Years of scientific research has built a global body of evidence that clearly shows open net-cage salmon farms cause ecosystem harm everywhere they are located.

CAAR demands all open net-cage farms be removed from marine waters and moved to closed containment, but emergency measures are necessary while we work towards these longer term goals. We are working on emergency protection measures in the Broughton Archipelago and the northern Georgia Strait.

A migration corridor fallow plan negotiated between CAAR and Marine Harvest Canada (Coordinated Area Management Plan (CAMP)) is underway in the Broughton Archipelago, and we hope to be bringing some interim relief to the area’s wild salmon.

This year, as the Broughton’s wild juvenile salmon migrated seaward through Tribune Channel and Fife Sound, all but one of the large Marine Harvest Canada salmon farms along their direct path is empty of adult, lice-bearing farmed salmon.

The fallow plan is being actively monitored by a field research team co-funded by CAAR and Marine Harvest. While research outcomes are preliminary at best, the team’s initial findings suggest the fallowing (emptying) of these farms may be having the desired effect; the numbers of sea lice on wild juvenile salmon in the area are substantially lower than in previous years.

The monitoring and research program is overseen by Dr. Crawford Revie and includes field studies on wild salmon and studies of lice levels on farmed salmon. The field team, led by Dr. Martin Krkosek, is careful not to draw firm conclusions. Early indications, however, are positive and CAAR is hopeful the fallowing strategy might significantly reduce the pressure on out-migrating wild juvenile salmon in the Tribune Channel region this year.

CAAR is supporting the extension of the migration corridor plan for the next five years in an effort to provide some interim relief to the Broughton’s wild salmon while long-term solutions that remove net-cages entirely are put in place. The provincial government has not yet approved the license amendments that would allow a fallow route to proceed in the southern Knight Inlet migratory corridor in 2010. CAAR and Marine Harvest are seeking binding mechanisms that would limit the amendments to the next five years, the planned duration of the CAMP, and have agreed to a firm cap on total production in the Broughton at current levels.

Net-cages and the CAMP, however, fail to address a host of other environmental concerns that are affecting the marine ecosystem locally and globally:

• Fish farms still depend on the use of SLICE to reduce sea lice numbers on farmed fish. SLICE is a known neurotoxin and is classified as a marine pollutant. Its use in aquaculture as an additive to feed has not been approved by Health Canada or by the US Food and Drug Administration, which is responsible for regulating chemicals used in food products sold on the US market, by far the largest buyer of Canadian farmed salmon. In depth research has not been conducted on the effects of SLICE on non-target organisms and the environment in BC, making the increased dependence on this chemical an unaddressed issue.
• No re-capture of fish feces, waste feed, or chemical residues.
• No way to prevent the transfer of disease between wild and farmed fish.
• Lethal entanglements of marine mammals.
• The use of more wild fish to make the feed compared with the amount of farmed fish produced (i.e. a net loss of protein).

A long term solution is needed: raising fish that do not deplete wild fish stocks and closed containment systems that allow waste, disease, and marine life interactions to be controlled.

CAAR will continue to work towards the permanent removal of all open net-cage farms and a transition to closed containment systems. But as an interim emergency measure, we are encouraged that our efforts and Marine Harvest’s management measures appear to be helping some of the Broughton’s wild salmon survive this out-migration.

In June, 2008, CAAR announced its cautious support for the Coordinated Area Management Plan (CAMP), a proposal aimed at providing emergency, interim protection for some wild salmon stocks in the Broughton Archipelago. Read the original press release.

In July, 2009, CAAR and Marine Harvest Canada released the preliminary results of our joint sea lice monitoring program. See press release.

For more background information, click here.