Industrial salmon costly to environment

ALEXANDRA MORTON
GUEST COLUMNIST

Twenty-two years ago I moved from Los Angeles to British Columbia's Broughton Archipelago to do research on killer whales. Over the years, I have raised two children here and have learned many of the orcas' mysteries. When the large corporate salmon farms moved into the region, however, I realized they were killing the once abundant runs of wild salmon and a place I had grown to love. Like a cancer they have grown too large for this ecosystem to survive.

In 2002, I opened my home to graduate students interested in contributing to the science urgently needed on aquaculture impact. Recently, Martin Krkosek, his supervisors and I published our findings in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Our work revealed that sea lice coming from the salmon feedlots have killed up to 95 percent of some populations of wild salmon.

Many in British Columbia, from fishermen to First Nations chiefs, are now calling for sustainable salmon-farming practices that would allow wild salmon, and all that depend on them, to survive. Yet, foreign-owned industrial salmon production companies are pushing to double the current number of cages, putting wild Pacific salmon at critical risk. Consumers, however, can make the difference. And to make our voices heard, we needn't look any further than our pocketbooks.

Wild salmon are a sacred gift. From the moment their pink translucent eggs drop into cold mountain streams, they support life around them. They act as a virtual blood stream; their movement of ocean nutrients is key to the health of the land and sea.

Industrial salmon production breaks this essential flow. Just one facility can hold more than a million fish. Perverting natural laws, pressing salmon into feedlots thick with feces, stimulates viruses, bacteria and parasites to grow unchecked. The pollutants and parasites metastasize from the pens and spread via ocean currents to contaminate wild fish with pathogens at a magnitude they were never designed to handle.

Benign to adult salmon, small parasitic sea lice graze on the exterior of fish. Nature kept these parasites away from defenseless newly hatched wild salmon, but the mega- salmon farms have brought the two together, with disastrous consequences.

Since 2001, I've tracked the miraculous wild baby pink salmon as they emerge from their natal rivers. Year after year, I've documented how the majority of wild salmon schools become pockmarked with sea lice as they pass the feedlots, only to be found miles downstream, bleeding, wrecked, dying. Our new study ties the whole story together, showing the lice are indeed from the feedlots, they kill wild salmon and, in fact, they kill the majority of wild salmon on some migration routes

Dead fish cannot return to spawn. Eagles, orca whales, grizzly bears and human communities all suffer, as a vital link in their food chain is severed. Some rivers in the Broughton Archipelago had fewer than 50 pink salmon return last year, with this fall shaping up as another disaster. There should be millions.

Industrial salmon operations also produce fish found to be loaded with toxins and other contaminants. And if the above wasn't bad enough, the open net-pen systems used by most salmon producers also allow untreated waste and pollutants to flow directly from the farms into surrounding waters.

Despite the growing body of research documenting their environmental and health risks globally, industrial salmon companies remain committed to solely their bottom lines. But contrary to what some industry spokesman might say, there is another way.

Industry leaders should take immediate steps to remove open net pen systems, developed more than 30 years ago, and employ new closed systems capable of recovering pollutants and recycling waste. The technology exists to produce industrial salmon more safely and it's time to put it to use.

Wild salmon are more than a pretty fish; they fuel the West Coast's economy. Corporate salmon farms, though, are reversing the significant progress achieved by conservation efforts throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Every time we buy industrial salmon we encourage destruction of our ocean's ability to feed us. If multinational salmon producers refuse to spend the money to safeguard our wild fish stocks, we the consumers should not spend the money that enables them to produce their fish. The cost to our environment is too high.

 

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