It’s time to grow more salmon in BC
Consumers in the US are wanting more and more fresh, farmed salmon and it seems ridiculous that most of it is imported from Norway and Chile rather than from across the border.
Odd Grydeland, FishfarmingXpert, January 7, 2015
Along a coastline not unlike that of Norway, British Columbian salmon farmers are producing some 80,000 tonnes of product in a good year, while their comrades in Norway are approaching 2 million tonnes of annual production of Atlantic salmon and trout. If BC made the same use of its coastal resources, the salmon farming industry would be worth close to that of the entire tourism industry in the province. And, by the way, Norway also has a thriving tourism business.
BC fish farmers are very keen to grow their business in order to capture more of the growing US and Asian markets, but the regulatory bodies are stalling the approval of applications for more production sites, and an ill-conceived provincial moratorium on new fin-fish sites on the northern half of the coast isn’t helping. The environmental performance of the industry has been studied to death without any serious risk to wild fish stocks or the general environment having been identified. Applications in the pipeline for new production sites are also supported by the local First Nations - a fact that wasn’t always the case when the currently operating locations were applied for. A recent Canadian Supreme Court case gave additional powers to BC First Nations (and by association other Canadian aboriginals), which in turn should make it easier for regulators to approve new production sites.
One could only speculate that the delay in approving new production sites for salmon farming in BC is a cowardly reaction to the on-going campaign by the likes of the extreme anti-salmon farming fanatic Alexandra Morton or the recently retired Craig Orr, who both for years have tried to blame the province’s salmon farming industry for the sometimes reduced returns of wild salmon to local rivers. Ms Morton - who doesn’t have a single academic credential even remotely related to marine life to her credit - still keeps trying to convince the world that the sky is falling, as evidenced by today’s announcement that she wants some testimony given by a government official during the latest salmon inquiry - the CAD$ 37 million (~€ 27 million) Cohen Commission inquiry - re-examined.
There is little doubt that the millions of dollars spent on this - the latest in a long series of inquiries about salmon farming - were committed to by the Canadian government as a result of lobbying by Morton, Orr and others from the so-called “environmentalist community”. (It is part of the story that the year following the start of the inquiry, BC had the largest return of the salmon under inquiry in a hundred years.) It is also a shame that these environmental activists have such blinders on that they have essentially refused to look at any of the other multiple conditions that no doubt have a great influence on the ocean survival of wild salmon. And their status as media darlings is exemplified in Craig Orr’s recent thank-you letter to the writers of The Vancouver Sun newspaper, where he writes: “Kudos to The Sun and reporter Larry Pynn for helping expose and prompt action on ... practises damaging to fish and the environment”. His letter continues to focus almost solely on the salmon farming industry; “During my 16 years with Watershed Watch, The Sun has done its readers and the environment a service by helping expose and thus prompt action on impacts of ...salmon farming, and other issues. A $37 million salmon inquiry didn’t much derail support to expand risky salmon farming practises. Perhaps that money would have been better spent hiring more environmental reporters”.
Perhaps Mr Orr and Ms Morton should have read the many previous studies related to salmon farming in BC and saved the government’s money to be used for real conservation efforts. And any support for an industry expansion is grounded in sound science.
