Other news and issues

One of the reasons we oppose salmonid farming, is that it is environmentally unsustainable. For every kilo of salmon or trout grown, four kilos of shrimp and small fish are sucked out of the ocean to produce fish pellets. Now new research by Dr Miriam Jacobs of Surrey University has found the farmed fish contain high levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The production of PCBs is banned in most countries - but the chemicals accumulate in oceans after being released in industrial waste. UK scientists are calling for urgent research to be carried out into the safety of farmed salmon after research showed that some fish contain worrying levels of these potentially dangerous chemicals.

PCBs are among the most toxic and persistent pollutants in existence. The chemicals are thought to affect human nervous, immune and reproductive systems. They are also thought to be responsible for so-called "gender bending" effects because they mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen. Studies indicate the chemicals can cause cancer, decreased sperm counts, deformed genitals and sterility. The World Health Organisation is sufficiently concerned about the potential consequences to have cut its guidelines on the recommended intake of dioxins.

Dr Jacobs traced the contamination back to the feed that includes fish meal and oil which come from wild fish trawled from the world's oceans in vast quantities by industrial fleets. Concentrating the nutritional value of these fish into pellets to produce a high-protein diet for farmed salmon multiplies the minute traces of toxins present in each individual fish to a more significant level. Once ingested, PCBs build up in body fat and take years to break down.

A spokesman for the UK Fishmeal and Oil Manufacturers Association said it was aware of chemical concentration in feed. We can therefore assume that salmon and trout producers are, or should be, aware of this also. So how many warning labels have you seen on salmon products in shops and supermarkets? Oops! Must have slipped their minds.

One last point. Last August New Zealand's only dedicated fish food producing factory closed, after King Salmon decided to import their fish food rather than buy NZ-made. All 13 staff were made redundant at the plant at Hope, which was owned by NRM, a division of Tegel Foods. So why should fish farmed in this country be any different? 

Samples in 1999 from fall chinook salmon in the Columbia River's Hanford Reach show that four-fifths of the females spawning there apparently began life as males. James Nagler, the University of Idaho professor who led the study, said the results of the genetic testing on the natural-spawning chinook came as a surprise. Pesticides and other chemicals that could mimic estrogen and disrupt the normal development of salmon are present in the Columbia's water, Nagler said, but at very low concentrations -- far below those used in laboratory experiments. Records also show daily changes in the Columbia's water temperature as water flows fluctuate to generate hydroelectricity.

"These results may explain in part the difficulties some salmon have had reproducing in the Columbia River Basin." Nagler added. The mating of a genetically altered female and a normal male could then produce males with two Y chromosomes, and such males could then only produce male offspring, thus imbalancing the sex ratio of spawners.

The Hanford Reach remains the most important natural spawning area for fall chinook salmon in the main-stem Columbia River, and this wild chinook run is the largest upstream from dams in the Columbia Basin. The reach is the last free-flowing stretch of the Columbia upstream from Bonneville Dam. 

New England's salmon farmers are under attack, as the federal government declared wild salmon in 8 Maine rivers as endangered, and said that the fish-farming industry was partially to blame. Environmentalists, backed by the National Environmental Law Centre are also suing three salmon farms for operating without discharge permits. They claim that concentrated fish waste, excess fish food, and a chemical used to clean the fish of sea lice, are running unchecked into the sea. Meanwhile, no fewer than 7 government agencies are beefing up or creating regulations that will impact on fish farming.

The listing of Maine's wild salmon as endangered is seen as such a threat to the salmon industry, the governor and a coalition of aquaculture companies are challenging it in court. They fear that fish pens might have to be moved further offshore to prevent escaped fish interbreeding with native fish, increasing production costs.

Sea lice also feature in news from Scottish salmon farms, where a family claim they were attacked by these blood-sucking little creatures whilst bathing from a beach near a fish farm. Sea lice breed in billions amongst salmon in farm cages. They have been shown to transmit bacterial and viral diseases.

For the second year running in Scotland, thousands of miles of coastline have been closed to shellfish harvesting because of toxic algal blooms. Out of the 60 sites affected, 57 are in areas used for fish farming. None has any record of toxicity prior to 1988, when a massive expansion of fake salmon farming occurred, dumping huge quantities of untreated fish farm sewage into the marine environment. 

Organisations such as Federated Farmers and APR Consultants continue to point out in articles and submissions that it is easy to tell the difference between farmed fish delivered in shrink-wrapped plastic, and poached fish delivered in newspaper or an old sack. We really wonder which world these people live in. Do they really think that vacuum packing machines are so hard to come by?

A recent article from Britain illustrates the commercial nature and the huge damage that poaching can inflict on a fishery. The biggest recorded kill of fish in one of Britain's most protected rivers has been blamed on bungling poachers. 100,000 fish have died in 10 days in the Dee's lower reaches on the border of England and Wales near Chester. Poachers often use chemicals to cut oxygen in the water and suffocate fish quickly. Ten days ago, dead and dying fish began surfacing in the river at Farndon, starved of oxygen. "There have been occasions when poachers have used a substance in the water illegally which results in them getting the fish out quickly," said an Environment Agency spokeswoman yesterday. "Poaching these days is no longer the chap taking home a bit of fish for his tea." The contaminating agent was colourless and odourless and is proving difficult to identify. Anglers believe the stretch of river will be of no use to them for 10 years. Steve Fitzpatrick, news editor of the Angling Times, said: "An incident at a trout farm two years ago killed 300,000 fish but we've seen nothing like this in their natural domain. He grew up fishing the Dee's waters and believes 100,000 fish have died.

It couldn't happen here, if there was a market for trout, - could it?

Over the last month, we have seen:

• Marine poaching described as a major source of income for gangs in between cannabis seasons, by Ministry of Fisheries.
• a New Plymouth man convicted of possession of fish (rock lobster) for sale other than from an authorised source.
• a large amount of paua found dumped in the Linwood Avenue waterway. It was believed the find was connected to a known group of paua poachers.
• A total of 1081kg of kina roe valued at $28,997 was illegally taken by a Picton fisherman.
• 25 kg of illegal shucked frozen paua was found in chilly bins owned by a Blenheim diving instructor. 148 were undersized.
• Another offender was fined a total of $14,970 after pleading guilty to four charges relating to taking excess paua, undersize paua, taking paua with underwater breathing apparatus and taking fish while a banned fisher. The offending took place in the Marlborough Sounds.
• Fisheries officers nabbed three men at Turakirae Head with 890 paua, police stopped a motorist with 600 paua, and a man was caught with nearly 200 crayfish taken illegally from the Wairarapa coast.
• Fisheries officers seized 1500 paua taken by five men at Makara.
• A huge haul of illegal crayfish nabbed by the Fisheries Ministry off the Wairarapa coast. It included 90 cooked and 40 fresh crayfish, along with five craypots and the four-metre aluminium runabout they were transported in.
• Kaikoura volunteer fisheries officers have netted a fishermen with a catch of 300 paua, 30 times the legal limit.
• Taranaki Fisheries officers caught more than half a dozen recreational anglers who hauled in undersized snapper.
• A 200m net packed with rotting fish was found off the West Coast yesterday after floating 200km untended.

Sealord Group is poised to get involved in fish farming, a new field for the Nelson-based seafood company. The venture is a result of a change in the company's ownership, recently approved by the Government. Japanese seafood giant Nissui and the Treaty of Waitangi Fisheries Commission will jointly buy Brierley Investments' 50 percent shareholding in Sealord for just under $208 million. The commission already owns the other half of Sealord, New Zealand's biggest seafood company and largest fish quota holder. Nissui is one of the largest seafood companies in the world and has a network of bases worldwide. It was a shareholder in Sealord from 1973 to 1990, has a stake in Anzco Foods Ltd and is a sponsor of the New Zealand Rugby Football Union. 
 
 

Rotorua's LakesWater Quality Society has expressed concern about rising water temperatures over recent years which had lowered water quality and increased the prevalence of algae-bloom in Rotorua's lakes. They are holding a symposium into the problem, claiming that basic research into lake water quality in New Zealand had practically stopped.

Many locals and visitors to Rotorua are swimming in areas of lakes Rotorua and Rotoiti affected by dangerous algal boom, despite health warnings not to go into the water. Signs in the Holdens Bay and Hannahs Bay recreation areas on Lake Rotorua and around Okawa Bay on Lake Rotoiti warn against drinking, swimming or any water contact due to the potential risk of blue-green algae. Dead fish and the odd sea bird littered the foreshore.

The public have been banned from Lake Horowhenua near Levin following the discovery of a deadly fresh water algae. The algae, known as Micro Cystis, produces a toxin that destroys the liver. The algae, which gives off a putrid smell, recently killed more than 50 people in Brazil after they drank water from an infected lake.

A large section of the Avon River will be closed as the city council trials a herbicide to combat an invasive aquatic weed seriously threatening the waterway. The weed, egeria densa, was first discovered at Kerrs Reach in 1999, and has the potential to virtually take over the waterway. It was unknown how the weed first arrived, however it could have been transported by rowing or fishing gear since only a small piece of the plant was needed for it to spread. The overall approach of the council to egeria was one of management, containing and reducing the plant's spread, as opposed to wiping the weed out. It's virtually impossible to eradicate.

The cost of saving the Avon and Heathcote rivers, at risk of drying up because of increasing groundwater use, could be up to $10m, the Christchurch City Council says. Environment Canterbury plans to maintain the rivers' flows using water from the Waimakariri River and includes options to store Waimakariri River water by injecting it into groundwater or by building lakes.

Gymnodinium catenatum toxin levels on North Island west coast beaches are seven times higher than previously recorded in New Zealand. Shellfish co-ordinator, Tony Beachamp, said there were also indications that fish may have been killed and toheroa affected. Pilchards had been washed up along several kilometres of beach and a boatie reported large numbers gasping on the surface 20 kilometres off South Hokianga.

The Wairakei geothermal power station is heating up the Waikato River more than it should be and discharging too much poisonous hydrogen sulphide into the water. Mussels and trout in the upper Waikato River might be unsafe to eat, and the number of small fish downstream of the plant is declining as a result, according to Niwa testing. Contact Energy, which took over the Taupo plant in January 2000, said it was discharging hot water into the river at higher than Environment Waikato limits "for around 12 per cent of the time". It was sending excessive amounts of hydrogen sulphide into the river between Wairakei and the Fulljames rapid. It was also discharging mercury, which accumulated in water organisms and sediments at the head of Lake Ohakuri. Contact Energy's technical studies have also found arsenic in the water at levels above the New Zealand drinking water standard - although the natural levels of the poison in Lake Taupo were already close to that standard. The Taupo harbourmaster, Eastern Region Fish and Game and even Taupo Mayor Joan Williamson said today they did not know Contact's discharge exceeded guidelines.

The odds of any hydro-electric development on the lower Clutha River are "vanishingly small," Energy Minister Pete Hodgson said yesterday. "I'm saying that Contact Energy should probably bite the bullet, and conclude that they are foregoing the prospect of ever building a dam on the lower Clutha." The prospects of hydro-electric development in the area were knocked last week when the Department of Conservation (DOC) declared Birch Island, near Tuapeka Mouth, a protected area. That's small comfort to Clyde residents, who have to get their clean water from tankers, as their supply from the Kawarau arm of Lake Dunstan is affected by turbidity and sediment buildup. They have been told it will take up to $2.5 million top fix the problem, which has been going on for five years since the dam caused the lake to form. Residents are demanding to know why Contact Energy, whose dam has caused the problem, isn't expected to contribute to the solution.