Pacific Salmon Forum releases interime research findings from 2007
Following an article in the Vancouver Sun over the weekend that suggested that the B.C. Pasific Salmon Forum was now supportive of a study by Martin Krkosek and others that stated that some wild salmon populations in B.C. are facing extinction due to exposure to sea lice, the Forum today issued a News Release and Interim Research Findings.
In its release, the Forum Chairman John Fraser said that the Broughton Archipelago- where most of the Forum funded research took place- "is a very intricate ecosystem. The interaction between wild salmon, farmed salmon and other species is taking place in a region of a complex mix of currents, winds and geography". And he continued to say that "Since it is clear we are dealing with dynamic ecosystems that includes many factors not simply sea lice, the Forum will be funding a broad range of researchers to come together to develop an analytical framework that will incorporate all ecosystem factors in order to interpret the data that is emerging from this research program".
The Forum paid for the study where Martin Krkosek concluded that some stocks of wild salmon are facing extinction. Last month a group of twenty leading fisheries scientists issued a report, stating that the Krkosek study failed to support its own hypothesis. Other scientists funded by the Forum described pink salmon returns to the area in 2007 to be similar or slightly better than the returns in the brood year for those fish, the year 2005.
