Document View http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?index=1&s... Databases selected: Multiple databases... Salmon farms destroying wild salmon populations in Canada, Europe: study ALISON AULD . Canadian Press NewsWire . Toronto: Feb 11, 2008. Abstract (Summary) The authors, including the late Halifax biologist Ransom Myers, claim the study is the first of its kind to take an international view of stock sizes in countries that have significant salmon aquaculture industries. The paper didn't look to the causes of the declines, which have been discussed in a series of studies over the last decade that have linked disease, interbreeding of escaped salmon and lice from farmed fish with reductions. Full Text (618 words) Copyright Canadian Press Feb 11, 2008 HALIFAX _ Salmon farming operations have reduced wild salmon populations by up to 70 per cent in several areas around the world and are threatening the future of the endangered stocks, according a new scientific study. The research by two Canadian marine biologists showed dramatic declines in the abundance of wild salmon populations whose migration takes them past salmon farms in Canada, Ireland and Scotland. ``Our estimates are that they reduced the survival of wild populations by more than half,'' Jennifer Ford, lead author of the study published Monday in the Public Library of Science journal, said in Halifax. ``Less than half of the juvenile salmon from those populations that would have survived to come back and reproduce actually come back because they're killed by some mechanism that has to do with salmon farming.'' The authors, including the late Halifax biologist Ransom Myers, claim the study is the first of its kind to take an international view of stock sizes in countries that have significant salmon aquaculture industries. Ford said wild salmon populations in Atlantic Canada have been hit the hardest, with rivers in New Brunswick and Newfoundland that have stocks that swim past farms dropping steeply over the years. The scientists compared the survival of wild salmon that travel near farms to those that don't, finding that upward of 50 per cent of the salmonid that do pass by farms don't survive. ``There's really strong evidence that this can have impacts on wild salmon and in particular in places like Atlantic Canada, where Atlantic salmon populations are doing so badly,'' Ford said. ``It's worrying.'' The paper didn't look to the causes of the declines, which have been discussed in a series of studies over the last decade that have linked disease, interbreeding of escaped salmon and lice from farmed fish with reductions. An article last December asserted that Canadian fish farming is destroying wild salmon stocks and could completely wipe them out within four years in one area of British Columbia. The study published in the journal Science contends that aquaculture damages wild populations by infecting juveniles with fatal parasites. Trevor Swerdfager, director general of aquaculture management for the federal Fisheries Department, said he will take a close look at the new research. But he added he has so far not seen any proof that salmon farms harm wild populations. ``We look at the impact of salmon farming on wild salmon _ if there is one _ and we just haven't seen those sort of impacts,'' he said from Ottawa. He said stock declines, particularly in the Bay of Fundy, are still a bit of a mystery, but there are other pressures at play that 1 of 2 8/2/2008 4:15 PM Document View http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?index=1&s... could be linked to the reductions. Ecosystem changes, fishing and other stresses linked to climate change are likely having an effect on the health of the wild populations. ``Atlantic salmon populations are not what they were historically, but can you tie that to the absence or presence of salmon farms? I don't think so,'' he said, adding that researchers looking at that stock have never linked the decline to farms. The latest research by Ford, which covered a period from 2003 to 2006, also looked at a large region off British Columbia, which has a substantial salmon aquaculture industry. Ford said only pink salmon that passed by salmon farms in that region showed sharp declines. She said some salmon populations in the Bay of Fundy are endangered, while one has become extinct. She and Myers, who died last year after the research was complete, found that the return of juvenile salmon to the bay to spawn are less than 10 fish a year, whereas there were hundreds of them in the 1980s. Indexing (document details) Subjects: Aquaculture, Salmon, Fish, Studies, Farming Locations: Canada Author(s): ALISON AULD Document types: News Publication title: Canadian Press NewsWire. Toronto: Feb 11, 2008. Source type: Periodical ProQuest document ID: 1427637581 Text Word Count 618 Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?did=1427637581&sid=2&Fmt=3&c lientId=12520&RQT=309&VName=PQD Copyright © 2008 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. 2 of 2 8/2/2008 4:15 PM Document View http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?index=0&s... Databases selected: Multiple databases... Biologist exposed pillaging of ocean; [ONT Edition] Toronto Star . Toronto, Ont.: Apr 5, 2007. pg. A.24 Abstract (Summary) Ransom Myers, who died in Halifax last week, was never popular with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He was formally reprimanded for suggesting that the main cause of the cod collapse was Canadian overfishing, and he eventually left the department to do fisheries research with Dalhousie University. Myers did extensive work on a variety of fish species, documenting the collapse of stocks of large pelagic species and, most recently, the precipitous decline - by almost 90 per cent - of shark populations. Myers died at 54, with the potential for many years of fisheries science ahead of him. With fellow scientist Boris Worm, Myers was very much the canary in the coal mine when it came to impending fisheries disasters. Full Text (432 words) (Copyright (c) 2007 Toronto Star, All Rights Reserved. ) Ransom Myers, who died in Halifax last week, was never popular with the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans. He was formally reprimanded for suggesting that the main cause of the cod collapse was Canadian overfishing, and he eventually left the department to do fisheries research with Dalhousie University. Myers did extensive work on a variety of fish species, documenting the collapse of stocks of large pelagic species and, most recently, the precipitous decline - by almost 90 per cent - of shark populations. But it is his message about cod that people in this province should pay the closest attention to. He was one of the early birds warning about a collapse, and about the effects of unlimited industrial fishing, and his stark comments were anything but welcome in the politico/scientific world of fisheries and quotas during the 1990s. "The collapse was all blamed on the environment, on the seals, on the foreigners, when it was primarily Canadians. ... I saw that as the big lie, blaming it on anything but ourselves," he said later. In Julius Caesar, Shakespeare wrote "The evil that men do lives after them. The good is oft interred with their bones." That's every bit as true in fisheries science. Myers died at 54, with the potential for many years of fisheries science ahead of him. With fellow scientist Boris Worm, Myers was very much the canary in the coal mine when it came to impending fisheries disasters. Not only will we not be able to benefit from the concerns that could be raised by his future work, there's also a real danger that this country's fisheries apologists will take every possible opportunity to bury Myers' research and opinions with him. No one likes to admit that they are actually the cause of a problem; it's much more comfortable to point a finger somewhere else. Because of that, the big lie that it's all foreigners and seals who are to blame for problems in the fishery is still very much in vogue in this province, and will probably continue to be. Ransom Myers developed a bank of scientific knowledge on the East Coast fishery that can hardly be equalled. But that doesn't mean anyone will keep that knowledge alive, especially when it gets in the way of our own preconceived notions. In the end, we'll probably all be comfortable to stick with a convenient fiction, rather than facing the inconvenient truth. 1 of 2 7/27/2008 7:59 PM Document View http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?index=0&s... And we'll continue to bleat righteously, "It's everyone else's fault!" This is an edited version of an editorial yesterday in the St. John's Telegram. [Illustration] Ransom Myers Indexing (document details) Companies: Dalhousie University ( NAICS: 611310 ) Section: Editorial Publication title: Toronto Star. Toronto, Ont.: Apr 5, 2007. pg. A.24 Source type: Newspaper ISSN: 03190781 ProQuest document ID: 1250147581 Text Word Count 432 Document URL: http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?did=1250147581&sid=6&Fmt=3&c lientId=12520&RQT=309&VName=PQD Copyright © 2008 ProQuest LLC. All rights reserved. 2 of 2 7/27/2008 7:59 PM Document View http://proquest.umi.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/pqdlink?index=6&s... Databases selected: Multiple databases... Large fish are disappearing from oceans, study warns ; Stocks at 10 per cent of 1950 levels 'Catch has to be reduced substantially'; [Ontario Edition] Peter Calamai .