SalmonTalks Lillooet

Earth Day River Ceremonies and Walk for Peace

2010-04-27T19:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some pics of our River Ceremonies for the salmon. SalmonTalks also had a great presence at the 25th Annual Walk for Peace in Lillooet on April 24 - getting ready to join the Get Out Migration in Victoria in two weeks.

Earth Day River Ceremonies - April 22

2010-04-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

We all pray in different ways

Let us gather and do that

Write a poem, story to put in the river

We will offer these:

- pinch of salt to balance energy within self,
around self and water

- light a candle or fire for light and life

- food offering to the ancestors -

those that have passed on into the spirit world,

they are there to help us

At 11 AM - Gather at Old Bridge

Marie Barney

will do a St'át'imc Spiritual Prayer Ceremony

- Offer tobacco

- Offer medicines

- Offer a plate of food

We will open and close this ceremony with a song,

any kind of song that has a heart beat...

At 4 PM - Gather at Sat'atqwa7 Powerhouse
Restoration Site Parking Lot

We will walk to the confluence of the

Fraser and Seton Rivers

Christine Jack
will conduct our second River Ceremony

for more info contact:

salmontalks@gmail.com

SalmonTalks At DFO Lillooet

2010-04-07T18:56:00.000-07:00

Twenty-four members of Salmon Talks Lillooet arrived at the local DFO office to deliver a message of demand. Three key open-net-cage fish farms near Quadra Island must be emptied before the Fraser sockeye smolts reach the area, early in May.

Salmon Talks wants to know who is capable of ordering the three farms, all Norwegian-owned, to harvest and empty their pens of Atlantic salmon. Along with that, we asked what role the mid-Fraser Conservation and Protection office could take in ensuring safe passage for outmigrating sockeye smolts past these fish farms.

Supervisor Tom Grantham came out of the office to speak to the crowd, receive their letter, and make some response. “We all have the same concerns when it comes to the salmon and our future,” he assured the group, while insisting that neither did he know about the problems with fish farms nor could he take a position on them, nor could he say exactly who would be in a position to order the emergency closures. “I think it’s a very complicated system,” he advised; “I’ll ask, and if I get a response I will let you know.”

We now wait while Mr. Grantham forwards our letter and question to the Director of Aquaculture in Vancouver, the head of Conservation and Protection, and local Habitat branches of the Department. It is not the first such request to his office for action: “This subject comes up in all our meetings with First Nations.”

The group, comprised of young and old, St’át’imc and non-native, fisheries technicians and lay-people, delivered the office a stack of educational material on the impacts of the coastal net-cage fish farms on wild Fraser salmon. Primary concerns include the fact that the penned Atlantics eat the outmigrating smolts, and transfer disease and sea lice to them. The collection of documents included letters from leading biologists to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Canada; a petition with 3,222 names on it demanding the immediate closure of the key three farms; documentation of scientific studies showing the decline in wild salmon – globally – is positively associated with the increase in fish farming (Ford-Myers, 2008); a statement from the Intertribal Treaty Organization demanding the same removal of farms from salmon migration routes; reports from the latest presentations at SFU’s Speaking for the Salmon dialogue, March 30 and 31; and maps and pamphlets produced by activists to promote awareness of the problems caused by fish farms.

The letter delivered to Grantham included the following statements: “We have concluded that one of the simplest and most easily accomplishable forms of protection of the salmon is to remove open-net-cage fish farms from the juvenile salmon's outmigration route along the coast of BC. One third of BC salmon migrate through the Georgia Strait and Discovery Islands or Broughton Archipelago. There are 80 tenures for Atlantic fish farms, in open-net-cage operations, between the mouth of the Fraser and the northern tip of Vancouver Island - the Inside Passage - which outgoing Fraser smolts must migrate through.”

One of the three farms being targeted for removal is ready for harvest now, and two of them only months shy of optimal harvesting. It takes up to two weeks to process the fish from a farm, if employees work round the clock shifts. At normal pace, it can take six weeks.

“Having just returned from the Summit on Fraser Sockeye Salmon held at SFU's Harbour Centre last week, and having witnessed presentations given by Michael Price and Alexandra Morton, we are more convinced than ever that said fish farms are impacting the mid-Fraser sockeye runs,” the letter continued.

“We of Salmon Talks Lillooet have come to your office to find out who can order the emergency closure of the three fish farms most precisely in the way of the 2010 outmigrating sockeye. We want Sonora, Cyrus Rocks, and Venture Point farms harvested and emptied by the earliest possible time, with mid-May being the latest date of acceptability. These three farms hold adult Atlantic salmon, which are the greatest threat to smolts, and are all very close to harvest. These farms are placed in a seaward bottleneck that the smolts must pass, and so have been shown to be in the place of highest risk to wild Fraser salmon outmigrations. Who can order their immediate harvesting and fallowing?”

Salmon Talks gratefully acknowledges the presence of Chief Bradley Jack of Xwísten (Bridge River), St’át’imc at the meeting this morning. He is pictured in ball cap and sunglasses, sixth from the right in the photo above.

For more information:

salmontalks@gmail.com
or
Kerry Coast – 250 256 2435

Announcing a Change

2010-04-01T20:34:00.000-07:00

Because our local DFO office will be vacant on April 6, we've decided to go at 10 AM, Wed. April 7.

Remove the Three Key Fish Farms by May 15

2010-03-30T11:32:00.000-07:00

Salmon Talks Lillooet has decided to take action to get coastal fish farms out of the way of Fraser salmon smolts. Three farms full of adult Atlantic salmon must be harvested and emptied before mid-May, when the Fraser smolts will be reaching the narrows near Quadra Island in the Georgia Strait. The salmon crash that we are experiencing calls for emergency protective and precautionary measures, and we will be visiting our local DFO office on Tuesday, April 6, at 10 a.m., to request that the three fish farms be harvested and emptied immediately.

We invite others to consider similar rallies at their local DFO offices, or at the sites where the smolts in their waters come to enter the Fraser on their journey to the sea. We invite our friends nearby to join us here in Lillooet.

The juvenile salmon that were born two years ago will, very soon, leave the streams and lakes in the Fraser watershed and head for the Arctic Ocean. They will have to get past many open-net-cage fish farms in the Georgia Strait and Broughton Archipelago. The first of the Fraser River smolts will reach the Georgia Strait by May.

We know that these farms, located in the Georgia and Johnstone Straits, are hazardous to the smolts - because the adult Atlantic salmon eat the smolts; because the sea lice that infest the farms attach themselves - fatally - to the smolts; and because there is no way around them! The farms are located in precisely the ideal feeding grounds for the smolts - where rivers flow in and where fast waters stir up the ocean to make the algae and smolt-food accessible.

In the Georgia Strait Narrows, at Quadra Island, there are three farms full of adult fish. This is a bottleneck for the smolts on their migration. If those farms were emptied before the smolts got there, their chances survival would be improved. This is called "the precautionary approach," and has been recommended by scientists and politicians around the globe, most recently here at SFU's Salmon Think Tank, last December.

Members of Salmon Talks Lillooet, are going to go the DFO office in Lillooet on April 6 , at 10 am, to find out who can order this emergency evacuation of the three key farms: Venture Point, Sonora and Cyrus Rocks - owned by Norwegian companies Mainstream and Marine Harvest. We are going to request that our local DFO personnel forward our demand for an emergency response to the appropriate person. No matter the work of the Cohen Commission, no matter the confusion of authority between the province and the federal government, we wish to find out where the buck stops in such an emergency.

Since all the science in the world is being denied by the Government; since commissioned recommendations in BC and Canada to move fish farms to closed containment are not being implemented; since even letters from politicians from other countries urging Canada to avoid the fate they have already experienced - allowing salmon farms in migration corridors to decimate wild stocks - are not being heard, it is time for people to make it clear to government what action is required.

We urge you to express any similar beliefs in action, particularly during the week of April 6, with us, and in solidarity with the Get Out Migration planned by the much-celebrated and honoured biologist Alexandra Morton. From April 22 to May 9. Alexandra will be marching to Victoria to focus and align public attention to the issue of removing open-net-cage salmon farms from wild salmon migration corridors. Please join her if you can. Visit www.salmonaresacred.org for more info.

Salmon Talks Lillooet is a collective of St'at'imc and non-Native people, Elders and Youth, professional technicians, biologists and regular community members, male and female. We work together for restoration and protection of wild salmon of all species. We are on the point of declaring Lillooet a farmed-salmon-free-zone.

For more information, helpful pamphlets, or more contacts about the salmon crash, please get in touch!

Sincerely,
Kerry Coast
250-256-2435
salmontalks@gmail.com

Wild Salmon Cafe

2010-03-05T11:04:00.000-08:00

Wild Salmon Café entertains and educates in the mid-Fraser.

Press Release: Salmon Talks Lillooet, February 20, 2010

Lillooet BC, St'át'imc Territory

On their way to declaring Lillooet a Farmed Salmon Free Zone, the Salmon Talks collective presents a night of music, dance and speak for Fraser River wild salmon.

The Wild Salmon Café will proudly serve the best source of protein available in the world - wild salmon! Dinner by donation starts at 5:30pm on March 20, 2010, at the Lillooet Friendship Centre. Musicians, poets, dancers and speakers will follow up with a family friendly evening of celebration that honours the keystone species in BC's interior: Pacific salmon returning to the Fraser River.

Since the unprecedented crash of salmon stocks of every species and origin along the Fraser last year, an action and education campaign has begun. Elders, youth, biologists, fisheries technicians, artists and environmentalists in the Upper St'át'imc (along the mid-Fraser) have formed The Salmon Talks to organize events that will raise awareness of the critical importance of wild salmon here. The Wild Salmon Café is the first event!

Since it has become widely known that open-net-cage fish farms along BC's coast are a major contributing factor to wild salmon's decline, the harvesting and emptying of three specific farms in the Wild Salmon Narrows, Georgia Strait, is the first goal. Joining with the Georgia Strait Alliance, the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, and dozens of concerned citizens’ organizations, Salmon Talks Lillooet is demanding that Atlantic salmon in farms at Sonora, Venture and Cyrus Rocks (all Norwegian owned) be harvested, which means emptied, as an emergency precaution. Cyrus Rocks salmon are at harvestable weights now, and the others are only about six months premature for harvest.

The farms must be emptied before Fraser smolts reach the area on their outmigration – about May. The adult farmed Atlantics there have sea lice, which transfer to juveniles: historically juvenile salmon are not exposed to adult salmon and therefore are not exposed to sea lice, which are lethal to smolts. Farmed salmon eat the smolts too, as recently proven by Alexandra Morton – now suing Marine Harvest, Norway, for illegal possession of wild salmon! There are 80 fish farms in the Georgia and Johnstone Straits, and Fraser smolts must pass directly by 30 of them to get to sea.

Sockeye, Chinook, steelhead and Coho are at “endangered,” and, “critically endangered” levels throughout the Fraser watershed, according to the 2009 Red Listing of Pacific salmon by IUCN scientists. Important steps need to be taken now. “In the short term, even before the federal judicial inquiry is completed, we must be prepared for … experimentally removing farmed salmon from sockeye migration routes.” - Statement from Think Tank of Scientists, December 9, 2009, SFU Vancouver.

For more information on Salmon Talks Lillooet and the Wild Salmon Café, contact:

salmontalks@gmail.com Or by phone, Kerry Coast: (250) 256 2435 or (250) 256 7523

Welcome

2010-03-05T11:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Salmontalks Lillooet. We hope to give a unique perspective on the salmon crisis from all people living in the Interior Mid-Fraser Basin region.