A Nova Scotia fish farm ordered to kill hundreds of thousands of salmon due to a viral outbreak says it doesn’t expect the disease to spread to other sites, though an environmental group says the record suggests otherwise.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency has ordered Cooke Aquaculture to destroy salmon in their ocean pens outside Shelburne Harbour due to the presence of infectious salmon anemia.
Outbreaks of the disease in New Brunswick in the late 1990s dealt a blow to the industry there at the time and the federal government provided tens of millions of dollars in compensation.
But Nell Halse, a spokeswoman for Cooke Aquaculture, said Friday her company doesn’t believe the virus will spread beyond the one site where it's been detected — and the firm intends to proceed with applications for two new sites in nearby Jordan Bay.
Halse said companies learned from the New Brunswick experience, adding that changes in equipment, the rotation of site and increased testing have made disease spread less likely.
