Salmon editorial missed mark
by Mary Ellen Walling, Squamish Chief, April 29, 2011
Re: “Salmon, anyone?” Editorial, April 22.
When it comes to questions of sustainability, it seems everyone has a different perspective, a different motivation — and a different calculation by which to assess need and success.
For B.C.’s salmon-farming industry, those varied perspectives have helped to encourage research and development, solid public policy and proactive improvement.
Many stakeholder groups — First Nations, environmentalists, researchers and scientists, stewardship groups — have worked for many years to learn more about the natural environment, the industry and to find a proactive way forward. We and our partners agree with Mr. Burke that decisions about the industry have to be made on sound science.
It is always a challenge to present all information so everyone can work from the same starting point. For example, Mr. Burke’s editorial talks about lessons learned from Norway’s industry experience. Yes, the industry is older and more experienced and therefore has knowledge to share — but the column’s statements about Atlantics there colonizing and out-competing with wild fish, or their experiences with sea lice, don’t serve up a full plate of information with reference to B.C.
The editorial doesn’t include explanations of the different size and make-up of wild fish populations, the variation in ecological conditions of the two regions, research into the colonizing and breeding behaviour of Atlantic salmon in the Pacific or the genomic differences between sea lice in the two oceans.
We’ve heard these concerns. Significant research has been done and we have many answers. We will continue that work out of respect for our business, our communities, our environment and our critics. When people learn more about this complex debate, we find their questions about sustainability and with us focus on continued improvement and ensuring our sustainable industry continues to build a future for coastal British Columbia.
Mary Ellen Walling
Executive Director, B.C. Salmon Farmers Association
Campbell River
The letter above was submitted in reponse to the following:
Salmon Anyone
Editorial, Squamish Chief, April 22, 2011
To mark Earth Day 2011, we’d like to say a few words about a group of people who used to be… shall we say, none too popular around these parts: environmentalists. Say what you will about them. Say they’ve got their facts wrong. Say their logic is askew. But except in rare circumstances, don’t try to question their motivations.
During the past week, after a column about wild vs. farmed salmon by Nicole Trigg appeared in The Chief, someone did just that. At least one who commented about the column online appeared to be saying that on the issue of open-net salmon farming in B.C., environmentalists aren’t just wrong — the person leading the campaign for stricter regulation of the salmon farming industry, biologist Alexandra Morton, is doing so because she’s supported by those with vested interests in discrediting the industry.
The argument went something like this: Those heading up Alaska’s commercial fishing industry see the growing B.C. salmon farming industry as competition and are somehow helping to fund Morton’s research into the impact of sea lice and other pathogens from salmon farms on B.C.’s wild salmon stocks. This writer may not be as well versed in such matters as some, but isn’t yet convinced — and either way, don’t see that as the crux of the issue. In the meantime, a few things we do know:
• The fish farming industry in B.C. is buttressed by a well-organized group called Positive Aquaculture Awareness, whose mission is to “provide accurate information about B.C. aquaculture and to challenge myths about B.C. salmon farming.” Vested interests, anyone?
• The debate over salmon farming hinges not on certain people’s countries of birth, nor on politics, but on science.
• Most of B.C.’s salmon farms are owned by companies based in Norway, where a debate about the impact of fish farms on wild Atlantic salmon stocks has been raging for years. To the writer who stated, “Frankly I think the less said about Norway the more conductive [sic] it is to dealing with Canadian issues,” we say: We respectfully but strongly disagree.
In 1999, Georg Fredrik Rieber-Mohn, former head of the Great Wild Salmon Commission of Norway, presented a proposal for protection of the country’s 50 best salmon rivers and nine most important fjord systems. “Intense lobbying from the salmon farming industry watered down the proposals so that by the time it passed the parliament in 2007, the protected fjords became smaller and gave less protection against the salmon farming industry,” he wrote last year.
The result? “Atlantic salmon in the wild in Norway are now threatened with extinction in many rivers… There are many causes to this decline, but in vast areas the farming of salmon is the main factor. Escaped farmed salmon is a huge problem, added to the problem of uncontrolled growth of sea lice. Scientists foresee remarkable damaging effects in new areas in the future.”
To that, we can only emphasize the importance of basing future decisions about the industry in B.C. on sound science, and of doing all we can to heed of the lessons to be learned from the mistakes of others.
— David Burke
