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Stopping the great escapes

ANNA MEHLER PAPERNY

From Saturday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:28 PM EST 06/07/08

Aquaculture firm calls off search for 29,616 rogue Atlantic salmon that may put B.C.'s wild stocks at risk of a dwindling food supply ...Read the full article

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  1. P Conner from toronto, Canada writes: Aquaculture of this type is risky. Unregulated, it becomes a catastrophe. Regulate and contain these farms before it is too late.
  2. Haper must Go from Canada writes: Will the company compensate the fisherman that stand to loss money because of the escape the sports fishing operations etc.?
    There is a risk, is the profit to BC worth the risk, the environmental damage. The only way to make the companies take properer precautions is to have deterrent level or punitive level fines. Of course the company has already given a clue to the cause and how unimportant protecting the wild fish in BC is. "Mr. Roberts said the company checks its shallower anchors every 60 days, but the system anchors are too deep to check regularly." Translation inspecting the deep anchors is too expensive and affects our bottom line - the risk to wild stocks is not important to our bottom line.
  3. Winston Smith from Canada writes: Thank you Gordon Campbell and John van Dongen for so quickly lifting the 1995 NDP moratorium on fish farms in 2002; less than one year after being elected.
  4. Denis Love from Victoria BC, Canada writes: Thanks Gordon Campbell for ignoring the recommendations of the committee investigating options with fish farms. Gordo ignores lots of experts unless they are agreeing with his latest vision.Closed containment is better, but cuts into the bottom line of the companies. Real fish don't eat pellets and thats the only kind we will touch. What really bothers so many of us, is the companies use our coastal waters, drop drugs and excement into the water, sea lice which is a threat to wild salmon and Gordo shrugs. some moby is making money as this product is shipped somewhere else
  5. Blue Magic ...... from Mississauga,, Canada writes: God darn Sea lions up to no good.....
  6. Robert Loblaw from Canada writes: I am by far an expert on salmon, but I have to question whether the introduction of 29,000 fish into the Pacific ocean constitute any real threat.

    I do know that salmon are born in fresh water, spend a few years maturing in the ocean and then return to the place of their birth to spawn. These fish do not have a birthplace to return to, and may not have the instinct to even survive in an uncontrolled environment.

    For all we know they are on their way to Hawaii or China.

    Is this just another example of militant environmentalists creating another pseudo crisis?
  7. Robert Loblaw from Canada writes: Correction - The first sentence of my post should have read "I am by for no expert..."

    I'm sure there will be many who agree.
  8. Winston Smith from Canada writes: Robert Loblaw, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that the introduction of foreign species, in this case Atlantic salmon, into an environment will upset the native ecosystem. Eg. European Zebra muscles in the Great Lakes.
  9. Alastair james Berry from Nanaimo BC CANADA, Canada writes: If the wild salmon stocks today were at the levels of 50 years ago SALMON FARMS would cease to exist! The chances of escaped Atlantic salmon surviving and reproducing are slight as they do not have 'the river of origin' imprinted in their inherited instinct. Salmon have been OVER FISHED for years......I seem to remember in the early 1970's the GOVT buying up salmon licences with cash on the proviso that those bought out would not go back fishing for several years. In the event most came back into the industry with better equipment , in bigger boats and the latest fish finders that let the skippers visualize and catch every last fish! And the story goes if they caught more than QUOTA they would head south of the border and unload the excess where no questions were asked! We now have a racial fishery for the salmon to contend with, too! Our first nations brothers are allowed to net 100% of the salmon shoals returning to spawn for TRADITIONAL CEREMONIAL AND TRADE PURPOSES as an ABORIGINAL RIGHT or so a recent court ruling seems to state! Our Salmon, like the Newfie Cods, are facing extinction! It is too late to save them..........except if all sea fishing is banned except for shore based fish weirs where every fish killed can be counted by BC Government inspectors and all other trading of salmon is prohibited...........for the next 50 years, for it will certainly take that time for the basic Pacific salmon stocks to recover their traditional numbers!
  10. Alastair james Berry from Nanaimo BC CANADA, Canada writes:

    I would say to WINSTON SMITH that the ZEBRA MUSCLES have certainly cleaned up the green slimey waters of the Bay of Quinte

    "Winston Smith from Canada writes: Robert Loblaw, it doesn't take a scientist to figure out that the introduction of foreign species, in this case Atlantic salmon, into an environment will upset the native ecosystem. Eg. European Zebra muscles in the Great Lakes. "
  11. Ruth Walker from Edmonton, Canada writes:
    Over sufficient time, events where farm salmon escape into the wild obviously will continue to occur, so long as the probability of an escape event is non-zero.

    Other than completely isolating farms from the wild, has anyone suggested a viable way to assure that the probability of escape indeed is zero?

    Farm pens in contact with the ocean are bound to fail periodically. A policy that permits such pens to exist, is a policy that guarantees eco disasters.
  12. Kan Tankerous from Tronna, Canada writes:

    Oddly enough, in Ontario, the largest obstacle to native Atlantic salmon regaining a toehold in their historic range is the introduced Pacific salmon.

    Native trout and salmon don't stand a chance against the Pacific hordes that choke the streams every autumn and bulldoze the spawning beds.

    We even have regulations and closed seasons for the aliens.

    To me they are vermin and pitchforks should be allowed to harvest them.

    But, that ain't gonna happen because they fill the cash registers of the charter fishing gang.

    Alas.
  13. Ruth Walker from Edmonton, Canada writes:
    By the way, if we are so crazy as to continue this practice, shouldn't we at least require the fish-net equivalent of the double-hulled oil tanker?

    Redundancy does not solve the fundamental problem, it only changes the time scale on which containment will fail and species elimination will occur. Triple redundancy is even better, but whoops there goes another species now and then.

    Even on a human time scale, any number of causes can defeat the assumptions of independence that make redundant solutions work. Extreme weather and earthquake/tsunami come to mind as events that are quite likely to cause containment failure of farm pens in contact with the ocean.

    Complete isolation is a practical and effective solution. Or in the alternative, we could invite substantive eco disasters. We really haven't been very good in the past when faced with such choices, have we? But eventually, either we will adapt or we will perish.
  14. Winston Smith from Canada writes: Alastair james Berry from Nanaimo BC CANADA, if you are suggesting the introduction of the Zebra Muscles into the Great Lakes is beneficial I suggest you do some research into the damage it is doing to the ecosystem. True, they have "cleared up" the water but many species fail because of clear water. I suggest you look at how many native species have disappeared or are threatened.
  15. Harbinger from Out West from Canada writes: Atlantic salmon escaping? Sounds like a job done by the local Taliban.
  16. Matt C from Canada writes: I spent 3 months in the Broughton Archipelago. Every day I saw, first-hand, the effects of sea lice on juvenile salmon. Anyone who denies that salmon farming has an impact on wild stocks is biased beyond belief.

    That being said, I do not believe 30,000 escaped atlantic salmon pose the level of risk this article makes them out to. Atlantic salmon have successfully reproduced in BC water and compete with native salmon for food. However, the level of success is questionable. The main focus of everyone should be on the impacts of sea lice infection on juveniles. That impact has been proven time and time again. If juvenile infection continues as it has in the past, local populations of salmon will become extinct.

    Closed-containment is 100% viable and a pilot project is going ahead right now in Campbell River. Land-based systems are not viable due to the high cost of moving water. In-ocean closed-containment successfully separates the open ocean from the farmed salmon and prevents transmission of sea lice.

    The BC government needs to lower the level of sea lice acceptable at the time of juvenile out-migration (current is 3 adults per fish, it should be more like 0.03) and as John Werring state, get serious about penalties.
  17. Vern McPherson from writes:
    Just how would they go about searching for 29,000 salmon in the NW Pacific anyway ?

    Do they call out their names from roving boats ?
  18. Vern McPherson from writes:
    I think the captive Atlantic salmon got tired of the COns designtion as 'defeatist" and are all searching for a way to get to Alberta.

    I'd be covering the train stations, bus depots and airports ..........

    If you see one hitchiking on the Trans Canada eastbound - call the RCMP immediately..... DO NOT PICK UP STRANGE FISH !!!
  19. Mrs. Whiggins from Canada writes: Open fishing for Atlantic Salmon. There must be something on the creatures that can be kept and recorded, perhaps a fin or the head. Educate people, show them what to look for. Let people fish for them anywhere.

    When spawning season begins, have watchers and waders monitor the rivers and streams. Get them before they breed or eat the young wild stock.

    You all knew this was going to happen. Just last year we in BC had another incident. Yet nothing was done. I'd be interested to know just who in government has a lot of money sunk in farmed fish. Likely be an eye-opener.

    Fine these companies to within an inch of their lives. Holiday weekend and workers watched the fish escape yet could do nothing? Sounds like a load of horse pucky. I'm going to bet there was nobody there.

    In the meantime, between worrying about farmed versus wild, go out for sushi!

    Then vote for the Premier who will make fish farms contained. Land or sea, contained.
  20. Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Do something stupid like allow cross species habitats and then be surprised when something stupid happens. Oops. My Atlantic Salmon that I was farming in Pacific waters have escaped. We never thought that might happen!
  21. Wilma De Bruyn from Toronto, Canada writes: Vern McPherson from writes:
    I think the captive Atlantic salmon got tired of the COns designtion as 'defeatist" and are all searching for a way to get to Alberta.

    I'd be covering the train stations, bus depots and airports ..........

    If you see one hitchiking on the Trans Canada eastbound - call the RCMP immediately..... DO NOT PICK UP STRANGE FISH !!!
    Posted 05/07/08 at 6:05 AM EDT | Alert an Editor | Link to Comment
    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
    Vern, if they headed that way they would be charged with Carbon
    Tax!!!
  22. Kevin Desmoulin from Toronto, Canada writes: I like how they describe the fish as rogue now they have gotten away, like some how they are doing something out of their norm.
  23. Mark S Noel from NT, Canada writes: Typical G&M fear mongering. I hope for their sake this sold at least one newspaper.
  24. hossein hajiagha from Victoria, Canada writes: Mr, Gordon Campbell so busy for his corrupotion man.
    last night and $300 ticket from local police, and was thinking where bring money to pay $400 to look after my tooth , one tooth to be fix cost over $400 in a place are government should be for low income?
    BC a place ministry of family and children spending over $500.000 are TAX in office renovation, why he did not get any ticket?
    where is the justice?
    oh man I am not longer believe the Canada or justice here or democracy or human right. white this kind regime we have in BC . I do not know what is a different from Iran I saw same regime there and here ? why one country should be co negative like Iran and so lies over like Canada?
  25. Jesse Winger from Calgary SW, Canada writes: Salmon farming is killing the native salmon fishery: this is beyond dispute, the data is all in.

    Why oh why are we still tolerating this madness!?? Shut that deadly industry down unless they are will to move them out of the ocean into containment tanks on land.
  26. Pik Man from Canada writes: I won't eat that farmed crap they sell in the stores. When I can't catch a wild salmon in the river anymore I will stop eating salmon. Thank god they haven't figured out how to farm halibut yet.
  27. Bill Harrison from Canada writes: Typical media reaction to one of the problems that can occur in the aquaculture industry. This is a story in an eastern Canadian newspaperthat gives a lot of credence to Ms. Morton who has made it her mission in life to destroy salmon farming. I doubt the G&M has ever taken the trouble to find out where she gets her funding to carry on her "work?" I also doubt the G&M has ever taken the trouble to find out what the aquaculture industry means to coastal B.C. and to parts of northern Vancouver Island. In one community close to1000 jobs depend on this industry, yet the likes of Morton and her ilk, plus a media that is ever willing to accept the viewpoint of the Mortons and the Mairs and continues to ignore what the jobs mean to an area in which commercial salmon fishing, forestry and mining are suffering great job loses and the relocation of many to Alberta. It would be nice, and fair, if the industry was allowed the space the antagonists are given.
  28. Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Bill Harrison, I hope you have the same regard for those thousands who are dependant on the oil industry for their livelihood and forgive their little contribution to environmental pollution. Mixing species habitats is just dumb dumb dumb. Especially so when the natural species is numerically weakened and requires conservation and intervention to keep the fish from extinction.
  29. Rob Swanson from Edmonton, Canada writes: Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Bill Harrison, I hope you have the same regard for those thousands who are dependant on the oil industry for their livelihood and forgive their little contribution to environmental pollution. Mixing species habitats is just dumb dumb dumb. Especially so when the natural species is numerically weakened and requires conservation and intervention to keep the fish from extinction.

    To right!!!

    Jumping to hasty solutions not breed from careful consideration for societial and economic questions, without clear scientific direction and study is a bad thing.

    Sorta like the huff and puff over C02, yes?
  30. David Gibson from Canada writes: """“We are a huge advocate of the big stick:""" Just how huge ARE you, John? Pictures, please.
  31. Bill Harrison from Canada writes: Philip McRae: You sound like one of the urban environmentalists with which we in resouce based communities are so familiar. You come to our areas for six-eight weeks in the summer, want everything pristine, lots of fish to catch, lots of shellfish to pick off the beach, yet spend very little actual cash. The rest of the year you couldn't care less about us. If lumber mills crash, mines close, fish packing plants lack catch and workers leave for Alberta, so be it.
  32. Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Bill Harrison, you sound like an idiot who can't defend his idealism so attacks even the most basic of question. I'm an outdoors person who doesn't want to see natural habitat over run by genetic adaptation born out of ignorance, or I don't give a sh!t attitudes. I'll repeat my stance on farming Atlantic salmon in our Pacific waters. Mixing species habitats is just dumb dumb dumb. Especially so when the natural species is numerically weakened and requires conservation and intervention to keep the fish from extinction. Your excuse does not fly in the face of reason. You could be farming a Pacific salmon species and I would not have the same concerns.
  33. Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Rob Swanson, actually I see the two very differently. We are doing this today with todays science knowing full well the dangers. These people on either coast engaged in messing with the habitat and the natural species to make a buck can not be equated with an industry that our whole economy is based on and began 200 years ago with that periods scientific knowledge and understanding. We use todays science to play catch up and attempt to mitigate what possible environmental damage we have caused burning fossil fuels with out any fore knowledge or intent. We will have no such excuse for any damage or species lost tomorrow. It will because we failed to act having full knowledge. It's not environmentalism, it's rejecting plain old stupidity.
  34. Rob Swanson from Edmonton, Canada writes: Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: These people on either coast engaged in messing with the habitat and the natural species to make a buck can not be equated with an industry that our whole economy is based on and began 200 years ago with that periods scientific knowledge and understanding. It will because we failed to act having full knowledge. It's not environmentalism, it's rejecting plain old stupidity.

    Thats risible.

    Ask the fifth, and sixth generation families on the Atlantic coast if they believe that the industry out there meets your criteria.

    Hundreds of years. Check
    Current at the time knowledge. Check
    Entire economy based on(not to mention society, community, etc.)
    Check

    Stupidity CHECK

    To ere is human. CHECK
  35. martha stewart from Canada writes: Which one was Steve McQueen?
  36. Philip McRae from Vancouver, Canada writes: Rob Swanson, "Thats risible." What's laughable? "Ask the fifth, and sixth generation families on the Atlantic coast if they believe that the industry out there meets your criteria." Please explain further. Are you talking the Cod fishery?
  37. Matt C from Canada writes: Bill Harrison:

    Do a little research before spouting off your nonsense. I know Alex Morton. She DOES NOT WANT to shut down the industry. She wants the industry to permanently separate the farmed fish from wild fish and stop relying on the ocean as a dumping ground.

    The economic benefits brought about by the salmon farms are desperately needed for some coastal communities. Everyone knows that. However, those benefits should not come at a cost to wild stocks, the environment, or other communities. Many guides in the Echo Bay area have suffered because of the sharply declining fish populations in that region. Echo Bay itself is quickly being deserted.

    You complain that people from the city are unfairly demanding that areas they rely on for resources remain pristine, regardless of the impact to small communities. Yet the economies of small communities you defend have their own impact on even smaller communities such as Echo Bay.

    Not a single job was brought to Echo Bay thanks to the salmon farms. Yet it is Echo Bay that has to deal with the decline in their local economy.
  38. G len from Halifax, Canada writes: I have nothing against fish farming and think it should be promoted and expanded. No need to change the farming pens either as there is no threat if the salmon escape. In fact, it could help the native populations. Granted the B.S about 1000 jobs is a lie, only a handful at the farming site and a couple dozen in the processing facility as well. So lets get the government to put money to help expand the fish farms. In NOVA SCOTIA! Hmmm, Atlantic ocean...Atlantic Salmon, should work. A stupid irresponsible idea to put them in the Pacific ocean. Atlantic salmon mature faster than all types of pacific salmon and have even been seen at the spawning beds of the west coast. You want cheap friggin altantic salmon, there are natives who can put the pens on their own waters on the east coast. On the other hand, I'm thinking of farming atlantic mussles and lobster in BC. Ooops, dropped some eggs into the pacific ocean, don't worry...I'm not.
  39. Denis Love from Victoria BC, Canada writes: If Atlantic salmon as such a good deal, why is it the fish farms are up and down the west coast of BC and not the east coast.

    Oh I allmost forgot, Gordo lifted the moretorium on fish farms, and went against the recommendations of the provincial commitee that wanted safeguards put in place. shorty after the committee recommendations were made public, Gordo and Co. arranged for a few more to be started. No sign of fish farms on the coast just below BC
  40. Matt C from Canada writes: Actually Dennis, they are being considered in Washington. Somewhere I remember hearing 3 were already in operation, but I'm not positive. When I was in the Broughton a pair of biologists from Washington came up to get a tour. They went out on a few seines and got to see the infected juveniles first-hand.

    Let's hope Washington has a little better foresight than BC.
  41. Kim Morton from Qualicum Beach, Canada writes: Lets keep this in perspective instead of the usual media hype. There is so much misinformation out there spread by the anti everything crowd. To start: No farmed fish have ever been put into salt water with sea lice. These parisites are picked up in the ocean and are natural. In the 1960's Atlantic salmon were introduced into B.C. waters but none survived nor did they destroy the Pacific stocks. Farms did not destroy the wild stocks nor did logging. This is much like the east coast cod. There are too many competing interests for the wild stocks with commercial fishermen, native ceramonial and commercial and commercial sports fishing, none of which contribute enough to enhansment. The Dept. of Fisheries is in Ottawa, a long way from any salt water. The "committee" that investigated fish farms had only one Liberal member, the rest were NDP whose party is against fish farms mostly because none of them are union so don't contribute to the NDP. Alexandra Morton is an eco terrorist that started out with the conclusion that fish farms are bad and selectivly uses data to try to convince the uninformed.She is also anti logging and just about anything else that creates jobs. Fish farmers would love to go to contained farms as these could be placed anywhere, eliminating the need for camps and water transport. So far the technology does not exist to do this on a commercial basis. Probably will happen eventually. To get the facts visit the fish farmers website. I have no connection with the fish farming industry but am concerned about the economy on my coast.
  42. Matt C from Canada writes: Kim, I highly recommend you get your information from somewhere other than the Salmon Farmers Association website.

    Alex starting off with the idea that farms were a bad thing? Not even close! She'll be the first to admit that like most people living in isolated coastal communities, she believed that salmon farming would help the local economy. It didn't take long for the effects of salmon farming to become readily apparent in every stream. At that point she started trying to figure out what the problem was and everything pointed to sea lice.

    You are right, sea lice are not on farmed salmon when put into open pens. Farmed salmon do acquire sea lice from wild salmon migrating from the open ocean to coastal rivers to spawn. Unfortunately pro-farming people uses statements like those to mislead the less-informed.

    The whole truth is that wild salmon have a life cycle that naturally separates adults from juveniles with very little overlap. Adult salmon die in the fall, juvenile salmon migrate to the ocean in the spring. Sea lice on wild salmon die in the freshwater rivers, and the eggs they released in coastal waters normally have no hosts. When the juveniles migrate out, the coast is clear.

    Salmon in farms on the coast give the baby sea lice a place to grow and release their own eggs. They do this all winter and spring. Juveniles swim past salmon farms, pick up baby sea lice, and the result is the death of the juvenile salmon and probable extinction of wild salmon where salmon farms exist.

    The natural overlap of wild adults and juveniles produces a natural sea lice infection prevalence (percent of sample with lice) of 3-5 percent. Juveniles in areas with salmon farms have levels of 30 to 90 percent, depending on how you do your calculations. DFO does the 30 percent way, Alex does the 90 percent way. I am familiar with both methods and Alex's is more appropriate.

    Please stop misinforming.

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