According to The Hook, the blue-ribbon group of experts from Canada, Norway, the US, Chile and the United Kingdom are calling for the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organization to take notice of what they call the “ruinous tactics” employed by industrial salmon farming in their countries.
The letter is the end product of a year and a half of international meetings, Alexandra Morton told The Hook in a recent phone interview. The final meeting was held last month near Campbell River.
“The research is showing more and more about the negative impacts of fish farming,” she said.
“Only eight to ten thousand pink salmon returned to the Glendale River this fall, on a river that should see up to 100,000 return. When that run left the river for the open ocean, more than 9 per cent of them were infested with sea lice.”
Critics of industrial fish farming believe that one of its major negative impacts on migrating wild salmon is sea lice infestation. According to The Hook, the marine parasites flourish in the crowded pens of fish farms and spread out into the nearby waterways, where migrating salmon are infested.
Further Reading
 |
- | You can view the open letter by clicking here. |