Fishermen forced to watch escapees flee

Dan MacLennan
November 12th, 2009
Nanaimo Daily News

The response to last month's Marine Harvest fish farm escape calls into question the company's commitment to recover farmed fish from the wild.

That's how biologist Alexandra Morton, a well known open-net-cage opponent, views the Oct. 21 escape of Atlantic salmon from the company's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago area.

Both the company and a commercial fisher on scene agree large numbers of the escaped Atlantics schooled outside the farm for up to 10 hours after the escape but there was no recapture effort until after they'd largely dispersed into the wild.

On Oct. 23, two days after the escape was discovered, Marine Harvest issued a news release saying about 40,000 mature Atlantics had escaped from several holes in two pens. The release stated "a vessel is on site for recapture efforts."

What the release did not state is that thousands of the escapees that circled outside the pens for hours were gone by the time the designated recovery seiner arrived from Campbell River.

James Walkus, of Port Hardy-based James Walkus Fishing Co., was on the scene with two of his six vessels including the Kristin Joye, a seiner, shortly after the escape was noticed.

"They were all fairly schooled up," he said. "It just hung right around one of my boats, the Pacific Joye."

Walkus said the school stayed together for about 10 hours.

Read the full story in The Nanaimo Daily News

Read related story in The Courier Islander; November 12, 2009; "Province defends regulations governing fish farms". 

For background, read related news stories from October 17th to November 1st.