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[shuswapsteve]

Your comments are scary....   As a fish farmer, is that the standard you find acceptable in the fish you produce? Do you measure the quality of your fish by the number of people that get ill from them? Would you actually eat one of those fish yourself??

Is the public that unaware of what they should be looking for in a fresh fish?

Your comments are scary.  You are passing along another unsubstantiated Morton opinion where we do not even know if these fish came from BC or not.  Morton has no clue about fish pathology, but you trust her assessment of the brains of these fish.  She figures she can dissect the heads of these fish and know what is going on or what is not normal and you buy into it.  I agree that the fish gills do show that the fish may be “off”, but Morton implying that they are diseased is a bit of stretch.  A person needs to do more follow-up work then just taking a photo and making an educated (or uneducated in Morton’s case) guess.  I would trust guys like Dave that use to deal with sort of stuff and stop listening to pretend scientists like Morton.  It is clear that Morton has given up on science to back up her arguments and has instead resorted to attacking the marketability of BC farmed salmon.  This is an easier approach because it involves very little evidence, just a little use of perception and the use of colour photos of fish.  This will likely be a much for successful approach because playing to people’s fears about what they eat is very easy nowadays.

Easywater…Where did that photo come from?  Is it a farmed fish?  What species of fish?  Was it a male or a female?  Was it a prespawn?  Was it a recently recovered carcass or been dead for awhile.  You just can’t show a picture like that without some background to attach to it for some context.  For instance, for your information Pacific Salmon eventually die after spawning.  The longer they are in freshwater (especially if the temperatures are warm) the greater the effects of pathogens on things like the gills.  They are not maintaining their bodies like they were when they were in the ocean.  Energy goes into migrating to the spawning grounds and spawning.  Just because you have fungus on the gills does not necessarily mean that fish farms are to blame.  Issue like prespawn mortality are alarming and should be taken seriously, but people need to stop necessarily blaming salmon farms for this.  As we found in the Cohen Inquiry there is much more we need to know about this problem.

The fish in the picture looks a lot like the Sockeye from Harrison Mills that Morton has on YouTube (I agree with Absolon).  You should understand that Harrison Sockeye have a protracted migration into freshwater where they stay in the Harrison Lake for a period of time before dropping back downstream, spawning in November and December.  Secondly, you don’ t just simply pick up a salmon carcass and determine it has some sort of deadly disease by getting your 2 dollar dissection kit out and your Walmart cutting board.  If this is a Morton sampled fish I would be sceptical of any results from it.  Fortunately, there are dedicated, competent people from the DFO that sample spawning salmon on the spawning grounds.  They actually know how to properly sample salmon carcasses and preserve tissue samples while “fly by your seat” Morton and her merry band of donkeys (i.e. Staniford) have no clue at all what they are doing.

As Bassonator says:  Typical Morton….nuff said.

[absolon]

That picture is of a Harrison Mills fish. Easywater lifted it directly from her blog; it is the tale of woe told immediately preceeding her recounting of this one. I suspect in his fervor to smear the farms, he didn't stop to read the caption.

[alwaysfishn]

Your comments are scary.  You are passing along another unsubstantiated Morton opinion where we do not even know if these fish came from BC or not.  Morton has no clue about fish pathology, but you trust her assessment of the brains of these fish.  She figures she can dissect the heads of these fish and know what is going on or what is not normal and you buy into it.  I agree that the fish gills do show that the fish may be “off”, but Morton implying that they are diseased is a bit of stretch.  A person needs to do more follow-up work then just taking a photo and making an educated (or uneducated in Morton’s case) guess.  I would trust guys like Dave that use to deal with sort of stuff and stop listening to pretend scientists like Morton.  It is clear that Morton has given up on science to back up her arguments and has instead resorted to attacking the marketability of BC farmed salmon.  This is an easier approach because it involves very little evidence, just a little use of perception and the use of colour photos of fish.  This will likely be a much for successful approach because playing to people’s fears about what they eat is very easy nowadays.

It doesn't take a scientist to draw the conclusion that those fish are BC grown fish. The salmon was purchased in Campbell river. Mainstream uses Superstore as one of it's distributors (check their website). Mainstream has fish feedlots near Campbell river.

Why would Superstore import a decomposing salmon from Chile or Norway or anywhere else when they can get them from a few miles away?

Unlike Absolon who is apparently in denial, we agree on one thing, and that's that the fish gills do show that the fish may be “off”. The other thing I'm sure we agree on is that fish is a "farmed fish". Even if it didn't come from a farm near Campbell river, it likely came from BC. Stores like Superstore are very careful in how they manage there costs, including their shipping costs!

[Bassonator]

So Im still waiting, what were the results of the tests on those fish, could you provide a link? ....Didnt think so.

[aquapaloosa]

So Im still waiting, what were the results of the tests on those fish, could you provide a link? ....Didnt think so.

Excuse me Bassonator,  you must have missed the results in the blog.  There was  ewy spongy stuff on the brains, and the gills had a strange growth on them that had never been seen before.  Ok.  lol

I have to correct myself on the expiry date.  It reads 2011 OC 11.  IF this is right and these fish were purchased as stated in mortons blog, the purchase date is Oct 06 which is precisely when she would have known about the fragmented ISA(like) virus results from up north on 2 out of 10 smolts.  The day before the big press release.  There is no doubt that she would have had these atlantics tested.  Maybe and quite possibly the results came back negative. Which is likely why we are only seeing this version of demarketing.
 There is a vial in plain view in one of the photo's.#73  This suggests samples were taken.  Lots of questions.


Where is chris g.  He must be resting up for the big day coming up.  Watch for it. Evening of  Jan 16.  Its going to be a copy and paste-arama.  Just speculating.

[Sandy]

My comments to Sandy have nothing to do with what I find as acceptable quality or how I measure it. They had everything to do with whether the CFIA even had awareness of Morton's claims let alone reason to investigate as Sandy suggested they should have.

If those fish were actually for sale as Morton claims and were actually purchased by customers who ate them and subsequently became ill, the CFIA would investigate. If Alexandra Morton posts pictures of just the head of 1 of 13 fish she says were purchased and claims without any substantiating proof that those fish were diseased but there are no reports of people becoming ill from eating spoiled salmon and no complaints about the store selling them, the CFIA hasn't any reason to be involved. They are an agency with a mandate that doesn't involve accommodating Morton's desire for more fear-mongering press coverage. Presumably Morton herself didn't even file a complaint, and since she was the only one who can document the claim, the obvious question would be why not?

It does seem to be just a few of you claiming the fish are of very poor quality and I'm wondering how you can tell that from the photo provided. There is some gill damage on one but no other photos documenting the gills of the remaining 12 and no photos of the carcasses showing any morphological damage or deterioration. The damage in no way resembles the picture posted by easy water, not surprising since that particular fish was a post-spawn wild mort that Morton picked up in Harrison Mills as a quick trip to Morton's queendom will reveal. Given Morton's record of handling samples, it wouldn't surprise me to hear that she drove around in a warm car for a week with these in a shopping bag on the back seat before setting up her photo shoot with the inevitable consequence of deterioration of the gill tissue.

my point re: tainted meat, is based on past experiences with government meat inspectors, or in particular a family member who was one for 30years. They were often called to investigate or document tainted meats that are found in the retail chains by local health authorities or had been reported as questionable, subsequent to the initial processing. Cut backs within the system has been one of the problems identified in that it is not as easy for inspectors to do spot checking.
I think most are missing that there two differant blogs sort of conjoined in that link. Bad writting ? I am just as guilty,! other reasons ? I am trying to keep my mind open.

I still say, closed containment and the open reporting of any medications or ingredients of farm fish should be the minimum. Let people be educated and make their own choices as to whether they wish to ingest said food : I also feel the same about GMO meats or other foods.
As for net pens;  There is no reason that one industry or another should be given a free pass when it comes to pollution or potential cross contamination of food sources.

[Casey Martin]

That picture is of a Harrison Mills fish. Easywater lifted it directly from her blog; it is the tale of woe told immediately preceeding her recounting of this one. I suspect in his fervor to smear the farms, he didn't stop to read the caption.

Uhhmmmm......dude, that's not a farm fish. It's a post spawn wild mort taken, according to Morton, from Harrison Mills. That growth on the gills is Saprolegnia, an endemic freshwater fungus that takes hold on dying fish. Salmon do that after they spawn and everyone of them gets attacked by Saprolegnia unless they get eaten by a bear first.

Did you stop and read the caption??? Its said they found no dead post spawn fish that day,  all the dead fish were still chome and full of eggs. Easy water never said " this is a farmed fish in the picture"  he just stated that that fish doesnt look right. How many post spawn salmon have you seen as chrome as those fish are??? Please take a little more time and think about your posts before you go accuseing someone smearing fish farms. Your only making yourself look foolish. Attack the points stated not the person.

[Dave]

 How many post spawn salmon have you seen as chrome as those fish are???

Thousands.  It is very common and mortalities are most likely caused by a parasite called Parvicapsula minibicornis.  This parasite causes kidney failure and is most often seen in sockeye (and other salmonids) that enter fresh water earlier than normal and especially so when water temperatures are higher than normal.
Like the Harrison this year.

[troutbreath]

Dave I'd like to know the recipe your using on those slightly rotton fish.


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chow%20Mama

[absolon]

Did you stop and read the caption??? Its said they found no dead post spawn fish that day,  all the dead fish were still chome and full of eggs. Easy water never said " this is a farmed fish in the picture"  he just stated that that fish doesnt look right. How many post spawn salmon have you seen as chrome as those fish are??? Please take a little more time and think about your posts before you go accuseing someone smearing fish farms. Your only making yourself look foolish. Attack the points stated not the person.

The more relevant question is what has that picture got to do with a thread about farmed Atlantic salmon purchased from Save-On in Campbell River?