The coastal cod have been in decline since 1994. Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Affairs have therefor introduced measures to protect coastal cod. For the the 2010 season this means that last years regulations will be carried on trough 2010.

It is important to maintain and strengthen cod stocks that spawn locally. Coastal cod is important for the ecological systems along the coast and is also the basis for a large part of coastal fishing. The main challenge remains to achieve a regulation that reduces the extraction of coastal cod while at the same time enabling the maintenance of traditional fishing and industry activity along the coast. http://www.regjeringen.no/en/dep/fkd/Press-Centre/Press-releases/2008/protective-measures-for-norwegian-coasta.html?id=541147

It’s all well and good. But what the regulations do not mention with a word, is the catastrophic situation for coastal fish that the Norwegian fish farm industry have created in our fjords.  The norwegian salmon farms have at any given time 350 million individual salmon in it’s farms.

This represent a paradise for salmon lice. Who reproduce at rate of 30 a day. These lice drift with the coastal currents for up to 300 days. This cloud of up to 2 billion lice is what meets the smolt (young salmon, going out in the sea from the rivers). If any of them succeed in getting less than the 8 lice it takes to kill them, it would be like winning the lottery. Research from outer Sogn conducted in the 90′ies showed that 90% of the smolt dies due to salmon lice.

Salmon lice in itself do not pose a direct threat to coastal cod though, but the way they now have to treat the salmon to get rid of the salmon lice is a danger to all life in the sea, as they do try to treat the salmon with medication. But the lice is now resistant in several places. So the use stronger chemicals. Among them Ektoban. Ektoban can potentially destroy the ecosystem along our coast. But this fact they are trying to blanket out.

Ektoban contains the pesticide teflubenzuron added to the salmon feed. This stuff is extremely potent that as low a concentration as 8ppb (part per billion) is enough to kill both crustacean larvae and animal plankton. Yup folks…the food wild fish in the fjords lives of.

In clear text this means that 8 grams of it in 1000 cubic meters of water is enough to give a lethal doze for lobster, crabs, prawns and crustacean larvae, etc.

An average fish farm will have to use 100Kg per de-licing, and so far 48 farms have started using it.

What this will mean for fish catches ion the coming years nobody knows. And some worry about the health risks for consumers of fish products because of the formation of poison metabolites. Something that is kept quiet of course.

As if that is not enough, an average fish farm is also releasing an enormous amount of  pollution straight into the fjords. In fact, one farm is releasing the same amount of sewer alone to equal that of a typical Norwegian town. Except this sewer goes straight into the sea…untreated.

Coastal fishermen are already reporting that entire fjords are completely devoid of fish life. Common for them all is that they contain fish farms.

As one commenter to an article in the online version of the local newspaper “Nordsalten” said:

Is it modern and correct that the bottom of the fjord should be covered with a thick layer of sludge and excrement from the fish farms so that fjord cod, coastal cod and skrei have run away long ago? Is it alright since we can not see it from the shore? Is okay that the Ministry of Fisheries have removed anchor sites from the sea maps because the farms will be there now. Is it okay to introduce fish farms in spawning areas for coastal cod that are protected from fishing and that fishermen in it’s day was chased out of?
In Øksfjord the fishermen themselves asked to stop the shrimp trawling to save the ecological diversity in the fjord. Now the fish farmers have taken over the entire fjord without a sincle exploration of the consequences. What on earth is it that makes the politicians and the authorities give permission for this?

I leave it at that…