DFO’s Atlantic Salmon Watch Program
reported over 1.4 million Atlantic salmon escaped into B.C. waters between 1987
and 2002. B.C.’s Ministry of Agriculture and Lands (MAL) most recent statistics
reported 64 escaped fish in 2005 and 19,000 in 2006. The numbers of escaped
fish voluntarily reported by aquaculture companies in B.C. are surprisingly
low. Three Norwegian corporations own 92 percent of all farms in the province
and these same companies, using the same technology, record far higher levels
of escaped fish in their Norwegian operations. Escaped farm salmon have already
been found in more than 80 B.C. river systems and populations of feral juvenile
Atlantic salmon have been discovered at three locations in B.C.
“The B.C. government can’t continue to
put our wild salmon and marine ecosystem at risk by pretending that they are
addressing the problems of open net cage salmon farming with tighter
regulations,” said Catherine Stewart, Living Oceans Society’s Salmon Farming
Campaign Manager. “This latest escape is another example of the need for a
better system for farming salmon and not another band-aid. We believe that
closed containment systems can be that better mousetrap and we are calling on
Minister Hagen and the provincial government to lead the way.”
Living Oceans Society and its allies in
the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) are currently working with
Marine Harvest
“We have already convinced Marine
Harvest to join us in asking the B.C. government to make a financial commitment
to closed containment trials,” Stewart said. “We are eagerly awaiting a
response from
Living Oceans Society and CAAR continue
to urge the provincial government to introduce a closed containment innovation
and development fund of $10 million that will support a “made in B.C.” solution
to the problems with open net cage salmon farming. Those problems include not
just farmed salmon escapes, but also disease and pathogen transfer between wild
and farmed fish populations, sea lice infestations of wild migrating juvenile
salmon and untreated wastes from open net cage farms that are currently
discharged directly into the marine environment.
For more information contact:
Catherine Stewart
Cell: 604-916-6722
