About two-thirds of the way through Twyla Roscovich’s maddeningly compelling documentary, activist marine biologist Alexandra Morton and a few cohorts with whom she works on the study of the impact of salmon farming on Canadian wild salmon, enter the Real Canadian Superstore at Rupert Street and Grandview Highway, in Vancouver.
The scientific foray into the community involves purchasing all the salmon available at the store, in order that their purchase might be shipped to a laboratory in Europe, and another on the east coast, to test for the infectious salmon anemia (ISA) virus, and other pathogens.
The result? Suffice to say that anyone who watches that particular sequence in Roscovich’s provocative documentary film — available above in today’s VanRamblings post — will never eat farmed salmon ever again.
Here’s Ian Bailey’s Globe and Mail review of Salmon Confidential …
This feisty and provocative film is spoiling-for-a-fight cinema. Someday there will be a new feature-length documentary reconciling both sides of the debate over the environmental costs of farming salmon in B.C. For now, there’s this compelling work which tilts sharply towards the wild-salmon side. Director Twyla Roscovich’s visually alluring film spotlights activist biologist Alexandra Morton as she finds B.C. salmon in the wild showing European viruses that Ms. Morton links to fish farms on the coast. Federal and industry representatives declined to sit for interviews, Ms. Roscovich has said. Still, the film serves as a forceful primer on an ongoing debate that some viewers, especially those in urban areas, may now just be catching up on. Let the debate begin after the end credits.
Hey, it’s The Globe and Mail — you expected an evisceration of the role of both the provincial and federal governments for their failure to act to protect wild salmon, or the health of Canadians? Not the world we live in.
Greg Ursic, in The Ubyssey, says about the film “Salmon Confidential is thoroughly researched, informative and so infuriating that you’ll want to throw something at the screen.” Jason Coleman, at Star Pulse, agrees with VanRamblings, when he writes …
You will never eat farmed fish for the rest of your life after viewing this. A must-see, especially for British Columbians known for world-renowned Sockeye, Salmon Confidential is a corker of a doc. It’s staggering and eye-opening to see how the business of B.C.’s natural resources and food has been tainted by government and how puppet scientists have given up their objectivity simply to kowtow to (corrupt) governments. This is the GMO monster in a different form and here the monster kills by passing on poisons and infection that are a recipe for extinction of a foundational salmon species. An important film right on par with The Cove impact-wise, Salmon Confidential is an important don’t miss it experience for all who care to listen. — 5/5 stars
Meanwhile, while our intransigent senior governments take a do nothing approach to the destruction of B.C.’s wild salmon industry, Norwegian authorities have recently ordered that some two million sea-lice infested farmed salmon in the Vikna district of Nord Trondelag be slaughtered with immediate effect after becoming resistant to chemical treatments against the sea-lice parasite. Actor Ted Danson and Andrew Sharpless, CEO at Oceana, the largest international conservation organization fully dedicated to protecting the oceans, have published a paper stating, and backing up, their contention that “farmed salmon are not a sustainable alternative.”
Enough? Whether you’re concerned for your health, wish to gain more insight into the “controversy” involving farmed salmon, or are simply interested in watching a provocative, compelling, and incredibly well-made and watchable documentary film, we would encourage you to screen Salmon Confidential — take our word for it, you won’t be sorry you did.
