Vancouver is world-famous for its livability and beautiful surrounding environment. However, outside the city, along the Pacific coast, the salmon farming industry is wreaking havoc on the marine environment and contributing to the decline of wild salmon.

The British Columbia coast has over 100 net-cage salmon farms. Mesh cages float in the ocean holding close to a million farmed fish. Not only does this allow waste and diseases from the farm to flow freely into the marine environment, the stationary farms packed with fish also create favourable conditions for parasitic sea lice infestations.

British Columbia's wild west coast is home to thousands of wild salmon runs making it impossible to site a net-cage away from wild salmon streams or rivers. Sea lice infestations on salmon farms create  reservoirs of infection that young wild salmon must pass through as they migrate out to sea. Sea lice are a lethal threat to wild salmon. Check out this short video for more details.

Net-cage salmon farm in the Broughton Archipelago. Photo by Stan Proboszcz

Industry impacts don't end at sea lice either. Heavy reliance on antibiotics and pesticide treatments for disease and lice; use of colourants to turn the otherwise grey flesh of a farmed fish to a familiar 'salmon' colour; escapes of tens of thousands of farmed fish where they compete with wild salmon; the killing of predators like seals and sea lions trying to access the pens of fish; and the use of far more wild fish in salmon feed than farmed fish produced are all common.

Impacts like sea lice are felt locally, but the salmon farming industry is global: 92% of BC net-cage salmon farms are controlled by three Norwegian companies and 85% of farmed salmon raised in BC is exported, primarily to the United States.

Be part of the solution!

Whether you live in BC, another province, or another country, here are four simple steps you can take that will make a big difference:

1. Don’t eat farmed salmon until industry cleans up its act. Net-cage salmon farming is a global industry, choosing not to buy net-cage farmed salmon wherever you shop or dine is the first step in expressing your support for better practices. Ask your grocer and favorite restaurants not to sell it until the industry adopts more sustainable practices and to encourage their suppliers to ask for improvements too.
    
2. Support businesses that help protect wild salmon. Visit SalmonSupporters.com to find a restaurant or retailer in North America that has committed to not sell net-cage farmed salmon.
    
3. Urge the Canadian and British Columbia governments to transition salmon farms from net-cages to closed containment systems. A better way to farm salmon already exists.
    
4. Find out more about the importance of the Wild Salmon Narrows, a significant wild salmon migration route in BC, and join the campaign.

Check out the rest of our website for further information on salmon farming problems and solutions.

For CAAR Media Contacts, click here.

The initiative to choose better salmon is brought to you by the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR), a coalition of five conservation groups working to protect our Pacific coast from the impacts of open net-cage salmon farming. CAAR works to foster change in government policy and advocates for a shift to closed containment technology for salmon aquaculture in Canada.