[fishermenlist] Update

[Rick Baerg]

Hello

This week the Fraser River sockeye run was critically downgraded. This was no surprise to me as I looked at this generation of Fraser sockeye and they were infected with sea lice near the fish farms from Campbell River to eastern Johnstone Strait. While they are bigger than pink and chum salmon when they enter the sea, they are damaged by the lice, you can see an image on the website www.adopt-a-fry.org The pattern keeps repeating. If they caught farm lice when they were young, they never come home. As soon as the farm salmon are removed, they do come home.

Actor William Shatner is lending his star power to our efforts and wrote to Prime Minister Stephen Harper. His letter is on our website.

One of the signatories on our letter to the Minister of Fisheries generously donated his services to produce a full page information ad on salmon farms. You can see Gary Dunham, of Mercury Graphics in Langley BC's work on the "Action" page at www.adopt-a-fry.org Thank you Gary for your patience and talent.

Many people have heard about the salmon farming controversy, but they don’t know the specifics. I have included some of the many issues that are causing the problems with this industry. I would really like to hear from you about which local newspapers this should appear in. If you could send me a link to the paper that would be really great. Any financial assistance in running this ad in your community would also be welcome.

The downgrade of the Fraser sockeye is a warning we can choose to ignore or react to. Alaska is seeing huge sockeye returns and they do not allow Atlantic salmon to be penned on their salmon migration routes. We can make many guesses as to what happened to our sockeye, but it does not make sense to ignore the one that has been researched and published and seen worldwide. Commercial, sport and tourism operators are taking losses to protect our wild salmon and yet the fish farms just keep getting bigger and more numerous.

There is something very wrong here and if we want our wild salmon we need to speak now or forever lose our fish.

Standing by,

Alexandra Morton

[2fly]

Going to have to start rallys the F/N should be at the front as they have alot of pull.I fear if we start to lose one the others are not far behind.Just wondering who orders all this farmed junk any how ?

[johnk]

Sorry Rick but being so displaced from the issues now has left me a little misinformed. With that said I would think with the 2010 Olympics on the horizon, British Columbia and her hot issues are displayed in the raw on the world stage and a coalition between F/N, commercial fishermen and sport fishermen is an imminent urgency and concentrating on publicity at that level rather than the municipal or provincial level would yield far better results.