Science News

September, 2008 - A new sea lice video animation by Watershed Watch Salmon Society,  "Wild Salmon in Trouble" explains the link between farmed salmon, sea lice and wild salmon.

June, 2008 – A new sea lice map shows juvenile pink and chum salmon swimming near salmon farms suffer higher levels of sea lice infestation than juveniles in fish farm-free areas of the B.C. coast.
A new map, produced by the Living Oceans Society, compiles all the available sea lice sampling from recent years into one geographic representation. The map locates the sampling sites for each study throughout the BC coast in relation to fish farms that were active at the time of the sampling. It separates the sites into three distinct areas where wild juvenile pink and chum salmon were either exposed to, peripheral to or not exposed to active farms and displays the results in pie charts. The size of each pie is based on the size of the samples in each study. The size of each slice of pie shows the prevalence of sea lice infestation found on the wild juvenile salmon by species. “Prevalence” means the percentage of the total sample that has sea lice.

By putting all the data onto one map, it becomes clear that whereever there are active open net pen salmon farms in BC, sea lice levels on wild juvenile salmon are higher than where there are no salmon farms. Download pdf of map (3.9 MB) or Open jpg of map.

Feb 8, 2008 – BC Pacific Salmon Forum acknowledges that the recent Science study shows link between sea lice and pink salmon declines in Broughton Archipelago.
The BC Pacific Salmon Forum issued a media release after meeting with the authors of the recent peer-reviewed Science article Declining Wild Salmon Populations in Relation to Parasites from Farm Salmon. The PSF acknowledges that the study shows a link between sea lice and pink salmon declines in the Broughton Archipelago and that the prediction of extinction will depend on future management plans.

Critiques & Commentary

August 2008 – Stan Proboszcz and Dr. Craig Orr of Watershed Watch Salmon Society and the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform respond to the January 2008 report Overview of Sea Lice Issues and Risks for Farmed and Wild Salmon prepared by Saksida and Downey for Cermaq (Mainstream). Download the critique (pdf).

March 2008 – Dr. Craig Orr of Watershed Watch Salmon Society and the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform reveal problems with the Pacific Salmon Forum report Science and Sea Lice: What do we know? prepared by Dr. Brian Harvey. Download the full critique (pdf).

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