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Bye bye Scottish West Highland sea-trout


Sandison

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The Salmon Farm Protest Group Limited

An ruda bhios na do bhrôin, cha bhi e na do thimhnadh

‘That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations’

 

May edition of Salmon Farm Monitor on line now at

www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

• May guest column - David Suzuki, renowned environmental and civil rights activist

• Lies, damned lies and statistics – Scottish Executive fish farm employment figures

• How the Environmental Information Act works - for the fish farmers

• More nuclear fishin’ courtesy of Sellafield?

• Do fish farms attract sharks?

• Friends of Wild Salmon - Canadian First Nations speak out against fake salmon

• Fugitive salmon – escapee farm fish a substantial threat – new report

• Macquarie Harbour “like an abattoir” after salmon escape

• US supermarket’s ultimatum to BC salmon farmers – clean up your act

• International News, News from Around the Fish Farms, Rod McGill

 

All on www.salmonfarmmonitor.org now

 

Hysbackie, Tongue, by Lairg, Sutherland 1V27 4X1, Scotland

Tel: 01847 611274; Fax: 01847 611262; email: bruce@hysbackie.freeserve.co.uk

A company registered in Scotland, No.240223

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Sandison:

The Salmon Farm Protest Group Limited

An ruda bhios na do bhrôin, cha bhi e na do thimhnadh

‘That which you have wasted will not be there for future generations’

 

May edition of Salmon Farm Monitor on line now at

www.salmonfarmmonitor.org

 

• May guest column - David Suzuki, renowned environmental and civil rights activist

• Lies, damned lies and statistics – Scottish Executive fish farm employment figures

• How the Environmental Information Act works - for the fish farmers

• More nuclear fishin’ courtesy of Sellafield?

• Do fish farms attract sharks?

• Friends of Wild Salmon - Canadian First Nations speak out against fake salmon

• Fugitive salmon – escapee farm fish a substantial threat – new report

• Macquarie Harbour “like an abattoir” after salmon escape

• US supermarket’s ultimatum to BC salmon farmers – clean up your act

• International News, News from Around the Fish Farms, Rod McGill

 

All on www.salmonfarmmonitor.org now

 

Hysbackie, Tongue, by Lairg, Sutherland 1V27 4X1, Scotland

Tel: 01847 611274; Fax: 01847 611262; email: bruce@hysbackie.freeserve.co.uk

A company registered in Scotland, No.240223

Read, digest and learn, fellas.

 

This might seem a long long way away from our pretty comfortable, mostly southern and middle English, suburban existences and much-doted-upon coarse fish, but it ISN'T.

 

When the last WILD places, last runs of wild fish and last wild fisheries are threatened, going, or, worse, GONE (as some, mostly, are now), then, quite "frankly, my dear", we're ALL f---ed.

 

[ 23. May 2005, 08:39 PM: Message edited by: Paul Boote ]

"What did you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically...?"

 

Basil Fawlty to the old bat, guest from hell, Mrs Richards.

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Jaffa:

quote:

Read, digest and learn, fellas

About as accurate on Salmon as the Sun is on International politics. Read and learn how to spin to your market.

 

There are real facts in there, but there is a lot of bullshit too. Pick your spin cycle...

Thanks for that considered reply, Jaffa. One from the drain down which you clearly already have gone. Spin? No. Sandison and his people - not sandal-wearing Vegans, by the way, if you thought that they were and jerked your knees accordingly - are targeting hard-headed big business types whose only consideration is the bottom line. To hell with the customer, to hell with the environment, to hell with anyone, and that includes YOU.

"What did you expect to see out of a Torquay hotel bedroom window? Sydney Opera House perhaps? The Hanging Gardens of Babylon? Herds of wildebeest sweeping majestically...?"

 

Basil Fawlty to the old bat, guest from hell, Mrs Richards.

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Jaffa

 

You are, of course, entitled to your opinion.

 

It would be useful, however, if you were to explain, please, exactly what is not accurate about the report of sharks being attracted to salmon farms? Everything in the report is fully substantiated by the sources noted.

 

In regard to your doubts about the "medthodolgy (or rather complete lack of it)used by these divers" two points I would like you to consider, if you have a momnet:how do you know their methodolgy is wrong? Have you seen the report of the dive-director ?

 

And, the second point, if you care to give me you contact address I should be able to arrange for you to accompany the dive team on a replicate dive of the same areas of the site, so that you can then, being informed, decide on the probity of the metholology they used.

 

Finally, it's funny that you should have happened to mention Shetland; well known and renowned for its adherence to democratic and honest principals?

 

CLUELESS CLUNESS

 

Private Eye No. 1130. 15 April – 28th April 2005

 

Fish farm filth is poised to engulf Shetland Island Council (SIC), condemned last week by the national audit office (NAO) for financial incompetence.

 

Private Eye has seen a document that demonstrates that council leader Sandy Cluness and chief executive Morgan Goodlad lied about their part in securing millions pounds of public money to assist a company managed by the chief executive’s brother, Dr Alistair Goodlad.

 

Alistair was managing director of SSG Seafoods (SSG) which collapsed in December 2003 with debts of £13.5 (Eyes passim), £7 million having been invested in SSG by council’s Shetland Development Trust (SDT), Shetland Leasing & Property Ltd (SLAP) and by Shetland Aquaculture Trust.

 

Chief exec Morgan says he had nothing to do with pumping council money into his brother’s firm. “Categorically I can tell you that I was not involved in any form of decision-making process with SDT in relationship to SSG, nor could I,” he told the Shetland Times in May last year. In a letter to a Shetland resident in March this year Cllr Clones said: “At none of the meetings which had any bearing on SSG do I detect involvement of the Chief Executive in the reports or in the discussion.”

 

Clones and Goodland seem to have suffered a major memory lapse. The Eye has a copy of an email from the chief executive’s office dated 21 March 2002, “Subject: RE: SSG Seafoods Ltd/Dury Salmon Ltd” (Dury Salmon being a financially-challenged fish farm business that SIC had invested in and which SSG wanted to buy).

 

The e-mail’s recipient was Wendy Goodie of Shetland Development Trust. It was copied to Cllr Cluness. It asked Goodie to “prepare a short report for SDT incorporating £1 million pounds investment opportunity structured as £500,000 representing 49.5% equity…. Good luck and thanks for all the hard work - Morgan”.

 

The ‘hard work’ Morgan referred to appears to have followed a meeting he and others attended on 6th February 2002 to discuss support for SSG’s bid to buy Dury Salmon.

 

Advice was also taken from Rodger Murray, of Edinburgh solicitors, Brodies. Ms Goodie emailed Morgan Goodland: “His [Murray’s] suggestions were based on the requirement for the Trust to achieve a commercial return, whilst bearing in mind the sensitivity of the business [sSG] to further debt burden.”

 

Ms Goudie also told Messrs Cluness and Goodland: “SSG Seafood’s wishes to point out that the company [sSG]… cannot proceed with the takeover of Dury without securing equity funds of this level [49.5%]. SSG Seafoods has asked that in considering the request, the Trust bear in mind the future earning potential and prospects of the company.”

 

Three years on, with £7 million pounds of taxpayers’ money down the drain, Sandy Cluness and Morgan Goodlad still deny having been involved.

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Why would anyone immediately assume that shark sightings anywhere in Scotland was related to fish farming ?

First identify your shark. Most 'mako' sightings in the south west in the seventies and eighties (when it was fashionable to spot makos around the devon and cornwall coast) were in fact porbeagle. I have my suspicions that the british record 'mako' was in fact a porbeagle. I have seen a number of makos, mostly in tropical waters and I can see how they could be confused with porbeagles.

 

Assuming your group of tourists was not totally familiar with makos, then your spotting was most likely a porgie, which I'm sure you've already been told and they are not exactly rare in scottish waters. Might have been more dramatic if it was a mako, but its not likely.

 

On a different tack, I cant stand the taste of farmed salmon and I dont buy it. Having learned to appreciate good argyll wildies, theres a distinct difference.

 

[ 25. May 2005, 04:46 PM: Message edited by: argyll ]

'I've got a mind like a steel wassitsname'

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Jaffa

 

You claim that the Salmon Farm Monitor says, “..eating farmed salmon will kill poison you..”

 

Would you please be so kind as to identify exactly where on the site this statement appears?

 

You claim that we say, “..the farms are causing toxic algae blooms.” Not true, we say that they exacerbate algal blooms.

 

Your say, “and in this month, in a classic tabloid style scare story we even get: Do fish farms attract sharks?”

 

Clearly you have read the item from which you quote. Why, therefore did you decide to quote so selectively from it and exclude the other paragraphs detailed below?

 

“In Hawaii, US researchers are investigating reports that since the advent and expansion of fish farming in the islands more sharks are being seen around the coast, particularly in the vicinity of the farms. Oahu fisherman, William Ailia, claims he has seen more sharks than ever before since a fish farm was established there six years ago. There are further reports from South Africa (Cape Times) where Michael Scholl of Cape Town University and Nicholas Pade of the University of Aberdeen have branded salmon farming an “ecological disaster”.

 

Scholl claims that marine animals like sharks and dolphins, whales and seals run the risk of becoming entangled in the nets in which the salmon are penned: “Great White sharks will be attracted to the salmon pens. These sharks may break or damage the nets or be killed by fish farmers”. A recent study in British Columbia found that over four years 432 seals, 38 otters, 29 sea lions and other wildlife species had been killed at salmon farms.

 

In the early 1990’s, when travelling by sea from Puerto Montt to Chaiten in Chilean Patagonia, I saw several killer sharks close to the shore as we arrived at Chaiten Pier. The locals were used to seeing them and told me that the sharks followed and fed upon shoals of escaped farm salmon.”

 

Please be aware that this is not our “scare story”, we are simply recording views and opinions expressed by others. Am I right in assuming that you have already written to the primary sources of these items, pointing out to them that they are engaged in promoting “classic tabloid” scare stories?

 

It would also be good if you could be so kind as to produce the evidence that you say shows that the Border porpoise deaths “have already been shown to be the work of two-legged predators,” and, if so, how the coastguard service was fooled into issuing their warning? Have you pointed this out to the editor of the P&J who first published the story, and to the coastguard service?

 

I am, however, pleased that you now withdraw your ill-considered remark, “the methodology (or rather the complete lack of it) used by these divers meant nothing useful could be understood from their “findings,” and for your honesty in admitting that when you made this remark you had no knowledge of what methodology the divers used.

 

I am also glad that you wish to find out more about the incidence of beggiatoa mat in the West Highlands and Islands of Scotland. You could do no better than I did, by consulting Dr Keith Hiscock who is accepted as being an international authority on the subject.

 

Finally, Jaffa, I think that you will agree that it would be better for us to continue this matter via private emails, to spare other members our ‘toils’? Be assured, however, that I would be happy to meet you at any convenient time and place so that we might share our views on the business of fish farming.

 

With all good wishes

 

Bruce

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