Tag Archives: Discovery Islands fish farms

Rivers & Oceans

DFO Decision: Discovery Island Fish Farms remain closed

According to the Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) press release of February 18, 2022, “There are multiple stressors on wild salmon, including: climate change; habitat degradation and destruction; regulated fishing as well as illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing. Given the state of Wild Pacific Salmon, the Government of Canada is taking a highly precautionary approach to manage Atlantic salmon aquaculture in the Discovery Islands area.”

Licenses for the 15 remaining fish farms in this region will not be reissued.

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Rivers & Oceans

16 scientists condemn ‘scientific failings’ of ‘flawed’ DFO report

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Editor’s note: The following article is joint letter to the Honourable Joyce Murray, Minister of Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard

Academic scientists’ critique of DFO Science Response Report 2022/045

Dear Minister,

We are a group of 16 professors and research scientists who, collectively, have extensive research expertise in fisheries, epidemiology, and the environmental consequences of aquaculture. We write to express our professional dismay at serious scientific failings in a recently published DFO Science Response Report (#2022/045) about sea lice on salmon farms and wild salmon in BC. We are deeply concerned with the report’s flaws and its main, unsupported conclusion: that the presence of parasitic sea lice on wild juvenile salmon is not significantly associated with sea lice from nearby salmon farms.

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Uncategorized

Alexandra Morton: Open Letter to Strathcona Regional District Board

Editor’s note: The transcript that Alexandra Morton refers to, in the following open letter, is actually the transcript of my January 27 radio program. While extremely quote heavy, it is highly edited, considerably shorter, and not a word for word transcript of the meeting.

To the Strathcona Regional District Board,

I read the January 25, 2023, transcript of your Members’ Report on the Open Net Pen Transition. Thank you for the care and thought you are putting into this.  The statement that logging, tourism and fish farming are critical to Campbell River’s existence must be a serious concern given all of these are facing challenges.

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Rivers & Oceans

Tussle over sea lice science unfolds as a federal decision on Discovery Islands salmon farms looms

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

Critics and supporters of West Coast fish farms are at odds over a recent Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) study suggesting sea lice infestations among juvenile wild salmon aren’t strongly tied to aquaculture operations. 

Using industry-reported data, the aquaculture division of DFO analyzed the likelihood that sea lice from salmon farms are causing sea lice outbreaks in wild fish in four areas on the coast.  

There’s a trend showing a positive relationship between the amount of sea lice on farms and on juvenile chum and pink salmon in those areas between 2016 and 2021, but it’s “statistically insignificant,” the study said. 

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Rivers & Oceans

SRD to look at ‘ALL helpful information’ about fish farms

Editor’s note: While there are no fish farms on Cortes Island, there was one on Raza Island directly north of us. The Discovery Island fish farms were in Electoral Area C.  The following article comes very close to being a transcript of my radio broadcast.  

The Strathcona Regional District passed a motion for staff to prepare a report that ‘consolidates the information on open net pen transition provided to the SRD Board prior to October 2022, and updates.’ 

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