B.C. Salmon Farmers Association says: salmon farms all right; critics all wrong
In response to the Ellis report for the David Suzuki Foundation, which raises alarm bells about the environmental impacts of fish farms, the B.C. Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) commissioned their own report. Not surprisingly it condemned Ellis' Net Loss: The Salmon Netcage Industry in British Columbia report.
The BCSFA denies that its operations have any "negative impact" on the environment or on any other fish, denies the need for further monitoring of its activities, and defends the shooting of seals. In brief, the BCSFA opposes any significant changes in current procedures. It also denies that it refused to provide information to Ellis and refused to give him access to fish farming operations.
TROUBLES PLAGUE THE SALMON FARM FEEDLOTS
To combat the diseases and parasites that commonly prosper in the crowded, unnatural conditions of netcages, salmon farmers rely heavily on mind-boggling arrays of chemicals and drugs, including antibiotics. The total tonnage of chemical dosage has declined in recent years but only because various vaccines are now incorporated (along with flesh colorants) in the feeds.
At least three-quarters of most antibiotics in feed, says a 1997 report for the U.S.-based Consultative Group on Biological Diversity, is lost to the environment, whether the feed is eaten or not. Little is known about the fate and effects of these drugs, although it's clear they do escape to immediately surrounding waters and can accumlate in sediments and animals.
Dr, Julian Davies, head of the Department of Microbiology and immunology at the University of B.C., was quoted last year in a newspaper article saying that humans can pick up antibiotic-resistant bacteria by eating farmed salmon or other species that have incidentally taken up the bacteria.
Scottish salmon farmers found recently that more than half of the bacteria that cause furunculosis had developed resistance to treatment with oxolinic acid, a commonly used antibiotic.
The release of captive-raised salmon to enhance wild runs has been implicated in the spread of a deadly desease called Gyrodactylus salaris to wild salmon in Norway. Despite radical and costly treatment, infected rivers in Norway have become re-infected.
In the effluent from salmon netcage operations in our waters, you might find such tongue-twister chemicals as Oxytetracycline, Trimethoprim-sulfadiazine, ormethoprim-sulfadimethoxine, Erythromycin, Enrofloxacin and Florfenicol. See if you enjoy putting THAT on the barbecue.
In 1989 a disease caused by a previously unknown strain of the Rickettsian bacterium broke out among farmed chinook salmon in Chile. The disease has caused up to 90 percent losses among the farmed fish, and was found to infect both Pacific and Atlantic salmon. And some kinds of Rickettsia cause human illnesses such as typhus.
In June last year the Washinton State Pollution Control Hearings Board ruled that Atlantic salmon are a "living pollutant" when they escape from salmon pens. Since 1991, more than 500,000 farmed Atlantic salmon have escaped into the waters of Puget Sound.
