Morton in the news again

Odd Grydeland

Mention the name Alexandra Morton in salmon farming circles, and everyone knows who you are talking about. Ms. Morton has made it her quest in life to rid the coast of British Columbia of salmon farms, particularly near where she lived most of her life since moving to the Broughton Archipelago from the United States. Using environmental concerns about the harmful interaction between farmed and wild salmon, she has published several articles critical of conventional salmon farming.

Last week news came that she has launched another law suit against one of the salmon farm companies operating in BC- this time apparently over the accidental bycatch of some wild pink salmon juveniles during the harvesting of Atlantic salmon brood stock. In an interview with a local paper, Ms. Morton stated that she has received many reports of wild fish being seen in salmon farm pens. She also stated that “The escaped Atlantic salmon that fishermen bring me often have wild fish in their stomachs” (Campbell River Courier-Islander, September 18).

This statement is surprising, as Ms Morton was a co-author with John Volpe, then at the University of Alberta, of a report published in the Alaska Fishery Research Bulletin entitled “A Description of Escaped Farmed Atlantic Salmon Salmo salar Captures and Their Characteristics in One Pacific Salmon Fishery Area in British Columbia, Canada, in 2000”. This study examined some 775 escaped Atlantic salmon with respect to their stomach contents, and only 26 of them (3.4%) had any wild prey in them, and of those, 11 fish contained "remnants of shrimp, unidentified fish or unidentified invertebrates". The study took place in and around the Broughton Archipelago.

A similar study was published by Fisheries and Oceans Canada in 2004 by D.E. Hay et al., who examined the stomach content of some 600 Atlantic salmon from four farms in and around the Broughton Archipelago, and another 134 stomachs from salmon from a farm farther down the Vancouver Island coast in 2004. Some of those farms had been using night lighting in order to reduce maturation and increase growth. They only found remnants of one single fish- a small sand lance- in all of those samples. The study concluded that “There was very little wild food in any of the salmon stomachs, and the few wild food items that were found were small and occurred infrequently. In most instances total weight was only a few milligrams”.

It is not the first time Alexandra Morton gets into hot water for erroneous statements made by her in her quest to discredit salmon farming in BC. In fact, as early as November 21, 1998, she published a letter in the Times Colonist newspaper, with a headline suggesting that “Fish farms devastate the environment: Salmon, whales, birds vanish as depredations of aquaculture spread”. One of the main points in her article was the assertion that a dead killer whale found on a beach on Vancouver Island was “full of antibiotic resistant bacteria, originating from farmed salmon”, according to the “doctor who performed the autopsy”. Four days later, this doctor (Chief veterinarian for the province of BC Dr. J. Lewis), wrote to the same paper that this was absolutely false, that the whale had succumbed to a generalized infection by a bacteria that has never been recovered from farmed fish, and that during his examination of many other free ranging killer whales had never encountered whales dying from “antibiotic-resistant disease”.  

Ms. Morton is a Registered Professional Biologist (RPBio) according to the rules set out by the College of Applied Biology in BC, requiring a combination of published papers and work experience, as well as support from three referees.