Where did Alexandra Morton's NonProfit get $822,210 (2000-2010)?

Almost single-handedly, or so it seems, Alexandra Morton has brought the salmon farming industry to its knees in British Columbia.

In just one example of the influence that she has had, Morton brought legal action against the federal and the B.C. government. The end result is that British Columbia lost jurisdiction over aquaculture - not only for finfish but for shellfish too. Indeed, Alexandra Morton has had a hefty influence on public opinion and public policy, and even on Canadian law. As such, its fair to inquire about Alexandra Morton's sources of funding and her actual research findings.

Tax returns show that between 2000 and 2010, Morton's non-profit (Raincoast Research Society) had total revenues of $913,796. Of that, less than 10 percent was from tax-receipted donations, according to my calculations based on Canadian tax returns. A total of $822,210 (90 percent) was from grants from other charities, gifts and other revenues. The question is, where did those funds originate? And most importantly, did any of those funds originate from the American foundations of which the editors of the journal SCIENCE, where Morton's sea lice research has been published, were trustees? This is a fair question because it is important to know whether the editors of the journal SCIENCE may have had conflicting or competing interests at the time that Morton's sea lice research was published in the prestigious journal SCIENCE.

Tax returns for Raincoast Research Society state that the purposes of Raincoast Research are

Sea lice research
Research on whales and dolphins
Scientific writing
Providing a base for studies of the impacts of "aquiculture."

New programs added in 2009 are:

Benthic sampling adjacent to fish farms, and
Studies of marine bacteria in the Broughton Archipelago.

A long-time critic of salmon farming for a wide variety of reasons, Alexandra Morton is best known for her claim that her research shows that sea lice originating from salmon farms put wild salmon at serious risk of extinction. If this claim is supported by sound science, it goes without saying that salmon farms should be closed. Surprisingly, however, this claim is not supported by Morton's own research.

It would surprise a lot of people but, in fact, contrary to Morton's claims, her actual research findings do not show, and have never shown, that sea lice originating from salmon farms cause high levels of mortality among juvenile salmon in the wild and put them at risk of extinction. One of the main reasons why Morton's claims are not backed up by her own research findings are that sea lice levels and mortality in the wild were never actually measured. Mortality estimates were computer-generated.

Click here for Ten Reasons Why Some Sea Lice Research Claims Are FALSE.

So, if the claims of Morton and her colleagues about "farm-origin" sea lice are false, why do they make them?

In a paper that I wrote in 2010, I raised questions about whether Morton's sea lice research was funded and publicized as part of "demarketing" campaign, primarily against Safeway, to prop up demand for "wild" fish by scaring consumers and retailer away from the competing product: farmed fish. In other words, was the campaign against Safeway - which existed long before published sea lice research from B.C. - a science-driven campaign or was the marketing campaign driving the science? See: Sea Lice Research: Science or Marketing?

Demarketing is about selling less, not selling more. Its about reducing demand or shifting demand away by instilling fear, uncertainty and doubt, not only in the minds of consumers and the media, but in the mind of the competition itself. Surprisingly, shifting consumer and retailer demand away from farmed salmon, is precisely what environmental organizations have been heavily funded to do. According to U.S. tax returns, SeaWeb was paid $560,000 by the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation to "demarket" farmed salmon. Over the same period, SeaWeb had a "research partnership" with the sea lice researchers at the University of Alberta, and the Moore Foundation also partially funded the sea lice research itself. To the best of my knowledge, however, none of this was publicly disclosed.

According to calculations based on the publicly available tax returns for Raincoast Research Society, between 2000 and 2010 Raincoast Research Society had total revenues of $913,796. Of that, $34,492 (8 per cent) was from tax-receipted donations, $360,016 was from other charities, $343,426 was from other gifts and $118,768 was from other revenues. In total, $822,210 (90 percent) was reportedly from grants from other charities, gifts and other revenues. The question is, where did those funds originate?

Of the $34,492 in tax-receipted donations since 2000, 80 percent was reported for 2009 and 2010 alone. Prior to 2009, the percentage of revenue from tax-receipted donations was 2 percent.

According to various sources, at least two commercial fishing companies (Vital Choice Seafoods and Finest At Sea Ocean Products) have funded Alexandra Morton's work. Finest At Sea Ocean Products funded her sea lice work through the University of Alberta but until the author of this blog started asking questions, this funding from commercial fishing interests was not disclosed. To see how the reporting of the funding of this sea lice research changed after the author of this blog started asking questions in the fall of October 2007, click here.

The Canadian Sablefish Association reportedly gave Alexandra Morton a $20,000 award for her sea lice research. Fishing companies and their industry associations have an obvious commercial interest in discrediting farmed fish and thwarting aquaculture. Scaring consumers away from farmed fish helps to sway market share towards wild fish. If they're funding Alexandra Morton and her sea lice research in particular, the public has the right to know.

Peer Review or Pal Review?

According to a paper that Morton co-authored in the journal SCIENCE, her sea lice research was partially funded by Tides Canada Foundation which re-grants large amounts of U.S. funds to various environmental organizations. Since 2003, a handful of U.S. foundations have channeled at least $57 million through Tides Canada, according to my calculations based on U.S. tax returns.

Since 2000, the David & Lucile Packard Foundation, based in Los Altos, California, has granted at least $14.1 Million to Tides Canada. Tides Canada has acknowledged by e-mail that it has made three grants from two donors to Raincoast Research Society but Tides Canada has refused to identify the original donor. Was that donor the David & Lucile Packard Foundation? Or the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation? These question are fair because the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation funded an "antifarming campaign" and has admitted in e-mail that through the David Suzuki Foundation, the Moore foundation partially funded the sea lice research by Alexandra Morton and her colleagues at the University of Alberta. The current Editor-in-Chief of the journal SCIENCE - where Morton's sea lice research has been published - is a trustee of the Moore foundation.

Back in 2007, at the time that Alexandra Morton's research was published in SCIENCE, the Editor-in-Chief was a trustee of the Packard foundation. As the author of this blog has reported in The Financial Post (Packard's Push Against B.C. Salmon), since 2000, the Packard foundation has made grants for nearly $90 million for various projects to sway market demand towards "wild" fish, especially from Alaska. All this considered, it seems to me that the Packard foundation has an agenda to prop up the market for Alaskan commercial fisheries by funding campaigns that scare consumers and retailers away from the competition: aquaculture - all in the name of sustainability and science, conveniently published in the journal SCIENCE where one of the Packard trustees has been the long-time Editor-in-Chief.

Sea lice research has also been reported in journals created by the Packard foundation and the Moore Foundation. For example, the paper by Ford & Myers, A Global Assessment of the Impacts of Salmon Aquaculture on Wild Salmonids was published in Public Library of Science, a journal created with $US 9 million from the Gordon & Betty Moore Foundation. Sea lice research was also published in the journal Conservation Biology (Salmon Farms Create Deadly Clouds of Sea Lice, and Out of the Frying Pan) a journal created with funds from the Packard Foundation. Between 2000 and 2004, Packard paid $250,000 to the Society for Conservation Biology for a new journal titled, "Conservation Biology in Practice." For the U.S. tax returns showing this, click here.

Fair Questions:

On the basis of the above, it seems fair to ask:

1. What are the origins of the $882,210 that Raincoast Research Society has reported to Revenue Canada as revenue from other registered charities and other sources, between 2000 and 2010? This question isn’t about the 8 percent from tax-receipted donations. This is about the other 90 percent. In particular, how much of the revenue of Raincoast Research Society originated from commercial fishing companies and the U.S. foundations that fund marketing campaigns that prop up demand for Alaskan "wild" fish?

2. Every year between 2000 and 2008, Raincoast Research Society reported to Revenue Canada that it had ONE paid employee. Who is that employee? Is that employee Alexandra Morton? Salaries and wages for that employee were a total of $213,000 (2003 - 2008). Where did those funds originate? Did any of that money originate from commercial fishing companies or U.S. foundations? In other words, the money that was paid to Raincoast Research Society's one employee (Alexandra Morton?), where did that money come from?

Annual wages increased from $5,000 in 2003 to $24,000 in 2005, $36,000 in 2006 and then to $48,000 in 2008. How did Raincoast Research Society know that it could systematically double its management fees over two years? Where did the funds originate for the wages of the one employee of Raincoast Research Society? Did any of the funds used to pay these wages originate from the Packard foundation or the Moore foundation - the two U.S. foundations of which the Editors-in-Chief of SCIENCE are trustees?

3. What is the origin of the funds for Alexandra Morton's sea lice research, that were granted - directly or indirectly - through Tides Canada Foundation?

In 2009, several letters were written to Alexandra Morton to ask her to please clarify her actual research findings and funding sources. Other than an initial exchange of e-mails, no further response was received. For that e-mail exchange, click here. These letters are provided below: