The Kristi Miller Fund: already $6,000 raised

The Kristi Miller Fund

Last January a study by Dr. Kristi Miller, a scientist at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, was published in the journal Science. Her research has identified a genomic signature which may link the decline of the Fraser sockeye to a viral infection.

In particular, her candidate virus may account for the high levels of salmon mortality observed in the Fraser before spawning. Her study is said to be one of the most important to come from DFO in years.

Yet the federal government has cut Dr. Miller’s funding, undermining her ability to continue her critical research. In particular, while she was on the witness stand at the Cohen Commission, Dr. Miller said that she put forward a proposal to test farmed salmon for her virus.

But her funding request – which only amounted to $18,750 – was denied by DFO.

To complicate the matter, Dr. Miller testified that the Prime Minister’s office in Ottawa barred her from talking to the media about her research into the sockeye salmon decline.

These curious actions by government have not gone unnoticed by Wild Salmon People, and have sparked suspicion of blatant political interference. Once again, it’s up to the people to rise to the task. Together, we will raise the money that DFO denied to Dr. Miller to test farmed salmon for the salmon leukemia virus.

The monies donated by concerned citizens for this urgent and critical research will be presented to DFO. By doing this, we will send an uncompromising message that the public will take no further excuses to stall Dr. Miller’s research, and that the federal government must allow those critical tests to take place without further delay.

And if DFO refuses to take the money, then we will use it to conduct disease tests independently of government and industry. Those tests will focus on the alarming pre-spawn mortality, the exotic ISA virus and possible jaundice epidemic currently affecting the 2011 Fraser River salmon run.

A jaundiced pink salmon found last week in the Fraser, apparently killed by liver disease

You have a chance to be a part of a direct action that can make an ocean of a difference.

No gift is too small. Whether you can afford to give $10 or $1000, help us send a message to government, and support good people working hard for the preservation of our wild salmon for generations.

Visit the Salmon Are Sacred website and click on their PayPal button. *Please add a note (in PayPal’s “Add special instructions for the Recipient” box) indicating that your donation is for the “Kristi Miller Fund”

If you send a cheque [att: Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society or PCWSS - Box 399, Sointula BC V0N 3E0], please add that mention as well.

Jaundiced pink salmon, Fraser River, October 2011

Have you ever seen a bright yellow salmon before? With shock and horror, we give you one.

This photo was taken on October 5 by Dr. Alexandra Morton and wild salmon activist Anissa Reed on the banks of the Fraser river.

They found several such dead yellow Pink salmon during a recent field study. Those salmon clearly died of jaundice. And when Alex opened one fish, she found a severely diseased liver, one which appeared to be covered with tumor-like growths.

The diseased liver of a jaundiced pink salmon

What is causing this deadly disease in so many of our salmon? Is it a virus? We don’t know. But we need to find out, right now. Fish farms, once again, appear as a prime suspect. In an open letter last week to DFO Pacific Region Director Dr. Laura Richards, Alexandra Morton asked the hard questions:

“While you testified that you have not read the salmon farm disease records, I have read every line and note that the Provincial vet Dr. Gary Marty is diagnosing a form of jaundice in farm salmon that he states is similar to a virus found in Coho in Chile, he cites a paper by P.A. Smith et al 2006.

I want your report on these jaundice farm salmon and the jaundice pink salmon DFO must be aware of – why are they yellow, why are there so many of them, is this the Chilean virus Dr. Marty notes and how would such a virus get here?”

Dr. Kristi Miller, the DFO researcher whose work has been recently published in the journal Science, has discovered a candidate virus which may be causing cancer and anemia in wild salmon. Yet last month, it was revealed at the Cohen Commission that she has been denied funding by DFO to test Atlantic salmon in fish farms for her virus. She was asking for $18,750 – a pittance in research terms. But her DFO hierarchy told her that they didn’t have the money!

Pre-spawn deaths, Fraser River Oct. 2011

Why is DFO doing this? Why is it pretending that it does not have twenty thousand dollars to conduct critical tests on salmon disease? Why would it say that, when it was also revealed at the Commission that the federal government has given $145,000 to the fish farm industry to conduct “research” on how to make farmed salmon more palatable to the end consumer?

As yellow salmon are dying on the banks of the Fraser, this DFO charade must stop. The people of this Province demand that viral tests be performed on fish farms – right now. Not next year. Not next month. Now.

At the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the Fraser sockeye fishery, Greg McDade’s cross-examination of Dr. Laura Richards (DFO Regional Director of Science in the Pacific Region) revealed that DFO has been stifling information on diseases borne out of aquaculture sites. That the DFO is acting like a public-relations office for the fish-farm industry is outrageous if not a surprise to many citizens, and the Globe and Mail’s Mark Hume covered the revelation in an article this spring. Here’s an excerpt:

“Earlier this month, the Cohen Commission of Inquiry Into the Decline of Sockeye Salmon in the Fraser River, saw an e-mail by Dr. [Kristi] Miller in which she complained about being kept away from a workshop because her DFO masters “fear that we will not be able to control the way the disease issue could be construed in the press.”

Dr. Miller, who suspects a virus is killing millions of sockeye salmon in the river, had a paper published in the prestigious journal Science earlier this year. But she has not been allowed to talk to the press about it.

“By preventing Dr. Miller from speaking to the media and from participating in non-DFO controlled meetings/workshops, DFO is inhibiting science,” Mr. Hutchings said in his e-mail. “This action, so evidently lacking in openness and transparency, is regrettably consistent with the objective of controlling the information that public servants are permitted to disseminate to the public.”

Dr. Miller’s situation also inspired Alan Sinclair, a retired DFO scientist, to write to Mark Hume: “Your recent article reporting that DFO put a gag order on Dr. Kristi Miller’s research on disease in sockeye salmon is very disturbing. Unfortunately, this sort of thing is all too common in DFO and other Federal Ministries with large science components. I encourage you to follow up on this and make Canadians more aware of what’s going on.’”

The full transcript of this particular cross-examination is on the Cohen Commission website.

In other Cohen Commission news, the deadline for the final report has been extended to June 30, 2012. This means a long wait for any meaningful analysis of the effect of salmon farms on Fraser sockeye and other wild fish.

Are you opposed to open-net fish farming and violations of a UNESCO biosphere reserve site?

Salmon farm corporation Mainstream Canada has applied for an enormous net-pen salmon farm. This farm would cover 1.25 hectares, and in terms of biomass—600,000 farmed salmon eating and excreting directly into the water— is equivalent to installing a town of about 40,000 people in the midst of a wilderness area. Plover Point is within the boundaries of the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve and like the rest of Clayoquot Sound, it is a gem that needs our support.

Learn more about this proposal and Plover Point.

Should we compromise our organic labeling system for farmed salmon? We didn’t think so. Recently a proposal from the Canadian General Standards Board has claimed that farmed salmon could be labeled as organic in supermarkets. This means that 100% non-organic synthetic parasiticides could be used and still be considered “organic.” This is not only troubling that farmed salmon could reach new levels of credibility but it devalues our current standards for organic labeling elsewhere, which could lead to larger issues in the future. The comment period has now closed but there is still time to send letters to your MP and/or MLA to indicate your disappointment in the matter. Find your MP or MLA, all you need is your postal code.