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Bye bye Scottish West Highland sea-trout


Sandison

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No, Jaffa, there is no problem about "making the dive survey report freely available".

 

Just give me your name and address and postal code and I will send it off poste haste.

 

Do you have a problem with this, or a problem with responding to direct questions?

 

Bruce

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Jaffa

 

Everything in the report re Dr McVicar is as stated, and the question remains, why did he give an address in Orkney when his permenent base is in Inverurie?

 

I know of no law that says that it is illegal to publish on the interent the telephopne number of someone who gives is name, compnay name, and address on the internet.

 

By all means, take as long as you like to answer the points I raise, but I would be grateful for answers; patricularly for the source of your claim that the Salmon Farm Monitor says, “..eating farmed salmon will kill poison you..”

 

Bruce

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Chris

 

We may, I think, have to agree to disagree on Dr McVicar.I honestly believe that it was "irresponsible" of Dr McVicar to give as his contact address his holiday home on the Island of Westray, rather than his Inverurie address.

 

You are right about the mistake I made in connection with the date of Otter Ferry incident. Thank you for pointing it out.

 

Generally, however, I tend to agree with the account published by Allan Berry, included below,

rather than with Ron Roberts, Paul Tett et al.

 

"Fish Farming and Harmful Algal Blooms

 

The claim is often made that there is no evidence of a link between biotoxin production and fish culture. One of the main foundations for the claim is a paper, headed by a scientist at the DML Oban Laboratory, Jones et al.(1982); A Red tide of Gyrodinium aureolum in sea lochs of the Firth of Clyde and associated mortality of pond reared salmon. J.Mar.Biol.Assoc.UK. 62, 771-82.

 

This paper has been used by almost every book and paper, which asks the question, "Is there evidence that discharges from salmon farms are involved in the promotion of harmful blooms". For example:

 

Gowen & Bradbury (1987) reported in the paper 'The ecological impact of salmonid farming in coastal waters: A review'. Oceanogr. Mar.Biol.Ann. Rev., 25. 563-575. "Furthermore there is no evidence to suggest that the occurrence of toxic phytoplankton blooms in Scotland.(Jones et al.,1982 ; Gowen, in press and in Norway (Tangen, 1977) are related to fish farming activity."

 

Pillay (1992) in 'Aquaculture and the Environment'. Fishing News Books., states "Algal blooms, especially of the toxic species produced by high levels of nutrients, can cause environmental hazards including high mortalities of fish. Such algal blooms are likely to be localised and not of the catastrophic scale that has occurred in Norway and Scotland in recent years, which do not appear to have been caused by aquaculture wastes." Algal Blooms ; "Blooms of Gyrodinium aureolum, which caused the mortality of marine organisms in north European waters, have been reported by Tangen (1977), Jones et al (1982) and Doyle et al.,(1984)in the UK and Ireland, but there is no apparent relationship with the discharge of aquaculture farm wastes."

 

Henderson & Ross (1993) 'An assessment of the impact of fish farming activities to the waters and sediments of Cairndow, Loch Fyne (30/31-10-91. Clyde River Purification Board Report. States,. " There have been reports of phytoplankton blooms in Loch Fyne in 1980 and 1982 which caused fish kills at salmon farms in the loch. The 1980 kill was thought to be due to stable water column conditions and nutrient enrichment via freshwater inputs to the loch (Jones et al.,1982).

 

The Jones et al., paper reports on one of the blooms of Gyrodinium which occurred in Loch Fyne in 1980. The highest concentration of the dinoflagellate was found at the Otter Ferry tank farm site, where salmon in the tanks were killed by the haemolitic toxins produced by Gyrodinium, when they entered the tanks via the pump intake.

 

Cell density was over 2.1million cells per litre, with chlorophyll levels of 2228 mg/cu/M. The authors suggested that the high Gyrodinium biomass in the surface waters may have been enriched with nutrients from freshwater input from land drainage. The paper did not consider the question of input from the outlet of the tank farm, above which the bloom was at its greatest density.

 

Behind Otter Ferry the hills rise to five or six hundred feet. The freshwater catchment area is marginal hill land used for sheep grazing. The writer saw the bloom from a sea canoe, it was very evidently densest around the outlet from the tank farm.

 

Gyrodinium aureolum, is a naked dinoflagellate, recognised a long time ago, and previously called Gymnodinium nagasakiense but only recently recognised as Gymnodinium mikimotoi, the scourge of the Japanese cultured pearl industry for the last hundred years (Mead 1898). There is very good evidence to indicate that it was introduced to European waters in shipping ballast water from the far east.

 

Arzul et al (1996) found that elutriates from fish feed pellets were stimulating for Gymnodinium mikimotoi. The organism blooms in the wild when it is in the presence of it's preferred source of nitrogen, ammonium. The in situ mineralisation of the remains of diatom blooms provides the source offshore.

 

Buschmann et al (1996); Integrated tank cultivation of salmonids and Gracilaria chilensis. Hydrobiologia 326/327: 75-82., found that ammonium concentrations in seawater passing through fish tanks rose from 2.5 - 3 mg/l in the intake water to between 362-700 mg/l in the effluent during spring and summer.

 

The above evidence indicates that there is every reason to believe that the preponderance of evidence, shows discharges from fish farms are a major causative factor promoting harmful dinoflagellate blooms in receiving waters.

 

References

 

Arzul et al., (1996) Effects on phytoplankton growth of dissolved substances produced by fish farming. Aquat. Living Resources. 9, 95-102 Berry,A,W. (1991) Stress disturbance rings and shell deformity in scallops. Scottish Shellfish Grower No, 9.

 

Berry,A.W.(1996) Biotoxins, Phytoplankton Culture and Shellfish Farming. Algal blooms and Toxins in Coastal and Estuarine waters. The Scottish Association for Marine Science Conference: University of Dundee 16th - 18th Sept 1996.

 

Erard-Le Denn. E.,M.Morlaix and J.C. Dao, Ifremer.(1990) Effects of Gyrodinium Cf Aureolum on Pecten Maximus (Post Larvae, Juveniles and Adults).Toxic Marine Phytoplankton.Elsevier p132

 

Gentian, P, G. Arzul and F.Toularastel,(1991) Modes of Action of the Toxic Principle of Gyrodinium Cf Aureolum. Ifremer, Centre de Brest, DRO/EL, B.P70, 29280 Plouzane, France.

 

Jones K. J., P. Ayres, A. M. Bullock, R. J. Roberts, P. Tett 1982. A red tide of Gyrodinium aureolum in sea lochs of the firth of Clyde and associated mortalities of pond-reared salmon. .J. Mar. Biol. Assoc. U.K. 62, 771- 782.

 

Nielsen & Stromgren (1991) Shell growth response of mussels (mytilus edulis) exposed to toxic microalgae. Marine Biology 108, 263-267.

 

Nishimura A. 1982. Effects of organic matters, produced in fish farms on the growth of red tide algae Gymnodinium type-65 and Chattonella antiqua. Bull. Plankton Soc. Jap. 29, 1-7.

 

Romdhane et al (1997) Toxic dinoflagellate blooms in Tunisian lagoons : Causes, and consequences for Aquaculture. Reguera et al (eds) Harmful microalgae. Xunta de Galicia and IOC Paris.

 

Takahashi M., N. Fukazawa 1982. A mechanism of "red tide" formation. II. Effect of selective nutrient stimulation on the growth of different phytoplankton species in natural water. Mar. Biol. 70, 267-278.

 

Tester et al., (2000b) Algal toxins in marine food webs, Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on Algal Blooms (Tasmania, Feb 6-11, 2000). (In press)

 

Thain & Watts, (1987) The use of a bioassay to measure changes in water quality associated with a bloom of Gyrodinium aureolum Hulbert. Rapp. P.-v Reun. Cons Int. Explor. Mer.187: 103-107.

 

Turner et al (1997) Toxic marine phytoplankton, zooplankton grazers and pelagic food webs. Limnol Oceanogr 42:1203-l214

 

Turner et al., (1998a) Effects of toxic and non-toxic dinoflagellates on copepod grazing, egg production and egg hatching success. in: Reguera et al (eds) Harmful microalgae. Xunta de Galicia and IOC Paris. 379-381.

 

Turner et al (1998b) Interactions between toxic marine phytoplankton and metazoan and protistan grazers. NATO ASI Ser, G41 :53-474

 

White AW (1971) Dinoflagellate toxins as probable cause of an Atlantic herring

 

(Clupea harengus harengus) kill, and pteropods as apparent vector. J Fish Res Board Can 34: 2421- 2424

 

White AW (1980) Recurrence of kills of Atlantic herring, CIupea harengus harengus) caused by dinoflagellate toxins transferred through herbivorous zooplankton. Can J Fish Aquat Sci 37.2262-2265

 

White AW (1981) Marine zooplankton can accumulate and retain dinoflagellate toxins and cause fish kills. Limnol Oceanogr 26:103-109."

 

Might I say, again, that it might not be fair to conduct this debate in open forum? If you agree, I will be happy to continue this via private emails - after you have either produced the evidence that the Salmon Farm Monitor said that "eating farm salmon will kill poison you" or withdrawn that statment.

 

Bruce

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I don't see any useful point in continuing this discussion, but before ending it, can I ask you, please, if you are in any way related to the Chris Hall who works for the Scottish Executives Fisheries Research Services, in the area of subsea instrumentation and underwater TV and photographic observation systems?

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