The Dawn of a New Era in Fisheries Management in Canada - Lets Make it Happen
http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/

Sign letter to Canadian Minister of Fisheries asking for the laws of Canada to be Applied to fish farming (http://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?hl=en&formkey=cEkxX3p3MGFBbWNVVG.....)

On November 5, 2009 Prime Minister Harper stood in the House of Commons and announced there would be a Judicial Inquiry into the disappearance of 10 million Fraser sockeye. At that moment all of us became responsible for the future of wild fish in Canadian waters.

We are no longer on the outside. Thank you for the 100s of emails. Many of you are cautious about feeling any sense of hope and you are right. Many of you feel this success was due more to my work than to all of you and you are wrong. I could have written 500 more scientific papers, and blogged like a southeast storm to no avail. The Prime Minister responded because he could see the people of Canada demanded this.

The terms of this Judicial Inquiry are both specific and sweeping enough not only find out what killed our sockeye, but also to diagnose the sickness in Fisheries and Oceans Canada and prescribe a remedy to the benefit of all fisheries across Canada (http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/files/bg-terms-of-reference-final-2-2...).

Wild fish are food security, protecting them is a global responsibility to the children of earth. Now that we one of the highest legal processes in Canada with us, we need work with it, keep it on track, make sure politicians know we are following this so I have several requests.

1. If there is something you think this Inquiry needs to examine please contact me and let me know. As I learn more I will let you know how you can do this directly to the Inquiry.

2. Even though we have this Inquiry underway, there is no excuse for the exemptions that salmon farmers enjoy under the Fisheries Act, we need every person who is interested to sign our letter to the Minister of Fisheries calling for enforcement of the Fisheries Act on salmon farms.

Last week a reporter discovered that when farm fish escape, the fish farmers refuse to put them back in the pens because they can no longer ensure custody of their product from egg to market. This shed significant light on the report that right after the recent escape of 40,000 farm salmon in Port Elizabeth a fisherman was not able to recapture the fish as they schooled around his seine boat. Instead, another boat was called and by the time it arrived it could only recapture 1,000. The company lamented it had lost 1 million dollars. This did not make sense until it became evident that if the first vessel had caught all 40,000 escaped salmon the company would have had the enormous task of disposing of them. Better perhaps to wait until there were only 1000 to deal with? Meanwhile Atlantic farm salmon began hitting commercial gillnets 40 km away in 24 hours as they dispersed into the Pacific.

Under the Fisheries Act it is against the law to release fish into the ocean, unless you have explicit permission to do so for enhancement purposes. Will there be a huge fine associated with this, escape and lack of recovery? Not unless we push for it.

So to all of you who write me daily asking what you can do. Please do everything you can to let people know they can join us in signing this letter to the Minister of Fisheries. Here is a flyer you can print and post (http://alexandramorton.typepad.com/files/salmon-farm-did-you-know.pdf) to sign the letter or donate to the legal fees www.adopt-a-fry.org

So once again thank you all! And here's to us and the work ahead.

Alexandra Morton