Salmon Farming and the Environment

Wild salmon are the backbone of life in B.C.'s coastal rainforest. Healthy wild salmon runs feed the bears, eagles, orcas and even the old-growth riparian forests (nitrogen from the carcasses of wild salmon fertilizes the trees).

Currently the salmon farming industry uses the ocean as its feedlot. Open net-cages are placed directly in the ocean allowing fish waste, excess feed and any chemicals used to fall to the seabed or enter into the marine food web. With a million or more farmed salmon penned in the small area of a typical farm, there is a significant impact on the surrounding ecosystem.

Allowing the salmon farming industry to use open net-cages transfers the responsibility for waste and disease control from salmon farming corporations to the coastal communities who live near the farms. Local communities, most of which receive no benefits from the farms, pay a price for the devastation of coastal ecosystems.

The 85-plus open net-cage salmon farms operating at any given time in B.C.'s coastal waters produce roughly the same amount of sewage as a city of half a million people. Fish farm waste consists of fish feces, uneaten food pellets, drugs, and drug residues. The waste is not treated before it seeps out of the net cage and settles on the ocean floor where some of it can be eaten by crabs and other shellfish. Much of it collects and slowly decomposes consuming the water's oxygen and causing algae blooms that are toxic to the farmed fish and other marine life.

Waste may be carried away by ocean currents, but this too ends up collecting in another place and causing localized pollution. Clam beaches used by First Nations in the Broughton Archipelago (the area with the highest concentration of salmon farms in B.C.) have been destroyed by the accumulation of black muck and sludge that has been attributed to salmon farm waste.

The contaminants from salmon farms have also been linked to elevated levels of mercury in rockfish and lesions on ground fish, impacting a traditional food source still used by coastal communities.

Wild salmon at risk from salmon farms

The salmon farming industry argues that salmon farms were meant to reduce the pressure on wild salmon by supplying farmed fish for the marketplace. In fact, they are putting wild salmon at risk.

Salmon farms spread parasites and diseases that threaten the survival of wild salmon stocks. Sea lice from the farms are killing vast numbers of out migrating juvenile wild salmon. Thousands of farmed fish have escaped their nets and breed in B.C. rivers and streams to compete with wild salmon stocks for food and habitat.

Fish farms are fatal for other creatures too. The open net-cages attract predators like sea lions and dolphins that drown in the farms' nets. Many salmon farms are licensed to shoot mammals that may threaten their stock. The pens of fish attract mammal predators that drown when caught in the nets or can be shot by fish farmers.

Raising carnivorous fish like salmon that need wild fish in their feed also impacts the marine environment. More wild fish are used to raise farmed salmon than the amount of farmed salmon produced. Salmon farming is reducing the global supply of wild fish.