Doomsday: An article in the Guardian newspaper asked why have salmon deserted Norway’s rovers – and will they ever return? The article spends over a thousand words considering this question but fails to reach a conclusion. However, it doesn’t need a thousand words to answer this question when just one will do – No.
The reason why my answer is no is simply because those charged with providing advice on wild salmon stocks have put on a pair of blinkers and focused their attention on just one issue – salmon farming. Unfortunately, and because they are so focused on blaming salmon farming, they are unable to see that the real reasons why salmon are disappearing from Norwegian rivers lie elsewhere.
The Guardian spoke to Torbjørn Forseth, head of the Norwegian scientific advisory committee for Atlantic salmon management, who said salmon could become extinct and if they do Dr Forseth should take a very hard look at his own involvement in bringing salmon to extinction in Norwegian rivers. According to the newspaper, experts say wild salmon is at imminent threat from escapes (including of sick fish) and a dramatic rise in sea lice and this could result in wild salmon being replaced entirely by a hybrid species. Dr Forseth said that wild salmon are being replaced with escaped farmed salmon, which will result in the loss of all local adaptions. Each of Norway’s 450 salmon rivers has its own salmon which have adapted to the specific local conditions and if these fish are replaced that something very, very important is being lost. He said that open net farming at sea has reached its biological limit.
Regular readers of reLAKSation will know that the evidence clearly shows that sea lice are not the reason why wild salmon have disappeared. Sadly, Dr Forseth has shown no interest in learning about that evidence. He now seems to suggest that all Norway’s rivers have a unique salmon stock even though the evidence for straying between rivers to strengthen the gene pool has been long established. At the same time, Dr Forseth appears to have forgotten Darwin’s survival of the fittest which will ensure that any offspring of those few escaped salmon that do breed are less likely to survive.
Until the scientific committee for salmon management are willing to consider other narratives than their own, wild salmon will remain firmly on the route to extinction. What the committee appear never to discuss is the vexed subject of exploitation.
The Guardian spoke to the owners of Hembre Gård, a fishing lodge on the Størdal river which was closed but reopened to fishing at the end of July. They said that fishing the rivers is crucial to maintain interest in the health of Norwegian wild salmon. Yet, it is unclear how killing 51,767 wild salmon in 2023 maintains interest in the health of wild salmon except by those who want catch and kill them for sport.
Askel and Beate Hembre say that catch and release is a vital part of the solution. It is the main tool we can use to keep the rivers open. If you close the river the interest in fishing is lost and then no-one cares about the salmon anymore. Last year only 18,826 salmon were caught and released, the lowest number for a number of years (28,752 in 2020). In 2023, a total of 971 salmon were killed on the Størdal river whilst 619 were returned – just 39%. Clearly, there is still a long way to go if the Hembre’s want to see catch and release being used as a tool to protect the fish in their river. What the Hembre’s do not seem to be aware of is that catch and release has been employed for much longer in Scotland as a conservation tool and its increasing use has done nothing to stop the decline.
Another lodge owner on the Gaula river has said that the closure of rivers this year has left the local area feeling like Doomsday. Norwegian fishing owners will have to get used to that feeling of Doomsday because that is that what they must look forward to.
Feedback: I’ve not had chance to comment on the new paper by Solveig van Nes, Albert Imsland and Simon Jones which reviews salmon lice biology, environmental factors and smolt behaviour in relation to salmon farming. Their overall conclusion is that most of the claims about the impacts of sea lice on wild fish have been significantly over-estimated. I share many of their views although I have reached the same conclusion by a very different route.
The new paper is not the first to highlight that the impacts are not as great as the wild fish lobby would have us believe. A research team from the Irish Marine Institute published their findings from a long-term large-scale study having found that the impact of sea lice on wild fish was less than one percent. Those who believe that salmon farming is responsible for the decline of wild fish did everything they could to undermine this seminal work. Even today, as can be seen from the Scottish Government’s Summary of sea lice science, that this important work is overlooked simply because it doesn’t fit in with the narrative that Scottish Government scientists want to portray.
Although the new paper is extremely interesting, I was more fascinated by the response to the paper from other parts of the scientific community, especially in Norway.
Kyst.no reported that Karin Boxaspen, head of Norway’s Sea LIce Steering Group and research director at IMR has said that she had received feedback that the paper contains major weaknesses. She said that the Expert Group will review the paper and consider whether it will change their view. However, given the names of members of the Expert Group appear 41 times in the paper’s reference list, I suspect that they are not going to look too favourably on this new assessment of the impacts of sea lice
Karin Boxaspen was asked whether she thought that the conclusions of the new paper were accurate to which she replied that it would be fantastic if they were, and then she said we could produce much more salmon without killing migrating salmon smolts but personally she said she had little faith that in the findings being correct.
Yet, I have little faith in her view. This is because she has consistently ignored the biggest weakness in the narrative about sea lice and that is that as she published herself in 1997, no-one has yet identified the masses of sea lice larvae in the fjords that are supposed to infect and kill the wild salmon and sea trout. I have written to her to ask this very question, to which I have had no reply.
Meanwhile, the Norwegian online newspaper E24 published a letter from three researchers at IMR, Mari Myksvoll, Ørjan Karlsen and Geir Lasse Taranger in response to an article about the new sea lice paper.
They say that the various datasets, models, and indicators used in the Traffic Light System are thoroughly assessed by the Expert Group. Yet, my own assessment of the same data led me to conclude that the Traffic Light System was not fit for purpose. These scientists also failed to respond to my contact and IMR have never made any attempt to comment on my NALO analysis. It seems that they are permitted to comment on others works but don’t take kindly to anyone questioning what they do.
What surprised me about this letter was that these scientists resorted to writing to a newspaper to promote their view rather than engage directly within the scientific arena. However, what intrigued me most was their statement that the views expressed in the new paper “do not represent the professional consensus within the field”. The wording is extremely odd.
Firstly, I accept that in their view the consensus supports their narrative about sea lice. This is simply because they refuse to speak to anyone with a different view and thus only hear the view that they want to hear. Yet the use of the word professional is even more surprising. Are they suggesting that only those who are employed in a recognised research institution can hold a view and I suspect that is very much the case. It wasn’t so long ago that one of their colleagues said that their views should be accepted without question because they were qualified scientists.
If these scientists believe that we should accept their narrative about sea lice because it represents the professional consensus then they should have no problem defending this consensus in the public arena. I would be more than happy to challenge them to an open debate. However, this is unlikely to happen, given that like Karin Boxaspen, none of them are prepared to communicate with those outside their own small clique.
80-90%: Kyst,no also published an article from the organisation Salmon Tracking 2030 about the status of wild salmon in Norway. It raises several issues but there is just one that I would like to consider here. They said that in order to tackle the issues of wild salmon and sea trout, they need to know exactly what real knowledge has been established. They began by reviewing the known literature on wild fish and concluded that between 80% and 90% of published knowledge about wild salmon is theoretical. That means that as little as 10% of the scientific literature is based on real evidence.
This is not of any surprise. At their recent meeting in Ireland, NASCO published their latest review on the impacts of salmon farming. They too undertook a literature review, the results of which make interesting reading.
In total of 2784 papers were initially screened with 1931 being found to be relevant. An additional 293 papers were drawn from the grey literature such as institution reports and another 560 form Google Scholar. That makes a total of 2684 scientific works about sea lice and its impacts.
Yet, the NASCO scientific group on salmon farming could identify just 17 papers that include primary data from field studies. That equates to just over one-half percent which is not even close to the percentage identified by Salmon Tracking 2023.
It has been extremely difficult to obtain details of these 17 papers but after much effort I was sent a list of 33 papers. As some of these are replicated studies it might be that the base list could be just 17 papers. The full reference was not supplied so it may take some time yet for me to assess each paper.
What I do know is that at least two of the papers are included in the Scottish Government’s Summary of Sea Lice Science document and neither actually support the view that sea lice are having an impact on wild fish. I suspect others will be similar. It comes as no surprise that some papers which are included in the list have been authored by the same people charged with assessing the science. They are unlikely to reject their own works.
TriNations: A recent issue of Fish Farmers magazine includes a report from the TriNations Initiative that took place in Bergen earlier this year. This initiative, which began in 2005, brings together industry and academic experts to share the latest updates on farmed health. Originally, participants were from Scotland, Ireland and Norway but other salmon farming regions have joined in. This is the 19th such meeting and focused particularly on PD.
Clearly, there is one major question that learning about this initiative poses. Why cannot there not be a similar meeting about sea lice. Why is scientific discussion and evidence about sea lice restricted to a small clique who clearly see themselves as the professional consensus. I have argued for several years that such a meeting should be arranged to allow full and open discussion about sea lice. It turns out that an established mechanism already exists to allow this to happen. I am not sure what we are waiting for (except there is clearly a professional consensus who don’t want to engage in such discussions).