In British Columbia, where the wild salmon fishery has been central to the economy for more than a century, the advent of commercial salmon farming has not exactly been welcomed with open arms.
And while the B.C. government may view aquaculture as a lucrative alternative to a struggling wild salmon fishery, others see it as having the potential to deliver the final death blow to wild salmon stocks.
Conservationists, scientists, First Nations and fishermen have been warning for years of the ecological damage to the marine environment and coastal communities brought about by salmon farming.
But it's getting to be big business, with Canada's 267 salmon farms, located in B.C. and the Maritimes, bringing in about $700 million a year. More than 80 percent of B.C.'s farmed salmon is exported to the United States.
About 100 farms are located in the province, most of them concentrated in the Broughton Archipelago on northern Vancouver Island, Clayoquot Sound, and the Campbell River/Quadra Island area. Most are owned by a handful of Norwegian corporations.
Some of the numerous concerns include the transfer of diseases and sea lice from farmed stocks to wild salmon, the escape of farmed salmon into surrounding waters, and pollution from considerable amounts of fish waste.
Issues such as these prompted the B.C. government to impose a moratorium on fish farms in 1996, but despite opposition from environmentalists and NGOs, the moratorium was lifted in 2002. Since then, an average of six new sites have been established each year.
Because high concentrations of salmon are kept in what are essentially large floating feedlots, there is a high risk of disease, which necessitates the use of antibiotics and pesticides. As well, since farmed salmon don't have access to the tiny crustaceans which turn their flesh pink, they have to be fed a chemical additive that adds the salmon colouring.
The vast majority of salmon farmed in Canada and is Atlantic salmon, which are more suited to aquaculture and survive the crowded net pens better than their Pacific counterparts. But when they escape the nets, as millions have done, they have the potential to establish feral populations which demand resources that would otherwise go to supporting wild populations, according to University of Victoria fisheries ecologist John Volpe.
Volpe has discovered the presence of Atlantic salmon in many B.C. rivers. He says if a colonized population of Atlantic salmon occurs in Pacific waters it will "change the epidemiology where the profile of disease and parasites transfer in ways that can't be predicted."
"We don't have to look far around the world to see that the introduction of exotic species outside their natural boundaries is very often—almost in every case--a negative thing. We've also learned that it's very difficult to predict what those impacts are going to be before they happen."
Some Northern Vancouver Island First Nations bands have said in a press statement that many bands object to having fish farms in their traditional territories, "yet industry, with government approval, continues to place farms where they're not wanted." In 2002, some bands served symbolic eviction notices to fish farms operating in their area.
One of the biggest problems is that many of the farms are erected on migratory routes, and a 2006 study by a group of Canadian scientists found that wild juvenile salmon pick up fatal infections of sea lice while swimming past salmon farms. The scientists found that the more farms there are on a migration route, the more likely the tiny stolts were to get infected and die, and that the presence of even one louse can kill a baby salmon.
The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, a government body, blamed the collapse of wild pink salmon stocks in the Broughton Archipelago in 2002 on sea lice from the region's 26 fish farms. Michael Price, Aquaculture Specialist with the Raincoast Research Society, says that while some salmon are starting to return, recovery has been slow.
"Science is showing us that in every area that salmon farms operate there is depression in runs, so runs are declining. There's a lot of concern, and there's not a lot of money for research."
A crash in wild fish stocks in the past in Scotland and Ireland has been attributed to disease transmission from fish farms and/or sea lice infestation. In Norway, 24 river systems had to be treated with a powerful insecticide to stop the spread of a fish farm- related parasite. And in New Brunswick, infectious salmon anaemia forced the slaughter of half a million farmed fish.
Having experienced the damage wrought by fish farms on the marine environment, Norway, the first country to embrace aquaculture, has introduced extremely strict standards on fish farming. Unwilling to risk any threat to its lucrative fishing industry, Alaska has banned fish farming altogether.
Farm operators are attempting to deal with the lice problem by incorporating pesticides into the salmon feed. While this is having some effect, Price says that because sea lice are crustaceans, other crustaceans in the marine environment around the farms, such as prawns, are being killed as well.
Last year, a committee set up by the provincial government travelled to coastal communities to get input from locals on the impact of the aquaculture industry. The committee asked the government to impose a moratorium on fish farms for the year in which they were conducting the study but their request was refused. They are now writing their recommendations, which will be presented to the House of Commons in the spring.
But because another study by yet another committee in the past came up with 46 recommendations—only four of which were implemented—Price doesn't hold out much hope for anything effective to emerge from this one. He says there are now plans to expand the fish farming industry into the north coast of B.C.
"Industry and government continue to spin the information and really leave the public uncertain of what the truth is," says Price. "The science is not up for debate any more—the farms should not be there. What's the cost of losing the wild salmon on this coast?"
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