five conditions. In the context of the way the project would be constructed, they believe it does not meet their criteria. However, they have left open the possibility if it does meet their standards, they could change their mind.”

British Columbia officially opposed the Northern Gateway pipeline at the end of May in a submission to the Northern Gateway Joint Review Panel, which is charged with assessing the project. The province has laid down five conditions for approving the project that aims to take Alberta oilsands across B.C. territory to Asian markets.

Oliver said Ottawa is helping B.C. meet the five criteria set out by the province as part of its jurisdictional duty to the process.

“We are focusing on making sure pipeline safety is world class, maritime safety is world class, and that we have robust consultation process with aboriginals to maximize their benefit from resource development.”

However, an internal government audit report obtained by The Canadian Press gave a scathing review of the Canadian Coast Guard’s capacity to monitor and manage marine oil spills.

“Although operationally ready to respond, most of the assets held by the [emergency response] program average 25 or more years in service and have either become obsolete or are coming to the end of their useful life,” the Environmental Response Capacity Definition Project report read.

The nomination of Doug Eyford as Special Representative on West Coast Energy Infrastructure focusing on aboriginal issues, will also addresses a key B.C. criteria, the minister said.

Delays over pipelines and the state-owned enterprises majority ownership of oilsands projects have taken the shine off Canadian oil industry. Total president Christophe de Margerie said Monday that some of the industry projections for oilsands production were optimistic.

The minister says the government is conscious of the set of short, medium and long-term challenges facing the industry.

Apart from price differential, in “the intermediate term, we are running out of pipeline capacity in Canada and it is going to become increasingly serious issue this decade.”

“In the long term and not-so-long term, the impact of huge shale gas and tight oil discoveries in the U.S. is going to reduce their demand for our resources,” Oliver said. “So, clearly we need our resources to reach tidewater to diversify our markets, and anything that moves that agenda forward is very positive.”

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 Canada’s climate performance is the worst in the Western World

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Coal

 BNSF RAILWAYS, COAL SHIPPERS SUED IN FEDERAL COURT FOR WATER CONTAMINATION VIOLATIONS June 5, 2013

SEATTLE-- Today, the Sierra Club and its partners filed suit against Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Company (BNSF) and several coal companies for violations of the federal Clean Water Act. The Sierra Club, Puget Soundkeeper, Columbia Riverkeeper, RE Sources for Sustainable Communities, and Friends of the Columbia Gorge sent a 60 day notice in April after collecting evidence demonstrating the companies’ responsibility for emitting coal into waterways in several locations across Washington. Spokane Riverkeeper and the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) recently sent a notice letter for these violations as well.

“BNSF and the other coal shippers had two months to figure out a way to stop polluting our waterways and communities with coal dust but they chose to do nothing to find a solution,” said Cesia Kearns, Senior Campaign Representative of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal Exports campaign.

“After years of railroad and coal companies playing the coal dust blame game, the last two months proved we can only expect more of the same from these companies. ” The suit was filed in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington in Seattle, where coal dust has been identified in and along multiple waterways.

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, a co-founder of the Leadership Alliance Against Coal comprised of over 40 Northwest tribal and elected leaders, has actively opposed the plan to develop coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon which would send 18 coal trains per day through Seattle, and is now speaking out against the Clean Water Act violations.

“We are concerned about the effects of coal dust on our environment and on our waterways,” said Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn. “It is important that the coal companies comply with our environmental

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon! laws.”

According to BNSF testimony at hearings before the Surface Transportation Board, each rail car loses an average of 500-3,500 pounds of coal dust. Coal trains are composed of approximately 120 rail cars, resulting in an average of 60,000-420,000 lbs of coal lost per train, each trip. A massive increase in rail traffic and longer trains are expected in the future should new hotly contested coal export terminals be built in Washington and Oregon.

BNSF Railway, owned by Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway, is one of the largest coal transporters in the United States. It is responsible for hauling an average of 4 trains, or 480 open-top rail cars, carrying coal through Washington daily. BNSF ships nearly 300 million tons of coal through 28 states each year, coming in contact with countless waterways every trip.

“If we’re seeing this much coal from just a few trains in Washington every day, it begs the question of what problems other waterways in states across the country might also be facing,” said Bart Mihailovich, Spokane Riverkeeper.

According to BNSF, approximately 90% of its annual coal shipments are from coal mines in the Powder River Basin (PRB) located in Wyoming and Montana. PRB coal breaks apart easily and contains mercury, arsenic, uranium, and hundreds of other toxins harmful to fish and human health.

Clyde Anderson, a retired Union Pacific employee from Omaha, Nebraska spent decades working on the rail line and says even after a coal train has traveled nearly 800 miles from the West, coal dust is still a major problem. “Sometimes the coal dust was so bad, the visibility of the caboose was completely blocked,” said Anderson.

Using the most conservative BNSF figures, the four daily coal trains travelling through Washington heading to Canada or to the state’s last remaining coal plant combine to lose a staggering 240,000 pounds of coal dust per day. Local residents and conservation groups are concerned that the problem will only worsen if coal companies receive approval to move forward with their controversial plans to develop at least three coal export terminals in Washington and Oregon, which could send an additional 42 trains through Washington daily.

“With proposals to dramatically increase coal train traffic in the Gorge currently looming, it is even more important that we end these dangerous violations of the Clean Water Act and stop dumping coal in the Columbia River Gorge, our National Scenic Treasure,” said Michael Lang, Conservation Director for Friends of the Columbia Gorge.

Under the Clean Water Act, anyone discharging pollutants into U.S. waters must first obtain what is known as a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. BNSF does not have such a permit.

Plaintiffs intend to file a similar action in the Eastern District of Washington at a later date.

The plaintiffs are represented by the Law Offices of Charles M. Tebbutt, P.C. of Eugene, OR, Andrea Rodgers Harris of Seattle, WA, Jessica Yarnall Loarie of the Sierra Club Law Program, and David Pettit and Morgan Wyenn of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

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 China’s hunger for American coal in doubt May 17, 2013

WASHINGTON -- The push for mass coal exports from Washington state, already facing a huge environmental battle, also could get hit with slowing Chinese demand for coal shipments.

The American coal industry, stung by a drop in U.S. demand, hopes to revive its fortunes by sending Rocky Mountain coal to Asia from proposed terminals near Bellingham and Longview, Wash.

But a recent report by Wall Street colossus Goldman Sachs says this will be a transformational year for China, with its seaborne coal imports dropping for the first time since the global financial crisis of 2007 and 2008 and continuing to decline in the coming years. China’s own coal production has spiked, Goldman Sachs said, along with investment in Chinese railroads to move its coal.

China, with its cities shrouded in smog, also is trying to improve energy efficiency and diversify its fuel mix, including investments in nuclear energy and wind power, according to Goldman Sachs.

Deutsche Bank also said in a report released this month that there are increasing signs of “softer Chinese coal demand growth going forward.”

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The global German banking firm pointed to protests in China against coal-fired power plants and associated pollution. It also said urbanization of China’s interior means much of the future demand for coal will come closer to areas where China has its own mines and further from the coastal ports where America’s coal would be shipped.

The industry wants to ship Powder River Basin coal in trains from Montana and Wyoming to Pacific Northwest ports for export. It’s become one of the region’s biggest environmental battles in decades, with objections to the trains and the climate impact of coal burning.

Developers have dropped plans for three of the export terminals.

The major remaining projects are the Gateway Pacific near Bellingham, which seeks to ship up to 52.9 million tons of coal a year, and the Millennium Bulk Terminal in Longview at up to 48.5 million tons. There’s also a smaller project in Boardman, Ore., of up to 8.8 million tons.

Peabody Energy, which hopes to ship coal to Asia from the terminal near Bellingham, expressed confidence in the market. Peabody spokeswoman Beth Sutton said the Asian coal demand will rise with accelerating industrialization and urbanization.

“We see imports from China and India growing by more than 50 percent over the next five years, representing some of the fastest growing imports in the world,” Sutton said in response to questions.

“China’s coal imports are expected to rise more than 10 percent this year, and India has now surpassed Japan as the second largest thermal coal importer.”

She said the question is who would benefit from the demand – the United States or other countries such as Indonesia.

SSA Marine, the company that seeks to build the Gateway Pacific terminal near Bellingham, said the U.S. coal exports would not just go to China. SSA senior vice president Bob Watters cited a forecast from energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie of a rising demand throughout Asia.

Goldman Sachs owns a large share of Carrix, the parent company of SSA. The recent Goldman Sachs report forecasts growing seaborne coal demand in India and other emerging markets in Asia, but not at the pace driven by China in recent years. China burns almost as much coal as the rest of the world combined and last year became the world’s leading importer.

China’s own coal production grew rapidly at the same time, though, and when its electricity demand slowed down sharply in 2012, the domestic market became oversupplied and coal prices tumbled, said Christian Lelong, an Australia-based Goldman Sachs analyst.

Falling coal prices have increased pressure on producers, he said, and new projects must compete in a market “that is going to be more subdued than the bullish run of the past five years.”

American exports to China would need to compete with coal from Indonesia and Australia, which are closer to the market and so less exposed to freight costs, Lelong said.

But American coal does have some advantages, said Michael Hsueh, a London-based analyst for Deutsche Bank. The shipped price of Rocky Mountain coal sent from the Pacific Northwest is competitive into south China with South African coal and cheaper than Australian and Russian coal when adjusted for energy content, Hsueh said.

“There is some potential for U.S. coal to create a market for itself by displacing other sources of coal,” he said.

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 The World’s Biggest Coal Company Is Turning To Solar Energy To Lower Its Utility Bill June 6, 2013 The largest coal company in the world, Coal India, is aiming to cut its own utility bills by installing solar photovoltaic panels at its facilities across the country. The coal giant is seeking proposals from solar energy companies to build a modular 2 megawatt solar plant on 9 acres of its own land. This plant could be scaled to export power to the grid.

Not only is Coal India pursuing commercial solar power plants, it’s also “mulling” the installation of rooftop solar panels at the Ranchi Central Mine Planning and Design Institute, where it does mining research. The panels would go on “staff colonies” and in mining areas, with the goal of reducing the company’s energy bills.

Coal India explained the reason for these moves in its bid document: “India has an abundance of sunshine and the trend of depletion of fossil fuels is compelling energy planners to examine the feasibility of using renewable sources of energy like solar, wind, and so on.”

This is a remarkable statement from the largest coal company in the world. Coal India produces 90 percent of India’s coal, and not only is it turning to solar as an efficient business practice, it understands India cannot power itself by coal. In fact, a coal-based electricity system is not reliable: solar energy is. And solar may be the only hope for much of rural India to become electrified after decades of failed grid expansion plans. With so much potential solar capacity across the country (see below for how much potential solar energy hits India every year), there is little wonder that even fossil fuel companies are looking to get in on the game.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

A Pike Research report last year predicted that the global mining industry would invest $20 billion in renewable energy by 2020. Coal India may be among the first coal companies to commit to solar in the way it seems to be, though in 2012 a British coal mining museum in south Wales recently outfitted two rooftops with 400 solar panels. Neyvili Corp produces coal in India and is building a 10 megawatt solar power plant that could be upgraded to 25 megawatts, along with a 50 megawatt wind farm. Oil India has also started investments in wind and solar.

These companies see something that oil giant BP did not: After decades of investment in solar energy, CEO Bob Dudley said “We have thrown in the towel on solar.” Most coal and other fossil fuel companies around the world have not embraced renewable energy in the way that these Indian companies have. Why? 57 percent of India’s electric power capacity comes from coal. Though it has substantial reserves (fifth-largest reserves in the world), India is burning a great deal of coal from foreign countries. Coal imports hit a record high — 135 million tonnes in the last fiscal year — a five-fold increase over the last ten years. The majority of coal imports come from Indonesia, with Australia and South Africa comprising much of the rest.

This is bad for Indians. Coal pollution causes the deaths of more than a hundred thousand Indians every year through respiratory problems. Coal emissions also help cause climate change, the consequences of which — such heat waves — kill hundreds and lead to electric grid chaos as demand spikes.

India has had a coal tax in place for several years, and the resulting funds are, in part, going to aid solar development. But while the country does have clean energy targets, it does not enforce them on state electricity distributors and large power companies, and therefore bids for solar power credits plummeted by nearly half last month.

Even so, solar energy is cheap and thriving in India. According to the government, solar power could be cheaper than coal by next year. All of this potential is bringing foreign investment to India. U.S. solar manufacturer First Solar is looking to increase its exports in the next three years enough to raise its market share from 20 percent to 25 percent. Chinese and European solar firms are the main competition with U.S. and domestic Indian solar companies. The U.S. isfighting to keep that market share open in the face of possible rules that require solar energy firms to buy inputs from domestic manufacturers.

The cost of coal in public health and climate impact terms has been obvious for some time, but many put up with this because there were few cheaper options, especially in countries with small natural gas industries. However, the cost of solar power has been dropping like a stone. In New Mexico, First Solar is building what will be the largest solar power plant in the state which will sell electricity cheaper than the cost of electricity from a new coal plant.

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 Environmental groups oppose $15-million coal shipment plans Surrey, Delta coal export plan faces opposition May 22, 2013 Jeff Scott, president and CEO of Fraser Surrey Docks, needs to turn his business around and hopes a new $15-million coal transfer plan to ship four million tonnes of U.S. coal a year is the answer.

Residents and environmentalists think it’s the wrong answer.

Since 2008’s global slowdown, Fraser Surrey Docks’ business has flagged. The company is down to 230 full-time employees from 500.

Four trains used to rumble into the port each day. Now, there’s one.

“Our future is in jeopardy,” Scott said.

But opponents concerned about the health risks of coal dust, the environmental impact to waterways, and climate-change damage want the unmoving cranes to stay that way.

“I have a problem exporting a product we know is destroying our future,” said Kevin Washbrook of Voters Taking Action on Climate Change.

Port Metro Vancouver has been reviewing the project since June. Vancouver Coastal and Fraser Health have asked for a health assessment. In April, Metro Vancouver’s environment committee voted to oppose the project.

Coal is already shipped out of Delta’s Roberts Bank terminal. In 2012, Port Metro Vancouver handled 32.7 million tonnes. If the new project is approved, U.S.-based BNSF Railways would send one train carrying 12,500 tonnes of coal through Crescent Beach, North Delta and Surrey per day.

Scott and BNSF representative Courtney Wallace insist the project will mitigate dust by spraying down coal in open rail cars with a surfactant that reduces dust by 85 per cent, and loading them aerodynamically. But Delta South MLA Vicki Huntington has lived near open coal transport and isn’t convinced.

“We have a slimy, nasty coal dust that settles over everything here,” said the Ladner resident. “I don’t think these operations should be approved until we know precisely how they are going to control the coal dust.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Hydropower and water retention

 Inslee and Kitzhaber can lead a Columbia resolution June 07, 2013 For 12 years, Washington and Oregon have been on opposite sides of the Columbia Basin salmon deadlock. But Washington’s new governor, Jay Inslee, is the right leader at the right time to partner with Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber so the two states can lead the Northwest to shared and lasting solutions for salmon, energy and agriculture.

Inslee’s values and policies align with Kitzhaber’s: clean water and healthy rivers, clean and affordable energy and efficient transportation infrastructure for our cities and farm — along with the good jobs involved in meeting those goals. And Inslee brings a new leadership element to rebuilding the Columbia-Snake partnership with Oregon, his dual determination to stop climate change and to arm our state against its damage.

The two governors can build from a positive federal step. Last December, after years of contention and illegal salmon plans, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration chief Jane Lubchenco set her agency on a fresh course: exploring multi-party collaboration on the Columbia and Snake.

Just how this process will develop is the subject of interviews now underway with more than 150 Columbia-Snake stakeholders. But a stakeholder initiative will work only if Washington and Oregon actively support and shape it. All-party collaboration is the Northwest’s best hope to break the legal, political and economic deadlock on the Columbia, and that hope becomes achievable once Washington and Oregon join to lead it.

Eastern Washington needs a resolution to this deadlock. The status quo is delivering neither healthy salmon or salmon economies nor the energy certainty that Inslee’s clean energy and jobs goals require. Farmers need modern, reliable and affordable transportation options that are not constrained by the federal fiscal crisis.

Make no mistake: Climate disruption is happening and will intensify over time. The Columbia and Snake rivers are getting steadily hotter at the same time that runoff and flow patterns are changing.

This affects fish, farmers, energy, health — every use and every user.

Today, Washington and Oregon are on opposite sides of litigation over federal salmon plans, litigation that is both source and symptom of the deadlock. Reconciling the states’ substantive disagreements may not be easy, but it must be tried. And even if policy disagreements persist, Inslee and Kitzhaber still can work together so diverse Columbia-Snake stakeholders talk and work with one another.

Inslee and Kitzhaber can put Washington and Oregon back in the driver’s seat to make a successful collaboration happen that meets the needs of clean energy, farmers, fishermen and our communities in the Columbia-Snake Basin and the Northwest.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Holmes Hydro can proceed without environmental assessment

The B.C. Supreme Court has ruled that a hydro-electric development in northeastern B.C. should be allowed to proceed without an environmental assessment.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The dispute over the assessment of 10 power generation sites along a 40-kilometre stretch of the Holmes River was launched by a coalition of conservation groups. 

Alarm raised over lack of process in run-of-river project

The Environmental Assessment Office said it wouldn't conduct a review of the project, but the coalition -- which consists of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society and the David Suzuki Foundation -- asked the court to overturn the decision.

The coalition claimed the assessment was necessary because the 10 sites together would generate more than the 50 megawatts needed to set off the environmental review.

Instead, the court sided with the EAO on Friday, ruling that no assessment is required because each of the plants are considered separate projects with a generating capacity of less than 15 megawatts.

While Holmes Hydro Inc. has said that all 10 power plants must be built to make the project economical, they are actually individual parts that can function independently of each other, the ruling said.

Aaron Hill with Watershed Watch Salmon Society said he believes the project could endanger the chinook salmon population in the Holmes River, but it is hard to know the exact environmental impacts unless an assessment takes place.

"We know what's at stake, but the public doesn't have a chance to fully understand what the likely impacts are going to be, so we lose the public transparency that you get with an environmental assessment," he said.

Justice Nathan Smith concluded that since Holmes Hydro has already spent $2 million on developing its proposal under the assumption that the project can go ahead without an environmental assessment, and would need to rack up additional costs if an assessment is deemed necessary, "the balance of convenience clearly favours Holmes Hydro and I would not grant the relief requested."

Hill said the court decision highlights how weak environmental assessment laws are in B.C. "The current act ... gives the Environmental Assessment Office a tremendous amount of discretion as to whether a project is reviewable under the Act," he said.

"It speaks to the need for the government to clarify and strengthen the environment assessment laws instead of continually weakening them if (government) wants to actually protect the public interest and protect our fish and wildlife population."

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 With natural gas prospects, Susitna dam not needed May 19, 2013

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

It is hugely ironic that Gov. Sean Parnell's administration is attempting to eliminate significant state environmental protection safeguards yet is promoting the Susitna dam as a feel-good, mandatory renewable energy project. The governor and the majority of our legislators care not a whit about renewable energy; they simply desire mega-projects. They do not have the fortitude to recognize fiscal reality and they do not consider the wild lands of the state to have intrinsic value.

From a purely economic standpoint the Susitna dam is crazy. It is inevitable that a natural gas line will be built, and the state can’t possibly afford to simultaneously fund a gas line and the Susitna dam.

Even if both mega-projects could be funded, the vast amount of available natural gas -- the cleanest fossil fuel -- will make the dam superfluous.

The many millions of dollars currently being spent on the dam should be redirected toward accelerating the construction of a gas line.

Although the Susitna dam is being presented as an environmentally friendly source of energy, megadams destroy wild rivers and massive amounts of terrain. Some states are dismantling dams they wish they had never built. Alaska, if it is to remain the Great Land and the Last Frontier, is not the place for a mega-dam.

Pilots, hunters and trekkers often refer to the Talkeetna Mountains between the Glenn Highway and Denali Highway as the “poor-man’s Brooks Range” due to its relative close proximity to the road system coupled with its wilderness characteristics. The Susitna dam would lie right in the heart of this region. I have hiked, floated, and flown through all of the areas that would be affected by the dam and its access roads, airstrips, etc. This spectacular country is why I treasure and live in Alaska. It is irreplaceable, rare, priceless. There are a limited number of places like this even in Alaska, no places like this in other states, and very few in the entire world. A mega-dam does not belong in the center of one of Alaska’s best wild regions.

The dam would profoundly alter the Susitna River’s ecosystem -- water temperature, seasonal flow, silt content, etc. -- thereby likely affecting all downstream fisheries. Second only to the Kenai River sport fishery, the Susitna fishery includes the Talkeetna River, Montana Creek, Sheep Creek, Kashwitna River, Little Willow Creek, Willow Creek, Deshka River, Alexander Creek, and the Chulitna and Yentna Rivers and their tributaries.

Many millions of dollars (an additional $95 million was allocated to the dam in the most recent legislative session) are currently being spent on the Susitna dam project, and study crews are already causing environmental impacts. It’s time for Alaskans who recognize fiscal sanity and who treasure our unique wildlands to put a stop to this untenable and destructive project.

David Hagen has lived in Alaska since 1970. He is a music teacher in the Anchorage School District and is the conductor of the Alaska Chamber Singers. An avid outdoorsman, he spends his summers backpacking, paddling, hunting, and fishing.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Anglers, Tacoma Power hash out Cowlitz River fishing concerns May 30, 2013 CENTRALIA — During a meeting Wednesday, Cowlitz River fish managers projected columns of numbers of how many young salmon and steelhead could be raised on the river.

“There is a missing column up there — what our punch cards tell you,” Mike Ferris of Auburn exclaimed. “We don’t like smoke and mirrors,” Ferris said. “We want it straightforward.”

Representatives of Tacoma Power, which operates the hatcheries on the Cowlitz, and the Department of Fish and Wildlife didn’t have statistics on how many Cowlitz fish anglers catch and record on their punch cards. However, many fishermen who spoke at the meeting agreed that catch levels have declined over the years.

More than 100 people attended the lively, standing-room-only meeting at Centralia College.

Brad Urban, left and his friend Vester Marshall, both of Seattle, pull in a spring chinook salmon at the Barrier Dam on the Cowlitz River on Tuesday afternoon.

“We fish, and we’re not seeing the returns,” Ferris said. “I want to see something in your policy that there will be fish for the fishermen.”

“This is supposed to be a fisherman’s river,” said Ace Wade of Toutle. “It’s a Tacoma Power river is what it looks like.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

“I’ve fished the Cowlitz River for 40 years and I’ve seen it go down, down, down, down, down,” another angler said.

However, for fall chinook at least, it looks like far fewer fish will be released into the river in coming years.

Tacoma Power and the WDFW called the meeting to update the public on the extensive plans under which the Cowlitz River’s fisheries are managed. Both the federal National Marine Fisheries Service and WDFW have policies that call for rebuilding runs of wild salmon and steelhead. In many cases, that means fewer hatchery fish are available for anglers because the hatchery fish compete for habitat with the wilds.

“This is telling us our populations have to meet standards of hatchery versus wilds on spawning grounds,” said Cindy LeFleur, regional fish program manager for WDFW. WDFW is considering designating portions of some Southwest Washington rivers as wild fish sanctuaries — where no hatchery fish would be planted — but the Cowlitz is too popular with fishermen for that.

“Because this is the Cowlitz, we can’t ignore recreational fishing,” said Mark LaRiviere, senior fisheries biologist for Tacoma Power. “The Cowlitz River continues to be open 12 months out of the year,” he pointed out.

Hatchery production is governed by a plan that has to be approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission as part of the license to operate the dams. A 330-page plan submitted to FERC in 2011 hasn’t been approved, but it’s being followed for the time being.

Part of that plan includes an upper limit of 650,000 pounds of salmon and steelhead that can be released from the two Cowlitz hatcheries.

A committee decided how that should break down into numbers of salmon and steelhead released.

The most controversial aspect of current hatchery policy is a reduction in fall chinook. Two decades ago, before salmon were listed under the Endangered Species Act, 10 million fall chinook were released into the river. In recent years, it’s been as high as 4.8 million. The current goal is 1.5 million.

Fall chinook was reduced because people who live in the Cowlitz basin preferred that method, rather than cutting steelhead, LaRiviere said. Fall chinook are caught more by people who live elsewhere, and on the Columbia River, he said.

Tacoma Power and the WDFW are supportive of a plan to raise 2 million more fall chinook in net pens in Mayfield Lake — if funding can be found. The Coastal Conservation Association is lobbying the state Legislature for $350,000 to pay for purchase of the net pens for this project and another $300,000 to go towards operating them.

“We’ve got to get more fish back,” said Clancy Holt, a fishing guide. “You need to push this program before our legislators and do net pens in Mayfield.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Though the fall chinook releases have decreased, the number of spring chinook put into the river has increased from 900,000 to 1.8 million. Coho has decreased from 2.8 million to 2.2 million. Steelhead plants haven’t changed much, with 650,000 summers and 650,000 winters, though no longer using winter steelhead that aren’t native to the Cowlitz means fewer fish are returning before Christmas.

Brett Bodenhamer of Chehalis said he’s fished the Cowlitz for 40 years. “I’ve seen good times and bad,” he said.

Bodenhamer said that Tacoma Power’s predecessor vowed to maintain fishing when the Mossyrock and Mayfield dams were built in the 1960s. “Today, we do not have the quality of fishery on the Cowlitz River we were promised,” he said. “We were promised fish. We deserve fish. We are willing to pay for fish.”

Bodenhamer punctuated his stance by hoisting his 6-year-old son, Ty, whom he described as “a little fishing machine,” onto the table in front of him.

“You can look at all these retired gentlemen who won’t be here to fish in 20, 30, 40 years,” Bodenhamer said. “Ty will. He’s the future of our sport. Give him fish.”

Other topics discussed at the meeting included: • According to LaRiviere, the hatchery will experiment with releasing spring chinook at differing sizes to see which size results in the most returns.

• LeFleur said commercial fishermen in the Columbia don’t catch many Cowlitz-bound spring chinook, though their catch of Cowlitz coho and fall chinook is higher. Biologists don’t count commercially caught salmon by their tributary of origin, she said.

• Several anglers complained that rapidly changing river levels make fishing more difficult and sometimes leave smolts stranded on dry river banks. LaRiviere said the agencies will hold another meeting to focus on river levels, and more meetings about the overall hatchery plan. In the future, the plan will be reviewed annually, he said.

Recent and current plants of salmonid smolts in the Cowlitz River Species — Recent — Current Spring chinook — 4.8 million — 1.5 million Coho — 2.8 million — 1.8 million Winter steelhead — 660,000 — 650,000 Summer steelhead — 550,000 — 650,000 Cutthroat — 160,000 — 100,000

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Chiang Mai village fighting dam project on the Mae Khan May 19, 2013 The government's ambitious plan to build water and flood infrastructure and management is facing strong opposition from local residents across the North as dam projects in the scheme are expected to adversely affect their villages and livelihoods.

Thousands of local residents in Chiang Mai, Phayao, Phrae and Phitsanulok are protesting against the dam projects on the Mae Khan, Lower and Upper Yom, and Klong Chomphoo.

These are among 28 dams to be built under the Bt350-billion water and flood management plan for the Ping, Yom, Nan, Sakae Krang, Pasak, and other river basins nationwide. All dam construction projects are due to be completed within five years.

Khiangkham Samyot, 48, is one of 190 residents of Mae Khanil Tai village in Chiang Mai province who opposes the government's plan to build a reservoir on the Mae Khan in her village.

The reservoir is aimed at retaining water, nearly 80 million cubic metres, for agricultural purposes in Hang Dong and San Pa Tong districts.

About 1,960 rai in Ob Khan National Park and 1,100 rai in Mae Khanil Tai village in Hang Dong and Ban Huay Thong village in San Pa Tong - Khiangkham's house included - will be under water.

"We will absolutely not move anywhere else. We will be here to protect our homeland," she said.

Khiangkham and her family have been fighting this dam project for more than 18 years, since the dam was first proposed by the Royal Irrigation Department in 1997.

The department has hired three consulting firms - Panya Consultant, Pre Development, and Sanyu Consultant - to conduct a feasibility study and the environmental impact for this project.

Due to strong opposition from local villagers, the department later had to suspend the project and promise the local villagers that it would not build this dam even if there was one villager opposed to it.

"I never expected that this dam would come back again. No one from any government agency informed us that this project was under the Bt350-billion water and flood scheme," she said.

Khiangkham has just built a new house from teakwood and planned to move into her new house this year, but she does not expect to relocate far away due to land expropriation for the dam.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

To date, she has earned money from a 20-rai farm where she grows lemons, pomelo, bananas and mango. Sometime she can get bamboo shoots and mushrooms from the forest near the village to sell in the fresh market.

"If we move to another place, how can we start a new life?" she said.

Like Khiangkham, Somporn Chantabutr, 48, said she had been fighting against this dam project since she was young, as she and other villagers do not want to move from their birthplace.

Living in a village located in the middle of mountains, Somporn does not have to spend money to buy food. She can plant vegetables behind her house and get mushrooms or bamboo shoots from the forest for cooking.

In Mae Khanil Tai, a 200-year-old village, all houses have put up small wooden banners for 18 years that say: "This House Does Not Want the Dam".

Moreover, the National Human Rights Commission has reported that the dam project has violated the community's rights to protect its natural resources and heritage.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Bonamici,

Merkley offer support for Scoggins Dam seismic fixes still in the

works May 24, 2013

A seismic fix to Scoggins Dam that could include $340 million in construction is moving along, though not at the clip officials might prefer.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

At a meeting Friday attended by Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore., Sen. Jeff Merkley, DOre., Washington County Chair Andy Duyck and a slew of other public officials, the theme was clear: A fix is needed -- and an increase in the dam's storage preferred -- and the sooner that happens, the better.

But it will likely be at least another two years before a complete package of changes, including a possible 12-foot raise of the dam, is on the table with possible funding, U.S. Bureau of Reclamation representative Steven Jarsky said.

Owned by the Bureau of Reclamation, the dam near Gaston is operated by Tualatin Valley Irrigation District and used for storage by several districts: TVID, the Lake Oswego Corporation, the cities of Hillsboro, Beaverton and Forest Grove and Clean Water Services. The dam sits along the path of an earthquake-vulnerable Cascadia Subduction Zone fault line.

The Bureau of Reclamation recently wrapped up a nearly three-year seismic study of the dam, but any concrete construction plans are still in limbo.

"We know that there will be an earthquake sometime," Bonamici said. "So I just urge haste. I know it's a lengthy process."

It's also a costly process: Under the Safety of Dams Act, federal dollars will cover 85 percent of the final pricetag and the remaining 15 percent will be split proportionally among the water districts according to how much water they store behind Scoggins. A looming concern, especially for those districts that rely most heavily on Scoggins, is that the cost-sharing split could shift -- and not in their favor.

TVID Manager Joe Rutledge said the $24 million the agricultural district would have to cover, even defrayed by an ability-to-pay study, will be tough. TVID is unique in that it spans almost 17,000 acres but serves just 350 customers, considerably fewer than the cities whose residents use water from the lake.

Rutledge said he would like to avoid the potentially costly "risk of waiting."

Hillsboro Mayor Jerry Willey also said he would like to "keep the ball moving" on the Scoggins Dam study, even as the city eyes the Willamette River as a future water source. The two sources are not mutually exclusive, Willey said.

"We're not trading off Hagg Lake for the Willamette study," Willey said. "We need both of them to run in parallel."

Conversation also turned to the possible 12-foot raise of the dam, which Clean Water Services and county officials say should be done in conjunction with any seismic fixes.

Duyck said the issue of what to do with Scoggins Dam is broader than simply safety; it also extends to the economy. In a familiar refrain, Duyck said Washington County is the economic engine of the state.

"That engine runs on water," Duyck said. "That fact should be ingrained in our minds."

Bonamici and Merkley both said they would work to move along any proposed seismic fixes. But those fixes will need to be proposed first.

"We have a lot of work to do before we have a package ready to go to Congress," Jarsky said.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Petronas expects to invest up to $16 billion in LNG export facility in B.C. Global energy corporations are "dead serious" about investing in B.C., said provincial Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman June 11, 2013

An LNG carrier is docked at a quay in Yokohama, south of Tokyo VICTORIA — Global energy corporations are "dead serious" about investing in British Columbia's potential as a world supplier of liquefied natural gas, said provincial Natural Gas Development Minister Rich Coleman after a $16 billion announcement on Tuesday.

Malaysian national oil company Petronas said the investment would go towards a natural pipeline, LNG plants and an export terminal near Prince Rupert, on B.C.'s northern coast.

"Petronas has been very interested in LNG for B.C. for some time," said Coleman, who was just appointed B.C.'s minister responsible for natural gas in Premier Christy Clark's new cabinet last week. "What they've said is $11 billion for the plants, $5 billion for the pipeline. Basically, it's an announcement that says we're closer and moving along faster than you might have thought we were."

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Arif Mahmood, Petronas' vice-president of corporate planning, said between $9 billion and $11 billion will be spent to construct two LNG plants.

A 750 kilometre-long pipeline, to be built by TransCanada Corp., would supply gas to the plants, he said Tuesday in an email to The Associated Press.

The Pacific Northwest LNG project would liquefy and export natural gas produced in northeastern B.C. by Progress Energy Canada.

LNG is produced when the gas is super-cooled to produce a liquid, making it easier to export to overseas customers.

Petronas bought Calgary-based Progress last year in a $6-billion friendly deal. The two companies had been previously working together on the same projects.

In January, Calgary-based TransCanada said it would design, build, own and operate the proposed Prince Rupert Gas Transmission project for Progress Energy.

Coleman said the proposed Petronas project will undergo a provincial environmental assessment process that will take at least a year to complete.

He said it appears the Petronas project will be powered by natural gas, permitted under B.C.'s Clean Energy Act. Environmental organizations say using natural gas to power LNG plants increases harmful greenhouse gas emissions and virtually ensures B.C. will not meet its legislated target of cutting GHG emissions by one-third by 2020.

Coleman said the Petronas project is one of four major LNG proposals worth billions that are under consideration in northwest B.C. "The four are at different stages, but some of them are at significant decision points over the next few months," said Coleman.

Shell and Chevron are seriously considering LNG facilities for Kitimat, while British Gas and Petronas are looking at the Prince Rupert area.

"Shell's been here for a while, so has Chevron with Apache and so has British Gas," Coleman said. "I don't think it's a pipe dream. I actually believe this is very real. My conversations with the companies, both in The Hague with Shell, British Gas in England, and these other groups, their senior people, they're dead serious about B.C. natural gas."

Clark's jobs plan has forecast one pipeline and LNG terminal in operation by 2015 and three others up and running by 2020.

The provincial government says LNG represents a potential trillion-dollar economic opportunity that could create thousands of jobs and result in revenue that could eliminate the provincial debt within 15 years.

B.C.'s debt is currently at more than $62 billion and forecast to increase.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Forest Management and Wild Game Fish

 Conservation groups challenge 'green' forest product certification May 30, 2013 SEATTLE -- When an intense storm pounded southwestern Washington in 2007, mud poured down from the mountainsides, logging debris choked streams and the Chehalis River flooded much of the region, causing $57 million in damage.

Almost immediately, conservation groups, the Seattle Times and some academics laid partial blame on recent clear-cut logging in the hills around the region.

Some hillsides had been largely denuded of trees, and landslides from the newly bared slopes choked surrounding creeks with silt and wood debris.

Weyerhaeuser Corp. has long insisted it was the intensity of the storm, not logging practices, that triggered the flooding.

Landslides drove silt and debris into waterways near this clear-cut at Stillman Creek.

The controversy was renewed again this week in a complaint filed Wednesday with the Federal Trade Commission alleging that timber companies were engaging in irresponsible harvest practices while claiming “green” certification for sustainability.

According to the conservation group ForestEthics, which filed the complaint along with Greenpeace, much of the logging conducted before the landslides along Stillman Creek in southwestern Washington was certified as environmentally friendly.

The certification, it said, came from the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, a stamp of approval that for years has been marketed to suggest that buyers of wood and wood products could rest assured that those products came from trees that were harvested with no lasting damage to the environment.

The complaint to the FTC, filed in Seattle by the Washington Forest Law Center, alleges that the Sustainable Forestry Initiative, or SFI, deceptively fails to make clear the extent of the timber industry's role in developing the initiative's logging standards. It urges the FTC to force the certification group to disclose to consumers that it receives substantial funding from the timber industry.

“Far from independent, SFI is in fact governed and financed by the biggest names in the logging industry, including Weyerhaeuser, Plum Creek and Rayonier,” the group said in a statement announcing the complaint.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

“SFI’s certification standards allow for the SFI label to be slapped on products that are sourced from destructive environmental practices, including the poisoning of communities and water with toxic chemicals, massive clear cuts, habitat destruction, erosion, landslides and stream sedimentation.”

The complaint highlights the increasingly confusing world of environmentally friendly labeling, which attempts to set guideposts for consumers spending up to $500 billion a year in the “green” marketplace.

The FTC in October revised its “green guides” to provide expanded guidance on industry claims about such issues as carbon offsets, what is truly biodegradable, and products allegedly made with renewable energy or materials.

In new requirements for certifications and seals, the commission emphasized that marketers must disclose any “material connection” such as a financial relationship that might affect the credibility of an endorsement.

The Sustainable Forestry Initiative has vigorously contested the conservation groups' allegations, suggesting that the critics’ intent is to throw support behind a rival “green” certification organization, the Forest Stewardship Council, whose standards it says are not always more exacting.

Though Sustainable Forestry Initiative officials did not respond to requests for comment on Wednesday’s complaint, the organization said on its website that its governing board includes not just the timber industry, but an equally robust contingent of environmental and social groups.

Forestry practices get the SFI label only after undergoing rigorous, third-party audits, the organization said, based on strict standards on such issues as clear-cutting and the use of herbicides.

“It is unclear to us what ForestEthics’ goal is. We believe they are threatening companies that buy paper, wood and packaging products, and we know they are misrepresenting our program,” the organization said in a statement earlier this month.

“What large corporations in the supply chain understand is that we need more responsible forestry, not less.

These corporations also understand that regardless of a company’s decision about which certification label to put on a product, the supply chain is mixed: SFI content is found in FSC-labeled products and vice versa.

They see the value of both of our certification programs.”

SFI officials were referring to the second tier of ForestEthics’ campaign, an effort to convince large buyers of wood and paper goods to drop the SFI certification label from their products. A total of 24 companies, including Hewlett-Packard and Office Depot, emphasize purchase of FSC-certified paper when they can, rather than SFI. Weyerhaeuser spokesman Anthony Chavez pointed to an internal scientific review of the 2007 storms that showed many landslides occurred unseen on unlogged land, and most were caused by the nearly unprecedented intensity of that year's rains.

He also noted that a review of Weyerhaeuser's pre-2007 logging practices by the Timber Procurement Assessment Committee in the Netherlands concluded there was "no conclusive evidence" that the high intensity of landslides could be attributed to the company.

The review, completed in March, found that Weyerhaeuser was in compliance with SFI standards in place at the time, and said there was not "sufficient evidence" to conclude there was a "systemic failure" in SFI's certification system.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Kilmer’s Wild Olympics stance unchanged May 30, 2013 PORT ANGELES — Derek Kilmer continued to remain noncommittal this week on planned legislation that would ban logging on more than 126,000 acres of Olympic National Forest by declaring it wilderness and creating a protective buffer around Olympic National Park.

Supporters of what is known as Wild Olympics legislation, which also would protect 19 rivers and seven tributaries in the national forest, are unconcerned about Kilmer not staking out a position — but hope he does so by the end of the year, Quilcene resident Connie Gallant, chair of the Wild Olympics Campaign, said Wednesday.

“I’m hoping he does it a lot sooner,” Gallant said of Kilmer.

“The reason for wanting to introduce [the legislation] as soon as possible is because the quicker we begin protecting our lands and rivers, the better for our present and future generations.”

Parts of Olympic National Forest’s 633,000 acres lie in Kilmer’s district, which includes all or parts of Clallam, Jefferson, Mason and Grays Harbor counties — all of which touch Olympic National Forest.

The 6th District Democrat’s position has remained virtually unchanged from comments he made last August, when he said at a campaign forum — three months before he was elected — that “there needs to be a conversation about increasing harvest levels in federal forests to make sure there is an adequate supply for mills.”

Kilmer, born and raised in Port Angeles, reiterated his position Tuesday in a wide-ranging, 45-minute interview and conversation with Peninsula Daily News editors and a reporter.

“I think we need to do a better job of increasing harvest levels in federal forests,” Kilmer said, adding that he has not put forward any proposals to accomplish that goal.

Kilmer also said during the interview that he strongly opposes a land-border-crossing fee that the Department of Homeland Security wants to study for possible inclusion in the agency’s 2014 fiscal year budget proposal.

“It is exactly counter to our interests,” Kilmer said.

“This proposal seems entirely in the wrong direction, in contrast to the direction we’ve been taking.”

The interview a quarter of the way into Kilmer’s two-year term followed a town-hall style meeting at Peninsula College’s Little Theater.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

No one there asked him about the Wild Olympics legislation, though a man stood outside the door passing out business-card-size stickers that said “Supporter Wild Olympics.”

Kilmer said he continues to talk with academics, federal forestry officials and proponents whose goal is to preserve the environment and opponents who don’t want to lose working forests.

“What I am trying to figure out is the optimal point of balancing both” sides of the issue, Kilmer said.

“I would much rather act thoughtfully than quickly.”

Gallant said the Wild Olympics Campaign is willing to give Kilmer some leeway.

“What we have done as a campaign is, we are basically giving him the time to be able to study everything and to be able to speak to all the people concerned,” she said.

“We recognize the fact that he’s coming in as a newbie.”

Legislation introduced by U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Bothell, and then-6th District U.S. Rep. Norm Dicks never was considered by the 2012 Congress.

Dicks, Kilmer’s predecessor, served 18 terms before retiring and supported Kilmer’s election bid.

In February, Murray announced she planned to reintroduce in the current 2013 session the Wild Olympics Wilderness & Wild Scenic Rivers Act. Murray still plans to reintroduce the bill this year, Sean Coit, Murray’s press secretary, said Wednesday in an email.

Kilmer said any plan to increase harvest levels would be constrained by the U.S. Forest Service’s “very limited budget” and that he has not put forward any plan to address those levels or increase the agency’s budget.

“Stay tuned,” he said. “There are a lot of ways to skin a cat.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Government action/inaction and wild game fish

 I Don’t Pay Attention to Politics…

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Harper Blocks Interview With Scientist On Oilsands May 31, 2013 The Department of Fisheries and Oceans has declined an interview request with a scientist to discuss the environmental impacts of oilsands development because it objected to a recent Postmedia News report, a federal government spokesman wrote in an email.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada is one of seven federal departments and agencies under investigation by Parliament’s Information Commissioner, Suzanne Legault, over allegations that the government is “muzzling” and restricting access to government scientists.

The Postmedia News report, published on Tuesday, quoted an internal memorandum that said the department had “recently” discovered that in-situ oilsands projects could disturb water sources and harm fish habitat.

Stephen Harper Prime Minister, Canada

Postmedia News also reported in the story that Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government introduced changes to environmental laws – one year after receiving the memo – that would allow it to exclude some oilsands projects from reviews.

“We are declining your interview request in light of the fact your article is incorrect in suggesting that the memo was in relation to the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act 2012 and Fisheries Act amendments,” wrote Frank Stanek, manager of media relations from the department in an email to Postmedia News on Wednesday evening.

The Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency has published the list of proposed projects that would be subject to an automatic federal environmental review, and it has confirmed that in-situ oilsands projects, which require the injection of high-pressure steam, deep underground to extract heavy oil, were not on this list.

Another media outlet, iPolitics, also reported in the past week that in-situ oilsands projects were excluded from the list and that an industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, had been lobbying the agency in recent months, according to a federal registry. It is not unusual for industry associations to lobby federal departments and agencies to defend their interests on matters of public policy.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The Postmedia report also included comments from the fisheries department saying that these types of projects did not require federal assessments in the past and that it didn’t anticipate they would require reviews under the amended federal environmental laws.

The report also quoted the agency explaining that the environment minister could still require an environmental assessment because of the “potential for adverse environmental effects on matters of federal jurisdiction or if there are public concerns about those effects.”

In his email from Wednesday evening, Stanek repeated that the memo predated the changes to environmental laws, as Postmedia News had reported.

He also said that the department had not eliminated reviews in higher risk areas.

“The memo clearly states that we would continue to work with Departments, Provinces, proponents and others to assess any of these projects where there may be potential for higher risk to fisheries habitat,” Stanek wrote.

The department also sent out letters to various newspapers in the Postmedia Network with similar comments, attributed to David Balfour, a senior assistant deputy minister.

Erin Filliter, a spokeswoman for federal Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield, later wrote on Twitter that the letter was “correcting” the story on environmental assessments.

Postmedia News emailed a series of questions to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans about its statement on Thursday morning: •

Does your department or its minister’s office believe that scientists should only give interviews to journalists that write stories in a certain way?

•

Are scientists in the department allowed to speak freely about their research on impacts of insitu oilsands projects on water and fish habitat?

•

What makes the department uncomfortable about a story that compares a memo about impacts on fish habitat to a subsequent decision by the government to change environmental laws?

•

In what way does the department believe the memo was not related to the changes to environmental laws?

•

What is the difference between continuing to work with departments, provinces, proponents and others to assess projects versus putting in-situ oilsands development on a project list that requires reviews?

The department said Friday that it was planning to respond to these questions later in the day.

The memo, released through access to information legislation, also included a background document, dated March 30, 2011, that challenged statements, proposed by the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency, “based on the advice from experts in Alberta and Natural Resources Canada” that there was “little possibility” of in-situ operations disrupting fish habitat.

The document said this statement should be “deleted” since it did not accurately reflect the concerns of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

A spokesman from Natural Resources Canada told Postmedia News it was unable to locate the official who provided the advice from 2011, that downplayed the impacts of in-situ oilsands projects.

“Since the time of your request yesterday, we have been unable to confirm which specific departmental official would have been consulted,” wrote Natural Resources Canada spokesman Paul Duchesne in an email on Thursday. “Please bear in mind that the briefing note you reference was produced two years ago.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 State appeals federal ruling on salmon-blocking culverts State officials have said the ruling, part of a decades-old legal battle tied to treaties dating to the mid-1800s, could cost billions of dollars — money the state doesn’t have.

June 9, 2013 OLYMPIA — Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson is appealing a federal ruling ordering the state to fix culverts that block salmon passages.

The state on Tuesday filed a notice of appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on the March 29 U.S. District Court ruling by Judge Ricardo Martinez that set up a timeline to fix hundreds of culverts around the state.

“The state remains committed to doing more to address fish passage barriers and will continue to do so as resources permit. The implications of the case, however, stretch beyond culverts. Issues of this magnitude deserve full and thoughtful appellate review,” said Attorney General Bob Ferguson in a statement.

State officials have said the ruling could cost billions of dollars — money the state doesn’t have.

The Martinez ruling is part of a decades-old legal battle tied to treaties dating to the mid-1800s. Tribes say the state has blocked salmon passage and contributed to the decline of fish harvests.

More than 20 tribes signed up for the legal action, including the Confederated Bands and Tribes of the Yakama Indian Nation, Tulalip Tribes, Makah Nation and Muckleshoot Indian Tribe.

Culverts are often built under roadways to allow streams to flow under them.

Martinez ordered the state to fix approximately 180 culverts on recreational lands by 2016 and more than 800 culverts under the Department of Transportation by 2030.

State agencies told lawmakers in April that the ruling would cost more than $2.4 billion. The state could meet the repair deadline imposed by Martinez, if the money is provided Martinez said in his decision that the tribes have been harmed economically, socially, educationally and culturally because of reduced salmon harvests caused by state barriers that prevent fish passage. He compared spending on culvert correction with the overall Department of Transportation budget and said the state has the financial ability to accelerate the pace of its fixes over the next several years.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 B.C. formally rejects Northern Gateway pipeline as proposed May 31, 2013

VICTORIA — The B.C. Liberal government has strongly rejected the proposed Enbridge Northern Gateway pipeline, stating in a formal submission to a National Energy Board review panel that the company has not properly addressed the province's environmental concerns.

The province did not outright kill the proposed $6-billion oil pipeline from Alberta to the West Coast at Kitimat, but said Enbridge has left unanswered too many questions about its ability to protect marine or freshwater ecosystems in the event of a spill.

The proponents have "presented little evidence about how it will respond in the event of a spill," the province wrote in its submission to the Northern Gateway Pipeline Joint Review Panel.

READ ENTIRE VANCOUVER SUN ARTICLE HERE

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Harper pushing made-in-Canada pipeline as Obama mulls Keystone Canada ‘strongly supports constructing energy infrastructure that will help transport Western Canadian oil to the east,’ PM’s letter states June 6, 2013 OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is backing a plan to send oil to Canada’s eastern provinces from Alberta as the Obama administration decides whether to allow construction of the Keystone XL pipeline.

Harper met Canadian oil-industry executives in Calgary in early April to build support for a plan by TransCanada Corp. to ship crude to Saint John, N.B. Executives from TransCanada and Saint John-based Irving Oil Corp., attended the meeting, according to two people familiar with the matter who asked not to be named because the discussions weren’t public.

Canada “strongly supports constructing energy infrastructure that will help transport Western Canadian oil to the east,” Harper wrote in an April 29 letter obtained by Bloomberg News. He was replying to Conservative lawmakers from New Brunswick who had asked for a fast regulatory review of the proposed project.

A “made-in-Canada” pipeline to the East Coast could have a “huge” impact on shares of Albertabased producers, while lessening Eastern Canada’s need to import crude, said Daniel Cheng, vicepresident and portfolio manager in Calgary at Matco Financial Inc. who helps oversee $420 million.

Canada should “evaluate as many options as possible as opposed to simply relying on one, like Keystone XL,” Cheng said in a phone interview May 31.

Calgary-based TransCanada plans to convert part of its Mainline natural-gas line to carry crude and extend it by 1,400 km to reach refineries as far east as Saint John.

The company started soliciting bids April 15 from refiners and oil producers interested in transporting crude on the pipeline, which could handle as many as 850,000 barrels per day.

The project, which TransCanada calls Energy East, would provide relief to producers facing a supply glut in the central U.S. that has helped depress the price for Canadian heavy crude. Oil-sands crude has traded at an average discount this year of $23 a barrel to the main U.S. grade, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

With Energy East, “that differential would at least stabilize and narrow,” said Cheng.

Alberta Premier Alison Redford said in late January the province will collect $6 billion less revenue this year as a result of the price gap.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

The Bank of Canada cited the glut as a factor that helped cut 0.4 percentage points from the country’s annualized growth rate in the second half of last year.

Harper has stressed the need to diversify markets for Canada’s energy exports even as his government lobbies for approval of Keystone, which would transport Alberta oil to the Gulf Coast. The U.S. consumes 99 per cent of Canada’s oil exports.

The government “strongly supports, in principle, proposals that would transport western Canadian oil to Eastern Canada,” spokesman Carl Vallee said in an email TransCanada representative Philippe Cannon said in an email the company won’t comment on meetings with elected officials. “We view all levels of government, municipalities and provinces, as important stakeholders.”

Carolyn Van der Veen of Irving Oil, declined to comment when asked about the meeting.

New Brunswick Premier David Alward said the pipeline would give a “huge boost” to the province, which had a jobless rate of 10.9 per cent in April, compared with 7.2 per cent nationally, according to Statistics Canada.

“This project and what it could mean to our country is as important as the construction of the railway was to Canada centuries ago,” Alward said Monday by phone, adding he will discuss the project with Redford on Friday when she visits Saint John for an Irving-Oil sponsored luncheon.

Redford will support the “push for stronger East-West pipeline links,” Stefan Baranski, a representative of the premier, wrote in an email.

Interest in Energy East is rising as Keystone remains stalled. TransCanada applied to Canadian and U.S. regulators to build the pipeline five years ago and originally planned to open the line in 2012.

Since Obama initially rejected the project in January, 2012, citing concerns over its route through ecologically sensitive lands in Nebraska, Canadian energy stocks have under-performed their U.S. peers by 12.8 percentage points. TransCanada’s share price has lost 0.6 per cent this year, while energy stocks have returned 2.6 per cent.

The company rerouted the line and submitted a new application last year. It postponed in April its targeted startup to the second half of 2015, citing delays in getting a U.S. presidential permit.

Building a route west to the Pacific coast has also been a hard sell for pipeline companies. Enbridge Inc. has faced opposition from environmentalists and aboriginal groups to its proposed Northern Gateway pipeline to the British Columbia coast. The provincial government said recently it can’t support the $6-billion project because of spill risks.

Enbridge has proposed its pipeline to the East Coast. The company plans to reverse a crude conduit called Line 9 to carry oil to Montreal.

In their March 22 letter to Harper, 14 Conservative MPs called on the government to conduct a single regulatory review for Energy East. “The last thing this project needs is unnecessary red tape or approval processes.”

John Williamson, who signed the letter, said in an email “A lack of political support has, at best, delayed projects elsewhere or, at worst, killed them in other Canadian and U.S. jurisdictions.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Elwha turnaround: Baby hatchery fish fare better in muddy river this time June 9, 2013 PORT ANGELES — State Department of Fish and Wildlife staff took specific precautions to ensure that nearly 1 million baby chinook salmon would survive after they were released into the sedimentplagued Elwha River at the beginning of the month.

There have been no fish deaths observed, an agency official said.

The release that began May 31 was the first since a still-undetermined number of year-old chinook salmon were found dead along the sediment-congested river in the days following an April 5 release of 196,575 smolts from the Fish and Wildlife fish-rearing channel about 3.5 miles from the mouth of the river.

“We are assuming that the sediment contributed to their deaths,” said Neil Turner, hatchery operations manager for the Fish and Wildlife region that includes the Elwha River, adding that stress the fish may have experienced during the release process itself also may have played a factor.

“We see that in yearlings in other places during releases,” Turner said.

The sediment has been unleashed in the river, free-flowing for the first time in a century, following the removal of one dam and lowering of another, releasing the mud that once was caught behind the dams.

Turner said that a final count of dead year-old salmon, ranging in length from 4 to 8 inches, from the earlier release was not available.

Rough estimates at the time placed the number of dead fish found in the hundreds, though Fish and Wildlife officials said then that those numbers could not be confirmed.

Turner said staff searched along the river in the days after the dead salmon had been reported and did not find any fish carcasses.

“Once we heard dead fish [were] out there, staff went out to try to find them, and they were gone,” Turner said.

“And that makes us really wonder how many actually died.”

Mike Gross, Fish and Wildlife fish biologist for Clallam County and West Jefferson County, called the April release “a mistake.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

He said at the time that the heavy sediment flowing through the river likely effectively suffocated the year-old salmon by damaging their gills.

Rearing channel staff started releasing 810,000 less-than-1-year-old salmon, or sub-yearlings, at about 8 p.m. May 31 and continued emptying the pool where the fish had been kept the morning of June 1, Turner said.

“There were very few fish present the following morning,” Turner said in a Thursday interview.

“A lot of release strategy is for [the fish] to clear [the pool] in evening hours so the birds don’t get on them.”

Turner said rearing channel staff, keeping the dead salmon found after the April release in mind, took specific precautions for the May 31 release, including exposing 10 sub-yearlings to river water with a turbidity up to roughly 1,800 formazin nephelometric units (FNU), which measure the river’s turbidity, for a week before the release.

None of this group of test fish died during that time, Turner said.

Those 10 sub-yearlings, which ranged from 3 to 4 inches in length, later were dissected by Fish and Wildlife fish pathologists, Turner explained, who found the sediment had little negative effect on the health of the fish.

Rearing channel staff also closely monitored the river itself for dead or dying fish immediately following the May 31/June 1 release. “[We] had agency employees do some checking at various spots on the river clear down to the mouth and saw no mortality,” Turner said.

“We wanted to cover our bases this time.”

The timing of this release also was done so as to expose the sub-yearlings to the lowest amount of sediment in the river as possible, Turner said, and to avoid the increases in sediment expected this summer following the spring snowmelt in the Olympics.

“We had a window of opportunity, and we went ahead and released them,” Turner said.

The river’s turbidity was hovering around 500 FNUs at the time of the most recent release, according to U.S. Geological Survey data.

“So we felt pretty confident we could release [the sub-yearlings] without ill result,” Turner said.

In the hours following the start of the April 5 release, the river’s turbidity peaked at 1,600 FNUs, according to USGS data.

The sediment coursing down the Elwha has been freed by the removal process for the once-towering Elwha dams, part of a $325 million river restoration project still under way.

Elwha Dam was removed by last March, while removal of the remaining 60 feet of Glines Canyon Dam has been delayed until at least July 1 while private contractors working on behalf of Olympic National Park make corrections to the Elwha Water Treatment Plant.

The corrections are needed because sediment released from dam removal has been unexpectedly infiltrating the Elwha Water Treatment Plant, causing the facility to produce less water for the Port Angeles Water Treatment Plant, and subsequently city residents and businesses, than planned.

The Elwha Water Treatment Plant problems have made the city rely more heavily on its Ranney well, the main source of city drinking water, than anticipated, but city officials have said the well is still providing the city with enough clean drinking water.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Turner said estimating the value of the 810,000 sub-yearlings released is difficult, adding, “They’re invaluable with this dam removal, I’ll tell you that.”

The rearing channel, along with the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe’s fish hatchery, was built along the Elwha River as part of the dam removal and river restoration project to help maintain existing fish stock during dam removal and promote fish population growth as river restoration work continues.

The next scheduled release of young salmon from Fish and Wildlife’s rearing channel is next April, Turner added.

Elwha River – Chinook (King) salmon

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Coast guard takes brunt of fisheries department cuts May 17, 2012

More than 1,000 workers with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, including 763 with the Canadian Coast Guard, received notices Thursday that their jobs could be affected by pending cuts.

The total number comes to 1,072, according to the affected unions. But when contacted by CBC News, Fisheries Minister Keith Ashfield's office said only 400 jobs are actually being eliminated.

The department is planning a number of changes, including shrinking the number of regional coast guard offices from five to three. That will see the Newfoundland and Maritimes regions amalgamated.

The regional centre in Dartmouth, N.S., will also be shuttered.

The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) confirms the search and rescue station will be closed in one of Canada's busiest ports, Vancouver.

CBC News has also learned that there are plans to reduce the number of marine traffic centres in Newfoundland. Those centres monitor thousands of vessels offshore and provide vital communication to anyone in distress.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Sources tell CBC News that the traffic centres in St. John's and St. Anthony will be cut over the next three years.

The mayor of St. Anthony, on Newfoundland's Northern Peninsula, was outraged by the decision.

"I woke up this morning hearing about fish plants; two more closing down," Mayor Ern Simms said.

"Now I'm hearing of DFO closing down. I mean, what's happening in Newfoundland? Where are we going? The fishery and everything involved with the fishery is what we're made from and hopefully where we're going. But if you take out all the supports now, you're never going to get them back."

A total of 598 employees represented by PSAC received notices, according to the union. The regional breakdown: 

Newfoundland and Labrador — 58.



Nova Scotia — 98.



New Brunswick — 29.



P.E.I. — 13.



Quebec — 107.



Ontario — 72.



National Capital Region — 119.



Manitoba — 13.



British Columbia — 86.



North — 3.

Editorial Comment: These budget cuts and associated staff reductions are terribly short sighted given the expected expansion of 1. fossil fuel (crude oil, bitumen, coal, LNG) shipments from British Columbia and 2. open pen salmon feedlots.

These industries each have the very real potential of devastating Canada’s coastal ecosystems and all that rely on them.

Meanwhile, the various unions that represent the workers say they find it ironic that the cuts are coming as the coast guard celebrates its 50th anniversary.

"These are radical changes," said Jeannie Baldwin of PSAC in Halifax. "It only benefits the politicians, because it doesn't benefit the public, it doesn't benefit the work and it doesn't benefit the fishery habitat that we so proudly protect and conserve."

Baldwin says the cuts mean not just jobs, but the end of programs.

The union says the department is planning to outsource DFO observers on fishing boats.

Field offices are also facing closure, as are fish hatcheries, department libraries and research stations.

The layoffs are the second round of cuts in five months at DFO. In December, 400 employees received notices — half of them scientists.

Gary Corbett is with the union representing scientists and researchers. Some 130 of his members also received notices today.

"It looks like this government is trying to de-regularize a lot of the rules and policies in this country, things like how we monitor the habitat and protect the resource," Corbett said. "It seems to me this government is opening up those regulations so the resource can be tapped."

The job cuts are part of the government’s plan to cut DFO’s operational budget by $79.3 million.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Land-based

salmon farming not viable: Newfoundland and Labrador

government May 29, 2013

ST. JOHN'S, N.L. - The Newfoundland and Labrador government says land-based salmon farming is not a viable alternative to open-net farming in the ocean.

Some calls were made to move the province's aquaculture industry inland to prevent spread of disease after the recent discovery of dozens of farmed salmon in rivers on the Burin Peninsula.

The Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture says there have been numerous attempts to farm salmon in fully enclosed inland facilities, but they have proven not to be economically, environmentally or technically viable.

The department says research is continuing, however closed containment has not yet been successfully applied on a large-scale commercial basis.

The province says the cost of electricity, construction material and the disposal of waste would leave an equal or greater environmental footprint than current ocean-based cage operations.

The department says it researched 40 inland salmon farms, all of which have closed.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Wild Salmon Dying of Politics

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Mining and wild game fish

 Chuitna Citizens Coalition – No mining through salmon streams.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Sounding Off Against Mining Clayoquot May 29, 2013 COAST SALISH TERRITORIES—People came from as far away as Tla-oqui-aht First Nation on the west coast of Vancouver Island to protest outside the AGM of Imperial Metals in downtown Vancouver today. The company wants to open a copper mine in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

A small group of indigenous activists managed to get past police and outside the meeting room at the Terminal City Club before being grabbed, roughed up and tossed into the street. The activists were inside long enough to shout their message to Imperial brass and investors before getting turfed.

The members of the Neskonlith Secwepemc Nation and Ancestral Pride Ahousaht Sovereign Territory used bullhorns to get the attention of shareholders. They were joined before the meeting by allies voicing opposition to Imperial's operations across BC and the planned mines on Vancouver Island.

Vancouver-based Imperial Metals is planning two mining projects in Clayoquot Sound. Catface Mountain copper-molybdenum mine is a mountain-top removal scheme that protesters say must be stopped before it is submitted to the environmental review process. Fandora, a potential gold mine, would be at the head of Tranquil Valley, on Tla-o-qui-aht territory, for which the BC Liberals are currently reviewing an application for exploration.

Janice Billy of the Secwepemc Nation told supporters, “In our territory as elsewhere, the company has not followed Canadian or international standards and legal obligations to obtain the free prior informed consent of the Indigenous peoples affected by its projects.”

Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Clayoquot Action and the Wilderness Committee and allies joined representatives of the Ahousaht First Nations for the rally.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Pesticides, pollution and wild game fish

 Pesticide find raises concerns over Bantry salmon farm plan May 23, 2013

The discovery of huge quantities of toxic pesticides at a salmon farm in Scotland has escalated fears for a facility planned for Bantry Bay. The Save Bantry Bay committee has reiterated calls for food and marine Simon Coveney to refuse planning permission for a new salmon farm in the world-famous bay after it emerged huge quantities of the toxic pesticide, Teflubenzuron, were discovered at a salmon farm site in Scotland.

An investigation is underway at the Marine Harvest facility after the discovery that toxic pesticide residues hundreds of times above environmental limits had been detected.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

However, Marine Harvest Ireland insists the toxic pesticides are not used at their facility in Bantry Bay. “In relation to Teflubenzuron detection in Scottish sediments, Marine Harvest Ireland has never used this medicine in our organic fish anywhere in Ireland, including Bantry Bay,” a spokesman said.

“Salmon are extremely sensitive to pollution and only prosper in clean and well-oxygenated waters.

“It is therefore in our interest to ensure that the water quality in Bantry Bay remains pristine.”

The spokesman added: “There has been salmon farming in Bantry Bay for almost 40 years. It has operated without incident and today it is an integrated part of the local Beara peninsula community.

“Marine Harvest Ireland is one of the most comprehensively inspected and certified organisations in the industry by the agencies that regulate our industry, customers and international standards organisations. Every stage of our production process is audited annually by independent bodies.”

The company plans to invest €3.5m in setting up a 14-cage salmon farm at the Shot Head site and a further minimum of €10m over each two-year production cycle.

In addition, there will be eight long-term positions for operatives.

Local action committee secretary Alec O’Donovan said SBB was convinced the environmental impact to Bantry Bay from a new salmon farm would be too high a price to pay for future generations.

“How can we have confidence when the controls in place are not strict enough or, indeed, even enforced.

“The Environmental Impact Statement completed by Marine Harvest as part of the licence application has failed to meet standards set by the EU EIA directive. And now we hear of an investigation underway in Scotland at a Marine Harvest facility there. We can’t allow something like this to happen in Bantry Bay,” Mr O’Donovan said.

State agency Bord Iasciagh Mhara, meanwhile, said: “We have full confidence in the environmental monitoring and controls applied to the marine salmon farming sector here in Ireland.

“Marine Harvest Ireland is required to comply with these and it is our understanding that their compliance record is very good.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 $500,000 Fisheries Act fine for illegal pesticide use on salmon farm May 27, 2013 Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. pleaded guilty to violating the Fisheries Act. Its illegal use of a pesticide contributed to substantial lobster kills in southwestern New Brunswick. The court ordered Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. to pay a total of $500,000, one of the largest and most significant penalties ever levied in Canada under the Fisheries Act. $50,000 of the penalty will go to the Environmental Damages Fund, another $250,000 will be directed towards scholarships, another $100,000 will be directed in support of environmental studies and research projects, and the remaining $100,000 is the court fine.

Kelly Cove Salmon Ltd. pleaded guilty to releasing cypermethrin into fish-bearing waters in southwestern New Brunswick. Cypermethrin is an agricultural pesticide that is not permitted for use in marine environments because of its proven toxicity to crustaceans, including lobsters and shrimp.

Kelly Cove used the pesticide to address a major sea lice infestation in their salmon farm, knowing that it was illegal to do so. Sea lice is a serious pest of open water fish farms, and also one of their major threats to wild fish stocks.

On November 19, 2009, Environment Canada was informed that lobster fishers in southwestern New Brunswick were finding dead and dying lobsters in their traps. Environmental Enforcement officers subsequently collected samples of the affected lobsters from Grand Manan and Deer Island, as well as fish, mussels and kelp in the areas where the lobsters were found. These samples were sent to Environment Canada’s lab in Moncton for forensic analysis. Results proved the dead lobsters collected in Grand Manan and Deer Island were exposed to cypermethrin.

An intensive two-year investigation by Environment Canada’s enforcement officers and Atlantic Laboratory for Environmental Testing resulted in this successful prosecution. Another reason for caution about farmed salmon.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Wild game fish management

 A New Idea to Protect Wild Salmon June 10, 2013

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

A few years ago I visited Southeast Alaska and saw more salmon than I thought I’d ever see in my entire life. The question: will they be there for our next generation?

Southeast Alaska is one of the last places in the United States where wild salmon still thrive. A place where a healthy, fully functioning ecosystem churns out tens of millions of these fish every year, employing more than 7,300 people in fishing, processing and guiding jobs.

A place where salmon underpin the culture and lifestyles of people with ancestral ties to the region dating back 10,000 years or more. It’s a cold and mossy rainforest of giant cedar, spruce and hemlock trees with nearly 18,000 miles of salmon-filled rivers.

Most of this place is designated the Tongass National Forest. This 17-million-acre forest covers most of Southeast Alaska and functions as a huge nursery for five species of wild Pacific salmon. At its most basic level, the Tongass is a salmon forest.

I and more than 230 other scientists will be calling on Congress to protect Tongass salmon. The vehicle is a proposal to Congress to help protect the 77 most high-value watersheds for salmon that remain open to development. These 77 watersheds comprise nearly 2 million rainforest acres. The new effort is called the Tongass 77.

Scientists, agency officials, fishermen and conservationists have determined that these are ”the best of the best” when it comes to producing salmon. These are high-yield waterways that year after year return high numbers of spawning salmon. They’re worth protecting. By that I mean managing them for salmon production as priority number one. This doesn’t mean they’re locked up and nothing else can occur from a jobs perspective. Under this proposal, income-generating activities ranging from mining to hydropower can happen if they’re consistent with the top management goal of conserving the natural habitat for wild salmon.

If Tongass salmon are so healthy and rich in number, why do they need protection measures like Tongass 77? The history of salmon in the rest of the Pacific Coast, and in so many other parts of the world, tells the story. In states south of Canada, like California, Oregon and Washington, Pacific salmon no longer spawn in nearly half of their original spawning areas. A toxic mix of habitat loss from urban sprawl, agricultural run-off, dams, logging, privatization, and other stamps of human behavior have decimated salmon runs across the Pacific Northwest.

Alaska, and specifically the Tongass which produces one-third of the state’s total salmon harvest, is the country’s last bastion of healthy salmon country. And even in the Last Frontier, a slew of threats loom over Tongass salmon, including land privatization proposals, logging, mineral development and climate change. The Tongass 77, if enacted by Congress, would help permanently protect at the watershed scale — meaning from ridge top to shoreline — a large block of what’s left of the country’s wild salmon habitat. It would help ensure the long-term viability of these fish.

The Tongass 77 is a pro-active conservation strategy that makes sense for Southeast Alaska.

Google the words Tongass and American Salmon Forest to find out how to get involved. Or go to americansalmonforest.org and sign on.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

ď ś New Era of Fisheries Policy Needed to Secure Nutrition for Millions May 17, 2013 Securing the critical contribution of wild fish stocks to food and nutrition security in the developing world depends on better governance and management of the fisheries sector.

Fish is a key source of animal protein, fatty acids, vitamins, and micronutrients like iron and zinc that contribute to a balanced diet, and is a particularly important food source in many developing countries.

A new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America argues that for fisheries policies to be effective they must take in to account not just fish stock conservation and environmental issues, but also research data on the patterns and dynamics of fish trade, markets and user consumption.

"This is particularly important in the developing world, where the countries whose populations are most dependent on fish for nutrition are found," says Director General of WorldFish, Dr. Stephen J. Hall, lead author of the paper.

Fisheries don't exist in isolation and multi-sectoral perspectives and approaches need to be developed and supported to ensure policies also consider the millions of small-scale fishers.

"These fishers often work part-time during times of seasonal hunger or temporary unemployment, and the ways that they catch, prepare and sell fish are diverse. Policies need to take in to account the varying contexts that fisheries exist in. A 'one size fits all' policy is destined to fail," says Dr. Hall.

Policies developed for open ocean trawlers whose catch is primarily destined for an export market must be different to those for small-scale fishers selling their catch to local customers.

This will help to ensure a constant supply of good quality fish for consumers, a satisfactory standard of living vital for millions of fishers, and the sustainability of wild fish stocks.

FAO estimates that 30% of the world's fish stocks were over-exploited, depleted or recovering in 2009, and this number is increasing.

While aquaculture is the fastest growing agricultural sector for most developing countries, its growth and production rate cannot replace capture fisheries or even make up losses of local wild fish in the next 10 to 15 years.

The paper is highly relevant for responding with effective and efficient policies to the strategic challenges fisheries will face in the future.

The authors argue that such policies will have to consider the appropriate level for decentralized decision making, the primacy of genuine stakeholder dialogues, the inclusion of the whole value chain for fish and the incorporation of fisheries in the perspective of other sectors of the economy and rural development.

With such policies we will secure wild fish stocks, ensure an income for fishers, and food and nutrition security for consumers throughout the developing world.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Endangered Ocean Creatures Beyond the Cute and Cuddly May 17, 2013 Our oceans are taking a beating from overfishing, pollution, acidification and warming, putting at risk the many creatures who make their home in seawater. But when most people think of struggling ocean species, the first animals that come to mind are probably whales, seals or sea turtles.

Sure, many of these large (and adorable) animals play an important part in the marine ecosystem and are threatened with extinction due to human activities, but in fact, of the 94 marine species listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA), only 45 are marine mammals and sea turtles.

As such, these don’t paint the whole picture of what happens under the sea. What about the remaining 49 that form a myriad of other important parts of the underwater web?

These less charismatic members of the list include corals, sea birds, mollusks and, of course, fish.

They fall under two categories: endangered or threatened. According to NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service (pdf), one of the groups responsible for implementing the ESA, a species is considered endangered if it faces imminent extinction, and a species is considered threatened if it is likely to become endangered in the future. A cross section of these less-known members of the ESA’s list are described in detail below.

1. Staghorn coral (Acropora cervicornis), pictured above, is one of two species of coral listed as threatened under the ESA, although both are under review for reclassification to endangered. A very important reef-building coral in the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, it primarily reproduces through asexual fragmentation. This means that its branches break off and reattach to a substrate on the ocean bottom where they grow into new colonies.

While this is a great recovery method when only part of a colony is damaged, it doesn’t work so well when most or all of the colony is killed—which often is the result from disturbances afflicting these corals. Since the 1980s, staghorn coral populations have steeply declined due to outbreaks of coral disease, increased sedimentation, bleaching and damage from hurricanes.

Staghorn coral is listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. NOAA Fisheries has proposed it be reclassified as endangered.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Although only two coral species are currently on the ESA list, 66 additional coral species have been proposed for listing and are currently under review.

2. The white abalone (Haliotis sorenseni), a large sea snail that can grow to ten inches long, was the first marine invertebrate to be listed under the ESA but its population hasn’t recovered. The commercial fishery for white abalone collapsed three decades ago because, being spawners that jet their eggs and sperm into the water for fertilization with the hope that the two will collide, the animals depend on a large enough population of males and females being in close proximity to one another to reproduce successfully.

Less than 0.1% of its pre-fished population survives today, and research published in 2012 showed that it has continued to decline since its ESA listing more than a decade ago. The researchers recommended human intervention, and aquaculture efforts have begun in an effort to save the species.

The white abalone population off the coast of California continued to decline even after the closure of its short-lived fishery in the 1970s.

3.

Johnson’s seagrass (Halophila johnsonii), the lone marine plant species listed, is classified as threatened and makes coastal habitats and nurseries for fish and provides a food source for the also-endangered West Indian manatees and green sea turtles.

However, its most important role may be longterm ocean carbon storage, known as blue carbon: seagrass beds can store more carbon than the world’s forests per hectare.

The main threats to Johnson’s seagrass are nutrient and sediment pollution, and damage from boating, dredging and storms. Its plight is aggravated by its tiny geographic range–it is only found on the southeast coast of Florida.

Johnson’s seagrass is the first, and only, marine plant listed under the Endangered Species Act.

The species may have more trouble recovering than other seagrass species because it seems to only reproduce asexually–while other seagrasses can reproduce like land plants, by producing a flower that is then fertilized by clumps of pollen released underwater, the Johnson’s seagrass relies on the sometimes slow process of new stems sprouting from the buried root systems of individual plants.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

4. The short-tailed albatross (Phoebastria albatrus) differs from some of its neighbors on the ESA list in that an extra layer of uncertainty is added to the mix: During breeding season, they nest on islands near Japan, but after breeding season ends, they spread their wings and fly to the U.S. In the late 19th century, the beautiful birds are thought to have been fairly common from coastal California up through Alaska. But in the 1940s, their population dropped from the tens of millions to such a small number that they were thought to be extinct. Their incredible decline was due to hunters collecting their feathers, compounded by volcanic damage to their breeding islands in the 1930s.

Today they are doing better, with over 2,000 birds counted in 2008, but only a few islands remain as nesting sites and they continue to be caught as bycatch, meaning that they are often mistakenly hooked by longline fishing gear.

5. Salmon are a familiar fish frequently seen on the menu. But not all species are doing well enough to be served on our plates. Salmon split their time between freshwater (where they are born and later spawn) and the ocean (where they spend their time in between).

Historically, Atlantic salmon in the U.S. were found in most major rivers on the Atlantic coast north of the Hudson, which flows through New York State. But damming, pollution and overfishing have pushed the species to a point where they are now only found along a small section of the Maine coast. Twenty-eight populations of Pacific salmon are also listed as threatened or endangered. Efforts on both coasts are underway to rebuild populations through habitat restoration, pollution reduction and aquaculture.

Short-tailed albatrosses have made a remarkable recovery since they were believed to be extinct in the 1940s. They still face threats today though, from habitat loss to being caught unintentionally by fishing gear.

Atlantic salmon used to be found in most major rivers in New England, now they are only found in a small section of Maine.

The five organisms listed here are just a few of the marine species on the ESA’s list. In fact, scientists expect that as they learn more about the oceans, they will reveal threats to more critters and plants.

“The charismatic marine species, like large whales [and] sea turtles…were the first to captivate us and pique our curiosity to look under the waves,” says Jonathan Shannon, from the NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Species. “While we are learning more about the ocean and how it works every day, we still have much to learn about the different species in the ocean and the health of their populations.”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Extremely Rare Giant Oarfish Caught on Camera in Gulf of Mexico Watch video here June 7, 2013 The giant oarfish Regalecus glesne has been caught on film in the deep waters of the northern Gulf of Mexico.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Top: Regalecus glesne observed on February 16, 2009 in the Gulf of Mexico (M. C. Benfield et al). Bottom: Navy SEALs display a 23-foot giant oarfish found in 1996 on the beach in California The giant oarfish, also known as the king of the herring, Pacific oarfish, ribbon-fish, and streamer fish, was originally described by the Norwegian biologist Peter Ascanius in 1772.

Regalecus glesne is the longest bony fish alive. It can reach a length of over 50 feet and weigh as much as 600 pounds.

The generic name Regalecus is derived from the latin word regalis, meaning ‘royal.’ The origin of the oarfish name is unknown, but may refer to the oar-shaped body or the long, oar-like pelvic fins.

Regalecus glesne is a pelagic species found living at great depths to 3,280 feet (1 km), but more typically to depths of 656 feet (0.2 km) throughout the deep seas of the eastern Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea. In a paper published online June 5, 2013 in the Journal of Fish Biology, marine biologists from Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences at the Louisiana State University have reported five new observations of the giant oarfish.

“Regalecus glesne were observed between 2008 and 2011 at depths from within the epipelagic and mesopelagic zones,” the scientists wrote.

“These observations include the deepest verified record of Regalecus glesne (463 – 492 m) and the first record of an arthropod ectoparasite (isopod).”

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Responsible Commercial Fisheries co-exist with Recreational Fishing

From the deck of Charterboat SLAMMER, Deep Sea Charters Wild Game Fish Conservation International: Which country does this belong to, Rhett?

Charterboat SLAMMER Ours. Fishing hake (whiting) Wild Game Fish Conservation International: Thanks, Rhett - seems like the whiting fishery is managed fairly well by the USA and Canada any significant bycatch in this fishery that you're aware of?

Charterboat SLAMMER: They are heavily observed, and have very strict bycatch quotas. They have their own target species quotas by company, and they now target bigger fish and process them for every ounce of product they can get out of them. They also fish out off the shelf, and shallow so they don't impact the groundfish species like they used to. Overall, we have no problem with this sector.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Local Conservation Projects

 Clallam removing two Dungeness buildings out of future restored floodplain May 27, 2013 DUNGENESS — As the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers studies the feasibility of relocating a dike on the east bank of the Dungeness River, Clallam County is preparing to remove two buildings within a 117-acre tract that will eventually be restored as a natural floodplain.

Moving the dike away from the river will abate flood hazards and improve fish and other wildlife habitat in the lower Dungeness River and Dungeness Bay, Clallam County natural resources planner and project coordinator Hannah Merrill said.

The multi-agency, county-coordinated project will affect a mile long stretch of the river south of Anderson Road.

“It's a huge, cooperative effort,” Merrill said.

The Corps of Engineers lists the project as not to exceed $5 million, with most of the funding coming from state Recreation and Conservation Office coffers earmarked for salmon recovery.

The Strait of Juan de Fuca is seen at the top of this aerial shot, with the former 3 Crabs Restaurant at upper right.

Merrill said the levee setback project targets chinook salmon and bull trout, although other species stand to benefit.

Earlier this month, the three Clallam County commissioners called for bids for the deconstruction, salvage and demolition of two buildings in the project zone: a house at 2755 Towne Road and an old barn at 2137 Towne Road.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

“We've gotten some calls,” Merrill said in a briefing to commissioners last week.

Salvageable materials from the old buildings will be made available to those who qualify for a local historic barn program.

Three property owners — including state Rep. Steve Tharinger — and one renter have had to move as a result of the project.

Tuesday, county commissioners approved a letter asking the Salmon Recovery Funding Board to add the state Department of Fish and Wildlife as a co-sponsor to a county grant from the Recreation and Conservation Office.

The addition would reportedly enable Fish and Wildlife to hold title and manage 8 acres of property within the footprint as a part of the lower Dungeness Unit of the North Olympic Wildlife Area.

“If we update [the grant] with this letter, I can work with Fish and Wildlife and acquire this parcel and then put it into title and we're done,” Merrill told commissioners.

But since the project involves local, state, federal and tribal interests and property, the relocation of the dike may not occur for another five years.

“Hopefully sooner than that,” Merrill said.

Commissioner Jim McEntire, whose district covers the Dungeness watershed, questioned whether the county “gives anything up” by adding Fish and Wildlife as a grant partner.

He said the public should be able to walk their dogs and ride their bikes on the new dike “without a need for a Discover Pass,” referring to the State Park system's $30 annual user fee.

“I just want to make sure that we don't induce any marginal cost for our citizens to have access to their land,” McEntire said.

Merrill responded by saying the county will lose nothing if Fish and Wildlife is added as a co-sponsor.

“They also want this to be accessible for the public,” Merrill said.

“It will remain as it is now, which is people can access the levee and walk and bike, and that's how it will continue.”

Built in 1963, the Army Corps dike constricted the river and resulted in increased flows.

Sediment confined to the channel has caused the riverbed to rise. The bottom of the river is now perched above the surrounding floodplain, and county officials have said the dikes are at risk of failing in a flood.

The decades-old effort to restore wildlife habitat in the lower Dungeness is considered to be a top priority of the North Olympic Lead Entity for Salmon and other groups, Merrill said.

The project is about a year behind schedule because of the pending Corps of Engineers' feasibility study, a draft of which may be made available next month.

“They are committed to getting it done,” Clallam County Planning Manager Steve Gray said.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Conservation-minded businesses – please support these fine businesses

 Denise Lake Lodge

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Bravo Restaurant and Lounge

RESERVATIONS: 604-792-7721 OPEN 5PM TUESDAY to SATURDAY 46224 YALE ROAD, CHILLIWACK BC V2P 2P3 A casually elegant cosmopolitan restaurant, with a top-quality innovative menu from the area we live (Pacific North-West Cuisine), in particular to harvesting foods and growing our own herbs to season the experience.

Bravo's unique style is reflected in our ambience, service & menu, and is reinforced by a consistent attention to detail. Our customers enjoy the intimate yet social atmosphere and can relax knowing that they will be well taken care of.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Emerging Rivers Guide Services

""D Deerreekk w waass vveerryy ffo occu usseed do on nu un nd deerrssttaan nd diin ng gw wh haatt II w waass llo oo okkiin ng g ffo orr o on n tth hee ttrriip p.. T Th haatt aatttteen nttiio on n cco om mb biin need dw wiitth h h hiiss kkn no ow wlleed dg gee o off tth hee rriivveerr aan nd dh hiiss ffrriieen nd dllyy p peerrsso on naalliittyy m maad dee tth hee ffllo oaatt vveerryy p prro od du uccttiivvee aan nd d een njjo oyyaab bllee.. T Th hee g geeaarr w waass eexxcceelllleen ntt,, tth hee ffo oo od dw waass eexxcceelllleen ntt,, w wee ccaau ug gh htt ffiissh h cco on nssiisstteen nttllyy..""

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Ocean Ecoventures

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Costa Rica Wild Fishing

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Cabo Sails

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Vedder River Inn

THE VEDDER RIVER INN CHILLIWACK BC HOTEL Nestled in the scenic Fraser Valley, the Vedder River Inn welcomes you to Chilliwack.

Located a few minutes off the Trans Canada Highway, at Vedder Crossing in a central area of town.

We offer a variety of modern Chilliwack hotel rooms and suites, with complimentary internet and in room fridges. A multi-purpose room onsite is ideal for a cozy conference or group gathering.

We are nearby all Chilliwack has to offer, be it fishing on the famous Vedder River, attending an event at Heritage Park, schooling at the University of the Fraser Valley, or training at Canada Lands Education Park, our friendly staff awaits your visit.

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Portage Bay Café and Catering - LOCAL, ORGANIC, SUSTAINABLE

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Attention Conservation-minded Business Owners Many businesses around planet earth rely on healthy populations of wild game fish.

This is true for fishing guide/charter services, resort and hotel owners, fishing tackle and boat retail stores, clothing stores, eco/photo tours, grocery stores, gas stations and many more. In fact, wild game fish are the backbone of a multi-billion dollar per year industry on a global scale.

This is why we at Wild Game Fish Conservation International offer complimentary space in each issue of “LEGACY” for business owners who rely on wild game fish populations to sustain your business. An article with one or more photos about your business and how it relies on wild game fish may be submitted for publication to LEGACY PUBLISHER. Please include your business website and contact information to be published with your business article. Selected submissions will be published each month.

Healthy wild game fish populations provide family wage jobs and balanced ecosystems while ensuring cultural values. They also provide a unique, natural resourcesbased lifestyle for those fortunate to have these magnificent creatures in our lives.

Conservationists working together with the business community effectively protect and restore planet earth’s wild game fish for this and future generations to enjoy and appreciate. This i our LEGACY. WGFCI endorsed conservation organizations:  American Rivers  Global Alliance Against Industrial Aquaculture  LightHawk  Native Fish Society  Salmon Are Sacred  Salmon and Trout Restoration Association of Conception Bay Central, Inc  Save Our Salmon  Sierra Club – Cascade Chapter  Sportsman’s Alliance For Alaska  Steelhead Society of British Columbia  Trout Unlimited  Wild Salmon First  Wild Salmon Forever

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Featured Artists:

 Leanne Hodges – “Revive” Artist, owner: West Coast Wild

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Featured Fishing Photos:

 Fishing with friends on Charterboat Slammer – Westport, Washington

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Best practice – Prepare yourself and your equipment before this happens to you

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 Brian Reid: Rooster Fish (25+ lbs), south of Los Barriles, Mexico

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

 William “Woody” Woods: 225-pound halibut caught in Strait off Sequim (May 31, 2013)

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Recommended Reading

 Alexandra Morton: Listening to Whales

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Video Library – conservation of wild game fish Aquaculture Salmon Confidential: (69:15) The Fish Farm Fight; (6:51) Salmon Wars: Salmon Farms, Wild Fish and the Future of Communities (6:07) The Facts on Fish Farms (60:00+) “Algae culture fish farm” (6:40) Vegetarian Fish? A New Solution for Aquaculture (7:32) Everyone Loves Wild Salmon – Don’t They? - Alexandra Morton (2:53) Atlantic salmon feedlots - impacts to Pacific salmon (13:53) Farmed Salmon Exposed (22:59) Salmon farm diseases and sockeye (13:53) Shame Below the Waves (12:37) Occupy Vancouver, BC - Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:18) Farming the Seas (Steve Cowen) (55:53) Farming the Seas (PBS) (26:45) Cohen Commission – Introduction (9:52) Deadly virus found in wild Pacific salmon (1:57) A tribute by Dr. Alexandra Morton (5:35) Green Interview with Dr. Alexandra Morton (6:06) Closed containment salmon farms (8:15) Don Staniford on 'Secrets of Salmon Farming' (7:50) Greed of Feed: what’s feeding our cheap farmed salmon (10:37) Land-based, Closed-containment Aquaculture (3:14) Hydropower Undamming Elwha (26:46) Salmon: Running the Gauntlet - Snake River dams (50:08) Mining Pebble Mine: “No Means No” (1:15) Locals Oppose Proposed Pebble Mine (7:23) Oil: Extraction and transportation Tar Sands Oil Extraction: The Dirty Truth (11:39) Tar Sands: Oil Industry Above the Law? (1:42) SPOIL – Protecting BC’s Great Bear Rainforest from oil tanker spills (44:00) H2oil - A documentary about the Canadian tar sand oil (3:20) From Tar Sands to Tankers – the Battle to Stop Enbridge (14:58) Risking it All - Oil on our Coast (13:16) To The Last Drop: Canada’s Dirty Oil (22:31) Seafood safety Is your favorite seafood toxic? (6:06)

Legacy – July 2013 Wild Game Fish Conservation International 2013 – Year of the Wild Salmon!

Final Thoughts: Jim Wilcox, publisher

 Open pen feedlot salmon – a societal scourge.

Global consumer rejection of open pen feedlot salmon is essential if wild salmon are to be conserved for this and future generations.

Civilizations would be far better off without feedlot salmon, illegal drugs, pornography and other societal scourges.

Unfortunately, corrupt government leaders are not willing to lose lucrative kick backs associated with these societal scourges – so these un-natural activities are allowed to pollute our fragile society.

At the same time, seemingly educated consumers who should know better follow any crowd (or media campaign) like non-thinking sheep – they must know by now that it is insane to consume diseased, chemically-treated, feedlot salmon and trout.

Clearly, the open pen salmon feedlot industry, like other societal scourges, preys upon trusting, misinformed, bargain-hunting consumers to pollute civilizations with their horrid products – all driven by greed for short term gains at the long term expense of our overall health without fear of meaningful ramifications.

Those who consume feedlot salmon need to wake up and smell the roses – read the overwhelming abundance of peer reviewed and published science: Feedlot salmon are destroying people’s lives and our wild environment.

The war by a growing number of wild salmon warriors to remove open pen salmon feedlots from wild salmon migration routes will be won. For now, it continues one battle at a time.