Fish-farm friends, foes square off over industry's future

CANADA - The morning's first speaker accused the B.C. fish-farm industry of lying and described aquaculture practices in this province as a "global embarrassment.''

The next five presenters in a row spoke in favour of the industry. And one said his fish-farming company has fallen victim to misinformation by environmental groups.

This is the polarized world in which the provincial government's select standing committee on sustainable aquaculture operates. There is precious little middle ground when the subject is fish farms and their impact on wild salmon and the ocean environment.

Michael Price, a Saanich biologist who works for the Raincoast Conservation Society, led off yesterday's public hearing at the legislature by attacking industry and government claims that escapes of Atlantic farmed salmon have been cut to negligible numbers in the last few years.

Source: Times Colonist