PUBLICATION The Chronicle-Herald
DATE Thursday September 26, 2002
SECTION/CATEGORY Canada
PAGE A21
BYLINE Greg Joyce
 

HEADLINE: Fish farms' sea lice threat to wild salmon, groups say

 Vancouver - A coalition of environmental groups threatened Wednesday to take legal action against the federal and B.C. governments to try to put a halt to open-sea fish farms they say are threatening the survival of wild salmon stocks.

** The threat followed a report by the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform earlier this week that said virtually entire spawning runs of pink salmon off the northern coast of Vancouver Island were wiped out by an outbreak of sea lice that originated in fish farms in the area.

 Biologist Alexandra Morton, a longtime critic of salmon fish farms, said her research indicated more than three million pinks failed to return this fall to seven streams to spawn.

More than two dozen open-sea fish farms in the area raise Atlantic salmon and Morton said the farms are breeding grounds for the lethal lice that have infected the pinks and wiped out their returns.

"We've got one per cent left," Morton said Wednesday, referring to the number of pinks that returned to the streams to spawn in an area known as the Broughton Archipelago on the mainland coast off northern Vancouver Island.

"Pink salmon have been known to commit miracles and come back but if they have to run the gauntlet through salmon farms again, there's no hope. If they take another 99 per cent hit there's going to be nothing."

** Angela McCue, a lawyer with Sierra Legal Defence Fund that often assists environmental groups in legal actions, said taking the federal and B.C. governments to court was being seriously considered.

"A number of the groups have indicated what their demands are to address the situation and if the government does not respond then we may well seek the assistance of the court," said McCue.

She said Sierra has been advising the federal government since May

** that it considers B.C.'s regulation of the aquaculture industry to be unconstitutional.

Regulation of wild salmon comes under the federal Fisheries Act but it's the B.C. government that issues licences and regulates the fish farm industry.

"We could challenge the ability of some of the farms to operate based on federal law and the constitution," said McCue. "There are angles under the Fisheries Act to recover damages on behalf of affected commercial fishermen."

Jennifer Lash, the executive director of the Living Oceans Society and part of the coalition, expressed frustration.

"We've worked through so many governments, processes and regulations

. . . and everything the government does is inadequate," she said.

"This collapse of pink in Broughton is another reason why we can't have open-net salmon farms on the coast.



"If we don't get those fish farms out of the water soon, we're going to lose our wild salmon."

But a spokesman for the federal Fisheries Department said he had serious doubts about the coalition's research.



** Don Noakes, head of aquaculture at the department's Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, said the department became aware of the sea lice allegation last year and sent out a research vessel to do its own study.

 

SEARCH TERMS AQUACULTURE; SIERRA; LEGAL; FUND; DEFENCE

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