This scientific analysis from DFO supports what weve been saying all along: Alexandra Mortons allegations of a link between salmon farms and sea lice infections are just plain wrong, said Ian Roberts, a spokesman for grassroots-based Positive Aquaculture Awareness (PAA). The DFO study sampled 20,000 fish and showed every three out of four fish were lice-free and even those with lice were perfectly healthy, said Roberts.
Yet as recently as last Friday, anti-aquaculture activist Alexandra Morton was spreading false alarms in an e-mail by alleging mainland pink and chum salmon stocks in the Broughton were infected with sea lice at the highest rate documented to date and that she was witnessing an extinction. Ms. Morton should be embarrassed by her false allegations of an extinction and should apologize immediately to the hard working communities and First Nations people whose livelihoods she continues to threaten, said Roberts.
Ms. Morton wont be able to use the excuse of lice in order to justify fallowing more salmon farms in the area either, because DFO found pink and chum salmon throughout the Broughton and Knight Inlet. This contradicts her assertion that fallowing a main migration corridor allows juvenile salmon to move uninfected from fresh water to the ocean, Roberts said.
The peer-reviewed DFO study further contradicted Mortons allegations by showing that in cases where fish had sea lice, the majority (15%) were infected with Caligus clemensi (a species rarely found on farmed salmon), while a minority (9%) were infected with Lepeophtheirus salmonis (a species commonly found on wild and farmed salmon).
This again proves Ms. Morton wrong because the majority of lice found on wild fish are not even the same species as those found on farmed fish, said Roberts. We know shell keep crying wolf. But this time we think the real science has caught her red-handed, Roberts said.
Source: Positive Aquaculture Awareness - 10th May 2004
Study finds no link between salmon farms and sea lice on wild salmon; activists claims shown to be false
CANADA - A detailed scientific study, released today by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), found no link between salmon farms and sea lice infections of wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago.
Study finds no link between salmon farms and sea lice on wild salmon; activists claims shown to be false - CANADA - A detailed scientific study, released today by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO), found no link between salmon farms and sea lice infections of wild salmon in the Broughton Archipelago.