Activist's long journey to save wild salmon

Alexandra Morton plans to walk more than 400 kilometres to Victoria

Mark Hume
April 19, 2010
The Globe and Mail

Alexandra Morton has been to court, winning an action last year in the Supreme Court of British Columbia that forced the provincial government to turn over the regulation of fish farms to the federal government.

She has been to Ottawa repeatedly, most recently a week ago to testify before the standing committee on fisheries and oceans about the impact salmon farms are having on wild stocks.

She has been to Norway, to lobby the fish farming industry there, which owns most of the fish farming companies here, in an unsuccessful attempt to get them to change their practices on the West Coast.

She has been on the water in the Broughton Archipelago, off the northeast shoulder of Vancouver Island, for nearly 30 years, and for the last decade has been doing field research on sea lice that has resulted in the publication of papers in 17 journals.

She has been vilified by her critics, who dismiss her as an environmental zealot who has a thing about bashing fish farms. But last month, Simon Fraser University awarded her an honorary doctorate of science, stating that her “work linking sea lice infestation in wild salmon to fish farming in the Broughton Archipelago has drawn international attention and challenged both the salmon farm industry and the government officials who regulate it.”

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Posted April 19th, 2010