PLEASE TAKE ONE
TRAILERS
August 2017
INFLATABLES OUTBOARDS Ph 0800 426 287
your FREE monthly newspaper www.fishingoutdoors.org
FISH TODAY FOR TOMORROW Distributed New Zealand wide - PO Box 10580, Te Rapa, Hamilton 3240 - Phone 07 855 1833 - Email mail@fishingoutdoors.co.nz
Available in your local Bait, Tackle and Sports Shops
www.aakronboats.co.nz
Salmon deaths info covered up by industry diseased MPI
In 2012, the Kenepuru & Central Sounds Residents Association Inc. (KCSRA) a “watchdog for residents and property owners” in the Marlborough Sounds became concerned about the unusual deaths of salmon at the Waihinau Bay farm. They lodged an Official Information Act with the MPI, requesting more information about the deaths. But, MPI withheld important information, about the extent and seriousness of fatalities at King Salmon farms in the Sounds. The information was withheld to protect the NZ King Salmon Company’s commercial position, avoid prejudicing the entrusting of similar information to the Government in the future, and avoid prejudicing
SEE INSIDE Page 5 -
Crayfish situation critical
Page 8 -
Shocking state of Coromandel Boat Ramps
Page 10- Observer Programme far from satisfactory Page 11 - Fishing Federation against MPI having camera footage Page 15 - SHOT Urges Hunters to ‘Quiz and Vote’ Page 19- Trout fishing on Mars
New Zealand’s economic interests. This is an absurd argument and wholly irresponsible. It’s in the public interest for example, to know whether an infectious virus has been detected. Claiming release of such information would prevent similar information being supplied in the future is utter nonsense. When it comes to infectious disease, the public interest must always override commercial sensitivities. But the king salmon case is worse, much worse. The backdrop is that in 2012 the normal planning processes of the Resource Management Act were being trampled on. NZ King Salmon had applied for 9 new salmon farm sites in the Marlborough Sounds. The government had ‘called in’ the application. It was too important nationally to leave to the local council. The application was on the fast track to being determined by a Board of Inquiry appointed by the Environmental Protection Agency. The Board of Inquiry final report notes that while ’a large number of submitters made representations and gave lay evidence as to their observations and fears with respect to disease and the impact on wild fish, the scientific evidence was fairly consistent and much more positive. We heard evidence from three experts: Dr Ben Diggles, a scientist specialising in parasitology of fish, Dr Barrie Forrest, a marine ecologist specialising in biosecurity, and Dr Krkosek, a marine ecologist with expertise in population dynamics and epidemiology. In addition Mr Alistair Brown, an aquatic veterinarian, addressed the issue of salmon health’. These experts were persuasive. They told the Board that ‘New Zealand is in an enviable position in that most of the pathogens known to cause problems for salmon farms overseas
are not known to occur here. Very few infectious diseases have caused production losses and active surveillance has been undertaken for decades’. Furthermore, the experts were agreed that existing disease agents were unlikely to become a problem, at an individual farm level, given the current stocking densities. These were brave statements. As they were writing their evidence, the salmon at the NZ King Salmon farm at Waihinau Bay were dying and the MPI knew about it. Let’s have another quote from the Board of Inquiry Report. ‘Addressing the mortality spike at the Waihinau farm in March 2012 Mr Brown estimated the loss at about 25%. The fish exhibited skin lesions, lethargy and loss of appetite. Laboratory analysis found no evidence of a bacterial or viral agent and Mr Brown concluded the most likely cause was a water-borne irritant such as algae passing through the farm on the tide’. During cross-examination he explained that the transient nature of algal blooms made it difficult to precisely identify the cause. The Board of Inquiry found that ‘King Salmon have been operating salmon farms in the Sounds for many years with no known disease outbreaks… While the proposed farms increase the level of risk in terms of disease and biosecurity simply because of the increased density of salmon at a regional scale there are no “new” disease risks’. The Board of Inquiry hearing began on August 27 2012. But, where were the biosecurity experts from MPI? They knew about the health status of the Marlborough Sounds salmon better than anyone else – they had been on the track of a disease outbreak for months. MPI were silent
and preferred to remain that way. The public cannot know the truth. It took a complaint to the Ombudsman by the Kenepuru & Central Sounds Residents Association to get an interim report on the disease investigation released. They got it on August 16 2012, but with several key pages redacted. Submissions to the Board of Inquiry had already closed. And the interim report simply noted that results for Infectious Salmon Anaemia Virus were awaited from an international reference laboratory in Norway. Infectious salmon anaemia is a very, very serious and internationally notifiable disease of salmon. It is a major threat to the viability of salmon farming, having wiped out entire farms in Canada and Chile. The virus can be transmitted through contact with infected fish, their secretions, by farm equipment, or people who have handled infected fish. Combating it requires the total eradication of salmon stock if an outbreak is confirmed. Thus, the economic and social consequences are very far reaching. This newspaper understands that the Canadian reference laboratory, Atlantic Veterinary College, had already returned a positive result for this virus from one or more of the diseased salmon. It was this information that was redacted from the 2012 interim report. Yet, the MPI mitigated the potential fallout on salmon exports by reassuring its foreign counterparts in trading nations, such as Australia, Canada and the United States that “competent interim measures were in place”. This was hidden from the Kenepuru & Central Sounds Residents Association and the New Zealand Public. This newspaper will be requesting from the MPI copies of all information, concerning king salmon deaths; it gave to its counterparts in foreign nations. In his decision, the Ombudsman stated that ‘disclosure of the information about the testing in Canada would have enabled the residents association to question the King Salmon’s consultant on marine biosecurity and disease issues, Dr Diggles, more effectively on his evidence. It would also have contributed to the quality of public debate on a matter of public interest’. Clearly the Ombudsman thought that the MPI should have released the 2012 interim report (or nearly all of it anyway) in time for the Board of Inquiry hearing. The Ombudsman considered that there is a significant public interest in the public knowing the full picture of how the MPI carried out its regulatory functions in the area of food safety and disease control. The public, as the ultimate consumers of food products, has a legitimate interest in knowing about the testing
in the Canadian laboratory commissioned by the MPI, why the MPI had doubts about the test results, and what it did to put those doubts to rest. Nearly five years after the Board of Inquiry hearing we have access to two more MPI reports. You can read them both here https://www.mpi. govt.nz/protection-and-response/ responding/salmon-response/. We now know much of what MPI knew before the Board of Inquiry began. The MPI biosecurity staff were worried at the time about the lax biosecurity practices at NZ King Salmon. They also knew that some of the expert evidence was wrong. But MPI said nothing to the Board of Inquiry about any of this. MPI’s final report on the 2012 disease outbreak was not completed until July 2013, five months after the Board of Inquiry released its final report and decision. And we also have the benefit of hindsight. The dying fish didn’t have infectious salmon anaemia. If a Canadian lab really did detect this virus it was a false positive. The fish were infected with several bacteria never before seen in NZ. In the summer of 2015 about 2/3rds of the salmon present at the Waihinau Bay farm died. These bacteria had been missed by the testing back in 2012, but with better
testing the MPI was now able to detect them in samples archived from 2012. So while the Board of Inquiry were smugly concluding that ‘King Salmon have been operating salmon farms in the Sounds for many years with no known disease outbreaks’ the Marlborough Sounds salmon were actually in the early stages of one. We don’t yet know whether MPI also launched a compliance investigation to discover whether there had been any deliberate breaches of the Biosecurity Act. But these bacteria came from somewhere. The Board of Inquiry process was only going to have one outcome regardless. Proposals are only called in like this when the government can see dollar signs, and the odds are deliberately stacked against local communities, environmental NGOs and objectors in ‘the national interest’. But it doesn’t help when Government Ministries are also hiding critical information and lying by omission on spurious grounds. As the Ombudsman ruled the public of New Zealand had a right of access to this information. When an issue this serious is deliberately covered up by MPI, the public’s lack of confidence and trust in the industry diseased Ministry for Primary Industries is fully warranted.
Set Net to catch your whitebait BBQ to cook the catch