Originally published The Mercury | Opinion | March 24,  2024

Karen Wristen, Executive Director, Living Oceans Society (Canada),
Emma Helverson, Executive Director, Wild Fish Conservancy (USA),
James Overington, Chief Executive Officer, Environment Tasmania (Australia)

Over the past month in Tasmania, there’s been a rotten stench in the crisp autumn air. Since February 16, thousands of chunks of decomposing farmed Atlantic salmon carcasses and stinking globules of fish fat have been washing up on southern Tasmania’s beaches.

Six months ago, during the Northern Hemisphere’s autumn, a drastically different scene played out.

Healthy wild chum salmon, glistening with scales of green and purple, returned in record numbers to their natal rivers throughout the Georgia Strait and Puget Sound, the interconnected marine waterways found along the coast between Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and Seattle, Washington State, U.S.A.

The stark contrast between the jurisdictions – one of dead Atlantic farmed salmon and one of abundant healthy Pacific wild salmon – is a telling reflection of government priorities and actions.

In 2018, Washington State banned open-net pen Atlantic salmon farms following the collapse of an entire farm and the escape of hundreds of thousands non-native, viral-infected salmon (the farm was operated by Cooke Aquaculture, the Canadian owner of Australia’s largest salmon farmer Tassal). In January 2025, after removing all existing facilities, the state finalised a permanent ban. In June 2024, Canada announced a ban on open-net salmon farms in British Columbia by 2029. About 40 per cent of farms have already been removed since 2018.

Meanwhile fish farms in Tasmania continue unabated, with inadequate oversight, and special treatment by parties on both sides of the state and federal aisles.

Last month, whilst the rotting salmon washed up on shorelines and the mass die-off spread across farms – due to a bacterial outbreak of Piscirickettsia salmonis, warming waters, and probable failed antibiotic treatments – the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, announced full-fledged support for the foreign-owned industry. The PM even committed to push through special legislation that ensured salmon farming remains in Macquarie Harbour, in Strahan.

It was a move that many Australians would characterise as ‘failing to meet the pub test’.

Macquarie Harbour also happens to be the only home of one of the most endangered shark and ray species in the world – the Maugean skate – a fish that has been around since the time of dinosaurs but teeters on the edge of extinction due to degraded water quality caused primarily by industrial salmon farms, according to the Australian government’s own scientific advice. 

For the last 14 months, the Australia’s Environment Minister has been reviewing salmon farming in Macquarie Harbour under the Environmental Protection Biodiversity Conservation Act – the very nature laws that were meant to protect the Maugean skate from extinction. Introducing special legislation will undermine the Minister’s review, nature laws, and Australia’s commitments to the World Heritage Convention and Kumming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework.

Notably, Prime Minister Albanese’s extraordinary intervention is also out of step with his Canadian and US counterparts.

British Columbia and Washington state’s bans are centered on the protection of threatened fish – wild Pacific salmon. A mountain of science suggests viruses and sea lice parasites from fish farms negatively impact and even can kill juvenile wild salmon, leading to poor returns of adult salmon to their natal rivers. Many Pacific salmon runs – like the Maugean skate – are on the cusp of extinction.

In reaffirming the closure of the Discovery Islands region of farms, then Canadian Fisheries Minister, Joyce Murray stated that “the state of wild Pacific salmon is dire, and we must do what we can to ensure their survival. This was a difficult but necessary decision.”

In closing the Puget Sound farms, then Washington State Commissioner of Public Lands Hilary Franz said “No one can say these facilities don’t have an impact. They do. There’s a cost to our agency, there’s a cost to our waters and our bedlands, there’s a cost to our [wild] salmon and our orcas. I don’t believe that cost is worth it.”

Whether in British Columbia, Washington state, or Tasmania, another commonality runs true – these are foreign-owned multinational companies operating in our public waters.

Several of these multinationals have poor track records. Norwegian companies, the same that operate in British Columbia, are under investigation for potentially breaching the European Union’s antitrust rules. Atlantic Canadian-based Cooke Aquaculture which operated in Washington State and continues to in Australia (as owner of Tassal) pleaded guilty  (on behalf of one of its divisions, Kelly Cove Salmon) to two charges relating to the use of illegal pesticides at their New Brunswick salmon farms, causing the deaths of native lobsters – a valuable fishery.

Across the political spectrum, in Canada, the US, and Australia, there are those who are standing for our public waters. And no it’s not ‘soy-latte sipping innercity greenies’. It’s many First Nations people, recreational fishers, commercial fishers, tourism operators, chefs, as well as members of local communities.

In Tasmania, 50 business leaders have formed the Business Alliance for the Maugean skate. These local businesses cite research that shows the Tasmanian brand – one of unique wilderness and wildlife – and those who rely on it could face irreversible harm should industry operations come at the cost of the environment. The Alliance is calling for the Australian government to protect the skate, as well as the Tasmanian brand, values, and businesses by acting on the science and removing salmon farming from Macquarie Harbour and investing in a transition plan that supports workers.

Canadian and Washington State governments finally listened to those standing up for our public waters and native threatened fish – not the foreign-owned salmon companies. Importantly, it took courageous government officials to look past the industry spin and to heed the science.

With the salmon industry continuing to have their social licence questioned, is the Australian government willing to finally listen and to take the courageous step of heeding the science and removing Macquarie Harbour salmon farms – or is it willing to risk the highest-profile extinction since the thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) for a few multinationals? We hope it's the former.