The Infectious Salmon Anemia virus (ISAv) is a ticking time bomb that could explode under BC's salmon farming industry and their open net-pens. If this industry has imported such a disease into the ecology of the Pacific Northwest via infected Atlantic salmon material, the results could be an ecological catastrophe. Whatever remains of the industry's besieged environmental reputation would be ruined, as would any vestige of confidence in the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO).

But the real and lasting damage would be to Pacific wild salmon, together with the entire West Coast marine ecology and culture that depends on them. ISAv could dwarf sea lice as a scourge because it would be a persistent threat to the health of all wild salmon and herring - once established, the disease would be intractable and permanent.

ISAv was first detected in Norwegian salmon farms in 1984. It existed previously in Norwegian rivers as a benign infection that did not kill salmon. However, in a change that biologists call a "stochastic event", it mutated to become lethal - probably in fish farms "because there is no reason for it to live lightly in fish destined for slaughter" (alexandramorton.typepad.com/). The lethal version was then carried with Atlantic salmon brood stock to salmon farm hatcheries where it was distributed by the industry throughout the North Atlantic and overseas to Canada and Chile - its arrival in Chile in 2007 nearly decimated the country's entire salmon farming industry.

The first evidence of ISAv's arrival in Canada was in New Brunswick salmon farms in 1996. In 1998, the Friends of Clayoquot Sound were expressing concern about its arrival in BC. In January of 2009, David Suzuki, Chief Bob Chamberlin, Professor Larry Dill, Alexandra Morton and over 100 other concerned citizens wrote a letter to the Premier of British Columbia, requesting "that B.C. immediately prohibit the importation of live farm salmon material (all species of broodstock, milt and eggs) to protect BC from the spread of Infectious Salmon Anemia."

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