| Alberni Environmental Coalition | On-Line Library |
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Net-Pen Feedlots Too Risky.
Water moves around. Dirt tends to stay put. Therein lies
one reason net-pen fish-farms are worse than cattle feedlots--not that cattle feedlots are
such wonderful company. Feedlot cattle seldom get loose, and when they do, there are no wild bovines for them to mix and interfere with. Wild salmon, however, provide millions of pounds of food per year, and thousands of jobs in commercial fishing and tourism. The United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union alone has over 4,500 members on the B.C. coast. Our coastal waters can produce an immense harvest of top quality food pretty well on their own--we need only take good care of the spawning and rearing process in fresh water [which, by and large, means leaving the forest canopy in place; see other brief.] The "aquaculture" industry has been trying to end a moratorium on new net-pen salmon feedlots. I suggest the wiser move would be to require all feedlots to be closed away from waters containing wild salmonids, given what we know of the results elsewhere: 1. In Norway, where salmon farms are more like what the industry wants than what it has today, escaped salmon have interfered seriously with wild fish breeding, diseases from pen fish have attacked wild fish, wiping out over 30 populations; and remaining wild runs are in danger from spawning disruption as well as parasites and disease. World famous rivers have been poisoned with rotenone in an attempt to remove parasites that originated in net pens. [Net Loss: 83-86; Statistisk Sentralbyrå - Statistics Norway, March 24, 1997; Aftenposten, March 12, 1997.] 2. Fish farming can be done inland, or in enclosed
containers which take their temperature from the surrounding seawater but do not give back
disease and pestilence. For about two decades now, Finnish farmers and businesses have
raised rainbow trout to selling weights of up to 3-4 kilos in freshwater. A few Ontario
small landholders and Prairie farmers with a high water table have done likewise. A recent
Scottish article [MacDonald, 1997] indicates that re-circulation technology has reached
the point where fish can grow faster, more economically, and more safely: As an educated low-income Canadian, who enjoys fish, means that his descendents may enjoy fish, and has a sense of responsibility to his Creator; I ask this Committee and all relevant levels of Government to require all salmon feedlots to be closed away from waters containing wild salmonids, including the removal or replacement of existing net pen operations in coastal waters.
David Martin, Ph.D. -- RR 3, Port Alberni References: Aftenposten [Norwegian newspaper, roughly
translated to English by Internet poster] Wednesday 12. March 1997 David W. Ellis and Associates [October 1966] NET LOSS:
The Salmon Netcage Industry in British Columbia. Report to the David Suzuki
Foundation, with recommendations by the Foundation. National Geographic, March 1997 has a brief article about major salmon farming problems in Norway (in its briefs section at front). New York Times, March 1, 1997 "Muddying the Waters", [article on salmon farming] Audubon, March 1997 Save Georgia Strait Alliance: [1997] Brief endorsing on-shore water-recirculation techniques of salmon feeding and opposing net pens in coastal areas containing wild salmon. Statistisk Sentralbyrå - Statistics Norway [1997 3 24] Salmon Catches continue to fall in Norwegian rivers.. The United Fishermen and Allied Workers' Union, 1997. Submission to the B C Salmon Aquaculture Review. |
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