“Lost” salmon, eh? (Sorry, that’s a little Canadian humor – or is it ‘humour’?).

I think we were supposed to turn left...

The Canadian Prime Minister, Stephen Harper, today announced that there will be a judicial inquiry into the disappearance of about 10 million sockeye salmon that were supposed to show up this summer to the Fraser River. The Fraser River runs right threw the little town known as Vancouver, British Columbia – hey, Mr. Harper, you might want to start your inquiry there.

But many people have many fingers to point. Some suggest native fishermen illegally fishing, others suggest warming river temperatures. The list continues; over-fishing, pollution, habitat destruction, lack of food sources, flooding, urbanization, new predators (squid), salmon farms, fertilizer run-off, salmon ranching…yes, salmon ranching.

Dr. Craig Orr, biologist at Watershed Watch, today suggested that hatchery fish may have eaten the ocean dry – someones been reading this blog, huh Mr. Orr? Well, you may be on to something Craig, because 5 billion hatchery salmon are released from Alaska, Russia and Asia to compete for food with wild salmon. These hatchery fished were happily feeding in the Bering Sea before those Canadian sockeye had even shown their fishy passports at customs.

But before all the finger pointing gets put under oath, you may want to answer the most important question – Lost? Were they ever there in the first place?

Discharging fish waste from a fish processing plant without a permit: we’re pretty sure that’s not a good thing, but good to see regulators taking action.

An Alaska processing plant may be fined $177,500 by the U.S.

Illegal dumping

 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for violations of the federal Clean Water Act.  Announced November 3rd, 2009, the Chilkoot Fish & Caviar plant has allegedly repeatedly violated its permit over the past four years and could face a penalty of $177,550, the maximum civil penalty allowed under the Clean Water Act. 

“Fish processing waste, especially from shore-based facilities, can cause serious harm to the marine environment in the surrounding area,” said Edward Kowalski, EPA’s Director of Compliance and Enforcement in Seattle.

Fish wastes are the unused portions of the processed fish. Fish processing waste from the Chilkoot plant runs into Lutak Inlet. Lutak Inlet is a tributary of Lynn Canal.

Read the full release here.

Well, well, well. We won’t take any credit here (well, maybe a bit), but it does seem that the information provided on this blog is catching on, quicker than we thought. Today, Canadian journalist Tom Fletcher has released an article in over 70 newspapers which describes the clever (and quite possibly illegal) marketing of U.S. salmon.  This is good and echoes many statements made in this blog. You can view the entire article here, but in the meantime, here are some highlights;

If you go to the grocery store and buy a can of sockeye salmon right now, chances are it will say “product of U.S.A.” on the label.The can I’m holding was sold as a house brand at a large B.C. supermarket chain. The label states the ingredients – sockeye salmon and salt – along with Canada’s mandatory nutrition facts chart. It doesn’t specify that it’s from Alaska, which it likely is, but it does have a logo that says “wild Pacific salmon,” which is, to say the least, debatable.

With some B.C. sockeye runs in an apparent state of collapse, our commercial and even aboriginal food fisheries banned this year, Alaska and Washington state fisheries are relatively strong. The reason for this is the U.S. practice of salmon ‘ranching,’ where billions of salmon fry are raised in tanks, fed pellets until they’re big enough and then released to sea.

Ranched Pacific salmon don’t just flood the whole West Coast habitat, they interbreed freely with wild stocks. The Americans ranch chum, pink and Chinook as well as sockeye. As a result, Koenings testified in a Seattle court Oct. 23, all but four of Puget Sound’s watersheds are now dominated by hatchery fish. He warned that if the state focuses strictly on access work now, they will soon dominate the rest and the state’s wild salmon will be gone.

As I described last week, none of this is discussed in B.C. political circles. Here it’s all about the alleged evils of fish farms. Why? According to research brought to my attention last week, one reason is a staggeringly big negative marketing campaign financed by U.S. private foundations to discredit farmed salmon as a food source.

Former Kitimat resident Vivian Krause has assembled a heavily documented critique of the campaign, which has flooded North American media with exaggerated warnings, first about PCBs in farmed salmon, and now about the hazards of sea lice.

In the past two years, Krause has pestered two of B.C.’s environmental demigods, David Suzuki and Alexandra Morton, to detail the extent of the funding their foundations have accepted to take part in a “demarketing” campaign that demonizes fish farms and coincidentally benefits Alaska and Washington interests.

She documents that the David Suzuki Foundation has received more than $10 million from these U.S. sources.

 Tom Fletcher is legislative reporter and columnist for Black Press and BCLocalnews.com

http://www.bclocalnews.com/vancouver_island_central/nanaimonewsbulletin/opinion/68866257.html

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has just passed a bill (AB 1217 – October 12, 2009) that will see the Ocean Protection Council develop standards on sustainable fishing practices.  The California bill’s intention is to support

"Hasta La Vista" Alaska salmon

 fishermen who fish sustainably and provide a labelling system for seafood that may meet these standards. Sounds great.

But, it may not include 40% of Alaska’s annual salmon catch.

The bill will “prohibit seafood produced through aquaculture or fish farming from being certified as sustainable”. And as this blog clearly points out – 40% of the salmon catch in Alaska (2008 figures) were raised in hatcheries and net pens for a large portion of their lives. This is aquaculture.

It should be no surprise to readers of this blog, that the bill was written with assistance from the staff at Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch Program. If you don’t already know, the aquarium has long “de-marketed” aquaculture products and have purposely ignored the fact that Alaska salmon is produced through aquaculture facilities.  In MBA’s own words, “This new law will encourage more sustainable fishing in California and help our fishermen compete in global markets that increasingly demand seafood from sustainable sources”.  (we have added the emphasis for obvious reasons – it’s really all about marketing).

Perhaps no one has told Mr. Schwarzenegger that he has been duped into signing a bill that is merely an extention of the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s protectionism and marketing program for Alaska salmon?

But to be honest, who would want to tell Conan the Barbarian that he is oblivious to fact. Oops, we just did.

It has long been accepted practice for U.S. philanthropic foundations to support environmental groups who have a hate on for salmon culture.

Let’s ignore for a moment that Alaska is one of the largest salmon culturers in the world. 

A new report now clearly shows that there is a strong link between these U.S. Foundations and the Alaska salmon fishery. It’s no secret that Alaska has hated competition from salmon farmers (again, let’s ignore that Alaska farms 1.5 billion salmon each year). But, it is now becoming clearer that Alaska has enjoyed the support of these wealthy foundations to create a “smear” campaign against the competing farmers.

Bruce Lloyd, columnist, writes:

In a nutshell, an American fishing industry organization named ”SeaWeb” has paid in excess of US$8.5 million to co-ordinate a program called “Seafood Choices”

This marketing strategy puts pressure on such stores as Wal-Mart and the like to only sell seafood certified by the Marine Stewardship Council which is primarily Alaska salmon.

The overblown claims and constant attack on fish farms that we have witnessed here in B.C. has in large part been proof of the veracity of the old adage that “if you say something long enough it becomes fact” to be sure.

Never mind that such “green” organizations – such as the Packard Foundation and others - have drawn monies from this “innocent” industrial fund to pay for “research” that runs contrary to a lot of the peer-reviewed research other organizations have been doing.

Check out the full piece at;

http://www.bclocalnews.com/opinion/64003957.html

A new study supported by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation takes aim fish farms….again. The study concludes that half of the fish consumed globally is now raised on farms.

It also raises concerns that this may put additional pressures on fish meal and oil fisheries that provide protein to most farmed aquatic species.

This is a valid concern and must require a careful approach to ensure sustainable development of the global aquaculture industry.

But, what we found particularly interesting is the special focus on one farmed species -salmon. One of the authors, Rosamond L. Naylor (Stanford University) claims that it takes “5 pounds of wild fish to produce 1 pound of salmon”.

• First of all, her math is way off (it takes less than 2 pounds to produce 1 pound of salmon, and this ratio continues to improve quickly).
• Secondly, it fails to recognize that salmon farming only utilizes about 10% of the world’s fish meal – the rest is fed to chickens, pigs, cats and dogs at a far less efficient ratio than salmon).
• Thirdly, it fails to mention that fish (salmon included) are the most efficient users of fish meal. Salmon are cold-blooded and don’t waste valuable energy heating their bodies like chickens and your cat Fluffy.
• Finally, and most strikingly, is the apparent (purposeful?) omission of important context…

Salmon isn’t just farmed, it’s also ranched. Ranching salmon utilizes far more fish meal (pound for pound) than farming (ranched salmon consume 100% fish meal whereas farms now utilize less than 20% fish meal in their diet). Japan, Russia and Alaska ranch over 5 billion salmon each year – far more fish than all the salmon farmers produce in the world.

PAY ATTENTION TO THE NEXT PART: 

The main funder of this study, the Packard Foundation, is also the main sponsor of Monterey Bay Aquarium’s SEAfood Watch program. The SEAfood Watch purpotes to base it’s seafood grading system on science and has given all Alaska salmon a green light (eat lots!) and all farmed salmon a red light (do not eat!). According to officials at SEAfood Watch, the #1 reason for the red light to farmed salmon is because of the fish meal consumed.

WTF Ms. Packard? Why do you continue to ignore the fact that Alaska salmon consume more fish meal than farmed salmon? Why do you sponsor paid spokespeople like Ms. Naylor and make them sound so stupid? Do you have to make it that obvious that your Foundation and your SEAfood Watch program is light on science and heavy on politics?

If Ms. Lucile Packard is actually dead, we apologize. Please forward this to her next of kin for us.

Posted by Sean Holman at Public Eye Online:

Last week, (Canadian) federal Liberal parliamentarian Ujjal Dosanjh called for an cross-border conference to address the collapse of the Fraser River’s sockeye (2009) salmon run.

But, in an interview on Public Eye Radio, former (Canadian) fisheries and oceans minister David Anderson said, “If we want successful salmon summits, we have to start bringing in the Russians, the Japanese, the North Koreans and others.” “We have about five billion artificially-raised Pacific salmon going into the ocean from hatcheries from mostly on the Western side – in Russia, Japan, North Korea – on the other side of the ocean,” he explained. “So we don’t know what those artificially-raised fish do to the natural populations of fix they mix with on the other side of the ocean.”

Correct David and well said. By “others“, we assume you’re referring to Alaska. It’s OK, don’t be afraod to say it!  Afterall, of the 5 billion ranched salmon, Alaska is responsible for 1.5 billion of the little suckers.

If wealthy U.S. Foundations won’t talk about it, then we’re glad Canadian politicians are!

The King Salmon (commonly referred to as Chinook) has disappeared from many rivers in Alaska in 2009. No one is sure exactly why, but here are some possibilities, as reported at redorbit.com;

• availability of food
• predator/prey imbalance
• changing river conditions
• changing ocean currents
• plankton blooms
• incidental capture of Kings in pollock trawl nets

Any other ideas? Oh yeah, we’ve got one!

Alaska’s salmon ranching program pumps out billions of salmon (mainly Pink and Chum species)that compete with wild salmon in the ocean for food, but only produces minimal amounts of King salmon. Could ranched salmon, given the head start in a hatchery, be outcompeting wild King salmon for food? It’s seems a little too coincidental that the one species not heavily enhanced is the one not returning at historic levels.

Please welcome the elephant that just entered the room.

This blog has featured Vital Choice Wild Seafood and Organics a couple of times. We’ve exposed the fact that this company promotes its products by attacking the competition. You know, the ‘ol “only eat wild, don’t eat farmed” rhetoric.

It’s obvious why – by attacking your largest competitor you can sell more of your product. Hey, it’s how politicians get elected and governments are formed!

But, someone the other day challenged us – do you have proof? So, we went looking…it didn’t take us long.

Here’s a quote from their website:

“Vital Choice contributes a portion of its net profits to the Weil Foundation, Raincoast Research Society, the Live Strong Foundation, The Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and other causes devoted to improving the health and well being of people and the planet that sustains us.”

So let us explain the significance of three of these “payouts” – and it ain’t because they improve the health of people and planet.

The Weil Foundation: Dr. Andrew Weil (Nutritionist for clients such as Oprah Winfrey) is paid to endorse Vital Choice products. Fair enough. Simply endorsing is one thing BUT this is the guy that appeared on Larry King Live in January of 2004 and pleaded for people to stay away from unhealthy foods which included pop, chips and…..farm-raised salmon. Come on Andrew, can you be any more obvious?

Raincoast Research Society: This Society is being paid by commercial fishing interest groups to attack farm-raised salmon. The latest study produced by this Society claimed up to 95% (the low number in the range was 9%, but no one uses that number!) of out-migrating juvenile salmon were perishing from farm produced sea lice (sea lice are found naturally on wild juvenile salmon by the way). The study was ripped apart by no less than twenty of the world’s leading fisheries scientists as a completely unfounded claim.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium: Ok, these guys produce the Seafood Watch pamphlets. So, MBA gives wild salmon a “green light” (the main product for Vital Choice) while it’s main competitor, farm-raised salmon, gets a “red light”. Vital Choice smiles and hands over the dough. A match made in heaven.

WARNING! All this back scratching is going to leave a mark.