Posted on Tuesday 19 February 2008
Together, we can save BC’s wild salmon
This campaign grew out of frustration – yours and mine - with our inability to get government to act to protect British Columbia’s wild salmon from devastation by industrial fish-farming. Wild salmon stocks are in exceptional decline wherever there are fish farms. We must – and we can – turn this tide.
I’ve now studied the impact of fish farms in waters used by the Fraser River sockeye, Megin River chinook, Nimpkish River chum, south coast steelhead, coho and herring - and they are all swimming through a soup of sea lice and other farm waste. This is biological insanity.
The problem is not farming fish; it’s where you put the cages. Tiny newborn wild salmon are not surviving contact with the pathogens generated by enormous marine feedlots on their migration routes.
As many of you know, I applied for a permit this spring to medevac newly-hatched young wild salmon past the fish farms to safety. The permit was denied and the process served to highlight a deep flaw in the system: no government in Canada will take responsibility for fish farms and so the industry is out of control and people like us are going in circles trying to find who is in charge.
I’ve done the science over and over again, and participated in many government processes. Nothing changed at the government level but lots changed biologically, here in the wilderness of the Broughton Archipelago, far from the public eye. For seven springs, I watched young salmon pour from the Meetup River into fish farm effluent. That river died last fall; 89 salmon left to run home to the spawning grounds.
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Healthy salmon river - September 2003
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Dead salmon river near fish farms - September 2003
We know that our wild salmon face climate change and we need to do everything we can to remove other impediments to their survival. Science now points clearly to industrial aquaculture on wild migration routes as a major impediment.
The rules aren’t working, we have to challenge the rules. I’m going to court, along with others. We believe we have a very good case, which will be unfolding in the coming days.
Through donations to Adopt a Fry, the public has empowered this legal challenge. We’ll need you more as we move forward into BC Supreme Court. Please let friends and colleagues know that there’s a grassroots movement gathering steam and we need help to turn up the heat. Please donate if you can, and – just as important - let Provincial and Federal governments know what you think by simply joining Adopt a Fry. To join, go to the “join” page; to donate, press the button below.
We’ve come a long way in a few short months.
Together, we can do this.
Alexandra Morton R.P.Bio.
www.raincoastresearch.org
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Find out more about the Broughton research station at http://www.callingfromthecoast.com/