Farmed and Dangerous e-News

Conservation Groups Support Immediate Action to Protect Wild Salmon and Promote Closed Containment

In late June an important shift took place in British Columbia waters. Marine Harvest Canada announced plans to coordinate the stocking of its farms in the Broughton Archipelago in order to try and establish safer migratory routes for juvenile wild salmon making their way from natal rivers to the open ocean.

CAAR conservation groups responded with cautious support of a plan that should provide emergency, interim protection for some wild salmon stocks in the Broughton. Marine Harvest’s proposal to change their management is also an admission of the seriousness of the threat sea lice from farms pose to wild salmon, and the validity of the growing body of scientific research showing that sea lice from salmon farms play a significant role in wild salmon mortality.

David Suzuki Foundation, Friends of Clayoquot Sound, Georgia Strait Alliance, Living Oceans Society, Raincoast Conservation Society, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation and Watershed Watch Salmon Society stressed that the migration corridor plan is not a permanent, nor widespread fix and that, ultimately, open net-cage salmon farms must transition to closed containment to ensure the long-term health of wild salmon and our oceans. The groups also insisted on and won agreement from the company that intensive monitoring of both farm and wild fish would be necessary to determine if the plan provides the expected interim relief.

As part of this interim measure, Marine Harvest Canada is joining conservation groups in calling on the provincial government to invest a minimum of $10 million dollars in the development of commercial-scale closed containment projects. Both parties will also encourage a significant investment in closed containment research from the federal government.

The conservations groups also urged Mainstream Canada, whose operations contribute to the sea lice problem in the area, to commit to fully integrating their farms into an interim protection plan.

30,000 Escapees Demonstrate Need for Closed Containment (Again)

On July 1st, 30,000 Atlantic salmon escaped from a Marine Harvest Canada fish farm in Frederick Arm on the Mainland British Columbia coast 50 km north of Campbell River. The near-harvest sized fish escaped when one of the anchors holding the pens in place apparently slipped into deeper water causing the corner of the net cage to sink for an undetermined time.

Recapture efforts were spectacularly ineffective and less than 1.5% of the escaped Atlantics were recovered.
 

Broughton farm Photo: S. Proboszcz

"This is a completely preventable occurrence," said Ruby Berry of the Georgia Strait Alliance. "If the government had acted on its own committee's recommendation and required the farms to be in closed containment, we wouldn't be seeing repeated escapes of this invasive salmon species into the marine environment."
 
Georgia Strait Alliance, based on Vancouver Island, BC received a number of reports of Atlantic salmon jumping and traveling in large schools throughout Nodales Channel, some distance from the Fredrick Arm farm that reported the escape. "These are adult fish and we know that they compete with Pacific salmon for food, habitat and spawning opportunities," noted Berry. "They eat wild salmon fry which are already in great danger from the sea lice from salmon farms. Now 30,000 hungry farmed fish have been unleashed in the pathway of juvenile Fraser River salmon that are currently passing by on their way to the open ocean."

CAAR continues 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.

Learn more about closed containment and send a fax to the BC Government urging them to implement a $10 million fund for closed containment development.

Bush Proposal to Allow for Offshore Fish Farms

In early July, the Bush administration proposed a set of rules to regulate future projects off American shores that would use the ocean for alternative energy and aquaculture. The rules could cover a wide variety of ideas, from turning unused oil platforms into huge fish farms to harnessing alternative energy from wind, currents, waves and algae.

Concerned environmental groups say the proposal allows energy companies to sell their oil and gas rigs rather than restoring the marine environment, and that industrial fish farms only compound the pressure facing our oceans.

Groups also argue the Minerals Management Service (MMS), a branch of the U.S. Department of the Interior, should not be in the business of regulating offshore aquaculture. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 gave MMS the lead role in pursuing new forms of development in offshore waters. The rules were published July 9 in the Federal Register and are now open for a 60-day public comment period.

Read more, and take action.

Public Invited to Become “Eyes and Ears” for Aquaculture Compliance

Active salmon farms in British Columbia are supposed to be checked by ministry staff randomly every year. While infractions can result in prosecutions, fines or even suspension of an aquaculture license, most often warnings are issued and very few fines have ever been imposed.

In response to the lack of government rigour in monitoring the salmon farming industry, CAAR launched a new initiative called the “Eyes and Ears Campaign” this summer. You can take a sneak peek at some of the information already collected in our marine debris photo gallery.

Hurst Island, BC Photo: W. Soltau