Submitter: John B. Sprague

Community: Salt Spring Island

Date Submitted: September 3, 2023

Summary:

The commission should review the research of Dr. Elizabeth Boulding at the University of Guelph, who found that the genetics were quite different from sea-lice of wild and farmed salmon.

Submission:

To the Cohen Commission,

You have no doubt contacted Dr. Elizabeth Boulding at the University of Guelph, who has studied the genetics of sea lice taken from wild salmon and farmed salmon in B.C.



In case you have not, I urge you to do so in your pursuit of information.



Further, in case you have not contacted her,

I provide her contact information below, along with a little information on her findings. I also send as an attachment, her published paper on the research.



Although I am a biologist, I find it difficult to understand the specialized technical matter in the paper. Therefore I refer you to one of her findings in the text starting at the very end of page three and continuing to the start of page 5. Essentially, she found that the genetics were quite different from sea-lice of wild and farmed salmon. You can see that in Figure 1. The two samples of “wild” lice are similar to each other, the two samples of “farmed” lice are also similar to each other, but the pairs look quite different.



I wish you success in your search for truth.

John B. Sprague, Ph.D.



—

Elizabeth Grace Boulding, Ph.D.

Associate Professor and Academic Advisor MFWB

University of Guelph, Ontario Canada

Office: room 1464 New Science Complex

Department of Integrative Biology

50 Stone Road East

University of Guelph

Guelph, Ontario

N1G 2W1

Canada

office phone: x54961

lab phone: x58156

fax:

Email:

webpage: http://www.uoguelph.ca/~bouldlab/