Alexandra Morton followed a pod of resident Orcas up the coast of Vancouver Island in 1984. She found the ideal base for further studies at Echo Bay. When the first fish farms moved into the area three years later, she thought they were a good idea. Since then, she has becomes the foremost opponent of British Columbia’s fish farms. I recently interviewed Alexandrea Morton on fish farms.

Alexandra Morton on Salmon Farms

“When the salmon farms first showed up … I thought they would bring employment to my tiny community. Echo Bay had about 200 people; no electricity; no roads; no stores. It was very self sufficient. I thought fish farms would provide relief to wild salmon. This is what government told us and, I didn’t really think it through, but it sounded good,” she says

Then local fishermen started telling her that the farms were going into “all the wrong places” – the places where fish congregate.

“It made sense because they were fish, and the wild salmon were fish and they needed the same things. They needed oxygen, they needed a certain amount of water flow, they needed a certain temperature.”

Opposing Fish Farms

Morton’s first step in opposing the fish farms was simply conveying the fishermen’s concerns to the local authorities. Her most recent is a lawsuit.  In the podcast above, Alexandra Morton talks about

• Her march to Victoria
• Piscine reovirus (PRV) as the most likely cause of Heart and Skeletal Muscle Inflammation (HSMI)
• The Salmon Confidential Documentary
• PRV at Marine Harvest’s Dalrymple hatchery
• Her lawsuit with the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Marine Harvest

Originally broadcast on Cortes Community Radio, CKTZ 89.5 FM,   Tuesday, July 15,  starting 12:00 pm

Links

Click on this link to access Alexandra Morton’s webpage and this is her “typepad“

Click here to access more stories about Alexandra Morton on the ECOreport.