Salmon Confidential column was outdated and incorrect
Odd Grydeland, Courier-Islander, Wednesday, April 10, 2013
As the old saying goes - Sometimes it is better to keep silent and let people think you are a fool than to open your mouth and remove any doubt.
And so it is with Ray Grigg's latest special to the Courier-Islander (Salmon Confidential, April 3) where he blindly brags about the latest blur from the Alexandra Morton camp - this time a series of outdated and/or erroneous video clips put together in another feeble attempt to discredit the province's $800 million salmon farming industry, which was recently found not to have a significant negative effect on wild salmon by the $26 million Cohen Commission inquiry - the latest of many which all came to the same conclusion. Ms. Morton participated in this latest study.
And Ray Grigg shows his own bias and total lack of factual knowledge when he throws out another erroneous statement - again the latest of many on this subject - suggesting that "Norway has confronted this same problem by banning salmon farms from the migration routes of wild fish. Why then, according to evidence given by one DFO official at the Cohen Commission's reconvened hearings, has no such application ever been refused on BC's coast?"
Doing what he gets paid for, Mr. Grigg should know better than most that when Norway in 2003 decided to establish a number of "Salmon Fjords" for the protection of sensitive salmon stocks, not a single one of the fish farms already present in these fjords were asked to leave, and most of these fjords today contain salmon farms. There is no "ban on salmon farms from the migration routes of wild fish" in Norway as Mr. Grigg states.
On the other hand - as Mr. Grigg should also know - the BC government has declined salmon farm applications due to concerns about migrating salmon. These rejected applications should now be revisited given the findings of the Cohen Commission.
Odd Grydeland
Campbell River
