SEA SHEPHERD CONSERVATION SOCIETY

Richard posted a message for the safeguard of salmons while asking to share it



In July, the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society launched Operation Virus Hunter II, a campaign to protect native Pacific salmon from open-net salmon farms.

Richard forwarded a recent press release and asked that it be posted and shared to raise awareness about the threat posed by salmon farms:

SEA SHEPHERD RESEARCH VESSEL RETURNS TO CANADA TO INVESTIGATE FARMED SALMON INDUSTRY

Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is reteaming with renowned Canadian biologist Alexandra Morton on Operation Virus Hunter II, the non-profit organization's wild salmon defense campaign.

The campaign launched on July 27th with a press conference at Vancouver's False Creek Harbor on board Sea Shepherd's R/V Martin Sheen. Morton, environmental activist and broadcaster David Suzuki, and Traditional First Nation leaders Willie Moon and Farron Alexander Soukochoff of the Dzawada'enuxw First Nation tribe were among the speakers at the press conference. Actor/activist Martin Sheen, the ship's namesake, was also in attendance.

Pacific Northwest salmon are threatened by open-net salmon farms that share the same migratory route. These farms are breeding grounds for disease and parasites which spread to the surrounding waters and put wild salmon in danger.

As with last year's inaugural Operation Virus Hunter campaign, Morton is once again traveling aboard the Sheen over the course of several weeks, stopping at various salmon farms to conduct audits for disease and other factors.

"I have worked to protect wild salmon from the catastrophic impact of salmon farms for 31 years," said Morton. "I am enormously grateful to Sea Shepherd, because they dare to take a close look at exactly what is happening in these industrial facilities."

"The farming of this exotic alien species (Atlantic salmon) is a lethal assault on wild salmon populations, an insensitive assault on the First Nations, and a shocking assault upon the marine ecology of British Columbia's marine ecosystems," added Sea Shepherd founder and C.E.O. Captain Paul Watson. "The government's duty should be to protect the rights of the First Nations, to defend the wild salmon and not to cater to a foreign controlled destructive salmon farming industry."

To learn more about Operation Virus Hunter and what you can do to help, click [Vous devez être inscrit et connecté pour voir ce lien]