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Wild Salmon Narrows Campaign: Ask Mainstream not to restock their farm!

A new opportunity has developed to start to clear the Wild Salmon Narrows of net-cage fish farms.

Photo:  Michelle Young

A farm owned by Mainstream Canada located at Brent Island, north of Quadra Island, is in the process of being harvested. Soon the nets will be empty of farmed Atlantic salmon. While CAAR and our supporters continue to oppose the new Gunner Point net-cage salmon farm in the northern Georgia Strait (find out more and get involved here!),this is the perfect opportunity to ask Mainstream not to restock the open-net cages and instead transition to closed-containment technology.

There is no good location for open net-cage salmon farming, but Brent Island has some ecological and cultural values that make it a priority for protection:

• Chonat Creek is a salmon bearing stream less than 3 km east of the Brent Island salmon farm.
• The Chonat Bay estuary has an abundance of marine life, including eelgrass and shellfish beds.
• Herring spawn in the area between Brent Island and Chonat Bay, putting them at risk. Scientific research in this area has found juvenile herring with sea lice.
• Chonat Bay is a Xwémalhkwu (Homalco) Heritage Protected Area. Local First Nations have traditionally used Chonat Bay to harvest chum and coho salmon, butter clams and seals. Smokehouses have also been traditionally erected and used at this seasonal dwelling site.

Update from the Broughton

Last year we told you about a joint Coordinated Area Management Plan (CAMP) in the Broughton Archipelago. The preliminary results from the plan’s first year are in, and they seem to indicate lower levels of sea lice on wild salmon, better enabling them to survive their out-migration.

Photo:  Craig Orr

The CAMP is an emergency, temporary management plan that CAAR and Marine Harvest Canada negotiated to offer some relief from sea lice to the area’s wild salmon. In the plan, the company coordinates the stocking of its farms so that one of the two channels in the Broughton is free of adult farmed salmon during the out-migration season for wild salmon. This year, all but one fish farm located along Tribune Channel and Fife Sound were empty of adult farmed salmon.

CAAR hopes that as the monitoring results are analyzed we will indeed see that the plan is offering some relief to our wild salmon, but this management action is only an interim measure. Marine Harvest is still using the chemical SLICE to combat sea lice and only one of the many impacts of open net-cage salmon farming is being considered. Long-term solutions like closed containment are required if salmon farming is to be safe for our oceans and safe for wild salmon.

Read more in CAAR’s press release on the results and on the program.

Who benefits from low organic aquaculture standards? Not the wild fish.

We were appalled to find out that the agency mandated to protect Canada’s oceans and fisheries is knee-deep in a scheme aiming to put a bright, shiny organic label on net-cage farmed salmon: a product that peer-reviewed science shows is harming wild fish. Not only is Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) working with industry to develop organic aquaculture standards that would include net-cage salmon, the federal agency is financially supporting the biased process!

Net-cage salmon farming company, Creative Salmon, and salmon feed company, Tatlow Feeds, are key industry players working with DFO on the standards development. Organic labels in Europe have already suffered a watering down of the organic program with a low bar set for the aquaculture industry; there is virtually no difference between organic and non-organic farmed salmon. This appears to be the same path Canada is headed down.

Like any net-pen farm, the use of chemical treatments like SLICE® and antibiotics can still be used to treat diseases and parasites, and the transfer of these diseases to wild fish is not controlled. All wastes are still discharged directly into the ocean, and massive escapes of farmed fish or the killing of marine mammals can continue without discrediting the company’s organic status.

This is a serious concern for organic shoppers, farmers, fishermen, and all supporters of wild salmon—such a low bar for organic undermines the credibility of the organic label as a measure of environmentally responsible practices.

The United States is taking a very different approach. The US National Organic Standard Board’s proposed organic standards would prevent the damage that the salmon farming industry has inflicted on wild fish and marine habitat in the Pacific Northwest, and minimize the impact on global fish stocks used as farmed fish feed. Safeguards for net-cages include no siting where the reproduction or migration of wild fish or other marine life could be harmed, re-capture of 50% of wastes, and use of native species only. Importantly, the amount of wild fish used as feed cannot be higher than farmed fish produced, and only trimmings and waste from environmentally responsible fisheries can be used. No capture of fish just for feed and no poultry by-products.

While not perfect, the proposed US standards at least take a precautionary approach to some environmental impacts. If only DFO had the courage to put the protection of marine environments ahead of marketing for the aquaculture industry.

There will eventually be a public comment period before the DFO/Industry proposal can be accepted as a Canadian standard. We will definitely keep you informed of how you can help influence this process and keep the organic bar high. Stay tuned!

Deconstructing "organic" farmed salmon

Recently, Shauna Mackinnon of the Living Oceans Society, one of the members of the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, was a guest on the radio program Deconstructing Dinner.

Shauna spoke about the various unresolved issues with imported organic farmed salmon and about the status of domestic organic aquaculture standards in the US and Canada. Listen here. (approximately 30 minutes)

And check out the show's archives for the multipart series, Norway, British Columbia, in which host Jon Steinman explores BC's salmon farming industry.