Tag Archives: Fish

Opinion, Rivers & Oceans

Revisiting Phillips Arm fish farm

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[Editor’s note: This is a remake of a 2016 story, with additional material added in Feb 2021 and on Sept 16, 2022. The closest fish farm site to Cortes Island is about 5 miles to the north, off Raza Island. ]

Some people will call this program one sided, which is what happens when you interview the people on one side of an argument. Others will say I was duped, but I would hold Marine Harvest (or MOWI Canada West as it is now called) blameless if they had been more forthright about what they were doing. They were not and, as I do not cover fish farms that often, three years passed before I realized what actually happened. 

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Rivers & Oceans

Twelve fish farm applications: are fish farms really leaving BC’s open waters by 2025?

BC Salmon farming companies applied to put in a new fish farm between the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago and expand their existing facilities at 11 other locations around Vancouver Island. 

Two of the expansions, at Dixon Bay and Plover Point in Clayoquot Sound, have already been granted. 

“We had a promise from federal government whereby they said in mandate letters to the minister of fisheries,  they were going to transition the open net salmon farming industry out of BC by 2025,” explained Stan Proboszcz, Science Advisor of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

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Rivers & Oceans

Environmental groups concerned about potential open-net pen fish farm expansions

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

A coalition of environmental groups is concerned about the potential expansion of open-net pen salmon farming despite a previous promise by Ottawa to phase them out on the West Coast. 

Salmon farming companies have submitted 12 applications — two of which have already been approved — to expand the size or number of net pen operations, and/or to increase the amount of fish produced at sites on the B.C. coast, according to a press release issued by four groups. 

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Indigenous Nations, Rivers & Oceans

The BC Salmon Farmers Association new ‘independent’ sea lice report 

The opinions that follow belong to the people expressing them and are not necessarily shared by Cortes Radio, its board, staff, producers or listeners.

The BC Salmon Farmers Association has just released what they claim is an independent study of ‘Sea lice in the Discovery Islands.’ 

Their study is filled with terms like – “independent data,” “independently collected data,” “independent professional biological consultants,” “independently collected and analyzed scientific data,” “independent monitoring,” “independent sampling,” and “independent biologists” – but does not say who actually did the research. 

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Opinion, Rivers & Oceans

Fish and Watersheds

In recent weeks, Hyacinthe Creek – one of a handful of  salmon bearing streams on Quadra Island – has experienced a few salmon swimming up its waters. Their arrival has not been an easy journey!

Life for all adult salmon, for millennia, has been a series of survival challenges. Depending upon the species, life cycles range from 2 years (Pinks) to 7 years (Chinook). For new born salmon referred to as fry, making it from their Coastal and or Interior BC birth streams to salt water can require many weeks to months of learning what to eat, while being swept over waterfalls to then crash through rapids for many more kilometers downstream. 

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