A salmon farm in Reloncavi Sound
Photo by Benjamin Witte

Information released this week by the government’s National Fishing Service (SERNAPESCA) raises the possibility that Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA), a highly contagious fish virus that for months has plagued salmon farms around the island of Chiloé, may be making its way north.

SERNAPESCA’s updated ISA list includes three new sites that tested positive for the virus. Two of the sites are located near the island of Chiloé, ground zero for the ongoing ISA outbreak. The third site, however, is located off the coast of Huar Island, in the Reloncavi Sound, a large bay that directly faces the Region X capital of Puerto Montt. If the positive test is confirmed, the Huar Island site would be the first infected farm outside of the Chiloé area quarantined zone.

So far SERNAPESCA has confirmed outbreaks of the disease on seven farms, five of which belong to Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest, the world’s largest farmed salmon company. The government body lists six other Marine Harvest facilities as “suspicious.” All are currently under quarantine. Seven other farms – including the Huar Island site – have tested positive for the disease. SERNAPESCA, furthermore, is keeping several dozen additional farms under quarantine even though they have so far tested negative.

ISA, not dissimilar to influenza, is a deadly virus that spreads easily and quickly. It does not affect humans. 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, the world’s leading farmed salmon producer, 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.
 
Chile’s problems with the disease first became public this past July, when scientists here and in Canada confirmed the presence on ISA on four Chiloé-area farms. Both SERNAPESCA and SalmonChile, an industry trade association, were careful to downplay the issue. In recent weeks, however, information has surfaced suggesting Chile’s problems with the illness may be far from resolved.

Late last month Marine Harvest revealed plans to close several Chiloé fish farms. The announcement, coupled by a scathing third quarter earnings report in which the company blamed its unusually poor returns in part on the so-called “biological situation” in Chile, marked a turning point in how companies operating here have handled the ISA situation (ST, Nov. 19-22).

“It is serious, because when you get one case it’s manageable. But it’s very easy for ISA to spread to the closest sites. And that’s what happened,” Marine Harvest’s acting CEO Leif Frode Onarheim told the Patagonia Times. “We have had I think six or seven cases and so of course it is serious. We feel that as the sites are very close in Chile, in Region X, we are sure this has hurt a lot of companies.”

News of the ISA crisis has raised alarm bells among industry workers who fear the disease could end up costing them their jobs. In fact, earlier this week Marine Harvest announced 90 layoffs. Union leader Javier Ugarte of the National Confederation of Salmon Industry Workers expects the numbers to grow, as fish farm closures are likely to affect jobs not just in the cultivation centers themselves, but also in processing plants and other related businesses.

“Marine Harvest laid off 90 workers from its affected salmon farms in the Chiloé area,” said Ugarte. “This is just the beginning. For that reason we’ve spent the past few days in Santiago meeting not only with the labor minister, Osvaldo Andrade, but also with the Chamber of Deputies’ Fishing and Aquaculture Committee.”

According to Ricardo Casas of the Puerto Montt-based Fishing Industry Workers Federation (FETRAINPES), the salmon companies are to blame for the industry’s current sanitary problems.

“For me this is the result of irresponsibility on the part of the salmon companies in the sense that they have used antibiotics indiscriminately to control the Calgius (sea lice) problem… They’ve been totally irresponsible. And it’s us that end up without work,” he said.

Salmon is big business in southern Chile, where the industry employs an estimated 50,000 workers. Last year Chile-based salmon companies exported some US$2.2 billion worth of farmed fish. The numbers are expected to reach US$2.4 billion this year.

The industry, though, is also a frequent target of criticism by environmentalists, who complain that the largely unregulated farms are polluting southern Chile’s lakes, rivers and estuaries. Labor activists also lament the industry’s low wages and hazardous working conditions.

By Benjamin Witte (benwitteATsantiagotimes.cl)