With B.C. aboriginal and environmental groups clambering for an end to salmon farming, one of the biggest players in the sector, Marine Harvest, is reminding the public that it has been quietly supporting wild salmon research for two years.
“In 2010, Marine Harvest, the Pacific Salmon Foundation and Fisheries and Oceans Canada partnered to begin research into wild salmon health and migratory patterns in the Discovery Islands area,” says Clare Backman, Director of Sustainable Programs at Marine Harvest Canada (MHC). “We look forward to expanding on our past support to do further research into the baseline health of wild salmon and the potential interactions with our salmon farms.”
Earlier this month the Cohen Commission of Inquiry concluded a three-year probe into the decline of Fraser River sockeye and Justice Bruce Cohen presented 75 recommendations to the federal government. While global warming and fisheries management were highlighted in the report as the most serious concern to the future sustainably of the Fraser River sockeye, the recommendations also included a request for additional fish health data from government hatcheries and wild salmon migrating through the Discovery Islands area.
Commissioner Cohen said that wild sockeye could suffer “serious or irreversible harm” if exposed to disease and that the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) needed to recognize the possible risk of disease transfer between wild and farm fish.
He recommended that DFO undertake a decisive study of the risks to wild salmon from Discovery Islands fish farming operations.
Cohen’s recommendations “are all about protecting wild salmon which is central to the work that we do each day on our farms,” Backman says. “We’re confident that our farms are not a risk to wild salmon and we support more research to confirm that.”
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