A virus outbreak has Mainstream Canada killing off 560,000 Atlantic salmon at its Dixon Bay farm north of Tofino, but it’s too soon to know the financial costs of the outbreak, a company spokesperson said Friday.
Mainstream Canada announced early last week that the IHN (Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis) virus had been detected in two of the farm’s 10 net pens. On Thursday, the company announced it had begun the process of killing all the Atlantic salmon, or depopulating the farm, a process expected to take four to five days. Company spokesperson Laurie Jensen said the fish had been growing at the farm since last fall and were roughly one kilogram in size. She said Mainstream would normally grow them out to the 5 kilogram range.
She said the financial impacts of the IHN outbreak aren't yet known.
“It’s always speculative as to how much profit could have been made, but of course that would depend on the price we got for them and everything,” she told the Courier-Islander newspaper. “Until we do the final clean-up, depopulation, everything, we really won't know a final cost. Certainly, it’s more than we have expected to spend on that site but I can’t really give a dollar figure right now.”
