Vast Majority Against In-ocean Fish Farms

Intense opposition wants in-ocean fish farms banned in BC: https://www.straight.com/news/1067796/new-poll-shows-three-four-british-columbians-want-ban-open-net-pen-salmon-farms.

Quote: "those who do have an opinion on an immediate ban are certainly in the vast majority," Mainstreet Research president Quito Maggi said in a news release."
 
A whopping: "74.6 percent of B.C. respondents prefer an immediate ban on open net-pen salmon farms." 

Subject: Stop approving toxic sea lice chemicals on Clayoquot Sound salmon farms

Jonathan/Justin

You need to do all you can to save wild salmon that your DFO in Ottawa has been managing into extinction for 50 years.

We have been telling you for decades to get fish farms out of the water. Now you authorized an illegal drug to kill lice in Clayoquot Sound. Stop the chemicals. Order a cull.

It is time to move on from the Broughton Archipelago and take fish farms out of Clayoquot Sound and the rest of BC.

With the Transmountain Pipeline and Jody Wilson-Raybould controversy, you are looking to be wiped out in the next election. Getting fish farms out of the water would get you lots of votes.

 

DC Reid

And:

Dear Elizabeth May,

The Clayoquot Sound UNESCO Biosphere Region is the largest intact rainforest ecosystem left on Vancouver Island. It is not the place to field trial dangerous drugs. Despite abundant pristine habitat, salmon populations near Tofino are collapsing.

I am petitioning you to stop approving toxic chemicals for use on open-net pen salmon farms, and order a harvest of sea lice-infested farmed salmon immediately, before they can harm juvenile wild salmon currently migrating out from rivers into the ocean.

Sincerely,

DC Reid

And:

Justin and Jonathan (DFO minister) failed to answer, but Elizabeth May, Green Party, is on side, with all the rest of us:

Hello, DC

Thank you for writing with regards to the use of toxic chemicals in open-net pen salmon farms, and the dangers posed by these farms to the wild salmon populations in Clayoquot Sound.

I completely agree. We must end open-pen farming due to the numerous hazards it poses to coastal ecosystems and wild salmon. Ocean-net fish farms are highly polluting, and expose wild fish to sea lice, parasites and disease. These facilities are not farms, but toxic fish factories. I stand with you in calling on the government to stop insecticide testing in this fragile ecosystem, and to order a harvest of sea lice-infested farmed salmon.

Last year, the levels of sea lice were higher than ever before in British Columbia, at almost 55 lice per farmed fish in Clayoquot - over eighteen times the threshold for treatment mandated by the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans.

Ultimately, I am of the same mind as the three in four British Columbians that support an immediate ban<https://www.straight.com/news/1067796/new-poll-shows-three-four-british-columbians-want-ban-open-net-pen-salmon-farms> on open-pen fish farms. The solution is to relocate operations to on-land, closed containment facilities. Only in this way can we curtail damage to the wild salmon population without shutting down a significant portion of Canada's aquaculture industry. British Columbia has a unique opportunity here to be an innovator, a champion of sustainability to inspire the rest of the country.

Thank you again for writing. I will continue to raise my voice in the House of Commons in support of protecting our wild salmon.

Sincerely,

Elizabeth May, O.C.

Member of Parliament

Saanich-Gulf Islands

Leader of the Green Party of Canada

And my list now has almost 300 on-land RAS farm systems. When is enough enough? See:  https://fishfarmnews.blogspot.com/2016/05/152-different-on-land-fish-farm-systems.html.

Houston, er, Justin, 'We have the solution.'