Salmon farming objectors get their day in court

Harmful impact on wild fish stock numbers and ecotourism claimed
Larry Pynn, Vancouver Sun
Published: Monday, September 29, 2008

Alexandra Morton will be in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver today for a four-day challenge of the provincial government’s constitutional right to regulate and approve fish farm locations.

Until recently, Morton has waged a solo upstream battle against the salmon-farming industry. Not any more.

She is being joined in court by the Wilderness Tourism Association, the Area E Gillnetters Association, the Fishing Vessel Owners Association and the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society. She specifically created the society to raise $60,000 to fund the court case.

Hundreds of individuals pledged donations in an adopt-a-fry campaign, Morton said. “I didn’t pursue big funders. I just wanted it to be from the people. They sent lots of messages: ‘Go get ‘em. Save our salmon’.”

The groups will argue in court that Ottawa—not the province—has constitutional authority over salmon farms.

They contend salmon farms interfere with navigation and are harmful to fish and fish habitat, and believe that closed-containment systems are a way to allow the industry to continue without damaging wild stocks.

The legal battle involves Norwegian-owned Marine Harvest, the biggest salmon farming operator on the B.C. coast.

Marine Harvest officials declined to comment on the case, but confirmed they operate 35 farms producing 45,000 tonnes of salmon per year, representing just over half of the industry’s total B.C. production.

The Wilderness Tourism Association squarely blames salmon farms for the collapse of pink salmon runs this year in the Broughton Archipelago and Knight Inlet, saying they are having a detrimental impact on top predators such as the grizzly bears and killer whales upon which ecotourism depends.

Craig Murray, owner of Nimmo Bay Resort, said this year’s returns are the lowest he’s seen in 25 years of fishing in the area and insists salmon farms are “causing irreparable damage to our wild salmon stocks.”

The Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council, which provides independent advice to both senior governments on fish issues, concluded in its 2007 annual report: “In certain areas such as the Broughton Archipelago, salmon farms have acted as rearing and dispersal sites for sea lice which have harmed juvenile wild pink salmon runs in the Central Coast area.”

Morton, once a lonely voice in raising concerns about fish farms, now has a field station in the Broughton Archipelago, where scientists and budding young biologists from throughout Canada study the threat that salmon farms pose to wild stocks.

The 6.5-hectare research station site has just wrapped up its third year in operation, receiving up to 50 researchers and volunteers per season on a meagre annual budget of $40,000.

Most of the research involves the negative impact of sea lice from salmon farms on young salmon swimming out to sea, but there are also studies into the effect of salmon farms on sediments and flat fish. One unrelated study is looking at threatened marbled murrelets.

“They’re doing cutting-edge science,” Morton said of researchers from B.C.’s three major universities as well as Dalhousie in Halifax and the University of Alberta in Edmonton. “They are taking the research to another level.”