Fish Farm Yellow Rating? In BC? Anywhere? - Updated Sep 24, 2017

Hi Seafood Watch

Giving an in-ocean fish farm in BC even a yellow rating is too high.

Even Norway stopped giving out in-ocean licences three years ago because it is so fed up with their environmental damage. They give out on-land fish farm licences for free, now, a $9- to $12-M subsidy based on the former in-ocean auction price.

And you obviously did not watch the video taken during the Sea Shepherd’s recent disease trip. The deformed, infected fish and the cloudiness of the fecal content of the water is clear at every place they filmed.

Here is a link: https://www.desmog.ca/2017/08/23/disturbing-new-footage-shows-diseased-deformed-salmon-b-c-fish-farms. It is to a short video of the problems, but you can easily search for the entire footage. Same issues everywhere. And Sooke, BC, as well as Tortel, Chile have just prohibited fish farms in their waters. See items 102 and 99 in this post: https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/08/bad-news-bites-salmonseafood-industry.html. 

And just so you know, in an industry the size of BC’s, fish farms kill 5.76 billion forage fish to bring in one harvest. Here is how to do the calculation: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2016/09/fish-farms-kill-billions-of-forage-fish.html.

And the sewage cost of the BC industry is a huge $10.4B. Here is how to do the calculation: http://fishfarmnews.blogspot.ca/2017/02/fish-farm-sewage-huge-cost-to-bc.html.We don't want to pay.

And Alaska's salmon harvest was 213 million wild salmon this year, while BC's is non-existent this year. Alaska forbids fish farms. And protest in Washington by Our Sound Our Salmon is calling for an end to in-ocean fish farms after the Cooke Aquaculture Cypress farm collapse with more than 300,000 farmed salmon. Cooke fish farm salmon have been caught in Tofino and Campbell River, up to 250 km away.

Please put BC fish farms back to the Avoid category. Fish farms need to be on land.

DC (Dennis) Reid

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The Pacific Salmon Foundation's CEO, Brian Riddell, also responded to Seafood Watch on this issue, Here is what he had to say:

"As a friend of the Pacific Salmon Foundation who cares about wild salmon issues, you may have been following a recent news story. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch Program recently upgraded B.C. farmed Atlantic salmon to a 'good alternative' rating. Please see a statement from our CEO below: September 22, 2017 PUBLIC STATEMENT PACIFIC SALMON FOUNDATION VIEWS “SEAFOOD WATCH’S” RATING OF B.C. OPEN-NET-PEN FARMED SALMON TO BE PREMATURE AND INAPPROPRIATE Statement of PSF President and CEO Dr. Brian Riddell “The Pacific Salmon Foundation (PSF) wishes to clarify the recent recommendation by the U.S.-based Seafood Watch and the BC Salmon Farmers that B.C. open-net-pen farmed salmon are now a good alternative seafood choice for consumers. We believe that recommendation is premature and inappropriate because it incorrectly characterizes and relies upon the research results to date of PSF’s Strategic Salmon Health Initiative (SSHI). Started in 2013, the SSHI is a partnership between the Pacific Salmon Foundation, Genome BC and Fisheries and Oceans Canada. The purpose of the initiative is to clarify the presence and/or absence of microbes in Pacific salmon. The SSHI is not yet complete, so there are no final conclusions yet regarding farmed Atlantic salmon or anything else. While progress to date includes no detections of reportable diseases as listed by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, there remain many valid questions relative to wild salmon health, and that is what the SSHI continues to study. The SSHI research will continue and we have committed to communicate to the public any critical new information related to the health of wild Pacific salmon if and when it is found.” Contact: Stephen Bruyneel, Pacific Salmon Foundation, sbruyneel@psf.ca, 604 842 1971" ******************************************************************************** Let me add one more thing: Dr. Kristi Miller, of Genome BC, and part of the study above, has confirmed PRV on BC farmed fish, and also that it causes HSMI. Dr. Alexandra Morton has stated that PRV is in 80% of all farmed salmon. This likely explains the failure to spawn, known as pre-spawn mortality in systems as far apart as the Broughton Archipelago and sockeye components of the Fraser run. Little wonder why BCs harvest is in the tank compared with the huge Alaska harvest, our next door neighbour, who forbids fish farms.