{"id":266606,"date":"2018-10-04T10:30:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-04T14:30:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/issues\/will-new-fisheries-minister-respect-salmon-science\/"},"modified":"2025-10-07T22:15:49","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T02:15:49","slug":"will-new-fisheries-minister-respect-salmon-science","status":"publish","type":"issues","link":"https:\/\/policyoptions.irpp.org\/fr\/2018\/10\/will-new-fisheries-minister-respect-salmon-science\/","title":{"rendered":"Will new fisheries minister respect salmon science?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shuffled several cabinet positions in July, including the fisheries portfolio. Jonathan Wilkinson, MP for North Vancouver, BC, is now the first West Coast member of Parliament to hold that position in 16 years. Promptly after assuming the posting, Wilkinson publicly committed<\/a> \u201cto a science-based approach to addressing issues relating to restoring salmon stocks.\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Minister\u2019s statement is laudable, he has inherited a portfolio (Fisheries and Oceans Canada, or DFO) that many believe is beset with problems around how science is interpreted and applied. Using salmon farming as a case study, we provide examples that suggest there are serious concerns with DFO\u2019s use of science and its response to external peer-reviewed scientific research. It is imperative that the Minister recognize and rectify these problems promptly, if he truly is committed to a science-based approach to salmon management and conservation. A science-based approach implies enacting policy that is based on rigorous scientific studies, and adjusting practices and policies as new scientific evidence emerges.<\/p>\n

PRV as a threat to wild salmon<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2011, during the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River<\/a>, it was revealed that piscine orthoreovirus (PRV), a pathogen causing havoc in farmed salmon in Europe, is also present in British Columbia. Subsequent research identified PRV as the causative agent<\/a> for a disease in farmed salmon known as heart and skeletal muscle inflammation. More recently it was revealed that wild salmon sampled near BC fish farms had high incidences of positive tests for the virus<\/a> and that the presence of the virus in wild salmon may impede their ability to migrate upstream to spawn. Another 2018 study concluded that PRV can cause disease<\/a> in chinook salmon.<\/p>\n

Farmed salmon in British Columbia start in land-based hatcheries and are later transferred to open-net pens in the ocean. It was recently discovered that many hatchery-farmed salmon tested positive for PRV<\/a>, and two parallel legal challenges<\/a> were launched trying to stop the transfer of virus-positive fish to the ocean, due to the risk to wild salmon.<\/p>\n

The looming possibility of a court-ordered stop to the stocking of farmed salmon has apparently prompted a new type of response by DFO staff, in the form of a document called \u201cRapid Science Response.\u201d The Rapid Science Response<\/a> on PRV was produced by DFO staff, and it concluded that the published evidence that there was more than a minimal risk to BC chinook salmon was \u201cunsubstantiated.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rapid Science Response is not peer-reviewed science \u2014 it is not vetted by independent experts or published as a rebuttal in a peer-reviewed journal. Nor did the response receive input from the senior DFO scientist leading the genomics work on PRV, as detailed in a letter<\/a> by a principal investigator on the Strategic Salmon Health Initiative<\/a>.<\/p>\n

DFO aquaculture research programs<\/strong><\/p>\n

DFO\u2019s history of salmon farming promotion is another source of potentially weak science policy. The department\u2019s Program for Aquaculture Regulatory Research<\/a> (PARR) is purportedly designed to increase our scientific knowledge about aquaculture, thus informing regulatory decision-making and policy development. Between 2008 and 2017, DFO spent $4 million on salmon farming-related research (on parasitic lice, pathogens and benthic habitat) in the Pacific region in this program (figure 1). Counting provincial and other federal dollars, a total of over $5 million was provided for research related to salmon farming by PARR in the Pacific region.<\/p>\n