| Archived Press Release
- February 1, 2002 |
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Open Net-Pen Salmon Aquaculture
Expansion Misguided
February 1, 2002
The Steelhead Society of BC staunchly
opposes the recently announced expansion of the salmon
aquaculture industry on the coast of British Columbia.
“The recent decision to raise
the moratorium and allow for the expansion of salmon
aquaculture industry is lacking in sound, balanced scientific
knowledge and has been made without a basic respect
for the continued survival of wild salmon and the wild
heritage of British Columbia”, said Steelhead
Society President Scott Baker-McGarva.
The global marketplace is already glutted
with farmed salmon from foreign markets and the natural
fish stocks feeding the industry are collapsing. The
short-term economic position of salmon aquaculture is
far outweighed by the current and future habitat degradation
as well as the potential loss of irreplaceable strains
of wild salmon and steelhead through disease, sea lice
infestation and escapes perpetrated by an expanded salmon
aquaculture industry. As Alaska has banned net-pen salmon
aquaculture since 1990 in response to the fear of negative
impacts on wild stocks of pacific salmon it is extremely
disappointing that the BC Provincial Government would
allow the expansion of an industry that has a global
history of habitat degradation and has been indicted
I the elimination of wild native fish stocks. Farmed
salmon are subjected to a gamut of antibiotics and chemical
treatments before they are processed for market. The
Canadian Food Inspection Agency agrees that sport or
commercially caught escaped Atlantic salmon are possibly
unfit for human consumption because of their unknown
antibiotic content. As more escapes of farmed Atlantic
salmon will occur as a result of this expansion we remind
anglers and the general public to not consume Atlantic
salmon that have been caught outside an enclosed farm
system.
The strength of the open net-pen salmon
aquaculture industry in BC is transient and parasitic.
The tragic effects of the expansion of the industry
will be felt generations after the necessary removal
of the last net-pen from BC waters.
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