totally tyee
Active Member
Farmed Atlantic salmon found in Clayoquot rivers
Jennifer Dart, Westerly News
Published: Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Westerly has confirmed that shortly after a net breach at a salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound last month a small number of Atlantic salmon were found in nearby rivers.
Stream survey crews reported finding five specimens of the same fish farmed by Mainstream Canada in the Bedwell and Ursus Rivers following the Sept. 4 accident at the company's nearby Saranac Island farm site.
The crew made a report to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada database, said acting director for aquaculture Andrew Thomson.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****He confirmed four fish were found in the Bedwell River and one in the Ursus River.
If the fish are deemed to be "catachable," often the aquaculture company will go in and remove them from the rivers, said Thomson.
"As far as I know there was no action taken on this."
Without catching and testing the fish they can't be directly tied to Mainstream's Saranac Island site, but Thomson said finding Atlantic salmon at all has become uncommon.
"Lately we haven't seen any," he said. "With this following an escape on the West Coast, I wasn't terribly surprised to see some show up in West Coast river systems."
Mainstream managing director Fernando Villaroel said he only had reports of two or three fish.
"We have no information about Atlantic salmon being found in some rivers in the area in big numbers, apart from two or three that were found near to the site when the incident was reported," he said.
Villaroel said one Atlantic salmon was found by the company's surveyors 1.5 kilometres from the mouth of the Bedwell River, and one "about 2 kilometres from the confluence of the Ursus."
Former Mainstream assistant managing director Alistair Haughton, now a consultant for the company, said after the initial breach the company believed all the fish were contained in the pen's outer predator net.
The accident occurred when a shackle on the net of a harvesting boat ripped the containment net structure at one of ten pens at the Saranac Island site in the early morning hours of Sept. 4.
Mainstream workers only learned of the breach when they saw fish swimming around in the outer predator net at 7 a.m. that morning.
Haughton estimated there were roughly 20,000 Atlantic salmon in the 30-by-30 metre pen.
So far, only 18,000 of those have been accounted for.
"The final and official counting will be delivered (sic) to the government when we complete the emptying of the farm which is expected to be the first week of December, the number of fish that were in the pen after the harvest was approximately 18,000," Villaroel said.
Maryjka Mychajlowycz with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound said she has heard reports of five more Atlantic salmon being found near the Ahousaht reserve, but overall, she said it's fortunate the escape numbers appear to be low.
"We're relieved to see that so far, indeed, not very many have escaped," she said. "But [this incident] points again to the inherent and unacceptable risks involved [in fish farming]. Nets are by definition susceptible to tearing. In this case they got lucky, but they have not always been."
The real fear is that stocks of Atlantics could establish themselves on the West Coast, as some have on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Mychajlowycz said, and compete for food and territory with depleted wild salmon run.
"Any number of escaped Atlantic salmon in Pacific waters is too many," said Mychajlowycz.
--jdart@westerlynews.ca
Jennifer Dart, Westerly News
Published: Thursday, October 25, 2007
The Westerly has confirmed that shortly after a net breach at a salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound last month a small number of Atlantic salmon were found in nearby rivers.
Stream survey crews reported finding five specimens of the same fish farmed by Mainstream Canada in the Bedwell and Ursus Rivers following the Sept. 4 accident at the company's nearby Saranac Island farm site.
The crew made a report to the Fisheries and Oceans Canada database, said acting director for aquaculture Andrew Thomson.
Email to a friend
Printer friendly
Font:****He confirmed four fish were found in the Bedwell River and one in the Ursus River.
If the fish are deemed to be "catachable," often the aquaculture company will go in and remove them from the rivers, said Thomson.
"As far as I know there was no action taken on this."
Without catching and testing the fish they can't be directly tied to Mainstream's Saranac Island site, but Thomson said finding Atlantic salmon at all has become uncommon.
"Lately we haven't seen any," he said. "With this following an escape on the West Coast, I wasn't terribly surprised to see some show up in West Coast river systems."
Mainstream managing director Fernando Villaroel said he only had reports of two or three fish.
"We have no information about Atlantic salmon being found in some rivers in the area in big numbers, apart from two or three that were found near to the site when the incident was reported," he said.
Villaroel said one Atlantic salmon was found by the company's surveyors 1.5 kilometres from the mouth of the Bedwell River, and one "about 2 kilometres from the confluence of the Ursus."
Former Mainstream assistant managing director Alistair Haughton, now a consultant for the company, said after the initial breach the company believed all the fish were contained in the pen's outer predator net.
The accident occurred when a shackle on the net of a harvesting boat ripped the containment net structure at one of ten pens at the Saranac Island site in the early morning hours of Sept. 4.
Mainstream workers only learned of the breach when they saw fish swimming around in the outer predator net at 7 a.m. that morning.
Haughton estimated there were roughly 20,000 Atlantic salmon in the 30-by-30 metre pen.
So far, only 18,000 of those have been accounted for.
"The final and official counting will be delivered (sic) to the government when we complete the emptying of the farm which is expected to be the first week of December, the number of fish that were in the pen after the harvest was approximately 18,000," Villaroel said.
Maryjka Mychajlowycz with the Friends of Clayoquot Sound said she has heard reports of five more Atlantic salmon being found near the Ahousaht reserve, but overall, she said it's fortunate the escape numbers appear to be low.
"We're relieved to see that so far, indeed, not very many have escaped," she said. "But [this incident] points again to the inherent and unacceptable risks involved [in fish farming]. Nets are by definition susceptible to tearing. In this case they got lucky, but they have not always been."
The real fear is that stocks of Atlantics could establish themselves on the West Coast, as some have on the east coast of Vancouver Island, Mychajlowycz said, and compete for food and territory with depleted wild salmon run.
"Any number of escaped Atlantic salmon in Pacific waters is too many," said Mychajlowycz.
--jdart@westerlynews.ca
