SEA LICE, SALMON - CANADA (BRITISH COLUMBIA)

Also a scientist, here: longtime chemist, with experience in synthesis and reaction kinetics, and about 30 years of teaching introductory chemistry to first-year college students in a community college setting.

Roger's definitive description of how most resarch is chosen and funded is right on the money.

Unlike Roger, who has slaved in the trenches of basic research, I've spent most of my career introducing folks to science ... folks who had little formal scientific training before taking one of my classes. Understanding the basic scientific approach to establishing new knowledge is a critical part of anybody's education, these days.

When scientific studies conflict with someone's long-held beliefs, it is no wonder folks suspect the science. That is natural and understandable. A good way to resolve that is to look carefully at how the science was done, what its limits are, and try to evaluate the approach. Usually, that requires some scientific training in the field, or assistance from someone who has that training. It's pretty rough sledding without some background, which makes all of us virgins when stumbling around on new terrain, scientifically speaking.

I don't like fish farms. That's my personal prejudice. But, I flat out do not have enough background or experience in that area to make definitive claims about whether they are responsible for damage to wild salmon. My gut feeling is that a hell of a lot more study is needed to sort out their impact. I suspect we would get that if we started establishing reasonable limits on what pollutants and nutrients (in the biological sense) they were allowed to release, and supported the fish farm people in work directed at cleaning up their act.

That's the approach which seems to have worked in regulating emissions from other industries. It is nuts to just shut them down on little information. It is also nuts to allow them to continue on with little regulation. They are not the only "users" of the waters their farm sits in. A reasoned, informed approach might allow them to coexist with wild salmon. And, it will be scientific methods which will be the most useful in helping to make that happen.
 
dogon dory":1z8jenpn said:
AstoriaDave":1z8jenpn said:
... Usually, that requires some scientific training in the field, or assistance from someone who has that training. It's pretty rough sledding without some background...
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:crook I think Dave just politely called us all a bunch of dumb asses :disgust
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Good one, dogon! :lol: Nah, we are all ignorant about some things, and know a lot about others. Someone who has scientific training is in the same boat as anyone else, pretty much, when he steps outside his area. I said I was a chemist. I'm not a biologist, so unless you are a biologist, I'm pretty much where you are. If you have training in fish biology, you are way ahead of me.

But, you and I might sit next to each other and listen to a fish biologist lay his study on us about fish farms, and we might both learn something that would be useful. Or, we might decide his study is crap, if we could see flaws in it. Most likely, though, some other biologist in the field would spot the flaws first, because he knows the ropes.

Sorting out fish farms is overdue, I think. I got a good, close look at a huge one up on the west coast of Vancouver Island, in one of the deep inlets that does not flush very well. Good local flow, but nutrient exchange out the inlet was not good. My simple mind thinks that might be a problem. I think it needs some hard headed study. Those waters support many fish and other critters important to the health of wild salmon.
 
Dear Roger,

I am sorry I just have to speak up. I feel so strongly about this my heart is racing and my hands are shaking as I write this. Scientist DO LIE!!!

I got my BS Biochemistry in 95. I have worked as a bench researcher in industry ever since, for 4 companies big (couple thousand employees) and small (50 employees). My last place of employment I was asked to lie about my data and refused to. It went up as high as the CEO and I lost!!!!

My immediate supervisor was trying to censor the error in my data so no one could tell that the assay was shit until we could develop a new test. He was a new PHD trying to race up the corporate latter and didn’t want his assay to look bad. This went on for 5 months. I started blowing the whistle on him at three months when I started including internal controls every 10 sample and reporting the error to our costumers. He reprimanded me for doing so and he refuse to let me disseminate the data. I had to give him my data where he would remove all statistics from my analysis and just report the numbers. I went behind his back to find the customer and give them the stats back. Thats when it went to the CEO and I Just don’t now how I lost that battle. I had been documenting for a couple of weeks emails and the error in my notebook and they looked at in a management meeting. This was only one example to this guy fudging data to look good. I have few more stories about this guy but don’t; have the stomach to explain. It ended with me quitting and him promoted 3 times to now a senor director of fermentation. WHY because he make the data look good for the board of directors. ( the money).

My very first company also was in the grey area of truth. They were trying to reregister a pesticide. I was in the metabolism department. They had a rat study that they repeated 3 times because every single rat study they dosed died of cancer. The company ultimately decided to not report the data to the EPA instead of repeating it a 4th time, or re-designing. And that pesticide got reregistered but I will never use it. I considered my self too new to the industry to have a sense of whether it was right or wrong so I blew it off.

I also saw how my college mates in environmental studies used stats to fudge their mathematical models by either rounding to the correct Sig figs or not, or inconsistently to make the models say what they want. So I don’t trust environmental models where you run models out 50, 100, 200 years. This is when minute changes on the decimal place do change the trend of the data.

I am so sorry about the rant. But it is so close to my heart. I went into science because it was supposed to be the truth, holy, untouchable, non subjective, immune to perversion. Not like English where every one can have an opinion. I have had such a disheartening about the people who conduct science I have decided it’s not for me and am trying to figure out my next career move. In the mean time I think I have found a more ethical company. Tine will tell. I wish I still had the faith in science that you still seem to.

To all, Scientists are people too, some good and bad, with ambition and agendas so don’t be naive.
 
Do some scientists lie? Do some cops lie? Do some politicians lie? Do some lawyers lie? Do some car mechains lie? Geez you guys of course there are some liars in every aspect of the human population. The question should be are the majority of people corrupt? Listening to only one scientist is risky. I prefer to believe that most scientists are honest. That's why we need to listen to them when there is a consensus. I prefer to believe that most people on the brat site are honest. Now if someone wants to make the case that most of us here are dishonest then I feel sorry for you. Fact is scientists with apparently no motive to lie are concerned about the wild salmon. Not only scientists but people that work in the industry are concerned. Who wants to make the case that we should just ignore them because we know some scientists are corrupt? Then go ahead make the case. I'm listening.

ryder
 
Susan, I know of several cases of falsifying data and/or hiding contrary data, done by folks with scientific training. That's sort of good news/bad news, though. Bad, in that it should not happen, good, that I know of it, and I know who did it.

As ryder says, there are unscrupulous, dishonest folks in every profession. That's one reason journals demand data be published, and the methods by which they were obtained also be described.

Proprietary stuff is a squishy area -- nobody wants to detail the secret method they used to skirt a tricky synthesis step -- but that usually shakes out in the end.

I regret you had your eyes opened so rudely. Now, however, you are a better scientist than you were before. A good motto: ask for verification. An even better one: get it, or refuse to trust the data.
 
Wow,

This discussion sure gives one something to read!! LOL

Back to the Broughtons and salmon farms.

I have been there, cruised the area, and met Alexandra Morton and Billy Proctor.

Billy was born and has lived in that area his whole life.. He may know more about the local area and fishing than most people. Alexandra moved to that area 20 some years ago to study whales(Orca). She has spent most of her days out on the water researching whales and now salmon.

When the fish farms moved in, they placed the farms in locations that require the returning salmon and the sea bound smolts to pass the farms. That is where the smolts pick up the lice.

Fish farms draw seals and sea lions due to the easy food supply. To scare the seals away, the farms started using extremely loud underwater sound machines. The sound did scare the seals and also drove the Orcas out of the Broughtons.

After the whales left, Alexandra began investigating the decline in the Pink salmon runs.

She netted smolts from both above and below the farms and had the fish analysed in labs. The results show that the sea lice were being picked up as the smolts pass the farms. She has been trying to get the Canada Dept of Fisheries to take notice and move the farms. The Dept of Fisheries has been stonewalling her and denying the research for years now.

By the way, fish farms do not provide much employment. Five low paid jobs per farm is not doing much to help the area locals. The farms are owned by foreign corporations and the profits do not go into the local community.

In more that 25 years of cruising the coast, I have seen commercial fishing decline so that many fisherman can no longer support his family by fishing. Ask an ex-commercial fisherman if he want to go from say $100,000 per year fishing to $10.00 per hour tending a fish farm. (That $100,000 from the fisherman would go back into the local economy, fish farm profits do not.)

By the way, can anyone document the 80% figure mentioned many pages ago in this thread?

Many folks who don't eat farmed salmon, avoid farm fish because the fish itself is not very good.

Good Boatin' to yah!
 
Well spoken points Dan, see guys there are some smart fellers in Alaska!
Did I say that right?
It doesn't matter what the subject matter, it's in our nature to see the glass either half empty or half full. As is most always the case these sensitive issues can be divided into the idealistic camp or the realistic camp. Like it or not, you fit somewhere. What should happen is not always going to happen etc. Life is not fair either, what's going to happen IS going to happen and all the passion in the world will not affect the outcome one bit. You win some, you loose some bla bla bla.

Maybe we need to develope some sort of a game where brats pair off into two or more teams and keep score. Next week the winning team would play a contender and at the end of the season we would know all the truth and would have fixed all the worlds problems. Not being bright enough to participate in heated debate, maybe I could be a referee?
Mike
 
I would respectfully remind everyone that we can get as philosophical as we like. Dosen't change the fact that the sea lice on wild salmon is causing a problem. Now what do we do about it?


regards
ryder
 
Interesting discussion. I learned a lot about Salmon fisheries the 3 years we were cruising AK--and the average person in the US and Canada knows practically nothing about it. I suspect that it would take political will to change the mechanism of fish farming, considering the huge profit margin. Even the best of science (and I agree that most of us know practically nothing about salmon behavior and stock depleation--except that the fisheries were in trouble long before fish farming) will not solve the problems of fish farming.

I have seen more "bought science" in my involvement in the environmental field--and there is very little in the medical field. I did some basic research and decided against "publish or parish" as a way of life.. I did spend a number of years at the #3 stage--feeling that my experience as a basic researcher and a clinician would be best served as the chairman of a research committee at a major teaching hospital. Unfortunately, many of the research projects at that level had come to be funded by the drug companies (they seem to be pulling back on this funding currently)--where before it was mostly NIH. The drug companies expect an outcome..

In the environmental field, emotions run very high--as we see in this thread. With the salmon there are four stake holders: The fish farmers, the commercial fishermen (incidently this is nothing like our recreational fishing), the sport fisherman, and finally the consumer. Every "scientific" investigation will most likely be financed by one stake holder group--most likely the first two. That is where the money is. I intentionally left the government out of the loop, since they should be neutral--unfortunately that is where politics come in.

All of the US coastal fisheries have similar problems--but not just sea lice--the actual decline of fisheries and pollution. The only way that any of these issues can be solved is political involvement (and we all know how well our various governments are at solving problems)....But as a group of concerned people--boaters, fishermen and consumers, the best action is to attempt to have valid studies done and solutions formulated thru good impartial science.
Too many times scientists have a theory, and then set out to prove it, instead of being unbiased--I certainly understand Susan's points. I have seen this in industry frequently.
 
I agree Tom. Fish farms are a necessary evil, just poorly thought out IMHO. Typically they put the pens in bays and coves that have little to no water movement so that they don't get broken and are easier to manage. Unfortunately (as anyone with an aquarium can attest) if you don't have water replacement you have to CLEAN the tank! In this case the Tank being the bay or cove.

So what is the answer? I don't know but I have some ideas.

It seems we need to find a better way to build the pens so that they can withstand current better. Then we need to place the pens in locations with a good current on each tide to help to flush out the water water. Use a native species (Pink Salmon?) along with native foods (IE: Herring, SandLance, shrimp, and squid). Having "fresh" water coming in will help to keep the fish from being so stressed. Feeding natural native foods will help keep the fish from being stressed. Adding current breaks and cover in the pens will give a more natural environment for the fish. Have the pens go all the way to the bottom so that free swimming fish have to swim around the pens rather than under them. This would allow for the growth of Kelp inside the pens to provide natural cover. And finally lower the fish load to a low enough level that fish can survive without being overly stressed.

The problem is that some of these make harvesting of the fish difficult at best.

Something definitely needs to be done to reduce the Sea Lice problem. But one of the biggest helps to Salmon, would be to cut Predation on "wild" stocks and reduce destruction of their environments. I put wild in parenthesis here as I really mean wild and hatchery in this case as differentiated from Farmed.
 
We spent a bit of time with a French marine biologist (PhD) whose speciality was force feeding trout. He could take a fingerling, with certain precautions, place it in increasing salinity, then to the salt water at the entrance to Breast bay, then force feed with hormones, and compressed food pellets, and get a marketable fish in something like 3 months. (selling his fish helped to fund his basic research--at least that which was not paid for by fish farmers).

The point is that the idea of fish farming is to force the growth much faster than natural. I am not sure that natural foods and current fits well into this plan. I am not endorsing fish farming, but pointing out, as an economic reality that the idea is to get fish out at a cheaper price, & a better looking fish (not necessarilly better tasting) in less time.
 
Thataway wrote: Too many times scientists have a theory, and then set out to prove it, instead of being unbiased--I certainly understand Susan's points. I have seen this in industry frequently.

Bob, you have described the basic idea of attempting to prove/disprove a hypothesis (not a theory; a theory has already survived multiple tests of its validity), which any investigator would take if he were trying to test an idea. Sure, science geeks have some notion of what nature might do, and try to see if that is what nature actually does. The critical step is in analyzing the study/data and deciding whether the hypothesis was confirmed or not.

That is an important step in developing new knowledge. Maybe the most critical one, which is why science geeks are committed (as a group) to testing each other's data, and, to not advertising around data of their own which is bad.

You also assert that "too many times" scientists embark on a study with a bias. Hell, they embark on almost every study with a bias. That's why they are performing the experiment or study. Without that "bias," nobody would try to determine new knowledge. That "bias" is a guess at what nature might be doing.

What you don't say is that if someone publishes bad data (or, gets the CEO to commit bucks, based on the outcome of flawed or incorrectly analyzed batch of data), there is a bad thrashing to come later. Publishing bad data will get you a pretty good whacking in the literature, if the study is "pure" research. Misleading the CEO into spending bucks, based on bad data, will get you fired, and a trashed reputation which will follow you wherever you go.

Where you and I might agree is that sometimes public policy is based on flawed date, which legislators act on before it is sufficiently tested in the scientific community by peers.
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I think I'm done with this. I bet I have not changed anybody's mind with my contributions, and I don't think that is a good way to spend my retirement!

BTW, as a reward for anybody who has read this far, here is a link to the boat I just finished: http://www.pbase.com/bartenderdave/image/90298894 (go back to see its origin)

Not a C-dory, but its kinship is obvious. This may be my sign-off post, also. I began frequenting C-BRATS two years ago, when I started building this boat, and I was very pleasantly surprisd to find out what a great bunch you guys are. I kept coming back, because although my initial interest in a C-Dory was displaced, you guys were a terrific resource of solid information on how to set up and run a small boat.

In short, I learned a lot.

But, threads like this one are popping up far too often, and the useful content of the posts here has waned.

I'd be happier if someone convinced me otherwise, but I think I am signing off.

Thanks, guys! :cocktail

It's been good! :D
 
dogon dory":oz24hnvb said:
In addition to Bob's point about the economics, feeding the fish stuff from their native environment only poses additional problems for the ecosystem. If one assumes the numbers of wild fish reach some level of natural equilibrium between prey and predatory species, then arificially introducing millions of additional fish on the predatory side isn't sustainable. If the herring are being caught and carried to the pen to feed the fish, no net benefit in the overall equation. In other words, fed from the same source, the wild and farmed fish can not co-exist in abundance. Actually I think Tom mentioned in one of his posts, that is already a hidden problem with the aquaculture. In many cases they are feeding the farmed fish protein pellets derived from other, less marketable species. The old "rob Peter to pay Paul" principle.
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You are of course correct :) Most of those "Pellets" are likely Krill. And from what I have been reading the Krill populations have been plumeting the last few years. It would seem that if they become extinct then so will just about every other species in the oceans.

My point about using "native" species is that escapement is almost worse than having the pollution from the farms as the fish can and do survive taking food from the native fish. They also bring in diseases that the native species have no defenses for.

I've felt for a long time that the only way we are going to save the salmon from certain destruction is to stop all commercial fishing for them and stop all sport fishing for them for at least 3 generations of fish (roughly 12 - 15 years). But I don't hold hope that something like that will ever happen. I also feel that WDFW Fisheries Biologists are setting their "Escapement goals" too low as a general rule. I would love to see them doubled. Even though that would mean that I likely would not get to fish very often!

Bob, I've never heard of the using of hormones to decrease the time for marketable fish. I have of course heard of sterilizing fish to end up with "triploids" that don't need to put energy into reproduction so they instead they spend their lives eating everything in site and growing nearly twice as fast and ending up looking like soft fat overweight monsters.

The point is that the idea of fish farming is to force the growth much faster than natural.
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Good point, I hadn't thought about it that way. I was more thinking about being able to deliver a healthy food source without destroying our natural resouce. But of course the big companies who own the fish farms are only in it for profit so your conclusion is right on the money.

I know what the answer is... <toungue in cheek and not suggesting anything!> Just kill off 3/4ths of the human population. Then we wouldn't have a problem at all! Yeah right, more like the remaining people would just have different problems!
 
BTW, as a reward for anybody who has read this far, here is a link to the boat I just finished: http://www.pbase.com/bartenderdave/image/90298894 (go back to see its origin)

Not a C-dory, but its kinship is obvious. This may be my sign-off post, also. I began frequenting C-BRATS two years ago, when I started building this boat, and I was very pleasantly surprisd to find out what a great bunch you guys are. I kept coming back, because although my initial interest in a C-Dory was displaced, you guys were a terrific resource of solid information on how to set up and run a small boat.

In short, I learned a lot.

But, threads like this one are popping up far too often, and the useful content of the posts here has waned.

I'd be happier if someone convinced me otherwise, but I think I am signing off.
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Wow!!! Nice Dory Dave! You done good! :beer :beer :beer

I don't think I have ever changed anyones ideas on here either. But it is still a fun place to hang and there are conversations here that are very interesting. Please stick around a while. Maybe start up a thread on your build and your beautiful boat? Besides, why does it matter if you are changing peoples minds? It should only matter that you are enjoying your time here. :)
 
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