Howdy,
Amen Gallows and thanks to RM for his post.
I am and have always been of the opinion that 'fish-farming' is currently the single greatest threat to our WILD Pacific Salmon stocks. I only wish more of my fellow 'Sporties' were on the same page. I will never support this activity and will - along with the party-faithful - fight this menace till the day I die!
What really irked me about the article was the quote from the now US-based scientist echoing the same old industry BS about all the wonderful 'economic' and 'employment' benefits created by the fish-farmers.
What a crock!
My research - prior to publishing a feature article I wrote for BC Outdoors/Sportfishing Magazine (2002) proved that each of the then active 100 or so (95% foreign owned/controlled) fish-farms created the equivalent of 8 to 10 full-time jobs. Do the math.
For this Saving-Grace for all our provicial unemployment-woes all we have to do is continue to put up with:
- the well known and thoroughly documented disease/parasite-transfer from farm-fish to local wild-fish.
- the tons of continuous pollution 'puked' directly into our waters from these farms.
- the continuous escapes of 'non-native' species into our ecosystems that have shown not only the ability to survive but also to reproduce.
- the continuous collusion between our Provincial/Federal fisheries managers and the foreigner's who reap the profits of fish-farming in BC. Someone is getting 'PAID-OFF' here and it's not the people of BC nor the few who work at these farms.
Perhaps, in the big-picture, the scariest thing about this despicable industry is the distraction it provides to sway the attention and resources of the Governmental stewards of wild-Pacific salmon away from critcal conservation efforts.
There exsists this false sense of security - a pipe dream - that if we continue to grow fish in pens in our ocean that it'll ease the pressure on wild-stocks. I had a phone conversation with Bob Wright (Oak Bay Marine Group) prior to the publication of my article and he echoed this same sentiment, saying to the effect that, "...we should grow all our food fish in pens and keep all the wild fish for the sporties..."
With all due respect to Bob and the great things he has done for our wild fish and conservation - this ideology scares the hell out of me.
The very existence of open net-pen fish farming directly threatens both his and our treasured sportfishing livelihood.
Cheers,
Terry
