Environment
Read the facts on these 8 common Myths about Salmon Farming and the Environment
MYTH #1 -Consumers are doing the environment a favour by eating wild salmon and boycotting farmed salmon.
The Facts
MYTH #2 -Wild salmon are on their way to extinction thanks to sea lice (parasites) from surrounding salmon farms in British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago and other areas.
The Facts
MYTH #3 -Farmed Atlantic salmon are escaping from salmon farms and colonizing local BC rivers, threatening to displace native stocks of wild salmon.
The Facts
MYTH #4 -It takes 3-5 kilograms of wild fish, such as herring and anchovy, to make the feed necessary to produce one kilogram of farmed salmon. The result is a net loss of edible animal protein worldwide.
The Facts
MYTH #5 -Open net cages are environmentally destructive, allowing both farmed salmon and their effluent to escape into the ocean. Land-based fish farms or closed containment systems are the solution.
The Facts
MYTH #6 -Fish waste released by salmon farms in BC is harmful to the ocean environment and is equivalent in impact to the raw sewage from a city of 500,000 inhabitants.
The Facts
MYTH #7 -10 million sockeye salmon from the Fraser River disappeared in 2009 because of sea lice and disease generated from salmon farms in Okisollo Channel (branded by activists as "Wild Salmon Narrows") and these salmon farms need to be permanently shut down.
The Facts
MYTH #8 - Salmon in British Columbia have Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA).
The Facts
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naturally occurring organisms that attach themselves to the outside of marine fish, both farmed and wild. They don't harm the fish unless their numbers reach critical mass. They have existed for tens of thousands of years, prior to the arrival of salmon farming on the BC coast.
DFO Fact Sheet. Farmed salmon initially receive sea lice from these natural wild sources.
Over the past decade, activists have made many predictions of salmon extinction - they have said sea lice from salmon farms are killing juvenile pink salmon. Not only does
scientific literature strongly disagree with this accusation - so do the fish. The fall of 2009 and 2010 saw some of the
best years for pink salmon returning to British Columbia rivers. Of course,
activists have been silent on this good news.
Instead, activists are now suggesting that sea lice may have changed their taste from pink salmon to the more delicious sockeye salmon and that sea lice from salmon farms are responsible for the loss of sockeye that should have returned to the Fraser River in the fall of 2009. Of course, there is no scientific evidence to prove these claims (see Myth #7).
The fact is, every year BC salmon farmers
carefully manage sea lice levels on their fish - especially during those times of the year when small wild salmon may be at
risk from sea lice. And because all salmon species migrate from river to ocean at the same time of year (spring and early summer), all wild salmon are safe to travel past salmon farms regardless of species.
Brian Harvey prepared
Science and Sea Lice: What do We Know? for the Pacific Salmon Forum in 2008. It provides a comprehensive overview of critical scientific papers related to sea lice and its interaction with wild and farm-raised salmon.
To view pink salmon returns to the Broughton Archipelago area from 1952 to 2009,
click here.
UPDATE (December 2010): A
study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concludes that sea lice from salmon farms were not the cause of the decline in pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago in 2002. At the same time, activist and salmon farming critic Alexandra Morton quietly published
this study (on demand of the Pacific Salmon Forum) which concludes "the survival of the pink salmon cohort was not statistically different from a reference region without salmon farms". Ms. Morton has not promoted these results.
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has not occurred. Researchers point out that multiple attempts at establishing sea-going populations of Atlantic salmon outside its native range can be traced back to the mid-19th century, such as in Tasmania in 1864. Since then, many attempts have been made to establish naturalized sea-run and land-locked populations in South Africa, India, Australia, New Zealand, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Columbia, India, Indonesia, Japan and Western North America. All have ended in failure.
From 1905 to 1935, some 8.5 million Atlantic salmon were deliberately placed into 60 different lakes and rivers in BC in an intentional effort to establish Atlantic salmon in the BC wild. These transplants occurred primarily on Vancouver Island, as well as in the Alberni District, the lower Fraser River and Skeena River drainages, and in some interior lakes and streams.
Today they and their offspring are nowhere to be found; the attempt was futile. Judging from this and many other failed attempts to transplant Atlantic salmon in other parts of the world it is highly unlikely that they will ever become established in the wild.
In 2001, 55 different river systems in BC were surveyed by trained First Nations crews looking for Atlantic salmon. 280 kilometers (about 166 miles) of streams were examined, and over 389,000 salmon were found- none of them was an offspring of spawning Atlantic salmon. Two fish of the 389,000 found were adult Atlantic salmon.
Salmon farmers know it's in their best interest not to allow their salmon to escape. Salmon farming in BC has made huge changes over the last two decades to ensure the risk of escape is reduced. As salmon farmers have steadily increased their investments in state-of-the-art net cages and equipment, the incidence of escapes has been
drastically reduced.
