Wild Skeena Salmon need our support

[SilverHilton]

Wild Skeena Salmon need our support. Please visit the www.SaveOurSkeenaSalmon.org website and sign the petition to keep fishfarms out of the Skeea River Estuary!

 

If you are concerned about fish farms and their catastrophic, destructive nature on marine ecosystems and if you are concerned about the famed salmon / steelhead runs on the Skeena river and her tribs, you should consider signing the petition.

 

If you need more information about aquaculture on the BC coast, read 'A Stain Upon the Sea: West Coast Salmon Farming'. Alexandra Morten paints an eye-opening, gut-wrenching picture of aquaculture in the Broughton Archipellago.

 

Robin

[Paulf]

Robin,pardon my ignorance, but what is this salmon farming?

When I look at the term "farming", to me it means that one is raising things in the domestic kind of way, or is this simply a means of harvesting fish from the wilds for commercial use.

So with not knowing what I would be signing for, I'll leave this be for now.

Paulf

[SilverHilton]

PaulF, very effective use of the precautionary principle.

 

Your deductive reasoning is absolutely right: fish farms raise domestic fish for consumption. However, the open net pens the salmon are raised in do nothing to protect the marine ecosystem; for example, uneaten food and feces free fall through the pens and accumulate in tonnes on the ocean floor. That is just one example; its not a pretty picture.

 

FYI, here are some links - with a few ‘heavy hitters’ - so you can read up about some issues facing the global aquaculture industry. Of course, I am completely biasing the sample. Nevertheless, if you find some science disproving the claims of Nature, the David Suzuki Foundation, UBCIC, and the Sierra Legal Defence Fund, I would love to see it.

 

http://www.cbc.ca/disclosure/archives/0302...almon/main.html

http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaig...licy/fish_farms

http://www.wildcanada.net/farmedanddangerous/fax.asp

http://www.nature.com/news/2005/050620/full/4351014b.html

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Campaigns_and_P...ure03290501.asp

http://www.ubcic.bc.ca/issues/fishfarms/

http://www.greenpeace.ca/e/gallery/view_al...bumName=album02

http://www.thetyee.ca/News/2005/05/12/Fish...csTrumpScience/

http://www.sierralegal.org/issue/fish_farms_expansion.html

http://www.ecoserve.ie/projects/sealice/

http://www.fanweb.org/fishfarms/

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...Story/National/

http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Oceans/Aquacult...n/Pollution.asp

http://www.raincoast.org/aquaculture/

 

This is another fisheries conservation issue people should be aware of. I'm just doing my part to raise awareness as a conervationist, concerned angler and steward. Don't eat farmed salmon and don't feed it to your children!

 

Robin

 

PS - This is from the BCFFF newsletter:

 

Alexandra Morton Receives Totem Fly Fishers’ Prestigious Roderick Haig-

Brown Award

 

This message from Craig Orr to his fellow club

members:

 

I finally caught up with Alex Morton last week in

Sointula and presented her our [Roderick] Haig-Brown Award. I

enclose a photo of a happy Alex, and will bring others

to a future meeting. She reiterated how pleased she

was to receive this honor, and said that the timing

couldn't have been better. She had been under attack

by salmon farm supporters, and word of the Haig-

Brown Award--carried in at least two newspapers and

two radio interviews—really bolstered her spirits.

She had neighbors congratulating her, and people in

Port McNeill walking up and shaking her hand.

Alex also mentioned she had two more scientific

papers on sea lice and salmon accepted in major

journals in the past week. No Canadian government

research from the Broughtons has yet been published,

but the denial is still

flowing freely.

 

Craig Orr

[Paulf]

Robin

 

I have not forgot about this post, I'm still reading and digesting all the information. Between being a slow reader and finding the time, it is taking a little longer than expected.

 

These links are more directed to the negative side of fish farming, as you have stated. I did find a site that was supporting the issue of fish farms, but all their examples were based on the negative issues and nothing that they stated really backed up their theories.

The only positive item that was said, was to have a self contained and controlled portion of water body which could be maintained, but that was already brought up in one of the post from David Suzuki.

So far, it is leading me to believe that fish farms are damaging in the long run...still have more reading to do...only half way through.

 

Paulf

[dave robinson]

Fish farms are a mixed deal, mostly bad, but not all.

They do reduce pressure for commercial catch rates

of wild stocks for commercial sale.

If you check the grocery stores lately

you'll see most fresh and frozen salmon is farmed.

Remove that from the market and demand for fish

in the suprmarket will likely increase pressure

for higher catch rates of wild stock.

However, pen type farms do have serious enviromental risks.

Bottom and water pollution and the sea lice problem

are probably localized to the area around the farm.

Proper location of the farm could reduce that impact.

However, far more threatening is escapement

with the risk of introduced species supplanting

or cross breeding with native stocks or spreading disease.

The deer farming industry in Wisconsin showed the futility

of preventing escapement and now they have a CWD

problem in wild deer that they are tying to solve

by massive hunting elimination of ALL deer in the affected areas.

Talk about an enviromental disaster perpetrated by a small group!

The real solution for fish farms is for the fish to be tank raised,

with effluent treated before discharge back to the sea.

That costs $$ though, so will be strongly resisted

by the salmon farming industry