Concerns mount of recently detected fish virus.
Photo by Max Alarcon

While Chilean salmon industry representatives are doing their best to downplay a recently-confirmed outbreak of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA), emerging evidence suggests that the country’s salmon farmers may indeed have a major problem on their hands.

Earlier this week, laboratories in Chile and Canada confirmed the presence in Chiloé of ISA, a highly contagious virus that can be lethal to fish but does not affect humans. Early reports suggested the disease was detected on just two fish farms – both operated by the Norwegian company Marine Harvest. Chile’s National Fishing Service (SERNAPESCA), however, has since acknowledged the presence of ISA on two other Chiloé fish farms. That announcement was echoed by Marine Harvest CEO Alte Eide, who told the Norwegian publication Intrafish this week that the ISA problem is not limited solely to his company’s farms.

“It is wrong as it has been reported so far that only Marine Harvest has been struck. Salmon farmers association SalmonChile is just about to send a press release that will correct this impression,” he said.

As of press time Friday, SalmonChile – the country’s private producers association – had yet to file any such correction. The association did address the ISA problem earlier in the week, however, suggesting in a press release that the Chilean strain of the disease is more benign than ISA elsewhere.

“So far the disease in Chile has behaved atypically compared to its European counterpart… The virus detected here is likely to be less pathological than ISA in the Northern Hemisphere. For that reason it’s unlikely to have the same affects as it’s had on the Norwegian salmon industry,” according to SalmonChile.

Despite the industry’s best efforts to minimize the breaking story, news of the ISA confirmation continues to rattle government officials, environmentalists and investors alike.

On Friday, SERNAPESCA announced a ban on transporting live fish out of the affected area. The government body also said it would soon implement a contingency plan, which is likely to involve stepped up monitoring and disinfecting efforts. SERNAPESCA has not revealed yet whether it will require fish farmers to slaughter affected fish – a practice that’s been employed in other ISA-infected countries.

ISA, not dissimilar to influenza, is a deadly virus that spreads easily and quickly. Symptoms include a paling of the gills, swelling of the liver and spleen, and internal hemorrhaging. As Rocco Cipriano of the U.S. Geological Survey noted in a 2002 report, “The disease is pronounced in the marine environment, where it is transmitted by cohabitation with infected live salmon or infected biological materials such as animal wastes or discharges from normal culture operations, slaughter facilities and contaminated well boats.”

The illness was first discovered in 1984, on Norwegian fish farms. Norway suffered a second outbreak in 1989. Eight years later ISA was reported in Canada, where it devastated New Brunswick’s then-budding farmed salmon industry. Scotland, another important salmon producing country, has had problems with the disease as well.

ISA has also been previously detected in Chile, in 1999, though at that time – unlike now, with the disease affecting Atlantic salmon – only Coho salmon were infected.

Marine biologist Héctor Kol of the National Confederation of Artisan Fisherman (CONAPACH) insists this time around, the ISA outbreak in Chile could spell real trouble indeed. “It’s terminal for Region X because the principal vector is the transmission of the illness via Caligus,” he told the Patagonia Times.

Caligus, also known as sea lice, are parasitic crustaceans that attach themselves to fish, creating lesions that render their hosts susceptible to a host of diseases, including ISA. Unfortunately for Chile’s salmon producers, the country has recently experienced an “outbreak” of sea lice, something the government’s National Fishing Service only recently admitted (PT, July 17).

According to Kol, in other words, the simultaneous presence of both ISA and sea lice is very much related – and worrisome. Chiloé, which alone accounts for nearly 50 percent of the all the farmed salmon produced in the country, is completely saturated with large fish farms, he explained.

“The density here is tripled (compared to Norway), so any illness – whether it’s a parasite, bacteria or virus – spreads like crazy. This is what we’ve been trying to explain to the stubborn salmon farmers: that they can’t continue with their shoddy farming practices. They can’t continue trying to maximize their investment. They’re shooting themselves in the foot,” the CONAPACH representative said.

Also alarmed by news of the discovery of ISA in Chile is the Washington, D.C.-based organization Pure Salmon Campaign. In a press statement issued Friday, the NGO’s Chile representative, Dr. Cristian Pérez, demanded that Chilean authorities be more forthcoming with information about the true scale of the outbreak.

“In the absence of an official statement from SERNAPESCA and from SalmonChile, the Pure Salmon Campaign would like to know how many companies are involved, how many salmon farms have been quarantined, how much farmed salmon will have to be slaughtered, what percentage of Chilean farmed salmon production is current affected and the risk of ISA spreading to other areas in Region X, where 84 percent of Chilean farmed salmon production is located,” said Pérez.

Pure Salmon Campaign also warns that a major ISA outbreak in Chile could have economic repercussions on the salmon industry worldwide. Indeed, salmon companies trading on the Santiago Stock Exchange took a major hit this past week, as news of the ISA problem sent stocks falling by some 3 percent. Marine Harvest’s Alte Eide, furthermore, suggested Chile’s salmon industry – which some analysts predicted would grow by as much as 8 percent in 2007 – is instead likely to remain flat.

“The Chilean salmon farming industry is getting pummeled by one crisis after another,” noted Pure Salmon Campaign Director Andrea Kavanagh in a press release. “The industry needs to adopt urgent measures to protect itself, its workers and the marine environment on which it depends.”

Fish farming is huge business in Chile, where last year producers exported some US$2.2 billion worth of salmon and trout. The figures are all the more phenomenal considering that 15 years ago the country’s farmed fish exports were worth just US$159 million. Chile is now the world’s second leading salmon producer, just behind Norway. Together the two countries account for approximately 90 percent of market

A cornerstone of southern Chile’s economy, the farmed fish industry is nevertheless subject to frequent criticism from environmentalists, who complain that unregulated farming practices are causing major damage to the country’s lakes and coastal waters.

By Benjamin Witte (benwitteATsantiagotimes.cl)