Tracking the Impact of Salmon Farm Removal

Thanks to the three First Nations of the Broughton Archipelago (Mamalilikulla, Namgis, and Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis) and scientist Alexandra Morton, we can begin to look at changes in the health and abundance of wild salmon in the aftermath of salmon farm removal. Their preliminary report summarizes data from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans on salmon returns in 2024 and shows a distinct increase in returns of salmon that were not exposed to salmon farms early in their migrations.

Alex Morton summarized the findings in this email to the Prime Minister and Ministers:

Dear Prime Minister and Ministers,

We are writing to thank you and provide evidence that your policy to close salmon farms in the Discovery Islands is a historic success, one of the most measurably successful policies in the history of Canada to restore health and resilience to our environment. 

In addition to the 17 salmon farms you closed, Mamalilikulla, Namgis, Kwikwasut’inuxw Haxwa’mis, Gwawaenuk, Kwiakah, Homalco, shíshálh and Nuchatlaht First Nations and Washington State closed another ~35 salmon farms. Together this extended your salmon farm-free corridor north to Alert Bay and south through Puget Sound.  Salmon returns to this collective region in 2024 were noteworthy and remarkable.

Importantly, DFO forecast the 2024 salmon returns to this region would be poor. The indicators they used were not favourable to salmon survival.   Then unexpectedly salmon returns skyrocketed across a 500km swath from the Broughton Archipelago near Alert Bay through the Discovery Islands into Puget Sound, precisely where the majority of industrial salmon farms had been closed.

For example, a river adjacent to the Discovery Islands averaging 6,500 salmon annually, saw a return of 52,000!  The Viner River in the Broughton Archipelago saw a 22-fold increase in a single generation! Extraordinary returns ten to twenty times higher than recent generations occurred across the 500km but did not include the Salmon River where two salmon farms remain (see attached report).

Of note, the chum salmon that returned in astonishing numbers were the 1st generation to go to sea after Fisheries Minister Bernadette Jordan closed all salmon farms operating on the salmon migration route through the Discovery Islands in December 2020. Published research recorded a 96% decline in sea lice infection on the young salmon that went to sea through that region the following spring.  The research team anticipated a boost in survival, but the 2024 returns far exceeded expectations.

While caution is advised in attributing the extraordinary 2024 salmon returns to your policy to remove salmon farms, we highlight in our report that this was a continuum, not a one off.  DFO reported an unprecedented 1480% increase in pink salmon survival for a single generation protected from farm salmon lice by the 2003 provincial Pink Salmon Action Plan.  As well, with their shorter lifespan, 2024 was the 2nd generation of extraordinary pink salmon returns post salmon farms. Discussions with biologists have failed to reveal an alternative explanation for the pattern of what is occurring. Next year will provide further data.   

While we report primarily on chum salmon due to the robustness of data available for that species, we also include the DFO evidence of the same effect on Chinook, Coho and pink salmon.

As chum salmon flooded into this region of BC and Washington State, both the northern and southern resident orca significantly increased their presence, a welcomed indicator of health in our environment.

Thank you for your vision, support of science and leadership to protect the fish that feed the trees that make the oxygen we breathe.  This return of salmon provided economic benefits (commercial fisheries and a boon to wilderness tourism), provided essential nourishment to iconic and beloved whale population in two countries, brought nutrients to drought-stressed forests and gave hope to the thousands of British Columbians who witnessed salmon returns to streams they thought had died.

G̱ilakas'la,

Homiskanis

Alexandra Morton