Letter: Peer review clarified

Westerly News 9 JUNE 2011 Link to article

Dear Editor,

I am writing in response to a change that was made to my letter last week.

I originally wrote "Peerreviewed science shows wild salmon are harmed by net-cage salmon farms that spread disease and parasites to wild fish." This was changed to "FOCS feels that peer-reviewed science?"

Peer-reviewed science is just the hard cold scientific facts as reviewed by other scientists whose reputation is on the line when they review their peers' work.

There have been many published studies showing the negative impacts of salmon feedlots on populations of wild salmon.

To cite only a couple -- in 2008, Nature journal published Andrew A. Rosenberg's The Price of Lice which showed wild salmon stocks in Canadian coastal waters are being severely affected by parasites from fish farms. So intense are these infestations that some populations of salmon are at risk of extinction.

Also in 2008, Biology published J.S. Ford and R.A. Myers' A global assessment of salmon aquaculture impacts on wild salmonids. They compared marine survival of salmon in areas with salmon farming to adjacent areas without farms in Scotland, Ireland, Atlantic Canada, and Pacific Canada. They show a reduction in survival or abundance of Atlantic salmon; sea trout; and pink, chum, and coho salmon in association with increased production of farmed salmon.

By trying to expand fish farm tenures in, of all places, the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve, governments are going against the B.C. government's 2007 Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture which delivered many recommendations, including "A rapid, phased transition to ocean-based closed containment" that should be in place within five years.

Take the time to submit your comments regarding Mainstream's Plover Point application by June 18.

Bonny Glambeck,
Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Tofino

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