Dan MacLennan
September 1, 2010
Courier Islander

Federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea defended her governments draft Pacific aquaculture regulations in Campbell River last week, along with the manner in which they've been presented for public comment.

With a 60-day public feedback period set to close one week from tomorrow, the draft regulations have been under fire from tourism operators and environmental groups.

"The finfish aquaculture regulations are woefully inadequate to protect wild salmon", said Brian Gunn, President of the BC Wilderness Tourism Association (WTA). "They do not address the impacts that open net cage salmon farms have on the wild salmon stocks. For example, there are no requirements in the current proposed regulations for the salmon farming industry to monitor the health of juvenile wild salmon for impacts due to disease and sea lice around farms during their out migration. In fact there is little in the proposed regulations to protect wild salmon. DFO seem to have forgotten what should be their primary mandate, which is to protect our wild fisheries."

Read the full story in the Courier Islander

Bruce Swift dips a net into a watery vat and pulls up a crayfish, its claws pinching like a miniature lobster.

The freshwater crustaceans grow well here and are destined to be the key ingredient in a bowl of crayfish bisque at a high-end Vancouver eatery.

But they aren't the focus of the Agassiz fish farmer's operation.

Nor is the neighbouring hydroponic vat brimming with watercress or nearby plots growing wasabi and garlic.

They're all happy byproducts of Swift's main enterprise – farming coho salmon on land.

He and his wife MaryLou, both biologists, hand-feed the more than 2,000 juvenile coho swimming in large freshwater tanks in their barns.

It all happens far from salt water on their five-acre property, which looks like any other modest Fraser Valley hobby farm.

Rather than discharge the ammonia-laden wastewater from the salmon tanks as effluent, it becomes nutrients for the other crops and for algae that in turn feeds the crayfish.

"You've got to use those nutrients," Swift says, adding he'd otherwise be like a cattle farmer who makes no use of his manure.

The ability to pair salmon with companion crops is one of the attractions of this nouveau aquaculture.

"You don't need a lot of room and you can be as innovative as you want," he said.

If that's not green enough, the Swifts are working towards a closed-loop system that recycles all water, eliminating the need to draw from a local aquifer.

 Read the full story in the South Delta Leader

Neil Riddell
August 25, 2010
The Shetland Times

Environmental and animal welfare agencies are carrying out an investigation into the deaths of thousands of fully-grown salmon at a fish farm on the West Side earlier this month.

Acting in conjunction with the police, SEPA, Scottish Natural Heritage and government agency Marine Scotland, the Scottish SPCA searched Hoganess Salmon on Saturday and are now carrying out an investigation into alleged fish poisoning.

Hoganess Salmon operates two sites in Vaila Sound and three in Gruting Voe and has a potential production capacity of up to 7,000 tonnes. It operates from a base at Burrastow, near Walls.

Scottish SPCA chief superintendent Mike Flynn said: “I can confirm that the Scottish SPCA is leading an investigation into alleged fish poisoning in the Shetland Islands, working with SEPA, Scottish Natural Heritage, Marine Scotland and the police. The investigation is currently ongoing therefore no further information is available at this stage.”

Hoganess Salmon is part of the Lakeland Group, owned by Norwegian firm Marine Farms ASA. Lakeland managing director Willie Liston said the problem arose earlier this month when it was carrying out a sea lice treatment at one of the 16 cages it owns in the area.

Mr Liston said that somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 grown salmon, weighing around 3.5kg each, had died and Lakeland was continuing its own internal investigation, as well as co-operating with SEPA and the SSPCA.

Read the full story in The Shetland Times

Stephen Hume
August 30, 2010
The Vancouver Sun

These are days of miracle and wonder for those of us who care about the fate of wild salmon.

And yet word was barely out that 25 million sockeye were bound for the Fraser River before worries arose about surplus salmon being "wasted" by permitting too many to spawn.

The B.C. Fisheries Survival Coalition, which usually vents its spleen complaining about aboriginal poachers, was spouting this specious nonsense as justification for more fishing opportunities, even though freezer capacity on the south coast is fully utilized, catches are reported rotting on boats because they can't be processed, and fishermen are practically giving away sockeye.

Still they fretted that too many spawners would result in mass mortalities as fish fought on the spawning grounds. This rationalization has been deployed as justification for over-harvesting before.

Similar stupidity arose in 2002. Science found no adverse effects from "over-spawning" then. In fact, this massive run in 2010 descends from the "over-spawned" brood of 2002 that returned to spawn in 2006.

There is no waste in nature. These surpluses are genetic insurance, a species' strategy for ensuring adequate reproductive capacity in the face of adverse conditions.

Historically, the more fish you put on the spawning grounds, the more fish return.

Science has found a direct correlation between decaying salmon on those same spawning grounds and nutrients available to the aquatic insects that sustain the next generation of hatchlings.

Pent-up demand following a series of lean fishing seasons is understandable but if there's something to be learned from the 2010 run it's this: First, we are indebted to conservationists who fought for the precautionary principle. Second, fisheries managers who stood their ground despite vehement complaint from industry were right.

Read the full story in The Vancouver Sun 

Read related stories:

• The Vancouver Sun; September 1, 2010; "Duh? Killing more fish isn't the way to get more fish"
• The Globe and Mail; September 1, 2010; "B.C. should look to Alaska for tips on salmon management" 
• Times Colonist; August 29, 2010; Salmon run botched by DFO: critics - Tory MP, UBC expert say Ottawa too late in opening sockeye fishery" 

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Kevin Libin
August 28, 2010
National Post

The Fraser River is brimming with sockeye as it hasn’t in a century. Estimates are that 30 million salmon are scrambling their way to the place from whence they once came, the largest return since 1913. B.C.’s fishermen might be delighted, you would expect. Many are not.

The fishing is good. In a 32-hour frenzy near Vancouver this week, nets bulged with fat sockeye. But the industry is scarcely equipped to handle it anymore: There were shortages of ice, totes and freezer space while processing plants turned away boatloads of salmon for lack of processing capacity and available workers.

Prices are swooning. B.C.’s fishery has been so devastated by low returns and accompanying moratoria in the past decade that even record years are bittersweet. And the blame, say many, lies not with global warming, sea lice or any other oft-suspected abstruse scientific phenomena. Rather, it is mismanagement by, and conflicting political interests — clashing agendas involving First Nations policies, environmentalists and industry — within none other than the same Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) that oversaw the disastrous collapse of the East Coast’s northern cod fisheries.

Read the full story in The National Post

Related stories

• Nanaimo Daily News; September 1, 2010; Judicial Inquiry is needed to help examine the issues affecting Pacific salmon, says anti-fish farm activist"

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