Here Comes the Judge

British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen will chair a federal commission of inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye salmon runs, Trade Minister Stockwell Day announced Friday in Vancouver.

"Justice Cohen's mandate will be to investigate and report on the reasons for the decline of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River," said a news release from Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office.

LINK (Via:The Ottawa Citizen)

Obama Endorses Salmon Extinction via No Action Plan

Rob Elam lays out the Obama administrations continuation of bogus Bush era salmon policies.

LINK (Via: The Flyfish Journal/Tailgate)

Freedom to Roam

This past spring, The Freedom to Roam Coalition partnered with Patagonia, Save Our Wild Salmon, and filmmaker Skip Armstrong to create a video project highlighting the crisis and opportunities for salmon and human communities of the Snake River corridor in the Pacific Northwest.

Freedom to Roam is Patagonia’s current environmental campaign. Its goal is to create, restore and protect wildways or corridors between habitats so animals can survive. Patagonia’s partners in Freedom to Roam include the Freedom to Roam Coalition, which includes other companies, conservation organizations, rural activists, recreation groups, and those who live on the land.

For more on Freedom to Roam, please visit: http://freedomtoroam.org
Click HERE for more information about Patagonia's work with Freedom to Roam.

Alexandra Morton's letter to the fisheries minister on missing sockeye

Fish biologist Alexandra Morton wrote a letter to Fisheries Minister Gail Shea regarding this year's dismal return of sockeye salmon to the Fraser River.

LINK (Via: Straight.com)

Fisheries Minister Shea probably did not get the letter right away because she was in Norway attending an aqua culture (fish farm) trade show.

LINK  (Via: Canada.com)

Meanwhile another sea lice factory has been proposed for the Johnstone Strait.

A proposed new fish farm in Johnstone Strait has won a qualified approval from the Strathcona Regional District, which takes in the midsection of Vancouver Island and a stretch of the mainland north of Powell River.

"This is where the waters funnel through Johnstone Strait," Ruby Berry, a spokeswoman for Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, said Friday. "All of the juvenile salmon that migrate through the Georgia Strait have to pass by this farm."

LINK (Via: The Globe and Mail)

Whose Ocean? Whose Wild Salmon?

Corporate-government chooses profit over wild salmon; what do the people choose?

LINK (Via: Dissident Voice)

I have never questioned the orders or the intelligence of any representative of the Federation. Until now.

William Shatner has written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper asking that salmon farms be removed from crucial wild-salmon migration routes off northern Vancouver Island.

Shatner said salmon farms are having a disastrous impact on "one of Earth's most precious assets, the wild salmon and steelhead of B.C." in the letter, which was also sent to Fisheries Minister Gail Shea, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell.

LINK (Via: Canada.com)