Open letter on salmon farm destruction of Skeena River wild salmon Habitat
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Fifty kilometers south of the BC Alaska border lies the Skeena River Watershed – one of the largest wild salmon runs in the world. The Skeena is about to be irreversibly contaminated by salmon farms placed near its mouth. We must stop this illegal destruction of wild salmon habitat before it is too late. Within the next few weeks the Office of the Commissioner for Aquaculture Development (OCAD) is going to rubber stamp salmon farm applications for the North Coast without any public consultation. We must act now and make our voices heard. In Canada real farms aren’t allowed to destroy salmon habitat. But for some reason, when a “farm” is situated in open net pens off the sea coast it doesn’t need to be assessed for the geographic extent of the damage it causes. This means nobody, including First Nations, sportfishermen, commercial fishermen, and Alaskans, has been told how big the problem really is. Wild salmon are a migratory species. Ever wonder why? There are evolutionary benefits to migration, such as the way migration minimizes the impact of disease and parasites, through natural fallowing. When salmon have to stay in one place the benefits of migration are lost. Crowded salmon pens are an easy target for disease. That’s why salmon farms in net pens are so deadly to wild salmon passing by. How do salmon farms harm and destroy the wild salmon’s habitat? One serious parasite that harms salmon populations is the sea lice. Sea lice are common in salmon farms because they reproduce exponentially when salmon are forced to live in close quarters all their lives. Plumes of sea lice larvae spew from the open net pens as the tidewater flushes away. These plumes can infect passing migratory smolts (baby salmon) and decimate a salmon run. This is the only probable explanation for what happened in 2001, in the Broughton Archipelago, when pink salmon smolts were heavily infected after passing by open-net salmon farms. If enough damage is done wild genetic stocks can disappear forever. This is what is now happening in Norway, the first country to have salmon farming. Salmon farms have some striking similarities to chicken and hog factory farms. All three types of farming have animals of one species crowded together for most of their life cycle. Whenever this occurs, disease and waste become serious environmental problems. On land, some of this waste can be recycled or contained. But in the ocean, it spreads out with the tides. When you add the antibiotics, pesticides and sea lice that are basic to every salmon farm, you get a toxic mix of pollutants that kills many kinds of marine life. The DFO is allowing the placement of new farms in contradiction to its own legal guidelines, which prohibit harmful alterations, disruption, and destruction of fish migrating and spawning areas. Salmon farms are jeopardizing the health of wild salmon stocks in both Canada and the USA yet none of these farms have ever been subject to a full CEA Assessment or been prosecuted through section 35(2) of the Fisheries Act. |
