Don't need to name call but lets pretend the government followed the advice of all the eco-warriors on this site and closed all fish farms down. Since consumers still want salmon, where do they get it? I guess we will have to give more allocation to the commercial fleet and cut back all our sport quota's to one salmon a day. Oh wait, now all the fishing lodges and guides are struggling to get clients who need to shell out $4K to catch 2 salmon. I guess they need to get a new job. We can't argue the case that the Canadian who buys his salmon from safeway has less rights to the resource then the sporty who goes out and catches it. Alas, everyone is now losing. Fish farms lose, commercial fisherman lose, sporty's lose, first nations lose and consumers lose. This is not a solution.
Personally, I am all for fish farms because they take pressure off of the wild stocks. I am also for the farms to be operated safely and sustain-ably so they don't harm the wild stocks. Farmed salmon has been proven to be a healthy product that tastes great and is well accepted by consumers. Rather than make assumptions about a video, lets take a deep breath, ask our government to investigate to ensure the plant is operating under proper procedures, and if there is a gap in how the operations are preformed, lets address the issue and have it fixed. The video looks gross, but I am not sure it means a damn thing.
The guy at Safeway has always been able to buy his salmon before Fish Farms came along. Fish Farms add pressure to Wild stocks because they are open cage and transfer disease and sea lice onto migrating smolts that Kill them. Using the Ocean as a sewer which is what this thread is about is not about being sustainable just more profit for the Multi National Conglomerates. As far as a healthy product goes the Fish Farms are not required to report various issues regarding health to the consumer.
However, the federal agency only makes some of that information available to the public. For example, on March 26 a fatal virus called hemorrhagic septicemia was reported in Atlantic salmon somewhere in B.C. with no further details.
“The basic issue is that government fails to disclose exactly where diseases have broken out, and only releases such extremely generalized information when it’s too late to be useful. This needs to change,” states the report.
There are hundreds of fish farms in B.C. Dozens pepper the coastal areas of Vancouver Island. According to Fisheries and Oceans Canada, farmed Atlantic salmon is the country’s top seafood export. Production has increased fourfold in the past 20 years and B.C. accounts for half of it.
“Detailed information about outbreaks should be public, especially for scientists trying to find solutions,” said Calvin Sandborn, supervising legal director.
The report was prepared by law student Sam Harrison on behalf of the Wuikinuxv Nation on the northwest coast. They wanted to look at the effects of salmon farms in traditional fishing territories.
Sandborn said the most shocking thing about the report is how Canada’s laws compare to other countries. He noted Norwegian fish farm owners in B.C. face fewer reporting regulations here than in their own country.
“Canada used to be seen as a leader in environmental protection law, now we’re the laggards,” he said.
