Morton spreading misinformation, Comox Valley Record, May 04, 2010
Dear editor,
Ms. Morton’s Get Out Migration is using a slew of misinformation to play on the passionate issue of protecting B.C.’s wild salmon — but what she’s risking is a sustainable industry that is a significant contributor to local, provincial and national economies.
For example, those “low-paying” jobs for coastal community workers that she refers to, are actually 4,550 meaningful careers in the Comox-Strathcona area — with direct and indirect employment to aquaculture worth $150 million in labour income to the area, according to a socio-economic report released by the federal government last week.
Many of those jobs are available in rural coastal communities where other opportunities have been depressed by the downturn in other resource industries.
Her conclusion that wild salmon are on a decline due to sea lice from fish farms is also erroneous.
Research shows that the number of sea lice on wild salmon is the same, and in some cases more, in areas away from salmon farms than areas near them.
Last year, there was a record-setting pink return to the Broughton Archipelago — more than 20 years after salmon farms were established in the area.
The challenges faced by wild salmon are extensive — from warming ocean temperatures to logging, industrial activity on riverbanks and the development of key watersheds. Blaming salmon farms and our farmers won’t solve the problem of wild fish declines, and we’ll be left with fewer jobs and less opportunity to meet an ever-increasing worldwide demand for salmon.
Mary Ellen Walling,
Campbell River
Editor’s note: Mary Ellen Walling is the executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association
