Preach on Brother! Here is a story I dug out of the Seattle times on this issue.
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British Columbia salmon farms off northeastern Vancouver Island should be temporarily shut down next spring to protect wild pink salmon, according to recommendations submitted yesterday to the province's Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries.
The Pacific Fisheries Resources Conservation Council, a government-funded group, says drastic action is justified after "unprecedented declines" in pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago, a fish-farm industry stronghold off northeastern Vancouver Island.
Only 147,000 pink salmon this year returned to spawn there, compared with 3.6 million two years ago in an area that has the densest concentration of salmon farms on the British Columbia coast.
The council, in a report released yesterday, says the decline may be caused by sea lice passed from the infested farms to vulnerable young salmon. And the council calls for temporary shutdown of the farms this winter to cleanse the area of lice prior to the migration of young salmon smolt from freshwater to saltwater.
"Some may argue that more study be done ... (but) such a strategy may lead to irreparable harm to the Broughton Archipelago pink salmon," the report said.
The shutdown of some 20 farms — even on a temporary basis — would be a blow to the B.C. salmon-farming industry. Farming officials have said they think more factors were involved in the low returns of pink salmon, and are skeptical of the report's findings.
"Any sort of human activity poses some risk to nature," said Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association. "The key is to weigh those risks, reduce them as much as possible and manage them over time."
B.C. government officials said yesterday that they will take a close look at the council report — but did not say whether the province would follow through on its recommendations. The council is chaired by John Fraser, a former B.C. minister of fisheries, and includes a mix of scientists, tribal leaders and other public representatives. In its report, the council wades into a high-stakes and increasingly high-profile debate on the effects of salmon farming on wild salmon.
In the past decade, farmers have overtaken fishermen as the major source of the world's salmon. Washington state hosts a small salmon-farming industry, with about eight farms active in Puget Sound. British Columbia hosts a much bigger industry, with 105 farms that produce about 5 percent of the world's salmon.
Most of the B.C. farms grow Atlantic salmon, and that has raised concerns that escaped fish could populate streams and compete with native Pacific salmon species.
The council's report focuses on sea lice, a risk that has received considerable attention in Northern European farms but less scrutiny in North America.
Sea lice are a natural part of the marine ecosystem, typically attaching themselves to adult salmon without causing big problems. But as the adult salmon return to freshwater streams, spawn and die, the sea lice lose their hosts.
But salmon farms, full of fish all year long, offer a "reservoir" for the sea lice to survive the winter, according to Brian Riddell, science adviser to the council. They can attach themselves to young pink salmon unable to withstand the parasites, Riddell said.
Riddell suspects that young salmon emerging two years ago from streams in the Broughton Archipelago may have been infested with lice and that's why so few fish came back this year. The pink-salmon populations there declined in a year when other B.C. pink-salmon runs were healthy.
If the government opts not to shut down the salmon farms, the council recommends intensive treatment of fish farms to control sea lice and increased monitoring of lice.
Information from The Associated Press is included in this report.
