Disagreement over salmon virus in Canada
Activist scientist finds virus in fish, Canadian government does not Posted: December 11, 2011 - 12:19am
Disagreement over salmon virus in Canada
JUNEAU EMPIRE
An independent British Columbia researcher is accusing the Canadian government of covering up years of positive tests for the potentially deadly Infectious Salmon Anemia virus.
“Fish disease has become a federal secret in Canada,” fish researcher Dr. Alexandra Morton said. “I believe it is because it is everywhere and no one wants to admit it.”
Canadian officials have refuted Morton’s claims.
In a letter to Fisheries and Oceans Canada Minister Keith Ashfield, Morton said the Canadian government’s lack of action has failed its constituency.
“This has unacceptable biological, economic, international and market implications,” Morton said. “So we have stepped into the void you created. We will form a plan when all our results are in and we will give you direction in the New Year. Salmon diseases are no longer a federal secret. We will protect our fish. We are not going to beg help from you any longer.”
Dr. Gary Marty with the Canada Food Inspection Agency, the researcher who did the most recent ISAv test for the Canadian government, said Morton is not qualified to make the interpretations she does.
“She does not have advanced training in medicine or pathology,” he said. However, Marty said, he does have respect for “her powers of observation.”
“When she records something, I can use that, and helps me understand what is going on,” he said.
Activist scientist sounds the alarm
Morton is a researcher with the Raincoast Research Society. In her decades-long career as an activist scientist she has studied algal blooms and sea lice in BC waters and fought to end fish farms’ use of acoustic deterrence on sea mammals, including orca whales. Simon Fraser University awarded Morton and honorary doctorate of science.
Her 10-year-long study of sea lice, she said, prepared her for the ISAv fight. She said at first the Canadian government denied the sea lice problem. “Now it is very clear,” she said. So when she hears the government’s current denials of ISAv she said she believes she is seeing the same thing.
Recently Morton traveled to BC’s Fraser River, the site of a massive salmon collapse in 2009, to collect salmon samples to test for the virus. (The recent ISA scare prompted a commission looking into the Fraser River salmon collapse to reopen its investigation for three days in December to look into the possible role the virus may have had in the collapse. Find out more at
www.cohencommission .ca)
Fraser River is located 600 kilometers south of River’s Inlet, the site where researchers found two sockeye salmon smolt in October that were suspected to carry the virus and possibly exhibiting signs of the disease.
Morton collected 10 salmon at Fraser River that had died before spawning. She sent the fresh samples to independent labs for testing.
“We found [the virus] in the heart of one of the coho and in the gills of a 25 pound king salmon,” Morton said. “This salmon was yellow.” She said she also found the virus in the gills of a chum salmon, and later in a sockeye.
“So far I’ve only got a positive test in salmon that have died before spawning, so you can’t call them healthy fish,” Morton said.
Morton sent her samples to independent testing facilities in Prince Edward Island, Canada, and Oslo, Norway. “I picked these labs because they are good at what they do,” Morton said. She said the scientists who tested her samples have received push back since releasing the results.
Morton said the Canadian government won’t acknowledge the results from the test she commissioned. Her explanation is not flattering to Canada’s leaders.
Morton said conflicting commercial interests may make the Canadian government hesitant to address the situation openly.
In Canada wild salmon are “in the way” of hydroelectric dams, resource development and fish farms, she said. Therefore, Morton said, she doesn’t think the government has much reason or impetus to respond. “Really, Canadian fish are dying due to a lack of political will,” she said.
Previous test by a post-graduate student researcher wasn’t published
This is not the first time a researcher has found the virus in Canada’s salmon. A post-graduate student named Molly Kibenge studied hundreds of salmon for the virus in 2004. Her results found 115 positive results for the virus in Pacific salmon out of a sample size of 460. The virus was found in 36 out of 116 chinook salmon tested, 15 out of 88 pink salmon and 64 out of 103 sockeye salmon. The test has been called into question because all 64 of the sockeye that tested positive came from the same location. The virus was also found in one Atlantic salmon out of a sample size of two.
Kibenge’s finding were initially not published.
However, with the recent possible instance of the virus, Kibenge asked Canadian officials to publish her original findings.
Her request was turned down due to ongoing tests and an ongoing inquiry into the Fraser River salmon collapse called the Cohen Commission, according to Dr. Simon Jones, Aquatic Animal Health Station.
“I will wait to hear the outcome of these processes before further discussion on a 7-year-old manuscript, Jones said.
Some of Kibenge’s results have been confirmed by the Atlantic Veterinarian College, according to Morton.
The most recent flare-up of public interest into the virus stated in October of this year when the virus may have been detected in two juvenile sockeye salmon north of Vancouver Island at Rivers Inlet which empties into Queen Charlotte Sound.
Several species of salmon and trout can carry the deadly virus without showing symptoms, according to a report by Iowa State’s Center for Food Security and Public Health.
Infected fish are highly contagious, whether wild of farmed, and can transmit the disease to and between Atlantic salmon with devastating effects. The disease, also known as hemorrhagic kidney syndrome, can be difficult to detect in fish farms and can cause nearly 100 percent mortality. There is no treatment.
Although Pacific salmon may carry the virus without mortal effects, it is possible for a virus to undergo deadly mutations. The report’s authors compared this to outbreaks of highly virulent strains of avian influenza. ISA virus does not transmit to humans.
The 48 salmon smolt tested did not show signs of disease, said Dr. Ted Meyers, Chief Pathologist for Alaska Department of Fish and Game in an earlier interview. They were collected for routine stomach analysis, he said. The test for infectious salmon anemia was secondary. “We are concerned and we want to see further testing, but it is an Atlantic virus and Pacific salmon are resistant to this virus. So it is not time to panic,” Meyers said.
Since that interview the Canadian government has conducted further tests. Researchers at the Canada Food Inspection Agency reported they did not find any sign of ISA virus in these tests.
“The virus is widely reported in Atlantic salmon stocks in Norway, so there is no reason it would not have come into BC in the tens of millions of eggs imported, Morton said. Unless we are very smart about this, use everything known and act wisely, we will pay the price,” she said.
Both Morton and Canadian officials are bewildered by the others’ findings.
The Canada Food Inspection Agency has not had a single positive test for the virus in over 7,000 tests in the last decade including 1,600 in 2011, much of which came in the last couple months.
“Yet,” Morton said “I’m finding it all over the place.”
Morton believes the lack of government findings is due to the testing procedure it uses. “If it mutates a little you won’t be able to detect the virus,” she said.
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