Dan MacLennan
June 25,2009
Courier-Islander

Grieg Seafood will receive rezoning approval to locate a huge fish farm next to Johnstone Strait, but there are closed containment strings and other measures attached.

Grieg had applied to the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) to rezone two sites - Gunner Point and Yorke Island - near the Johnstone Strait mouth of Sunderland Channel north of Sayward. Each site was to accommodate up to 700,000 Atlantic salmon.

Read full story in the Courier-Islander

Read related articles:

• CBC.ca; June 26, 2009; "Fish farm off Vancouver Island worries environmentalists"
• The Globe and Mail; August 25, 2009; "Gunner Point fish farm on track despite concerns over vanishing sockeye"

 See chart of proposed farm's location from the Living Oceans Society 

Courier Islander June 24th, 2009

The question was: Do you think two new Atlantic salmon farms should be allowed to locate in Sunderland Channel?

This poll began Friday and the numbers, like our previous poll, were extraordinarily high. On Thursday the real vote takes place when the Strathcona Regional District decides on whether to allow the fish farms to locate at Gunner Point and Yorke Island where Sunderland Channel meets Johnstone Strait. 

See full story in the Courier Islander

See related story on the first poll undertaken by the Courier Islander

Dan Maclennan
June 24,2009
Courier Islander

The next chapter in BC's salmon farming love/hate affair will play out in Campbell River tomorrow when rezoning applications for two new fish farms come before the Strathcona Regional District (SRD) for a decision.

Campbell River-based Grieg Seafood has applied to create a new Aquaculture Four (AQ-4) zone and use it to create two fish farm sites on either side of the mouth of Sunderland Channel at Gunner Point and Yorke Island. The channel runs between Harwicke Island and the mainland coast north of Sayward across Johnstone Strait. Each site would features 14 net cages, each measuring 30 metres x 30 metres. Each site could contain 700,000 Atlantic salmon, with a 22-month grow out period for a maximum production of 4,400 tonnes of biomass.

Read the full story in the Courier Islander

June 19, 2009
Courier Islander

That was the result of the poll we had on our web page for about a week and half that asked; "Do you think fish farms are adversely affecting stocks of wild Pacific salmon?"

First of all we would like to thank everyone who took part in the poll. The numbers were simply astounding and certainly prove that the issue is an important one for the West Coast.

We didn't know the numbers until Wednesday. We, like you, only got the vote percentages that are displayed once you place a vote from your computer. We were pretty shocked.

See full article in the Courier Islander

New poll asking "Do you think two new Atlantic salmon farms should be allowed to locate in Sunderland Channel?. See upper right of this Courier Islander page. 

John Colebourn
June 18, 2009
The Province

A series of open-net-cage salmon farms in key migratory routes in the northern part of Georgia Strait need to be closed before fish stocks are killed off due to sea-lice infestation, say critics of the aquaculture practices.

The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform warns that unless the five net-cage salmon farms operating off Quadra Island around Wild Salmon Narrows are shut down or moved, the entire stock of wild salmon is in peril.

"The Wild Salmon Narrows, along the east and north side of Quadra Island, is a significant migration route for juvenile wild salmon from local rivers, the Fraser River and, in all likelihood, Washington and Oregon runs as well," said Ruby Berry of the coastal alliance. 

See full story in The Province

See related story in The Courier-Islander

See press release from the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform

Peter McMullan
May, 2009
Chasing Silver International Fly-fishing Magazine 

Opponents of open net-cage fish farming off the coast of British Columbia, Canada’s most westerly province, will be attending two important company annual general meetings being staged in May in the Norwegian capital of Oslo. Opposition concerns are based on the linkage between fish farms, stocked with thousands of Atlantic salmon, sea lice and the deadly threat these parasites pose to wild Pacific salmon smolts migrating through areas where the many farms are located.

Norwegian companies, in particular Marine Harvest and Cermaq, which in turn owns Mainstream Canada, dominate the fish farm industry in British Columbia. Together they hold 108 licenses. When added to the 17 licenses of a third Norwegian company, Grieg Seafood, it means the Scandinavian country controls 92% of the industry off Canada’s west coast.

See full article 

See Chasing Silver Magazine

Press release SeaChoice
June 11, 2009

VANCOUVER – A new collaboration between the Overwaitea Food Group and SeaChoice, Canada’s national seafood program, is making it easier for Canadians to buy seafood that promotes healthy oceans.

Renowned environmentalist David Suzuki appeared at the partnership’s unveiling today at a Save-On-Foods store in Vancouver.

The future health of our oceans depends on our ability to protect wild fish stocks and the marine environments they live in,” Dr. Suzuki said. “To help achieve this, we need retailers to provide customers with sustainable seafood and stop selling unsustainable products.”

See full press release

See SeaChoice's wallet-sized "Canada Seafood Guide". Allows easy sustainable consumer choices for seafood.  

University of Windsor June 8, 2009

A UWindsor biologist’s research will help organic fish farms in British Columbia diversify their operations so they can expand into new markets.

Trevor Pitcher received $130,000 from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and $65,000 from Yellow Island Aquaculture Ltd. for a three-year project to study production of high-performance, disease-resistant strains of Chinook salmon as an alternative to the Atlantic salmon being mass-produced on Canada’s west coast.

Dr. Pitcher’s team will breed 10,000 Chinook salmon at Yellow Island Aquaculture’s organic hatchery located on Vancouver Island near Campbell River, B.C. The fish will be reared from fertilization to sexual maturity at three years and will be marked with a transponder tag to record growth, genetic disease resistance ability, swimming ability, and reproductive ability.

See full story in the University of Windsor's news supplement

D.C. Reid June 9, 2009 Times Colonist

You may have thought salmon habitat -- rivers -- was under siege. What with Fraser gravel removal killing three million pinks; the process for saving the Englishman having 33 stakeholders; and, the Toba Inlet run-of-river power by Plutonic Power carving quarries from 17 watersheds, you would be in good company.

Surprising then, to know the Constitution Act of 1867 gave responsibility for saving salmon habitat to the Department of Fisheries 142 years ago. During most of this time not much happened other than our rivers were destroyed by first growth logging, and, more recently by urbanification, etc., even though prohibitions against pollution date from way back

Read the full story in The Times Colonist

Robert Barron
June 8, 2009
Nanaimo Daily News

Controversial fish farms are in high demand

BC.'s farmed salmon industry can't keep up with the growing demand for its product, particularly in the U.S., and it's not expected to meet the need anytime soon.

See full story in The Nanaimo Daily News

Related story in The Nanaimo Daily News

Related story in The Harbour City Star

Fiona Morrow
March 13,2009
Globe and Mail

"It was like being a leper."

How times have changed: Mr. Swift's farmed coho are now an exclusive delicacy, available only at three high-end restaurants in Vancouver - Bishop's, Raincity Grill and the Show Case Restaurant in the Marriott Pinnacle. These critters tick all the right boxes with the local, sustainable and organic movement.

Read the full story in The Globe and Mail 

Robert Barron
June 2, 2009
Nanaimo Daily News

Opponents of open-net fish farming in B.C. are monitoring a Norwegian pilot project that uses closed containment to raise Atlantic salmon.

Marine biologist Alexandra Morton and members of the Guilford Island First Nation, who filed a class-action lawsuit over the impacts of fish farms in the Broughton Archipelago in October, just returned from a visit to the northern European country where they studied an experiment being conducted by Preline Fish Farming, with the hope that such technology could be used here.

While Bob Chamberlain, chief of the First Nation, acknowledged Monday that the initial costs of the system would likely be twice that of open-net systems, the benefits to the environment and the industry would be long-term.

Agriculture Minister Ron Cantelon said that while the Preline pilot project may be worth watching, it would be "absurd" for the province or DFO to move ahead with experiments in closed-containment systems before the problems such systems are trying to solve are clearly identified.

For the full press release see Marketwire

For related story see the  Nanaimo Daily News

For more information on the Preline closed containment system visit: www.preline.no

Westcoaster.ca Staff
May 11, 2009 
Westcoaster.ca

Interview includes the following on closed containment: 

Westcoaster.ca: The Pacific Salmon forum recently released some recommendations on open-net pen salmon farms. One of those suggestions was that the provincial government design and implement a commercial-scale trial of a closed containment system. 

Premier Gordon Campbell: We think that that’s actually a good idea. We’re working in partnership with the federal government on that. We may be able to find a way that that partnership will work so that we can have a closed contained system where we can see whether it’s economically viable . . .

See the full interview on Westcoaster.ca. 

Sign the Living Oceans Society's petition to encourage Premier Campbell to act on closed  containment. 

From May 18 – 28, members of the global Pure Salmon Campaign coalition will visit Norway to highlight the major problems associated with open net-caged salmon farms and the impacts on wild salmon and the ecosystem of BC and globally. During the trip, this diverse group of stakeholders will meet with: Members of Parliament, labor union leaders, salmon farmers, scientists, financial analysts, Chilean and Canadian embassy officials, shareholders, boards of directors, river owners and fishermen.

For the latest updates on the delegation in Norway, see the Pure Salmon website.

See Press Releases:

KAFN urge Cermaq to embrace the spirit and intent of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (May 19, 2009)

 "Pure Salmon Campaign Urges Cermaq to Protect Wild Salmon, relocation salmon farms" (May 18, 2009)

For related stories:

Pure Salmon Campaign Calls on Marine Harvest to Reform Environmental Performance

D.C. Reid
May 26,2009
Times Colonist

So, you would like to know how the various industries that comprise the fish-dedicated sector compare with one another. B.C. Stats, the statistics people in the provincial government, has done a report.

The sport fishing, commercial fishing, seafood processing and aquaculture industries in total, in the most recent year for which there are figures -- 2005 -- employed 15,500 jobs in total, with $2.2 billion in revenue. The split is most interesting: 7,700 jobs in sport; 2,000 in commercial; 3,700 in processing; and, 2,100 in aquaculture. And the revenues are: $865; $362; $638; and $338 million respectively. 

For the full story see The Times Colonist

Mark Hume
May 20, 2009
The Globe and Mail

DNA research at the University of Guelph has provided insight into a perplexing environmental problem on British Columbia's west coast, where fish farms have been blamed for lice epidemics that have devastated wild salmon stocks.

Researchers have long known that fish farms are incubators for lice and that wild salmon stocks in the vicinity of farms, particularly in the Broughton Archipelago off northeast Vancouver Island, have suffered from devastating lice infestations.

But because lice are almost invisible at the larval stage, it has been impossible for researchers to track the parasites as they drift with ocean currents from host to host.

Read the story in The Globe and Mail

Read the press release from the University of Guelph

Related stories:

In the Courier Islander

In the Times Colonist

On "TheRecord.com"

Sarah Douziech
May 14, 2009
Westerly News

A long-time resident of Ucluelet has district support for research into developing a closed containment salmon aquaculture facility in the region.

Julie Edwards, now a Comox Valley resident, appeared before council Tuesday to ask for $2,000 and a letter of support to develop local partnerships for what she said she sees as an eco-friendly alternative to open net fish farms that is economically viable.

Council referred her request for funds to the Ucluelet Economic Development Corporation.

Closed-tank fish farms for salt-water salmon are a developing technology in British Columbia that is currently being tested for its commercial viability, according to Edwards.

For the full story see The Westerly News

For  a related story see Westcoaster.ca

Drum News Staff
May 6th, 2009
Drum News

VANCOUVER May 6, 2009 - Kwicksutaineuk/Ah-Kwa-Mish First Nation's (KAFN) has filed a class action law suit against the British Columbia Government alleging that wild salmon are being decimated by open net-cage salmon farming in their Territories.

Bob Chamberlin, chief of the KAFN and the Representative Plaintiff in the court case, said, “Legal action is necessary given that intervention is urgently needed to save the wild salmon of our Territory, the Broughton Archipelago.”

“Despite years of intensive efforts to engage the B.C. government to achieve improvements to salmon farming regulation and thereby reduce the impacts to wild salmon, the response has been to delay, deny and distract."

Read the full story in The Drum News

Taras Grescoe
May, 2009
Best Life

Excerpt "I bring tourists from around the world out here all the time," says Mullin, as he shakes his head. "They're all shocked to see these salmon farms. They think that because this is a biosphere reserve it is protected from industrial activity, but it isn't." Mullin tells me that when the sun sets, the salmon farmers switch on powerful underwater floodlights. The lights attract herring and juvenile wild Pacific salmon, providing a free meal for the captive Atlantic salmon, and Clayoquot Sound blazes with the kind of artificial sodium glare usually associated with a Wal-Mart parking lot. "

To read full article see Best Life

Pacific Fishing
May 2009

The Pew Environmental Group has pried information from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration that shows Chilean salmon farmers have been feeding banned drugs to their livestock.

The pens in question were not mom-and-pop operations but owned by two top fish farm companies, including the biggest of all, Marine Harvest.

Drugs found in salmon included emamectin benzoate, oxolinic acid, and flumequine. All three have been banned in feed in the U.S. and in food imported into the U.S. 

See the story in Pacific Fishing

Terry Anderson
May 3, 2009
Times Colonist

Most of the thousands of sport, commercial and native fishermen on the West Coast are well aware of the controversy festering over the net-pen salmon-farming business.

The known problems with this industry are both many and large, yet Premier Gordon Campbell continues to promote this ecological disaster.

See full story in the Times Colonist

Matthew Burrows
April 30, 2009
Straight.com

One of B.C.'s leading fish-farm critics believes Premier Gordon Campbell needs to come clean on where he stands on the issue of coastal farmed salmon.

Biologist Alexandra Morton told the Straight the premier is “ducking the issue” during the election campaign and won't answer her questions. Morton, based in Sointula, B.C., also said she has gathered more than 13,000 signatures from people concerned about the survival of wild salmon in the face of expanded industrial farmed net pens.

Read the full story on Straight.com

Joan Delaney
April 16, 2009
The Epoch Times

Marine biologist and research scientist Alexandra Morton was quietly studying whales in a remote archipelago in British Columbia 20 years ago when the first fish farms arrived in the area. 

She has since gone from thinking aquaculture a good idea to believing that the industry must be dramatically curbed or else wild salmon will disappear for good—taking B.C.’s coastal communities along with them.

In the years since, the population of Echo Bay in the Broughton Archipelago, roughly 250 miles north of Vancouver, has shrunk from 100 to about nine. 

Morton, who has studied the negative impact of aquaculture on wild salmon stocks and written extensively about it, lays the blame squarely on the fish farms.

For full story, see The Epoch Times

Fiona Morrow
April 22, 2009
Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- Iwana and iwashi are in. Tai and toro are out. Uni? Sake? Well, depending on where they are sourced, and how they are caught, they could be either.

A new pocket-sized guide is hoping sushi lovers are ready to take a closer look at that lunchtime maki roll.

Launching at restaurants in Vancouver and Halifax tomorrow, SeaChoice's Sustainable Sushi Guide is designed to help diners determine whether the raw fish on the menu is eco-friendly - and, it is hoped, to change attitudes about sushi in the same way that existing programs have focused attention on sustainability in a growing number of Western restaurants.

For full story, see The Globe and Mail

April 7, 2009
Campbell River Mirror

Grieg Seafood is interested in building two new salmon farms near historical Yorke Island in the Sunderland Channel.

The salmon farming company has applied for the regional district for permission to create a new zoning for aquaculture, and then rezone two sites near Yorke Island to establish two new farms.

Grieg Seafoods previously proposed farms at the same sites in 2006. At the time, the proposal was strongly opposed by the Georgia Strait Alliance environmental group.

Read full story in The Campbell River Mirror

Concerns expressed by the Georgia Strait Alliance

See the application by Grieg Seafood

Sandra Mcculloch
April 1, 2009
Times Colonist

West Coast sea lice are very different from their East Coast cousins, a study team co-led by a University of Victoria researcher has found.

It's a finding that might lead to better management of lice on farmed and wild Pacific salmon.

The tiny parasites are at the centre of a huge debate over the environmental impact of salmon farming.

Read the full story in the Times Colonist