The breeding cycle of Astatotilapia burtoni

trout Forellen Quintett

Behind the bubble curtain: The Underwater World of Coastal Cutthroat Trout from David Saiget on Vimeo.

amazing!

flies for anadromous fish

I enjoy tying flies and fish them. There is nothing more fun than "made up" a fly and use them to catch a fish. You might ask, if the fly is not resemble a regular food item, why fish eat them? Currently, the "field theory" from those steelhead and salmon fishermen says, it might be other motivation than food acquisition. It could be aggressions that provoked by mimic mate stealer? it could be aggressions that toward the egg stealer? or it might be just curiosity? As a behavior ecologist myself, I believe it is all possible. Some fisherman examined the stomach content have found that a lot of steelhead did not have anything in their stomach. This confirmed the previous thoughts that anadromous fish did not eat after enter the freshwater. However, some samples did recover some food items in the steelhead stomach. Some eggs, feathers and some aquatic insects... so they do eat, or at least they do "swallow" something, if we tend to call "eat" is a kind of behavior which is actively seeking food items and consume it in order to extract energy from it. So, good news to us, as soon as they swallow something, then there is still hope for fisherman to catch them, in the form of hook and line. Noted, the high percentage of empty stomachs is interesting. Those fish does not eat, or does not eat recently before they got caught. This totally make sense to me, why would you eat in the place that was poor of food item? the reason you original leave the river for... (seeking food items in the ocean is one of the explanation that some steelhead become anadromous fish species, while some steelhead remain in the poor nutrient river and remain small (trout life form)). So no eating interest, low food abundant...made up high percentage of empty stomach. However, here is question, if they happen to see some food items in front of them. do they eat it? the scenario is you are enter a class and happen to find out it is a surprising b-day party prepared. Do you going to eat the cake, even it is no where near the eating time? I don't know... maybe yes, maybe no? But will you touch it or smell it just to exam how good is this cake, if it worth a bit? What I think this later scenario is more likely in steelhead... the touch and feel it bit light bite "short strike". I have seen a lot of bass doing this short strike when examing the potential food items. That is the place olfactory cue and textile cue come together... I am guess steelhead and other salmonids are doing the same... ever wonder the experienced steelheader tell you to put the trailing hook all the way to the tail of the fly? because there are going to have a lot of short strike if you don't do so. (to be continue...)

A Letter from Alexandra Morton

I have been in Norway for 10 days because 92% of fish farming in British Columbia is Norwegian owned. I have met with many Norwegian scientists, members of the Mainstream and Marine Harvest boards, been to their AGMs, toured the area with fishermen, examined a closed-containment facility, met the Norwegians fighting for their fish and joined a scientific cruise.

I thought Norway had this industry handled and I expected to learn how marine salmon farming could work, but this has not been the case. My eyes have really been opened. This industry still has major issues that are growing and has no business expanding throughout the temperate coastlines of the world. The way they have been treating sea lice in Norway has caused high drug resistance. The only solution in sight is increasingly toxic chemicals. In the past two years (2007, 8) sea lice levels have actually increased on both the farm and wild fish. The scientists I met with are holding their breath to see if drug-resistant sea lice populations will explode and attack the last wild salmon and sea trout. The same treatment methods have been used in BC and we can expect this to occur as well.

I am not hearing how the industry can possibly safeguard British Columbia from contamination with their ISA virus. Infectious Salmon Anemia is a salmon virus that is spreading worldwide, wherever there are salmon farms. In Chile, the Norwegian strain of ISA has destroyed 60% of the industry, 17,000 jobs and unmeasured environmental damage. The industry is pushing into new territory. If this gets to BC no one can predict what it will do to the Pacific salmon and steelhead, it will be unleashed into new habitat and we know this is a very serious threat to life.

Professor Are Nylund head of the Fish Diseases Group at the University of Bergen, Norway, reports that, “based on 20 years of experience, I can guarantee that if British Columbia continues to import salmon eggs from the eastern Atlantic infectious salmon diseases, such as ISA, will arrive in Western Canada. Here in Hardangerfjord we have sacrificed our wild salmon stocks in exchange for farm salmon. With all your 5 species of wild salmon, BC is the last place you should have salmon farms.”

New diseases and parasites are being identified. The most serious is a sea lice parasite that attacks the salmon immune system. There is concern that this new parasite is responsible for accelerating wild salmon declines. The Norwegian scientists agree with many of us in BC. If you want wild salmon you must reduce the number of farm salmon. There are three options.

The future for salmon farming will have to include:

permanently reduction of not just the number of sea lice, but also the number of farm salmon per fjord,
removing farm salmon for periods of time to delouse the fjords and not restocking until after the out-migration of the wild salmon and sea trout.
But where wild salmon are considered essential they say the only certain measure is to remove the farms completely.


There are many people here like me. I met a man who has devoted his life to the science of restoring the Voss River, where the largest Atlantic salmon in the world, a national treasure, have vanished due to sea lice from salmon farms. Interestingly he is using the method I was not allowed to use last spring... Towing the fish past the farms out to sea. Another man is working with scientists and communities to keep the sea trout of the Hardangerfjord alive. There are so many tragic stories familiar to British Columbia.

The corporate fish farmers are unrelenting in their push to expand. With Chile so highly contaminated with the Norwegian strain of ISA all fish farmed coasts including Norway are threatened with expansion. I made the best case I could to Mainstream and Marine Harvest for removing the salmon feedlots from our wild salmon migration routes, but they will not accept that they are harming wild salmon. They say they want to improve, but they don’t say how. Norway has different social policies which include encouraging people to populate the remote areas and so fish farming seemed a good opportunity to these people. BC has the opposite policy, but the line that fish farms are good for small coastal communities has been used in BC anyway. I have not seen any evidence that it has even replaced the jobs it has impacted in wild fisheries and tourism.

It is becoming increasingly clear to protect wild Pacific salmon from the virus ISA the BC border absolutely has to be closed to importation of salmon eggs immediately and salmon farms MUST be removed from the Fraser River migration routes and any other narrow waterways where wild salmon are considered valuable.

Our letter asking government that the Fisheries Act, which is the law in Canada be applied to protect our salmon from fish farms has been signed by 14,000 people to date at www.adopt-a-fry.org has still not been answered.

Please forward this letter and encourage more people to sign our letter to government as it is building a community of concerned people word wide and we will prevail as there is really no rock for this industry to hide under and longer.


Alexandra Morton