Provinical Fish Pathologist re: ISAV in BC Waters

[IronNoggin]

Recently one of the West Coast's Charter Operators wrote Dr. Gary Marty (Provincial Fish Pathologist) stating his concern over the potential presence of ISAV in the waters off British Columbia. This is the reply (posted on a couple of other sites) that he received today:

Dear XXXX,

Thanks for sharing your thoughts. I admire your passion for wild fish.
When the Pacific herring population in Prince William Sound, Alaska, crashed in 1993 and did not recover, I was called to conduct a comprehensive study to determine the role of disease in limiting recovery. I concluded that a parasite (Ichthyophonus hoferi) and a OIE-reportable virus (VHSV) were limiting recovery (Marty et al. 2010). The commercial herring fishery there has been closed since 1998.

Consider this scenario:

1) ISAV is confirmed in BC

2) Therefore, to protect our stocks all first nations, sport, and commercial salmon fishing must be prohibited indefinitely.

QUESTION: Given this potential result, are you still convinced that ISAV has been confirmed in BC?

Sincerely,
Gary D. Marty, Fish Pathologist
Animal Health Centre
Ministry of Agriculture
1767 Angus Campbell Rd.
Abbotsford, BC, V3G 2M3
604-556-3123

This appears to be a "generic response" as several others have since noted receiving the same word for word reply.

I have a few thoughts regarding what I perceive to be an implied threat of sorts in this response...

Thoughts?

Wondering,
Nog

[hillman]

His reply is bureaucratic BS double-talk. I have no idea what he is REALLY stating.

[Wood butcher]

Here's what I get from that.

Yes it's here but do you really think anyone has the big brass ones large enough to shut down all fisheries.

To much $ involved in that decission. Who's the guy willing to commit political suicide and make a closure of that magnitude.

Can you say East Coast cod fishery senario all over again. Either way the fish will be gone.

I'd like to think I'm wrong, hopefully I am.

[Spy]

My response would be:As much as I like/love/live to fish if there is a conservation concern Ie "presence of ISAV", than by all means shut her down!While you are shutting the fishery down remove all net pens from BC waters & make them pay for the damage the Farmed fishery has caused to the wild stocks!
Don't threaten us with a closure, just do it!
I hate fear mongering & that is exactly what his response is!:twisted:

[oclarkii]

Check out this forum for more information - follow the sportfishingbc link for more responses from Dr. Marty. If you're interested/concerned about this, its worth your time.
http://forum.flybc.ca/index.php?showtopic=35207

[tightgrouper]

Check out this forum for more information - follow the sportfishingbc link for more responses from Dr. Marty. If you're interested/concerned about this, its worth your time.
http://forum.flybc.ca/index.php?showtopic=35207

Good post.

[Str8shooterbc]

They won't have to shut down all fisheries. We have lost so many fish in the world in the last 50 years it won't be long and they will be shut down permanently anyway on the Pacific coast.

[IronNoggin]

Check out this forum for more information - follow the sportfishingbc link for more responses from Dr. Marty. If you're interested/concerned about this, its worth your time.
http://forum.flybc.ca/index.php?showtopic=35207

Thanks Clarkii. Meant to update this thread with the info, but got busy...

Here's the digs:

"Here are some thoughts on the questions in your e-mail:

Are you trying to say that ISAv cannot mutate and affect our wild salmon?

Nearly all viruses can mutate, and some of those mutations are more pathogenic than others, but I am not aware of any scientific research that demonstrates the number or type of mutations that would be required for ISAV (an Atlantic salmon disease) to kill Pacific salmon. If you are aware of such scientific research, please send me the citation.

More important than the basic potential for mutation is the risk that such a mutation of sufficient magnitude to affect wild salmon might actually occur. Based on 25 years of empirical evidence, I rate the risk negligible. Infectious salmon anaemia has been known as a disease of farmed Atlantic salmon in Norway since the mid-1980s, but despite ongoing outbreaks among the farmed salmon ISAV has never been associated with a die-off of wild Atlantic salmon. In 2011 farm salmon production in Norway for the first time exceeded 1 million tonnes (about 12 times BC farm salmon production), and ISAV does not seem to be significantly limiting their production under much greater concentration of fish than we have in BC. If under these conditions ISAV does not affect wild Atlantic salmon, the risk is significantly less to wild Pacific salmon.

To get an better understanding of the potential risk of ISAV to wild salmon, we can look even broader at a related virus, avian influenza virus. Whenever we sample wild ducks in Canada, it is quite common to find 10 - 20% PCR positive for avian influenza virus (see p. 14 of “CCWHC Annual Report 2010 - 2011 (EN)”at http://www.ccwhc.ca/annual_reports.php) (http://www.ccwhc.ca/annual_reports.php%29). Occasionally one of these strains gets into our farmed chicken population, mutates, and causes devastating losses for the industry (e.g., 2004 in the Fraser Valley). Because avian influenza has the potential to mutate and infect people, the CFIA response to specific strains of avian influenza in poultry is rapid and vigorous (i.e., kill all potentially exposed birds).

Despite avian influenza (the virus) being common in wild ducks, outbreaks of avian influenza (the disease) in wild birds are rare. Indeed, most PCR positive test results in wild bird surveys come from healthy birds. I asked our poultry extension veterinarian (Dr. Bill Cox) ,our avian pathologist (Dr. Vicki Bose), and our veterinary virologist (Dr. John Robinson) if they knew of any populations of wild birds that had gone extinct as a result of an avian influenza outbreak; they could not think of any cases. A probable reason for this is that wild birds are more widely dispersed than farmed birds, thereby decreasing the chances for disease transfer. The same can be said for wild salmon compared with farmed salmon.

Chickens are not native to BC (they are native to Asia), their farms displace habitat that once was used by other wildlife, and yet we do not call on poultry farmers to remove them from land (e.g., to rear them in sealed underwater marine pens where they will have no contact with surface freshwater ducks).

The relevance of all this to wild salmon is that even a mutated form of a virus is unlikely to affect wild salmon populations because wild salmon spend most of their lives dispersed more widely than farmed salmon. This makes transmission of any virus difficult. In contrast, a mutated virus is more likely to affect farmed salmon. We have more than 30 million farmed salmon in BC marine waters at any given time--all monitored daily by farm staff--yet we have no evidence of a massive disease outbreak since the IHNV outbreaks of 2002/2003. As with poultry, I am confident that the biosecurity measures used by farms to protect their fish against an outbreak of IHNV will also serve to protect farm fish and wild fish from spreading outbreaks of other diseases like ISAV.

What benefit besides purely financial there is to raising these fish in waters that are normally only inhabited by pacific salmon?

In many ways, BC is an ideal place for rearing Atlantic salmon on farms. Atlantic salmon are not able to compete with Pacific salmon populations. Therefore, fish that escape from farms are easily identified, they do not interbreed with wild Pacific salmon, and despite years of concerted stocking efforts by DFO in the 1900s, Atlantic salmon have not established populations in BC rivers. Also, none of our common domestic livestock are native to BC: cattle (Europe), sheep (Europe and Asia), pigs (Middle East), turkeys (NE U.S.A, and Mexico), or goats (Iran, Scandinavia). I do not see the risk of farm fish to wild fish any differently than the risk of terrestrial livestock to wild life: a negligible risk that can be reasonably managed.

Moving farm animals around the world is nothing new or unusual. We have protocols in place to minimize the risk of disease transfer with these movements, to the point that now the OIE considers the movement of animal goods as a significant risk: “People and goods now travel long distances in a very short time, thus creating enormous challenges that demand efficiency and speed of response on the part of both public health and veterinary authorities.” [see OIE, http://www.oie.int/current-issues/ “Notification of animal and human diseases: Global legal basis”]

My “thought question” for the day: If fish farms need to be removed because of the risk of ISAV, should we also prohibit people coming to BC from around the world, catching fish infected with ISAV, then traveling back home with those infected tissues?

[background: Dr. Kristi Miller reported to the Cohen Commission (Dec. 15, 2011 transcript, pages 35, 36, and 52) that she has found ISAV in most salmon populations that she has tested, including sockeye salmon dating back as far as 1986. In most groups she has tested 13 - 20% are positive for ISAV.]

Sincerely,
Gary"

Next...

"Thank you. You might not know that I have more scientific publications about the health of wild Pacific salmon than I do on farmed Atlantic salmon (my cv is Cohen Exhibit #1659). I have proposed a study plan that would help us understand the role of health and disease in Fraser River Sockeye salmon (Cohen public submission 818). And, I recently signed on as the histopathologist for the project with similar goals designed by David Welch; this study focuses specifically on the impact of salmon farms (Cohen Public submission #1127); Dr. Kristi Miller is a co-investigator on that proposal. Dr. Miller and I scrutinize each others’ work, as good scientists should, but in my view good scrutiny serves to improve our science. Dr. Miller’s research so far suggests the presence of an ISAV-like virus that is different enough from European strains of ISAV that we can be confident that it was not imported (with either farm fish since the 1980s or stocking attempts before that). However, Dr. Miller still has lots of work to do to confirm her findings."

I admire your wiliness to learn more. I am currently examining wild juvenile salmon captured as part of the BAMP program in the Broughton Archipelago (see http://bamp.ca/pages/home.html) (http://bamp.ca/pages/home.html%29). The Animal Health Centre is interested in ensuring healthy animals in BC, including wild salmon. I need to spend most of my time in the laboratory, so I depend on observations by people like you who are out in the field. Sampling tissues for histopathology is probably the best way to get an idea of what is going on in the fish you described. If you are in Campbell River, I recommend that you contact Dr. Sonja Saksida at the Centre for Aquatic Health Sciences (http://www.cahs-bc.ca/) for assistance in tissue preservation and shipping. Your cost is the same as what we charge the fish farms: $30/fish for diagnostic histopathology.

Dr. Saksida and I are coauthors on a paper that came out last week that identifies liver cell abnormalities as a possible cause of the lowest pink salmon runs on record in the Broughton Archipelago (in 2008).

I am working with DFO to get a second fish pathologist in BC. I keep too busy assisting the fish farms with diagnosing disease and certifying fish as disease-free (with ~40 million fish, a few a bound to be sick; but, surprisingly to many people, most of the farm fish are very healthy), so I do not have the time I need to work on wild fish projects. Any assistance you can provide would help.

Changed my mind on this fellow. And find it rather interesting he openly asks for help in sampling wild fish. A handful of the Ladz are doing so, and I may well be too...

Cheers,
Nog

[Wood butcher]

Thanks for the info. Nice to see it's not all doom and gloom.

[IronNoggin]

Background info to dangers of Importing Salmon Eggs for Fish Farms



The paper trail is growing that will prove the folly of net pen salmon farms!

Editor's note: In a letter to the editor in Wednesday's Courier-Islander Dr. Ian Alexander, Executive Director, Canadian Food Inspection Agency made the following statement: "I want to be very clear, that to date no trace of ISA has been detected in B.C. salmon."

Also, in another letter to the editor in Wednesday's Courier-Islander, Gary Marty, BC Ministry of Agriculture, made the following statement: "As part of my work as the BC Ministry of Agriculture's fish pathologist, last fall I reviewed... results in our diagnostic laboratory from five farmed chinook salmon re-tested for ISAV.

"Samples from all five fish yielded a band that was very similar to our ISAV-positive control, but when we sequenced the PCR product to determine its identity, it didn't match anything. The closest match was mouse (see Cohen Commission Exhibit #s 2079 and 2080.)

"I view mouse-like results in a test for a salmon virus as evidence of "nonspecific amplification." This means that the test did not work properly and needed to be redone; it is not grounds to report to OIE. The test was repeated several times, and all results were negative - no virus.")

The source of the suspected infectious salmon anemia virus (ISAv) that was reported to be found in BC's wild salmon would have almost certainly from imported Atlantic salmon eggs, the international trade that at one time provided coastal salmon farms with most of their stock. The salmon farming industry, of course, says that ISAv is not here, although evidence given at the Cohen Commission's extraordinary three days of hearings on Dec. 15, 16 and 19 suggests otherwise.

Of four labs testing for ISAv in wild fish samples, the only one seemingly unable to find it is the Canadian Food Inspection Agency's facility in Moncton, New Brunswick, that used degraded tissue samples.

Research tests by a reputable lab in 2004 found 100 per cent infection in Cultus Lake sockeye - inexplicably never pursued by federal agencies responsible for the health of wild salmon. Testimony from Dr. Kristi Miller showing genomic markers in archaic samples of BC wild salmon indicates that ISAv has been here since 1986.

Documents presented at the Cohen Commission suggest that the possible arrival of ISAv coincides with the early importation of Atlantic salmon eggs to West Coast salmon farms. Supporting this connection is a recorded litany of warnings from experts in BC's Ministry of Environment (MOE) and the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO), all alarmed about the inherent danger of importing exotic diseases to the West Coast ecology through Atlantic salmon eggs. This evidence is worth noting.

. 1982: representatives of Canada's government meet with Norwegian and Canadian business interests to consider "alternative approaches to inspection and certification of salmon culture facilities" for the importation of Atlantic salmon material from Norway.

. 1984: Canada's DFO approves limited importation of Atlantic salmon material, an event that is not announced publicly.

. 1985: 300,000 eggs are imported, subject to a "Draft Importation of Salmonids Policy" requiring a 12-month quarantine. But Dave Narver of MOE expresses concern to his Assistant Deputy Minister about the policy.

"I am getting increasingly anxious about our importing of Atlantic eggs," he wrote. "My concern is shared by many of my colleagues in both provincial and federal agencies. The fish health measures agreed to jointly by DFO and ourselves in the fall of 1984 are not foolproof. They are based on statistical sampling, so we are taking a risk when it comes to the introductions of virus. That means a risk to the nearly one-billion-dollar wild salmonid fisheries of British Columbia." An additional 130,000 Atlantic salmon eggs are imported from Scotland.

.1986: Narver reiterates his concerns to Pacific Aqua Foods about an unsigned and non-public policy. "We are deeply concerned with the fact that the risk of exotic diseases is dependent on both the number of imports and their size. Government has made a commitment to support aquaculture, but surely not at the risk of a nearly $1 billion resource in the wild salmon fisheries of British Columbia. The direction the aquaculture industry wants us to go will insure that we import unwanted diseases that can impact on government hatcheries and " wild stocks.

Narver sends a similar letter of concern to Stolt Sea Farm Canada Inc.

"To start with a general comment, I am disappointed with what appears to be the prevailing attitude of a number of companies, that fish health regulations to protect wild stocks are great, but if we continue the way the aquaculture industry seems to dictate, we can expect to introduce new diseases." 1,144,000 eggs are imported from Scotland.

. 1987: Federal-Provincial Policy for the Importation of Live Salmonids is signed, but quarantine time is reduced to four months to reduce the industry's cost of dealing with waste water.

Pat Chamut of DFO expresses a trade concern. "If challenged in court over denial of any imports, what is the legal likelihood we would be successful in denying imports?"

1,281,000 eggs are imported from Scotland and Washington State.

. 1990: Salmon farmers in the US claim Canada's import restrictions are a trade barrier. Chamut reiterates his concerns to the Policy Division of Pacific Rim and Trade. "Continued large-scale introductions from areas of the world including Washington State, Scotland, Norway and even eastern Canada would eventually result in the introduction of exotic disease agents of which the potential impact on both cultured and wild salmonids in BC could be both biologically damaging to the resource and economically devastating to its user groups."

. 1991: Numerous warnings are written by DFO and MOE officials, all concerning the dangers of importing diseases from foreign salmon eggs - a danger compounded by trade agreements allowing the salmon farming industry to import larger numbers of eggs. Narver's letter from MOE to DFO is typical for 1991. "The proposed revisions not only open the window indefinitely but essentially allow for unlimited numbers of eggs. I know your Department argues that this has to done to avoid a Free Trade ruling."

Subsequent to these warnings comes a 1991 letter from BC Packers' Director of Aquaculture to DFO. "As we have no other disease-free source available [other than Iceland] anywhere in the world, I am requesting that you reconsider your position, particularly in the light of the expected change in the DFO regulations." Regulations are duly relaxed and from 1991 to 2010 at least 23 million eggs are imported into BC waters, mostly from sources other than Iceland.

This evidence from the Cohen Commission indicated that international sources of eggs could be diseased and that the aquaculture industry wanted to import eggs, despite the risks.

Given trade agreements and the political leverage of the salmon farming industry to reduce precautionary regulations - the direction it "seems to dictate," in Dave Narver's damning words - the arrival of ISAv and other exotic diseases in BC's marine ecology is inevitable.
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