HHS Operation Virus Hunter

We are a group of students at Heritage High School trying to make a change

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Support our cause for biodiversity by filling out this survey https://t.co/3xjKCRSVeA #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Farmed salmon are increasingly fed grains, chicken and pig parts, fish from different oceans, chemicals to color their flesh, delpusing drugs, and antibiotics and vaccinations. There is nothing natural about the amount or content of farmed salmon waste. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Salmon farms are one of the few industrial agriculture industries that do not need to deal with their waste. As salmon farms use roughly 7 tons of feed daily for the approximate 1,000,000 fish per farm, tons of waste spews daily per farm in a free flush. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Salmon alphavirus causes pancreas disease in salmon. It is now the number one viral killer of farmed salmon in Norway. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Infectious Salmon Anemia Virus is a highly lethal salmon virus spreading world-wide in fish farms. Discovered in Norwegian salmon farms in 1984, it caused $2 billion in damages when it spread to Chile from Norway in Atlantic salmon farms #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Over 80% of the farmed Atlantic salmon in British Columbia are infected with PRV. Therefore the wild salmon are swimming through a soup of this virus. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Piscine Reovirus (PRV) is highly contagious and considered to cause the salmon disease of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation. This disease weakens salmon to the point where they can no longer move. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

The companies use increasingly toxic drugs in an attempt to control the lice. These chemicals are pouring into the sea, threatening everything that makes a shell, eg. crabs, shrimps, and prawns. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Sea lice are a parasitic crustacean that preys on salmon, grazing on the mucus layer covering their skin. Salmon farms cause parasites to multiply, causing death to wild salmon wherever this industry operates. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Fish farms have introduced Atlantic salmon, a nonnative species to the Pacific coast, and thus the fish pose an enormous exotic disease risk. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Salmon farms give viruses the right set of circumstances to mutate, swap genetic material, increase in severity, and spill out into the surrounding ocean at levels never seen before. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

A salmon farm undergoing an epidemic can shed 65 billion infectious viral particles per hour #OperationVirusHunter

[Sea Shepherd US @SeaShepherdSSCS]

Today is International Day for Biological Diversity!

Join #SeaShepherd in protecting our oceans's biodiversity, because if the OCEANS DIE, WE DIE.

Support us at: https://t.co/fnJLq6reLY #ForTheOceans #BluePlanet #internationalbiodiversityday #biodiversity #biodiversityday

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Viruses, bacteria, and sea lice are given the perfect opportunity to mutate and become deadlier before they spill out into the surrounding ocean. With no predators, the sick fish continue to pump out pathogens until they waste away and die. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Salmon are built to move – the sick and weak are left behind and consumed by predators. When they are contained in fish farms, salmon are forced to swim around in crowded cages, through feces where disease spreads easily from fish to fish. #OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

- Salmon farms require massive commercial fisheries to feed the salmon, starving one ocean to pollute another
- Whale populations are suffering the threat of extinction due to lack of salmon
#OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Problems with salmon farms:
- Disease organisms which multiply and load surrounding waters with viruses, parasites and bacteria
- Seals, sea lions & whales become tangled and trapped in the nets and anchor lines
#OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

- Local wild fish are attracted by the feed, get trapped in the nets and become free food for farmed salmon
- Wild salmon go into steep decline wherever there are salmon farms, but remain abundant in places like Alaska, one of the few to ban salmon farms
#OperationVirusHunter

[HHS Operation Virus Hunter @HHSVirusHunt]

Which would you rather have? #OperationVirusHunter