VANCOUVER, B.C. – A 2009 memo from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) entered into evidence at Canada’s federal Cohen Inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye Thursday reveals that salmon at the AquaBounty facility in Price Edward Island have tested positive for the Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) virus.
Tofino, B.C. – Environmental groups have written an angry letter to Premier Christy Clark for allowing the approval of a new salmon farm site in Clayoquot Sound on the West Coast of Vancouver Island while never addressing serious concerns about diseases from farms impacting wild salmon.
On October 3rd the Province offered Mainstream Canada a 55-hectare salmon farm tenure on the shores of Meares Island, near Plover Point, in the Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.
Vancouver, B.C.— The Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR) is appalled to learn that on October 10, DFO quietly issued a new aquaculture licence to Mainstream Canada for another open net-pen salmon farm in Clayoquot Sound. The new site is located in Fortune Channel near Plover Point on Meares Island.
Vancouver, B.C.— Living Oceans Society is pleased to hear a number of the Conservation Coalition recommendations were adopted by the Cohen Commission, reinforcing the concerns of DFO’s mismanagement and the serious threat of net-pen salmon farms on the British Columbia coast. The Cohen report is further proof that a transition away from an open-net pen salmon farming to closed containment is needed immediately.
OTTAWA -- Wild salmon advocates from Canada’s east and west coasts are in Ottawa today, and welcome the tabling of the long-awaited Fisheries and Oceans Standing Committee Report on Closed Containment technology. The report has the potential to help foster change in Canada’s salmon aquaculture industry and offer much-needed protection for Canada’s wild salmon, coastal fisheries and the communities that depend on healthy oceans.
Canadian "organic" farmed salmon began appearing on supermarket shelves and restaurant menus in 2013, thanks to the Canadian General Standards Board's (CGSB) May 2012 release of the Canadian Organic Aquaculture Standard, sponsored by Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).
While some types of farm-raised seafood (such as farmed shellfish) follow more stringent guidelines to protect the health of our oceans, the "organic" salmon farming standard varies little from conventional open-net cage practices.
Fishing to feed farmed salmon is taking food away from people and the oceanic food web.
Salmon require other fish in their diet and right now, farming salmon uses more fish protein than it produces. It takes more than one kilogram of wild fish to grow one kilogram of farmed salmon. Farmed salmon is a luxury food not intended to combat global hunger and some scientists claim it would be better to feed the fish being used to make salmon feed directly to hungry people.
In industrial agri-business one way to increase profits is to reduce costs. Faster growth from altering an animal’s genetic material is one way to do that. But genetic engineering raises complex questions for ecosystems and consumers. Genetically modified (GM) salmon were patented by Canadian scientists who took a gene that regulates growth hormones in Pacific Chinook salmon and a promoter—the equivalent of a genetic 'on-off' switch—from an ocean pout and introduced them into the genetic structure of an Atlantic salmon.
A CTV News Investigation (2010) compared wild and net-cage farmed salmon and found that wild salmon are more nutritious than farmed with eight times more Vitamin D and three times more Vitamin A per 100 gram serving. The study also noted that farmed salmon are fattier which means they may have more omega-3s, but it also means they can accumulate higher levels of toxins such as PCBs. Studies have found higher levels of these harmful chemicals in farmed salmon in some regions than in wild salmon.
Nets can tear and when they do, farmed salmon escape through the holes. Over one million farmed salmon escaped into B.C. waters between 1987 and 1996. Efforts to improve the situation have met with only marginal success. In 2008, 111,000 farmed salmon were reported to have escaped from salmon farms in B.C.
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