Tag Archives: Stan Proboszcz

Rivers & Oceans

Waiting for DFO to decide the fate of open-net pen fish farms

Sometime in the next three weeks, Canada’s Minister of Fisheries, Joyce Murray, will decide whether the licenses for 79 fish farms will be renewed. 

“I heard a rumour that the minister laid out her options or her ideas to cabinet and cabinet has the plans right now. They’re  figuring out what to do. We can expect an announcement quite shortly on the plan around the transition of farms out of British Columbia and also the licensing decision,” said Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist with the Watershed Watch Salmon Society.

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Rivers & Oceans

Before the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans: Was DFO’s ‘minimal risk’ assessment a cover-up?

(Click here to access other presentations taken from the Committee.)

At the May 12 session of the Standing Committee on Fisheries and Oceans, Stan Proboszcz, senior scientist at the Watershed Watch Salmon Society suggested that DFO covered-up some of its own research when it concluded fish farms pose ‘minimal risk’ to wild salmon. He said they appear to have reduced the number of science risk assessments from 10 to 9 because the evidence indicated sea lice harm wild sockeye.

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Rivers & Oceans

Court ruling doesn’t sink Ottawa’s decision to close Discovery Islands salmon farms, critics say

Click here for ‘Federal court rules DFO breached salmon farmers rights to procedural fairness’

National Observer, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

West Coast environmental groups and First Nations opposed to salmon farming are urging the federal Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray to hold the line after a recent court ruling set aside a decision by her predecessor to phase out salmon farming in the Discovery Islands. 

The Federal Court ruling found then-fisheries minister Bernadette Jordan contravened the right of procedural fairness owed to fish farm companies when deciding to shut down 19 operations in the waters near Campbell River on eastern Vancouver Island by the end of June. 

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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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