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[shuswapsteve]

Too bad these FN leaders don't follow the science that has been so readily available regarding salmon population declines this past year.
There is so much information regarding this subject these people seem to miss or perhaps just gloss over.  I find this sad as I worked with many FN communities and this disconnect just makes them look incompetent in news stories like this one.

It is also too bad that the media and critics are using the wrong forecast numbers and not providing the proper context to this. For instance, in the CTV article the 50p forecast for Fraser Sockeye was 6.8 Million. The probability range (what should be referred to) was 2.4 Million (10p) to 23.6 Million (90p). For the Adams, the 50p preseason forecast was not 1.2 million.  1.2 Million represents the 50p preseason forecast for the Late Run aggregate which includes the Adams.  It is not possible to separate Adams from the other Late South Thompson Sockeye for forecasting.  The forecast for Late South Thompson ranged from 168,000 (10p) to 1.8 Million (90p).  Forecasts can have a lot of uncertainty and with the record breaking year in 2010 it meant that there was a lot of uncertainty in the 5 year old forecast.  Forecast models were being extrapolated beyond observed stock-recruitment ranges. Forecasts need to be looked at as a distribution instead of a single point estimate at 50p.

What is funny is that those critics that criticize these forecasts for being wrong, botched and not to be trusted seem to have no problem using them to show how many fish that are apparently missing at this time of the year. All the sudden all that uncertainty goes out the window and now they can be relied on to show all these missing fish.  Those 1.2 Million now represent real fish in their minds, but on the other hand those numbers are never right.  Which is it...lol?  These critics should know that in 2014 most stocks came in between 25% and 75% p-levels indicating close to average survival.  Although this season at the Adams may be very disappointing, critics might also want to know that over the long term Late South Thompson Sockeye have had steady productivity when compared to other Fraser River Sockeye stocks. This is all in the 2015 forecast that guys like Chamberlain and most reporters lately failed to read.

Considering that abnormally warm water has been sitting off our coast since 2013 and has impacted food items (nutritious northern zooplankton being replaced with less nutritious southern species) that Fraser Sockeye feed on I find it strange that not one report so far over the past week has even mentioned it and instead focused all their attention on fish farms.  Also, these reports do not even mention the big numbers of Chinook this season. How does any of these reports gloss over that?  Do these Chinook just bypass these fish farms?  So, if Harrison Sockeye comes in under brood what does that say about Morton's theory about Harrison Sockeye being so much more successful than other Fraser Sockeye stocks because they avoid fish farms?  Obviously there is more to this and hopefully research efforts by real scientists (not Morton) will help answer some of these questions. At least we can hear right from these DFO scientists now instead of having an edited, cherry-picked version from everyone's favourite activist.

http://www.dfo-mpo.gc.ca/csas-sccs/Publications/ScR-RS/2015/2015_014-eng.pdf

[aquapaloosa]

Thanks Steve. I always enjoy reading your posts. Very informative.

[Fisherbob]

http://advocate.gaalliance.org/aquaculture-exchange-barry-costa-pierce-une/

[chris gadsden]

More for the boys to dissect including comments made by Miller.

So refreshing to see them allowed to speak freely now.

Kristi Miller, molecular geneticist in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans

When Kristi Miller testified in 2011 at the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the decline of Fraser River sockeye salmon, she was accompanied by an earpiece-wearing security guard and a communications specialist. The message was clear: There would be no chatting with reporters.

Four years later, Dr. Miller looks back and describes the moment as a “surreal experience.”

“To be that controlled, it almost made you nervous,” she said. “They were almost trying to make you afraid of the public, and afraid of the media.”

Dr. Miller also recalls having to get several levels of approval if she wanted to participate in workshops where the media might be present. Most of these requests were denied. In the rare instances they were approved, a media handler was assigned to accompany her.

“It felt like being treated like a child, to be perfectly honest,” Dr. Miller said. “I found it quite irritating that I wasn’t trusted to communicate the messages from my own work, that the only person who could effectively communicate the messages from my work was a communications expert.”

A four-year-long study led by Dr. Miller had found that there was a specific genomic signature present in salmon that was predictive of whether they would survive the journey to the spawning grounds.

“That was really the first time that we had demonstrated that freshwater environment alone is not a complete explanation for the massive die-offs that were occurring,” she said. “There was something about the condition of the salmon before they entered the river that was exacerbating [conditions for mortality] in the river.”

That mortality-related signature was consistent with a viral infection – which could have posed a threat to the aquaculture industry.

“That’s really what made the government nervous: not the genomics or the precondition, but the hypothesis that that precondition was a disease,” Dr. Miller said.

Meanwhile, Dr. Miller and her team have developed a platform that can screen for dozens of disease-causing microbes – viruses, bacteria, micro-parasites – at once.

“Basically, the full range of microbes that are associated with diseases in salmon worldwide, we can detect them – and we can detect them incredibly quickly,” Dr. Miller said.

“What’s exciting about this is that we are ahead of the curve, even of the human world. You can’t go into a human diagnostic lab and in 24 hours be tested for 45 different pathogens. This is the first time in my career in genomics that I have been ahead of the curve when it comes to human medicine.”


http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/british-columbia/three-scientists-on-the-research-they-couldnt-discuss-to-media-under-harper/article27244717/

[Dave]

Nothing to dissect Chris, too bad the Globe and Mail didn't do some research and get her name right though   It's Kristi Miller-Saunders.
More mean nothing journalism from a crappy newspaper; nothing was said we don't already know.

[shuswapsteve]

The sad thing is that this control of the message by our previous government was not only disrespectful to those scientists mentioned and many others like them, but it actually created more suspicion and misinformation than what it was "supposed to" prevent. Instead of being proactive and having the proper people talk on a subject in a timely manner, government was reactive and constantly on the defensive for no reason.  If the message wasn't going through approved communication channels (i.e. people who didn't know what they were talking about) then a void was created.  This void was then filled by individuals who didn't know what they were taking about either.  The result was the public was getting the wrong information and not from the individuals who should be talking about it.  It created cynicism and distrust with government and ultimately culminated in the results we saw on October 19th.  It's been frustrating the past 5 years watching the media interview people talking about research that should really be done by the person who did the work.

[chris gadsden]

Thousands of British Columbians from all backgrounds have been mobilizing to get fish farms out of the oceans for more than 15 years. This movement is growing and will not stop until this is accomplished because what is at stake is the cost of many jobs in the wild salmon economy, and more unravelling of the ecosystems on the coast and along the river systems. Added to this, health experts warn consumers not to consume farmed Atlantic salmon due to high levels of contamination.

With Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his new cabinet determined to make a sharp break from the oppressive Harper conservative government, we are taking the new Liberal government up on their election campaign promises related to protecting wild salmon and its habitat from fish farms and other threats as a top priority. Letters are being written to the Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard asking for a meeting to address the Liberal Party's promise to act on the Cohen Commission recommendations. Alexandra Morton and I sent the Honourable Hunter Tootoo the following letter by email:

 Minister’s Office, November 12, 2015
 Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard
 200 Kent Street, Station 15N100
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6

 Dear Minister Tootoo,

 Subject: Cohen Commission Recommendations and Fish FarmsPlease accept our congratulations for your appointment as Minister of the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO). The Harper government cast the Cohen Commission report in the dustbin, and abdicated its responsibility to protect wild salmon and their habitat. We are encouraged that the Liberal Party of Canada made a commitment to act on the 2012 Cohen Commission recommendations on restoring sockeye salmon stocks in the Fraser River, and that real change with the Liberal government will include working with the provinces, indigenous peoples and other stakeholders to use our marine resources efficiently. Further, we are pleased that your government is committed to empower coastal communities to manage their resources and ensure co-management of our oceans. The current situation calls for an immediate halt to any expansion of fish farms until the Cohen Commission recommendations have been fully and transparently implemented, with all stakeholders involved. River First Nations have not given their consent to have fish farms on the migration routes of Fraser River wild salmon. Fish farms pose a threat to Aboriginal titleholders’ right to a salmon fishery, an integral part of our spiritual, cultural and physical well-being. First Nations have made it clear that both levels of government and corporations must honor the duty to consult with, and obtain the consent of, First Nation titleholders respecting industrial fish farms. Although the Cohen Commission focused on Fraser sockeye, salmon coastwide are also endangered by ocean fish farms in BC, and must be equally protected. The attached map clearly shows how widespread this is. We fully support the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance’s call for a moratorium on all salmon aquaculture ventures on the West coast. This is warranted, especially in light of another collapse of sockeye salmon returns this year, and as the provincial government approves an increase of industrial effluent into the Fraser. We are in solidarity with the Ahousaht First Nation people, who more recently negotiated with Cermaq the removal of a new fish farm that was going to be established in their territory. We are signatories to a petition signed by 110,000 British Columbians in May 2015 asking the province not to issue licenses of occupation to the salmon farms bent on expanding in BC, because we believe wild salmon are much too important to allow a dirty industry that refuses to contain its untreated waste, adding to our over-polluted ocean.Your ministry must not allow multi-year licenses to fish farms that the Harper government set up to take effect in December 2015, given so much science is underway on the potential impact of disease transmission to wild salmon, which Justice Cohen called potentially “serious or irreversible.” The precautionary principle needs to be upheld in favour of resurgence of wild salmon. This principle needs to be applied to protect all wild salmon as a priority over the ocean aquaculture industry and needs to be firmly embedded in the Fisheries Act as a means of removing DFO’s current conflict of interest in promoting, encouraging and supporting ocean aquaculture at the expense of the marine environment and wild fisheries. With emerging land-based closed containment aquaculture, we hope you will see an opportunity to support this as the sustainable way for aquaculture and wild salmon fisheries to safely co-exist.We support the First Nations Wild Salmon Alliance’s call for an urgent meeting to discuss the plunging salmon returns in British Columbia’s rivers as a meaningful step in “a smarter co-management of our ocean,” which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau included in the Liberal Party election platform. We thank you for your attention to this urgent matter and we look forward to your prompt response.

 Eddie Gardner Alexandra Morton
Wild Salmon Defenders Alliance Salmon Are Sacred

[Fisherbob]

http://salmonfarmscience.com/2014/05/12/activist-alexandra-morton-lies-on-national-tv/

The remarks at the bottom of the link are a good read also.

[shuswapsteve]

I thought this was a timely tid-bit considering the recent noise being generated by Morton.

The decline of the Fraser sockeye began when salmon farms were put on their migration route. Only the sockeye that pass close by salmon farms declined. It was discovered that the extremely large numbers of Fraser sockeye dying were fighting a virus. When a DFO scientist found strong evidence that the Fraser sockeye were dying of a virus similar to a disease outbreak in salmon farms, DFO terminated the research and muzzled her. When the salmon farms known to carry Salmon Leukemia were removed, traces of the virus vanished in the Fraser sockeye and a large number of Fraser sockeye returned. Today, we are seeing lower number of salmon farms and larger runs of sockeye. – Alexandra Morton (http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/fraser_sockeye_vs_farmed_/)

Compare this with an interview of Dr. Kristi Miller-Saunders where she talks about the study (Genomic Signatures Predict Migration and Spawning Failure in Wild Canadian Salmon published in the prestigious journal “Science” in January 2011) and repeatedly states that a virus has not been discovered:

Question: Did it show there is a virus in farmed salmon?
Miller: No. First of all, the involvement of a virus in eliciting the mortality-related signature (MRS) was only a hypothesis, as no specific disease agent was identified in this study. Second, this study was based solely on wild sockeye salmon returning to spawn in the Fraser River, not farmed salmon. Importantly, the MRS was observed in fish tagged both in Johnstone Strait and in Juan de Fuca Strait, and unpublished data shows the signature is also present in salmon migrating through the Haida Gwaii, before they would have encountered salmon farms.

Question: Can farmed salmon be tested for this virus?
Miller: Farmed salmon could be tested to see if they carry the genomic signature, but again, the study did not identify a specific virus (disease agent). Research aiming to identify whether a viral pathogen is involved in eliciting this signature is underway. If a specific virus is identified using the molecular sequencing approaches being applied, it could be tested on farmed salmon.

Question: Where could the virus have come from?
Miller: Again, at the present time, there is not a specific virus identified, so we simply can’t answer this question. However, if a specific virus is identified, molecular epidemiological approaches could be applied to answer these questions.

http://www.cahs-bc.ca/sites/default/files/Miller_GenomicSignatures_Jan2011-V2.pdf

This is why I am happy that the new Federal government will now allow those that did the work to actually speak about it to the media instead of having unqualified individuals who know nothing about Pacific salmon providing the wrong information.  According to Morton’s new theory just last year, she suggests that we have more Fraser Sockeye returning now because there are lower number salmon farms.  Ok…..so if the number of salmon farms is lower then the 2014 and 2015 returns should meet or exceed brood according to her theory?  So far, that theory appears to be failing bad.  However, there is actually no correlation at all if one looks at the number of active sites and the data Morton chose to omit (i.e. 2008).  Lastly, Chinook farms also continue to operate in the Discovery Islands area.  It is funny how she no longer talks about this theory from last year.  Seeing as though the new mandate letter for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans calls for decisions to be based on science, facts, and evidence it could be a long, frustrating 4 years for Morton and Gardner.

http://bcsalmonfarmers.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/2014_Correction-Fraser-Sockeye-vs.-Farmed-Salmon.pdf

[Dave]

Seeing as though the new mandate letter for the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans calls for decisions to be based on science, facts, and evidence it could be a long, frustrating 4 years for Morton and Gardner.

There you go again Steve, spouting facts.  You gotta know that won't sway the people who just can't get their heads around the fact their goddess is nothing but a shamanistic phony. Oh well, during their down time Eddy may learn a few new drum beats

[chris gadsden]

There you go again Steve, spouting facts.  You gotta know that won't sway the people who just can't get their heads around the fact their goddess is nothing but a shamanistic phony. Oh well, during their down time Eddy may learn a few new drum beats

Shamanism (/ˈʃɑːmən/ SHAH-mən or /ˈʃeɪmən/ SHAY-mən) is a practice that involves a practitioner reaching altered states of consciousness in order to perceive and interact with a spirit world and channel these transcendental energies into this world.


Fits some others I know too.

[Dave]

I think you might be in an altered state right about now   Your team was better than mine tonight ... gaaawd I hate to say that

[chris gadsden]

I think you might be in an altered state right about now   Your team was better than mine tonight ... gaaawd I hate to say that

Two things I need to do is make you a Leaf fan and get you on board with us about the FF's. Gosh I wish I could find that picture I took of you with Alex from a few years ago.

[Dave]

I deleted it from your camera

[chris gadsden]

I deleted it from your camera