Category Archives: Failed prophecies
Hutterite salmon farm fails
The Hutterite “Prairie Aquaculture Systems” farm in operation. Now, just two years later, the farm is shutting down and the recirc equipment is for sale.
If the Hutterites can’t do it, no one can.
We heard this week that the much-vaunted Miller Hutterite Colony land-based salmon farm in Montana has failed, after only two years.
That was just long enough to get out one harvest — if there even was a harvest, we haven’t heard.
What we have heard is that they are shutting down and selling off all their recirculation equipment.
It’s all for sale, if anyone is interested.
This is interesting news not because we are trying to gloat. We’re not. It’s just that if anyone could have made land-based salmon farming work as a real-world, viable commercial-scale operation, it would have been the Hutterites, because Hutterites work for free. They live in a communal lifestyle and don’t pay wages. There were no wage and labour costs associated with this facility. Given that profits for land-based salmon farms are extremely slim, with fluctuating salmon prices enough to drive them into the red in a blink, having no wage and benefit costs for employees could have made this more viable.
But clearly after experimenting with this system the Brethren decided it wasn’t going to work for them.
Maybe someday someone will make it work, but people keep trying — and failing.
Perhaps it’s time for land-based salmon farm promoters to stop promoting unrealistic dreams as magic bullet solutions, and realize that conventional salmon farms are here to stay.
Reads like an eco-terrorist manifesto
Wow. Not long after we posted our thoughts earlier today, musing if Alexandra Morton is crazy enough to bring ISA to BC to fulfill her own prophecies, she posts a blog that reads like an eco-terrorist manifesto.
“This is a fight – as in fighting for life.”
“Me versus the world” language. Perfect for setting yourself up as a messiah or prophet.
“I am racing an epidemic and government gave the viruses the head start. If anyone wants to say I am wrong I have this to say: Prove it. Step up now and lay your reputation on the line and tell us ISA virus is not in British Columbia.”
Classic double-speak. She makes two assumptions which have no proof except her word, then before anyone notices that, she shifts the burden of proof to anyone who disagrees with her by challenging them to prove a negative! Plus, anyone who dares to “step up now” will be held up for ridicule, have their credentials questioned, and be accused of corruption and conspiracy, just like she has done to any scientists who dare to assert that there is no evidence of ISA in BC.
“Please consider supporting us before the ISA virus does what it has done in every other country that allowed Atlantic salmon farming… go viral.”
This reads like an ominous threat or a ransom demand, as if she is saying, “Fund me, or I’ll make damn sure we find ISA in BC and it’s going to go viral… as in wiping out your farms viral.”
Coupled with the thought that she might be bringing ISA to BC from the East Coast through fish samples, we have a worrying scenario. Especially since farmers in the past have found wild fish thrown into their pens, put there in an attempt to infect the farmed stock with disease.
Sorry, Ms. Morton, any respect we had for you because of your past contributions to science are now gone. You talk like a cult leader and an eco-terrorist.
Her goal since 1988 has been to get rid of salmon farms, whatever the cost. That’s always been the endgame. Science was a means to an end, a tool. Now that it’s no longer useful, she has resorted to her long-dormant messiah complex and fearmongering techniques, with a dash of eco-terrorism.
Bad form.
