Fish farming news and information from around the world - February 28, 2000
1) US EPA agrees to effluent guidelines for fish farms
2) 'Genetically Modified Food Uproar Stalks Salmon Industry'
3) GM salmon research stopped in NZ
4) Offshore fish farming trials in Hawaii
5) DANA FEED A/S awarded ISO 14001 certification
6) London’s Daily Telegraph on disease, salmon farming and wild fish
7) Earth Island Journal article on salmon farming
8) Maine DMR staff recommends approval of Blue Hill Bay site for salmon farm
9) State of Maine files suit over salmon data
10) Time Magazine article: “Frankenfishing in the Gene Pool”
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1) EPA effluent guidelines to be established under Clean Water Act
>From ENN:
ENN News
News Bytes
Saturday, February 26, 2000
Fish farm cleanup — The U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency agreed
on Thursday to establish
effluent guidelines for fish
farms under the Clean
Water Act. "EPA's action
is good news for U.S.
waterways," said
Environmental Defense
senior scientist Rebecca
Goldburg. "Most fish
farms are feedlots that
produce large quantities of
wastewater laden with fish
feces and uneaten fish feed. In some states, many large aquaculture
operations are now virtually unregulated and large quantities of untreated
fish
wastes are regularly discharged into waterways. The establishment of
effluent
limitation guidelines should end such noxious practices." The agreement is
the
result of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council against the
EPA
for failing to implement the Clean Water Act.
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2)
>From Seafood.com:
Genetically Modified Food Uproar Stalks Salmon Industry
Seafood.com Feb 28- Growing public distrust of genetically modified foods
has the potential to create a major problem for the salmon industry, and for
aquaculture products in general, despite the fact that no genetically
modified aquaculture products are being sold.
The salmon industry is particularly vulnerable, because the controversy is
not simply over whether to introduce genetically modified organisms into the
food chain, but also over whether genetically farmed salmon are a threat to
the existence of wild salmon populations. The result is that some groups are
fanning the fears of the public in a way that may be dangerous to the
continued growth of salmon consumption.
This week, Time Magazine published a story on “Frankenfish”, quoting people
who called the 10,000 to 20,000 genetically modified salmon in closed tanks
of AF Protein, Inc., “a biological time bomb that could destroy the
remaining natural salmon populations..”
Also, over the weekend, a New Zealand company, King Salmon, announced that
it had killed all its genetically modified Chinook salmon, and “disposed of
them in accordance with (scientific) containment protocols.” The company
said it successfully passed down a growth hormone gene for three
generations, which allowed the salmon to grow at three times their normal
rate, and that their Chinook salmon could conceivably grow to 550 pounds.
They have retained frozen sperm from the genetically engineered salmon at a
secure location.
The shutting down of this research came days after New Zealand
environmentalists had convinced the government to conduct another review of
the licensing and inspection process for these experiments.
In Britain, also over the weekend, five Greenpeace activists boarded a ship
with genetically modified soybeans for animal feed, and prevented it from
unloading until they were arrested. Then British Prime Minister Tony Blair,
in a change of his support for GM foods, said on Sunday
that the technology has “the potential to harm”.
Blair made his statement just before the opening of a three-day conference
of OECD nations on the science of genetically modified foods.
We have been reporting on this story for months because it has the potential
to have a negative impact on seafood consumption, despite the fact that no
seafood currently uses this technology. In the same way that press stories
about ocean and beach pollution in the late 1980’s made people question
whether seafood came from clean waters, the controversy over GM foods has
the potential to make consumers suspicious of
aquaculture seafoods.
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3)
>From IntraFish:
GM salmon research stopped
Publisert: 28.02.2000 07:00
A controversy involving leaked secret documents and
deformed salmon
heads has ended with a New Zealand company agreeing to kill
all its
genetically engineered salmon, reports the AP.
More than a year after New Zealand King Salmon Co. Ltd. was
first accused of
breeding transgenic chinook salmon in the so-called
‘Franken-fish’ experiment,
the company announced Friday it would bury the remains of
the specially grown
fish and suspend its research.
King Salmon's chief executive Paul Steere said the company
made the decision
after it had successfully introduced an additional growth
hormone gene into
chinook salmon and passed the trait down three generations,
since the initial
gene introduction work in the mid-1990’s.
.
He denied the decision to suspend the project was
influenced by political, ethical
or scientific resistance. "Our decision is purely based on
the best placement of
our resources, which for a company of our size are
limited," said Mr Steere.
Opponents of the project have fought for more than a year
to stop it after leaked
secret papers showed deformed heads and other abnormalities
had occurred
during the breeding program.
"Our review concluded some minor benefit may accrue from
further selection
work with further generations on additional traits such as
maturation, fat levels
and colour uptake. However the necessary resources of
finance and expertise
are best placed in priorities arising from our family
selective breeding programme,
which with promising progress has commenced commercial
output,” Steere said
in a statement.
After receiving the new growth hormone gene, the salmon
grew three times faster
than the normal rate. King Salmon has admitted some of the
first-generation fish
had developed lumps on their heads due to apparent genetic
deformities. “All
modified salmon have been killed and disposed of, in
accordance with (scientific)
containment protocols,'' Steere said. "The next major phase
for the transgenic
research would have required significant resources to
demonstrate triploid
(sterility) assurity and expansion for commercial
production.”
"While similar progress has been made with Atlantic salmon
in Canada our
achievement is the envy of all involved in this work and
others in general
broodstock breeding programmes," said Mr Steere. The
Canadian work is
expected to go into commercial production next year.
The company said it would retain frozen sperm from
genetically engineered
salmon ``at a secure location'' so it was available to
continue the program in the
future. The company's experimental work was halted as the
government prepared
to establish an inquiry into the project and its controls
to prevent live salmon or
fertile eggs escaping into the wild.
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4)
>From FIS:
Sea Grant Programme uses Ocean Spar cage
UNITED STATES
Friday, February 25, 2000, 00:30 (GMT + 9)
As part of a trial conducted the Sea Grant Programme at
the University of Hawaii, known as the Hawaii Offshore
Research Project (HOARP), approximately 70,000 Pacific
threadfin (Polydactus sexilifis), known in Hawaii as ´Moi´
have been harvested from a cage moored two miles off Ewa
Beach, Ohau.
A SeaStation™ cage developed by Ocean Spar
Technologies (OST), USA was used in the project and was
submerged 12 metres below the surface for all of the seven
months it took to grow the fish to market size. This avoided
any problems for the fish that may otherwise have been
caused by wave action at the offshore site, and overcame
local concerns about the visibility of floating fish farm
structures and possible negative reaction from tourists.
Ocean Spar´s cages are made specifically for offshore
conditions and are designed to minimize motion induced by
external forces in order to reduce wear and fatigue in cage
components.
The fish in the HOARP trial were fed by an experimental
under water feeding system and harvested by pumping
them to the surface with an airlift pump, once they had
been crowded inside the net by divers. Juvenile fish,
supplied by the Oceanic Institute in Hawaii, were first
introduced into a special holding net inside the cage, where
they were fed until they were big enough to be released into
the 3000 cubic metres of rearing volume in the main cage.
Charles Helsley, Hawaii Sea Grant Director said: "The
potential of aquaculture in open-ocean environments has
attracted considerable interest throughout the world and
raises the intriguing possibility of fully utilizing the ocean´s
resources. The successful demonstration of a fully
submersible SeaStation is an important step towards
realizing this goal and HOARP expects it to become a
national model for offshore cage culture."
Potential applications of the SeaStation Sea Cage include
all warm water farmed species, as well as salmon. The
cage can be submerged to avoid: plankton blooms,
visibility, high vessel traffic, and storm events. It can also
be released from its moorings and towed (with full volume!)
to other areas or harbours for harvest, etc.
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5)
>From FIS:
DANA FEED A/S is awarded ISO 14001
certification
DENMARK
Monday, February 28, 2000, 12:00 (GMT + 9)
Danish firm DANA FEED A/S, a developer and producer of
high quality extruded fish feed, has been working hard for
the past few years, to make the firm and its products as
environmentally friendly as possible.
The firm´s hard work and dedication has paid off. Earlier
this month, the company´s Environmental Management
System was tested and approved by Dansk Standard and
DANA FEED was awarded the environmental certification
ISO 14001.
Following the achievement, the management of DANA
FEED feels the company can now be ranked among other
top firms that strive to protect the environment.
DANA FEED told Fish Info Service that environmentally
friendly production is definitely the way forward, as more
and more clients demand environmentally friendly products
and prefer to work with companies that share the same
philosophy.
By Karen Myles
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6)
Copyright 2000 Telegraph Group Limited
THE DAILY TELEGRAPH(LONDON)
February 26, 2000, Saturday
SECTION: Pg. 13
LENGTH: 1079 words
HEADLINE: Country: Reel life With a deadly virus devastating Scotland's
salmon
farms, can we trust those who would have us believe that the wild fish are
safe?
BYLINE: By Charles Clover
Just as it looked as if things couldn't get much worse for the king of
fish, a
salmon disease apparently new to Britain was found on a Scottish fish farm
in
1998. By the end of last year, three quarters of the industry had been
quarantined: 11 cases confirmed and 24 suspected. In November 1999, the
Government announced that the virus that produces infectious salmon anaemia
(ISA) had been discovered in wild fish: brown trout, rainbow trout, eel and
salmon parr in fresh water.
Then, in December, inquiries by Friends of the Earth Scotland established
that an estimated 11,000 full-grown salmon suspected of harbouring the
disease
had escaped from a farm on Loch Roag in Lewis close to three famous wild
salmon
river systems, the Grimersta, Morsgail and Garynahine. These rivers
produced
2,000 rod-caught fish between them before salmon farming arrived in the
1980s,
but fewer than 300 last year. Disaster appeared imminent.
Salmon catches have already reached historic lows, thanks to overfishing,
damage to spawning grounds, acidification and sea lice infestation from
fish
farms in the estuaries and sea lochs. Worst of all are signs that the
salmon's
cold-water migration lanes to and from Greenland, where they go to feed,
are
contracting, possibly as a result of global warming.
But just how bad is ISA? Is it a worse threat than UDN (ulcerative dermal
necrosis), remembered by many as the beginning of the end of pre-1960s
plenty?
Is it like those other fish farm diseases that do not seem to have affected
wild fish? Or is it a plague comparable to the infestation of sea lice
thought
responsible for devastating wild sea trout and salmon runs on the west
coast?
We do know that ISA is a disaster for salmon farmers. It has cost the
industry pounds 37 million and caused four million farmed salmon to be
compulsorily slaughtered. Where opinions differ is on what ISA means for
wild
fish. In Scotland and Norway, the prevailing view among government
scientists -
who often come under political pressure to balance the threat to the wild
with
the economic benefits provided by salmon farms - is that the disease is
caused
by the conditions in which farmed fish are kept and is not of great concern
to
fish in the wild.
In Canada, however, symptoms of the disease have been reported in wild
salmon
running the same river as farm escapees. Independent scientists have
expressed
their alarm.
ISA causes haemorrhages in the fish's kidneys, spleen and other organs,
and
depresses the immune system and growth. In laboratory tests, with fish kept
close together in a tank for long periods, ISA kills all but one or two per
cent. The survivors then develop a strong immunity. Vaccines for ISA are
being
developed but EU law restricts their use. The disease is not thought to
affect
humans.
No one knows when or where the virus originated but it has been around a
long
time. The strains special to Canada and Norway are thought to have divided
about 100 years ago - though Canada now has the Norwegian version, too.
The absence of any proof that the virus has been imported from elsewhere
leaves the growing likelihood - seized upon by an industry that has been
blamed
for the crisis as well as the victim of it - that it has a greater
incidence in
the wild than previously thought. The virus has been isolated in three
cases:
two sea trout and one eel on Mull, not far from fish farms. Less reliable
tests
have shown that it may have been present also in brown and rainbow trout
and
salmon parr in the Rivers Conon and Tweed, and on farms in Aberdeenshire
and
Kinross-shire, a long way from marine fish farms.
The official view, given by John Home Robertson, the Scottish fisheries
minister, is that: "Claims of spread from fish farming to the wild are not
supported by any current evidence or fact." The Government has now agreed
to
carry out tests for ISA in wild fish south of the border, where there are
no
fish farms.
In Norway, where the virus was discovered in 1984, scientists say that
ISA is
a disease of farmed salmon, triggered by stressed conditions, not a disease
seen in the wild.
Dr Knut Falk of the National Veterinary Institute in Oslo says: "Even in
the
early 1990s, when the disease was detected in 100 farms - 10 per cent of
Norwegian fish farms - no indications of any disaster in wild salmon were
detected." Since then, strict controls on discharges of blood and other
infectious material have reduced the number of farms developing the disease
to
two a year.
According to Dr Falk, the disease proceeds slowly, taking four or five
months
to kill most of the salmon in a cage, but often leaving neighbouring cages
unaffected. He says: "To get the disease, it seems that considerable
infectious
pressure has to be generated, and I doubt that this will be possible in
populations of wild fish. It seems, both from experimental work as well as
observations in fish farms, that the salmon can handle small amounts of
virus."
His verdict: "I don't think you will get a disaster in wild fish."
A strikingly different view comes from Dr Fred Whoriskey, a scientist
working
with the Atlantic Salmon Foundation in Canada. He has recently found ISA in
both fish farm escapees and wild brood stock collected on the Magaguadavic
river in
New Brunswick, just north of the US border. Three of the wild fish,
collected in a fish ladder above the tide, died of their symptoms. The rest
tested positive
for the virus.
Dr Whoriskey says: "The virus is like a time bomb, waiting inside the
fish
for conditions to shift in its favour. When they do - for example, when the
fish becomes stressed, decreasing its immune system, or when water
temperatures
favour virus growth (10C-15C) - it takes off and the symptoms appear.
You've got the virus in wild populations; the symptoms will come." He
believes that no one
has yet looked hard enough. Canada is also conducting tests to see if the
virus
can be transmitted "vertically" down the generations.
The discovery of wild fish with ISA is about as worrying as it gets,
particularly when you consider that the Magaguadavic's wild run has fallen
from
an average of 750 fish in the 1980s to 24 in 1999.
As the salmon farming industry seeks to downgrade the importance of ISA,
to
save it from further losses, the defenders of the wild salmon are using the
Canadian experience to argue that without more effective regulation, there
could be a wider disaster.
Daily Telegraph Environment Editor
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7)
Earth Island Journal
March 22, 2000
SECTION: No. 1, Vol. 15; Pg. 29 ; ISSN: 1041-0406
IAC-ACC-NO: 59211589
LENGTH: 1211 words
HEADLINE: A Farewell to Salmon?
BYLINE: Sullivan, Ron
BODY:
The small brown, battered fish found in most breeding farms barely
resemble
the long silvery torpedoes we know as the aristocratic Atlantic salmon....
Farm
fish, the marine equivalent of domesticated cattle, are being bred in ever
greater numbers while salmon in the wild have dangerously dwindled to an
all-time low.
-- Marilyn Bauer, "Incredible Disappearing Salmon," Boston Globe
In addition to the usual litany -- dams, pollution, over-fishing and
habitat
loss -- wild Atlantic and Pacific salmon now face a new threat -- from fish
farming. By 1998, the North American spawning run, once estimated at 2.5
million adult breeding fish, had fallen to an all-time low of 80,000.
Farmraised salmon
now outnumber wild salmon 50-to-one.
Bill Taylor, president of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, calls the
salmon
"a barometer for the health of the North Atlantic ecosystem.... The fact
that
our salmon populations are in freefall should signal to us that the health
of
our rivers and oceans is under siege."
Conservation measures such as catch-and-release fishing rules,
commercial
fishing bans and river cleanups, while partially successful in some areas,
have
failed to give salmon populations a significant boost. Even international
agreements that halted fishing in the waters off Greenland and North
America
have failed to reverse the salmon's death spiral.
Last October, a joint report by the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS)
and
the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) warned that, despite
conservation
measures, wild Atlantic salmon are in danger of extinction. Fewer Atlantic
salmon are returning to spawn each year while large numbers of young salmon
are
not surviving in the rivers and the ocean.
Fish Farms vs. Wild Salmon
According to FWS biologist Paul Nickerson, the biggest threat to the
survival of the wild Atlantic salmon comes from farm-raised salmon. "The
aquaculture industry raises salmon of various origins," Nickerson notes,
and
when these fish escape "they pose several threats to wild populations."
Salmon farming is big business. The $ 900 million US seafood-farming
industry accounts for $ 60 million worth of annual earnings in Maine alone.
Nonetheless, the threat to Atlantic salmon is so severe that the FWS and
NMFS
have called for reducing water diversions to increase river flows, tighter
restrictions on sport-fishing, and closer regulation of fish-farming.
In October 1999, in response to the FWS/NMFS report, US Interior
Secretary
Bruce Babbitt announced that he would nominate the Atlantic salmon for
Endangered Species Act (ESA) protection. A Defenders of Wildlife lawsuit
demanding an emergency ESA listing for the Atlantic salmon also spurred
Babbitt's action.
The actual listing could take up to 15 months. Meanwhile, local
governments
-- along with the logging, sport-fishing, and cranberry- and
blueberry-growing
industries -- are raising strenuous objections. Maine Governor Angus King
called Babbitt's ruling a "betrayal" that would cripple the state's
aquaculture
industry.
While fish farms provide an economic boost to coastal communities,
aquaculture is no friend of the wild salmon. Fish-farming, like any
farming,
uses local resources: water, space, fuel and feed. As Michael V. McGinnis
pointed out in a 1994 Natural Resources Journal essay, "hatchery production
of
salmon masks the decline of wild salmon, contributes to the genetic
dilution and loss of wild salmon, and increases the competition for
freshwater and ocean
resources on which salmon depend."
Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific?
It may come as a surprise that fish farms on the Pacific coast do not
raise
Pacific salmon: They typically raise Atlantic salmon. When farmgrown salmon
escape or are released into oceans and rivers, they compete with threatened
wild populations. Escaped farm salmon may displace wild stock in their
traditional
spawning grounds. If they mate with wild salmon, they can dilute the
genetic
strength of wild salmon populations.
Because salmon-farm breed stock and fry are collected from many
scattered
locations, this can introduce genetic traits that are disadvantageous for
the
long-term survival of wild salmon. The smaller the wild population, the
greater
the threat.
Infectious salmon anemia (ISA) is an incurable disease caused by a virus
that seems to mutate easily, complicating efforts to control it. Crowded
fish-farm conditions facilitate the spread of the disease. ISA has been
found in Atlantic salmon raised in both Atlantic and Pacific Coast
fish-farms. ISA has
caused millions of dollars in losses in Norway, Scotland and New Brunswick,
Canada, where entire fish stocks had to be destroyed to prevent the further
spread of the infection.
In October 1999, the Research and Environment Department of the Atlantic
Salmon Federation confirmed that ISA-infected salmon from Atlantic fish
farms
had escaped and apparently spread the disease to the embattled wild salmon
populations.
ISA first surfaced in the Norwegian salmon farming industry in 1984. An
ISA
epidemic swept Canada's east coast fisheries in 1996. ISA now threatens US
fish-farms in Cobscook Bay, near the Canadian border.
Escapes happen regularly, because of pen damage and accidents --
especially
during extreme seasonal tides. On the Pacific Coast, escaped salmon have
been
found breeding in West Coast rivers, where they are slowly replacing their
native cousins.
Last September, 30,000 farmed salmon broke through the torn netting of a
Vancouver Island pen. The BC Ministry of Fisheries ruled that Stolt Sea
Farms
Ltd., the farm's owner, had not been negligent and merely recommended that
regulations be "reviewed" and that "fish recovery plans be prepared and put
in
place" -- a slippery prospect, at best.
The Canadian government gave the escaped salmon a clean bill of health,
but
independent lab tests commissioned by Alexandra Morton ["Salmon Farming's
Hidden Harm," Summer '96 EIJ] found that the fish-farm fugitives carried
furunculosis,
a bacterial disease that poses a serious threat to wild salmon.
In spite of such disclosures, the BC government rejected a call to place
a
moratorium on the creation of new fish farms and announced that it would
increase the number of new netcage fish-farms by as much as 42 percent.
"Fish farm expansion in BC is being driven by the collusion of power and
money," charged Howard Breen of the Georgia Strait Alliance. Breen called
the BC government's decision a "dangerously unacceptable response to an
industry that
has hammered the final nail in the coffin of wild salmon in Atlantic Canada
and
will surely do the same here in British Columbia."
Breen believes the only thing that can save the salmon from extinction
is a
joint effort by Indigenous fishers and activists to mount a campaign of
"direct
action to stop this catastrophic environmental crime from occurring."
Meanwhile, the world's largest Atlantic salmon farm, Scotland's Hydro
Seafood, has been targeted for a takeover by the US-based ContiGroup
Companies.
ContiGroup happens to be the world's largest producer of cattle feed. It
is
an ironic twist that "the marine equivalent of domesticated cattle" will
soon be fattened by a cattlefeed outfit.
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8)
Copyright 2000 Bangor Daily News
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE)
February 25, 2000 Friday
LENGTH: 860 words
HEADLINE: DMR staff favor salmon farm off Blue Hill
BYLINE: Samantha Coit Of the NEWS Staff
BLUE HILL -- Along with tourists and seasonal residents, Blue
Hill may be home to another community on the bay -- 400,000
farm-raised Atlantic salmon.
The state Department of Marine Resources this week recommended
approval of fish farmer Erick Swanson's plans to raise up to
400,000 salmon on a 35-acre tract off the eastern shore of Long
Island. The recommendation came with seven conditions attached.
Swanson, who is the sole director for Acadia Aquaculture Inc.,
wants the exclusive right to lease the site for 10 years to expand
his nearby Trumpet Island salmon farm to raise single-year classes
of the fish -- a method of fish disease prevention.
DMR hearing officer Laurice Churchill made the recommendation
to Commissioner George Lapointe, who will make the final call on
the fish farm proposal after applicants and those who gained legal
standing in the case respond during a 10-day comment period.
Initial approval of the project came despite strong public
opposition and a privately funded study detailing apparent
inadequacies of the site for a fish farm. Those factors included
low water flow and low levels of dissolved oxygen, signs of a
static environment with little flushing power to wash away food and
feces, according to Friends of Blue Hill Bay, a group opposed to
the plan.
The group presented the study at an Oct. 27 hearing on the
proposal with oceanographer Neal Pettigrew, an associate professor
of oceanography at the University of Maine who specializes in
coastal water circulation issues, and who conducted the study.
DMR staff recommended approval of the project because it found
that the aquaculture plans meet state criteria for a lease site.
For example, the proposal would not interfere unreasonably with
navigation, fishing or other uses of the area, nor public enjoyment
within 1,000 feet of municipal, state or federal beaches, parks or
recreation facilities, according to the report.
The report also states that the proposed fish farm site will
not interfereunreasonably with the lease site's ability to support
existing flora and fauna. The commissioner may revoke the permit if
activities at the lease site are "substantially injurious to marine
organisms. "
Swanson could not be reached for comment Thursday.
Ellen Best, a spokesperson for Friends of Blue Hill Bay, was
preparing comments to be sent to the DMR commissioner.
"We were sorry that Ms. Churchill dismissed Neal Pettigrew's
findings out-of-hand and seemed to give them no weight," Best said
Thursday.
According to Best, the DMR report did not include a condition
that would prohibit Swanson from using public facilities in Blue
Hill, another concern she planned to share with the commissioner.
"Devastated," was the word that intervenor Don Eley used to
describe his reaction to the DMR report.
"The state has put the issue of aquaculture ahead of science,"
said Eley. "If it turns the bay into a cesspool, then they'll
change their mind. " Eley wrote to Gov. Angus King, the Department
of Marine Resources and the editor of his local weekly to share his
concerns.
Blue Hill Selectman Gordon Emerson said he was surprised by the
department's recommendation to okay the site.
"If it is approved, we want some control over pollution," he
said.
Intervenor Robert Slaven Jr. said, "The whole concept is upside
down. " If a proposal meets certain criteria, an oil rig could be
placed in the middle of the bay, he said.
Slaven said he has considered applying for a lease of the
entire bay for boaters, fishermen and recreational use.
Conditions recommended for a lease site approval are: Allowing
lobster and crab fishing in open areas of the site; ensuring all
inboard engines operated by the leaseholder have caged propellers;
reaching agreements with Acadia National Park, Blue Hill selectmen
and the Seal Cove Landing Committee, who expressed concerns about
public resources at a public hearing; and marking the lease site
area with standards set by the Coast Guard and DMR.
Last summer, the state nixed two nearby lease site applications
from Belfast-based Atlantic Salmon of Maine to raise more than 1
million salmon.
Suitability of the site proved to be a hot topic at a public
hearing on the fish farm proposal.
The Friends of Blue Hill Bay initiated a study that examined 40
locations throughout the bay for temperature, salinity and
dissolved oxygen levels at depths extending to 40 meters, compared
with the 15-meter depths considered in the Department of Marine
Resources' site review.
Pettigrew, who conducted the study has said that at 40 meters,
dissolved oxygen levels decreased significantly.
The department's site review outlined that water circulation
and levels of dissolved oxygen are lower than at other Maine sites.
The conditions could contribute to a build-up of feed and fecal
matter under the pens, according to a report by Jon Lewis, the
state's aquaculture environmental coordinator.
Lewis said the state's monitoring program would be able to
detect changes in oxygen levels or accumulations of food and feces
under the site.
LOAD-DATE: February 25, 2000
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9)
The Associated Press State & Local Wire
The materials in the AP file were compiled by The Associated Press. These
materials may not be republished without the express written consent of The
Associated Press.
February 25, 2000, Friday, AM cycle
SECTION: State and Regional
LENGTH: 588 words
HEADLINE: State files suit over salmon data
BYLINE: By DAVID SHARP, Associated Press Writer
DATELINE: PORTLAND, Maine
Frustrated by delays, the state is suing for access to data used by
federal
government scientists to support their proposal to place wild Atlantic
salmon on
the endangered species list.
The state also wants a court order extending the March 15 deadline for
public
comments to ensure independent scientists have an opportunity to review the
data
and enter their findings into the public record.
Gov. Angus King expressed outrage Friday over repeated attempts by the
state
to get access to the federal government's raw data.
"They're saying they want to base this on science and to keep politics
out of
it. Fine, we want to look at the science," King's spokesman, Dennis Bailey,
said
from his office in Augusta.
Frustration has been building since the government delivered CD-ROMs on
Jan.
24 that turned out to be useless because a University of Maine professor
could
not access the data they contained, Bailey said.
A scientist at the Maine State Police Crime Laboratory confirmed the
professor's findings that the CD-ROMs were useless, he said.
Then, on Feb. 16, more data was received but this time the disks did not
have
a template necessary for the state to evaluate the raw data. Federal
officials
initially declined to turn over the templates, Bailey said.
King said he does not understand why the government is dragging its feet,
especially after the state took the step of filing a formal request for
data
under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Dec. 21.
"It's irresponsible and it makes me suspicious that there is something in
the
data they don't want us to see," King said in a statement.
Paul Nickerson, chief of the endangered species unit for the U.S. Fish
and
Wildlife Service's northeastern division in the Hadley, Mass., said Friday
that
he believed the federal government had complied with state requests.
"We've been up to our necks with FOIA requests. And we provided piles of
information to Maine. So the fact that there was something wrong with those
disks comes as a complete surprise to me," Nickerson said.
The federal government continues to maintain it will provide the
essential
data but not until March 3, the lawsuit says.
By then, it will be too late because independent scientists cannot review
the
data and report back in the one week before the end of the public comment
period, according to the state's lawsuit.
The lawsuit to enforce the state's original request for data, and to
request
a temporary restraining order to delay the deadline for public comments for
30
days, were filed Thursday in U.S. District Court.
Named in the lawsuit are the Department of the Interior, Department of
Commerce, National Marine Fisheries Service, U.S. Geological Survey and
U.S.
Fish and Wildlife Service.
The federal government proposed in November to list wild Atlantic salmon
from
seven Maine rivers under the Endangered Species Act.
The rivers are the Dennys, East Machias, Machias, Narraguagus, Pleasant,
Ducktrap and Sheepscot. Also named is Cove Brook, a tributary of the
Penobscot
River.
King contends there is not enough scientific data to show the wild salmon
are
different from other salmon. He also contends the move would be devastating
to
the Down East economy, which relies on salmon farms and blueberry farms,
some of
which draw water from the rivers for irrigation.
King supports a proposal by U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, to have the
National Academy of Sciences conduct an independent survey of the data
behind
the proposed listing.
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH
LOAD-DATE: February 26, 2000
-------------------------------------------------------------
10)
>From TIME:
SCIENCE
MARCH 6, 2000 VOL. 155 NO. 9
Make Way for
Frankenfish!
What Happens To These Ordinary
Salmon If The Genetically Modified
Lunkers Ever Get Loose?
BY FREDERIC GOLDEN
Whether served as raw sushi, grilled steak or in
thin smoked slices, most of the salmon you eat
these days is not the sleek sport fish that has
been a favorite of anglers since Izaak Walton but
rather a chunky, sluggish creature raised in
captivity. Indeed, salmon caught in the wild
accounts for less than half of all salmon sold in
the U.S.
Now gene splicers have cooked up a
replacement that sounds like a fish tale: a
veritable superfish, one that can grow at least
twice as fast, resist disease and outmate
competitors. If approved, it could provide protein
to millions of people at a time when fish stocks
are perilously low. But as you might expect,
some critics are carping. They consider the
supersalmon a biological time bomb that could
destroy the remaining natural salmon populations
and wreak other environmental havoc. To them,
the supersalmon is nothing less than a
"Frankenfish."
Unlike other genetically modified foods--so-called
Frankenfoods--the supersalmon was born almost
accidentally. About 20 years ago, a fish
researcher in Newfoundland found that even
though his saltwater tank had frozen, the flounder
in it survived. Adapted to icy Canadian waters,
the fish turned out to have a gene, known in other
polar fishes, that produces an anti-freeze protein.
While trying to splice this gene into salmon so it
too could be grown in colder waters, scientists
made a second accidental discovery: they found
that while the gene didn't keep the salmon from
freezing, a portion of it, when stitched onto a
salmon's growth-hormone gene, greatly speeded
development--up to five or six times as fast as in
the early months and about twice as fast overall.
Patenting their discovery, the scientists started a
company in Waltham, Mass., called A/F Protein
(A/F stands for antifreeze).
The company has 10,000 to 20,000 Atlantic
supersalmon swimming in endless circles in 136
tanks at three locations in Canada's Maritime
provinces. The hope is that these fish will soon
be producing eggs for commercial aquaculture
not just in Canada but in New Zealand, Chile and
the U.S. as well. By turning to the supersalmon,
says Elliot Entis, A/F's president, fish farmers
could double production without doubling costs
because the fish converts food into body mass
so much more efficiently than ordinary salmon.
That, he says, would mean "more fish for more
people at a lower price."
But this so-called blue revolution may not reach
U.S. shores for a while. Although gene scientists
in the U.S. have been tinkering with a variety of
marine creatures--not only salmon and trout but
also carp, catfish, tilapia and shrimp--these
efforts are drawing criticism similar to that
directed at genetically modified foods.
Opponents, who complain about the fertilizers
and other pollutants released into coastal waters
by the fish farms, are especially concerned about
the potential impact on the gene pool. They note
that domesticated fish regularly escape from their
pens into the wild and breed with native stocks,
upsetting the balance of nature.
No one knows what ripple effects might occur if
the new supersalmon escaped into the wild. One
of the few studies done by U.S. researchers
found a lower survival rate for eggs produced by
transgenic fish. Still other studies show that
despite their name, so-called superfish have
diminished muscle structure and swimming
performance. Says Canadian fish geneticist
Robert Devlin: "Science, at the moment, is
unable to give us a reliable assessment of risk."
Entis and others reply that whatever the risk, it
could be lowered to almost zero by raising the
fish in closed tanks rather than in storm-exposed
pens. Still another tactic under consideration is
shocking the fertilized eggs so they create fish
that cannot reproduce--a marine equivalent of the
self-destructing terminator gene that Monsanto
once considered putting in its patented plant
seeds.
Fearing a consumer backlash, New Zealand King
Salmon, a major producer of Chinook
salmon--the largest Pacific salmon--announced
last week that it was suspending its
gene-modification experiments. Entis, by
contrast, believes he can win acceptance of his
supersalmon through public education. "We have
to show we have nothing to hide," he says.
But don't count on putting supersalmon lox on
your Sunday-morning bagel anytime soon. The
Food and Drug Administration must first approve
introduction of the fish into the U.S., something
that probably won't happen before 2001.
--REPORTED BY DICK THOMPSON/WASHINGTON
COPYRIGHT © 2000 TIME INC.
