Sea Lice, Marine Harvest, and The Deal
by Alexandra Morton
 Hello; many of you will have received a press release today stating that environmental groups of CAAR and Marine Harvest have begun implementing a management plan (CAMP) and that this plan appears to be a success.
What you need to know is this plan calls for an alternating strategy and this is year where the most problematic fish farms, the ones in the long narrow Tribune Channel, were emptied or fallowed. But next year these fish farms will be stocked with more farm salmon than ever.
The lower lice levels seen this year are telling us that when you remove the farm salmon, the number of lice on the wild juvenile salmon decreases. This also happened in 2003 in the Pink Salmon Action Plan implemented by the Provincial Government, wherein many of the same fish farms were emptied. Removing farm fish decreases sea lice.
Please note the last paragraph of the press release reads; “Should the Provincial Ministry of Agriculture take the necessary steps to ensure the alternating fallow plan can continue, CAAR and MHC will sustain the monitoring program....”
“The necessary steps” are amendments to the salmon farm leases in the Broughton Archipelago to allow the problematic fish farms to double and triple in size.
I abandoned CAAR over these amendments and the First Nations of the Broughton have opposed these lease expansions as well. I understand this is the best deal that CAAR could make, but it is my firm opinion that this is a bad idea.
When the fish farms are allowed to expand, the thought is that they can put all their fish on one route or the other in an alternating pattern. The farms that are stocked will be treated with the unapproved drug, Slice.
Slice is not permitted in food shipped to the USA, and yet it is being used in Canadian waters where people fish for food, with no public warnings. We do not know the impact of Slice on the food chain, nor on precious fisheries such as prawns.
And Slice does not work long enough to protect the young wild salmon for the duration of their migration. The juvenile wild salmon are still in the Broughton in mid-July. As the farms expand, more of the drug will be used per site, and while the fish farmers are careful not to let many pellets soaked in the drug to escape from the pens, they do let all their fish waste to leave the pens and the drug passes through the fish.
I applaud my colleagues in the environmental community for trying to negotiate with Marine Harvest, but the CAMP deal is extremely dangerous to the wild salmon populations on this coast. Wild salmon need to go to sea every year. Pesticides like Slice are not good for our marine ecosystems. Marine Harvest drove a hard bargain that I cannot see our wild salmon surviving.
I am out of cell range, but will respond to email.
Alexandra Morton
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