Experimental "Closed Containment" Project Baffling
Positive Aquaculture Awareness, March 28, 2012
When it comes to experimental projects reliant on winning over investors, the old “If you can’t dazzle ‘em with brilliance, baffle them with bullsh**” adage really does ring true.
Finally – after almost two weeks of rumours about the fate of Agrimarine’s tank and fish following the ferocious March 12 storm in Campbell River, the story hit the mainstream news, with CTV Vancouver Island and Chek News reporting on what they called a ‘set back’ to the project.
(You can see the stories here Experimental Fish Farm Hits Rough Waters and here Fish Farm Failure )
The stories were … illuminating …. Particularly in the way the company’s representatives spun what is really a bad outcome for them into sounding like it was part of the plan all along. A year ago, they would take anyone with a camera out to the tank – now, reporters were lucky to get a shot from the dock, or a phone call it seemed with one story.
Here’s what kills us: When Chek News asked what the impact of any possible escapes would be, since the farmed fish were Chinook, Rob Walker said something like – “none really – they’re Pacific salmon”. Okay – well Alexandra Morton will be glad to hear that as her latest crusade is on the possible impact of Chinook farms on wild Pacific salmon stocks. Oh – and does that mean they didn’t have any disease and wouldn’t – as critics always cry – add disease to the wild environment? What about the fact that Chinook – unlike Atlantic salmon – would actually be able to interbreed with wild fish?
Walker says in his comments that there may have been an escape. In the CTV story, Sean Wilton says there was no ‘large scale loss’ – but their press release this morning said there was no loss of inventory, though they haven’t finished harvesting yet. Perhaps they need to get their stories straight.
The release also praises the project as a success – proving the commercial value of the technology, they say. That statement seems to overlook the fact that it’s cost millions of dollars to build and was broken. Their claims of success are based on the fact that the fish reached ‘harvestable’ size in 13 months. Their harvestable size is about half that of a regular harvest size of farm-raised fish… guess this is another case of ‘baffling’ people.
And the real kicker? Where were all those environmental groups – the ones that last year were celebrating this as the solution to all they see wrong with the ocean net pen industry? Maybe they – along with Agrimarine – were hoping it would just stay quiet enough, no one would know.
Research is research – it’s going to have its ups and downs. What’s shady about this is the pitch that they have been claiming it's a proven solution, when it’s anything but.
Other News items and Blogs of interest:
