High-profile expedition focuses on fish farms
OPERATION VIRUS HUNTER: David Suzuki, Pamela Anderson among those challenging salmon pens in ocean
The Sea Shepherd Conservation Society is teaming up with high-profile Canadian environmentalists and scientists to investigate the impact of salmon farms on the B.C. coast.
Actor-turned-activist Pamela Anderson, Vancouver environmentalist David Suzuki, First Nations leader Ernie Crey and marine biologist Alexandra Morton will be at a news conference in Vancouver Monday to launch Operation Virus Hunter.
Morton said the expedition aims to raise awareness of the dangers the farmed salmon industry — which raise salmon in pens in the ocean — poses to wild salmon stocks and ocean biodiversity.
“They use the ocean as an open sewer and dump their waste straight into it, specifically the viruses and sea lice that breed in industrial farms. They’re allowed to pour that onto the biggest salmon migration routes in Canada.”
Morton will be one of the scientists on-board the Sea Shepherd’s R/V Martin Sheen as it sets sail this week to northern Vancouver Island, following the route of the Fraser River sockeye migration.
The 92-foot vessel will stop at salmon farms to conduct “audits” for diseases, which the Sea Shepherd said will be done in a “non-aggressive and non-harassing manner.”
Morton said they will specifically be looking for the piscine reovirus, a virus associated with outbreaks of heart and skeletal muscle inflammation, which was found for the first time in B.C. on fish in one farm in Johnstone Strait in May.
Banning marine pens and transferring farmed fish into tanks on land would be the “biggest fixable impact on our wild salmon,” she said.
While salmon stocks have been declining around the world, jurisdictions that had banned salmon farms from the ocean, such as Alaska, have seen an increase in wild salmon numbers, added Morton.
The campaign also launched a 90-minute PSA featuring Anderson, who called on consumers not to put farmed salmon on their plates. Anderson is chairman of the board of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.
Jeremy Dunn, executive director of the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association, said the industry has a good track record of environmental stewardship and is committed to achieving a high level of third-party certification for its farms.
“Fish health is an obsession to salmon farmers,” said Dunn, adding that an average 94 per cent of farmed salmon that enter the ocean are raised through to harvest. He said the R/V Martin Sheen could pose a “biosecurity concern” if it trespassed onto waters leased to salmon farmers.
There are 109 licensed farms in B.C., with about 60 to 70 in operation at any one time.