petition to stop open net salmon farming

[squeeze]

Hi all,


Just trying to kick up some support for Alexandra Morton's petition against open net pen salmon farming. I don't know where the rest of you stand with this, but I think it's important that you pitch in your $0.02 if you're against it. It seems we're always able to look back and see what we did in the aftermath of a disaster, but now it's time it try and prevent it.


http://www.change.org/petitions/restore-wild-salmon-ban-salmon-feedlots-in-bc


Thanks!

[kilometers]

Sighned. I like real wild salmon.

[Ozone]

Well she has made a lot of uneducated guesses over the years and so far none have come true, so why would you support her?

[squeeze]

Well she has made a lot of uneducated guesses over the years and so far none have come true, so why would you support her?

2 words from chief Justice Cohen: "likely harm".

[john.b]

hold on let me get a bowl of granola and put on my birkenstocks then i will sign it. Should i be singing kumbaya whilst signing?

[rides bike to work]

Signed while driving my 4x4 with my shot gun on a gun rack right next to my steelhead rod with Metallica cranked.

I like my salmon wild. Farmed fish taste like ass.

[GoatGuy]

Well she has made a lot of uneducated guesses over the years and so far none have come true, so why would you support her?
Wouldn't provide support based on one person's assessment.

There are a number of well respected BC based current/retired salmon bios/researchers who do not support salmon farming in BC.

That is good enough for me.

[ru rancher]

i agree nothing good can come from farmed salmon fish are not ment to be pened like that wild fish is always better and if you want to farm fish put them somewhere they wont hert the wild stocks

[boxhitch]

if you want to farm fish put them somewhere they wont hert the wild stocks Yeah , like Chile or Patagonia
Then, in the mid ’80s, Chile learned that their plankton-rich, inland waters were ideal habitat for salmon aquaculture – even though there were no native salmon runs in Patagonia or anywhere else in the southern hemisphere. Using eggs and technology imported from the U.S. and Norway, they hatched and grew juvenile fish in local freshwater lakes, then transferred them to floating netpens, many of them along the shores of rural Chilhoe Island, south of the port city.

Fueled initially by Japanese investment, dozens of huge fish farms sprouted along Patagonian shores. The industry grew at a phenomenal rate averaging 25 percent per year. In 1990, Chilean farms exported nearly $100 million worth of salmon to Japan, the US and Europe. By 2000, it was $1 billion. Six years later, it was $2 billion.

[avadad]

hold on let me get a bowl of granola and put on my birkenstocks then i will sign it. Should i be singing kumbaya whilst signing?

You can do that if you feel the need…lot's of sportsman are concerned for wild salmon not just hippies. I've eaten farmed salmon once…it's not real salmon.

[john.b]

This is absolutely fair but it is a free market, so the best way to not support it is not to buy it. This is the sane as someone saying the same thing about eating beef vs moose. My gripe about this is that aquaculture is a large part of our economy.
You can do that if you feel the need…lot's of sportsman are concerned for wild salmon not just hippies. I've eaten farmed salmon once…it's not real salmon.

[cdnshooter13]

My brother in-law is a dfo bio and has been studying this subject for the last few years. He's against open pen farming so thats good enough for me. Signed

[GoatGuy]

This is absolutely fair but it is a free market, so the best way to not support it is not to buy it. This is the sane as someone saying the same thing about eating beef vs moose. My gripe about this is that aquaculture is a large part of our economy.

I guess it's a 'free' market in the sense that it is an extremely cheap use of natural resources.

In a free market aquaculture would pay for the long-term social costs of operating and it does not. Free riding.....

[Ozone]

I guess it's a 'free' market in the sense that it is an extremely cheap use of natural resources.

In a free market aquaculture would pay for the long-term social costs of operating and it does not. Free riding.....

Can you explain what long term social costs you are referring to?

[squeeze]

Can you explain what long term social costs you are referring to?

I'll take a bash at that.

In a nutshell: long term social costs are unexpected environmentally damaging consequences of a particular activity. The industrial revolution in England had terrible consequences on the population around industrial areas from the air, soil and water contamination. The social cost paid was terrible epidemics, short life expectancy, child labour and so on, all of which was borne out by 90% of the population, not wealthy industrialists. Put simply: they were unable to live in the conditions created by the industrial machine. These costs didn't happen overnight, no "smoking gun", but there were long smokestacks, in a small area.

The industrial revolution is an extreme but simple example. Once all these costs were recognized (after enough people died), things changed. But very slowly.

I'm sure the original poster about "social costs" will want to chime in here too!

Hope that helps!

[GoatGuy]

Can you explain what long term social costs you are referring to?

Management plans, staff and capacity (which is being subsidized by taxpayers of BC and Canada)
Opportunity cost of natural resource use (what could we be doing with this)
Externalities
Declines in wild stocks
Damage costs ie, pollution (the dump - ie seafloor bed)
Resource rent
Research costs (which no one is doing or paying for in any kind of meaningful capacity)
Compensation costs paid for by canadians for destruction of fish due to disease


We could go back, even before this all started. The claims were - "the fish will never escape." We have had multiple escapes and Atlantics show up in BC rivers. "The won't be any viruses" - wrong again. Sea lice outbreaks that weren't treated. I could go on for days. Lots of promises made and broken.

And oddly enough I have yet to find a salmon researcher/biologist who has worked for the public sector or academic who says - I think we should have salmon farms on the ocean. Most of them have expressed significant concern not only with salmon farming but with the businesses themselves.

Most industries which use BC's natural resources are actually supposed to pay their own way and also pay for damages and reclamation costs - not the taxpayer.

So all of this wrapped up and measured with maximum net benefits through intertemporal efficiency.

I know, I know, you will say "prove to me salmon farming has harmed wild stocks". My job as a BCer isn't to prove to you salmon farming has harmed wild stocks. As a business it is your job to prove to me that salmon farming will not harm wild stocks and to answer that question costs a ton of money that you should be on the hook for. Long story short this means the costs outweigh the benefits.

So a free ride, with no value placed on our natural resources means salmon farming is a no go in BC.

With so many unknowns it's pretty simple when you look at it from as a natural resource use problem.

[avadad]

Management plans, staff and capacity (which is being subsidized by taxpayers of BC and Canada)
Opportunity cost of natural resource use (what could we be doing with this)
Externalities
Declines in wild stocks
Damage costs ie, pollution (the dump - ie seafloor bed)
Resource rent
Research costs (which no one is doing or paying for in any kind of meaningful capacity)
Compensation costs paid for by canadians for destruction of fish due to disease


We could go back, even before this all started. The claims were - "the fish will never escape." We have had multiple escapes and Atlantics show up in BC rivers. "The won't be any viruses" - wrong again. Sea lice outbreaks that weren't treated. I could go on for days. Lots of promises made and broken.

And oddly enough I have yet to find a salmon researcher/biologist who has worked for the public sector or academic who says - I think we should have salmon farms on the ocean. Most of them have expressed significant concern not only with salmon farming but with the businesses themselves.

Most industries which use BC's natural resources are actually supposed to pay their own way and also pay for damages and reclamation costs - not the taxpayer.

So all of this wrapped up and measured with maximum net benefits through intertemporal efficiency.

I know, I know, you will say "prove to me salmon farming has harmed wild stocks". My job as a BCer isn't to prove to you salmon farming has harmed wild stocks. As a business it is your job to prove to me that salmon farming will not harm wild stocks and to answer that question costs a ton of money that you should be on the hook for. Long story short this means the costs outweigh the benefits.

So a free ride, with no value placed on our natural resources means salmon farming is a no go in BC.

With so many unknowns it's pretty simple when you look at it from as a natural resource use problem.

Yup. Excellent response.

[SPEYMAN]

Would you support Elk farms,moose farms etc?Then how can you support fish farms.There are too many risks.

[walks with deer]

Beyond a outdoorsman.

I am concerned from a diet standpoint for myself and my Children as Native salmon suffer due to corporate greed.

As a voting taxpaying British Columbian I see no gain for British Coulmbians to farming Salmon only extreme loss.

Looking at all of the goverments approvals as of late, it appears all of their disceions are purely based on gross revenue.
ex (pipeline,Site C,Espeacially fish farming off are coast)
If more energy was put into recovering are native stocks their would be more for all.

I sighned the petition and will show it to others thanks for posting.

[Ozone]

Goatguy, congratulations on your new appointment with the Suzuki Foundation and getting a A+ in misinformation spreading. I shall watch for your rants against grizzly hunting next.

[GoatGuy]

Goatguy, congratulations on your new appointment with the Suzuki Foundation and getting a A+ in misinformation spreading. I shall watch for your rants against grizzly hunting next.

Did I miss something?

Is there a salmon biologist/researcher in BC that doesn't work for a salmon farm that wants salmon farming in the ocean?

Have you proven to the public that farmed salmon don't affect wild salmon?

Have there been escapes?

Have there been viruses/outbreaks/disease associated with farmed salmon?

Have salmon farms been subsidized by the taxpayer when fish have been destroyed due to disease?

It's your job to answer the questions, not mine. It is salmon farmers that want to use the resource, not the other way around.

[835]

Goatguy, congratulations on your new appointment with the Suzuki Foundation and getting a A+ in misinformation spreading. I shall watch for your rants against grizzly hunting next.

comon Ozone, you should be able to do better then that, you proposed a question to which goat guy made an exemplary response to... now you post name calling?
there is just too many fingers pointing at ocean based farms..... Wild stocks are dwindling and Farming has one of the biggest impacts on Wild stocks.... Stream habitat being the other.... but we are talking farms here

[835]

Yes there have been mass escapes, yes they are spawning in our rivers
yes they have spead disease to wild stock yes they have increased mortaility in smolts...

how is any of this good?

[f350ps]

Goatguy, congratulations on your new appointment with the Suzuki Foundation and getting a A+ in misinformation spreading. I shall watch for your rants against grizzly hunting next.
Hahahahaha.....Wow, is that the best you could come back with?? For that reason alone I will sign it, the silence is deafening! K

[Seeker]

When at University of British Columbia taking a fisheries course, and talking with a good friend who runs an environmental consulting company, there is nothing good about salmon farming when it comes to conserving wild stocks. I support the concept of making the accused industry prove, at their cost, that they are safe. Prove it at their cost, not at ours or through the government! If they can do that, we have no grounds for argument and I would support the industry.

Considering how long this has been a hotly debated issue, I have a very difficult time with the lack of supporting evidence for fish farms. If the best argument they have is "don't believe everything you hear", as they claim on all the commercials, they are in trouble! One of the things that really grates me is their claim of "it can't be us, because we just had one of the best sockeye returns in one hundred years".....with all the evidence against fish farms, imagine what it could have been if they weren't there?

[squeeze]

Goatguy, congratulations on your new appointment with the Suzuki Foundation and getting a A+ in misinformation spreading. I shall watch for your rants against grizzly hunting next.

Hey guys, I know a troll when I see one, ignore him.

Put your effort into passing the word and coming up with creative ways we can make a difference. Energy much better spent.

[john.b]

You know what... I can get behind what you are saying. I rescind my comment about granola crunchers. I'm still not signing the petition but you make a valid point.

I guess it's a 'free' market in the sense that it is an extremely cheap use of natural resources.

In a free market aquaculture would pay for the long-term social costs of operating and it does not. Free riding.....

[North Arm Knives]

Signed. I'm a fisherman and outdoors person and want to see our wild salmon stocks rebound! Hopefully the politicians listen before it's too late

[squeeze]

Signed. I'm a fisherman and outdoors person and want to see our wild salmon stocks rebound! Hopefully the politicians listen before it's too late

Agreed. I sent an email to my MLA and I'm going to stop by their office soon. Nothing like a little face-to-face gripe! :D

If any here have a little time, you should take a look at the documentary "Salmon Confidential", it's an eye-opener! In the video footage taken during the Cohen inquiry, I was especially surprised at how the DFO head reacted when questioned by Justice Cohen. I'd be curious to see what others think of his behavior...

[squeeze]

For those concerned about salmon farm expansion, better keep the pressure on your MLA:


http://www.vancouversun.com/news/national/Canadian+federal+government+opens+door+more+fish+f arms/9392417/story.html


If we let this happen, or at least didn't say/do something, we've got no right to complain. Farmed salmon generated 434 million in wholesale in 2012, so money is apparently more important than our wild fish.

Sad...

[BiG Boar]

Maybe the big question is, “How does it taste?” Robert Clark of Vancouver’s C Restaurant, which offers inland farmed coho from B.C.’s Swift Aquaculture on its menu, says that, like Atlantic farmed salmon, it has a somewhat lighter, less fishy taste than wild salmon.

[BiG Boar]

Also this is on the top ten reasons why we should salmon farm. You guys can see that in plain english it says salmon farms will increase salmon numbers. It's science.

6. Properly located fish and shellfish farms can result in an increase in other marine species including economically important ones such as crabs, prawns, rockfish, salmon, and clams.

[squeeze]

Also this is on the top ten reasons why we should salmon farm. You guys can see that in plain english it says salmon farms will increase salmon numbers. It's science.

6. Properly located fish and shellfish farms can result in an increase in other marine species including economically important ones such as crabs, prawns, rockfish, salmon, and clams.





yeah, I see what you're saying!!

Do they think we're that stupid? Hmm....I don't think our wild runs are increasing...show me some science!!

What a laugh.

[GoatGuy]

So long as we don't ask about sustainability and wild salmon "it's all good"

[squeeze]

So long as we don't ask about sustainability and wild salmon "it's all good"

I think you've hit the nail on the head.

:roll: