"Canada Ignored Warnings Of Virus Infecting Farmed And Wild Salmon"

"Government was in possession of a newly-released report that linked large-scale farms and wild salmon to contagious virus".

"Canada was warned in 2012 by its own scientists that a virus was infecting both farmed and wild salmon, but successive governments ignored the expert advice, saying for years that risks to salmon were low.

Justin Trudeau’s government has said it will phase out open-pen industrial fish farms off the coast of British Columbia by 2025. But both his government and the previous Conservative government were in possession of a newly released report that linked large-scale farms and wild salmon to the highly contagious Piscine orthoreovirus (PRV).

In 2012, biologists with the department of fisheries and oceans investigated the presence of the virus, which has been found in both farmed and wild salmon. In March, a federal information commissioner ordered the report be released, after a multi-year access-to-information battle between the group Wild First, which opposes open-pen salmon farms, and the federal government. Details of the report were made public on Thursday by the Globe and Mail."

Leyland Cecco reports for the Guardian April 14, 2022.

Source: Guardian, 04/15/2022