Atlantic salmon escape their farm

[AnnaG]

CAMPBELL RIVER, B.C. - About 40,000 Atlantic salmon have escaped from a fish farm on the B.C. coast.

Marine Harvest Canada says the fish escaped on Wednesday from its farm at Port Elizabeth, on the mainland across the water from the northern tip of Vancouver Island.

The company says divers discovered several holes in two pens at the farm and efforts are being made to prevent more escapes from the pens, which still hold thousands of fish.

The Living Oceans environmental group says hundreds of thousands of farmed salmon escape every year.

Conservationists say escaped farm salmon can spread disease and sea lice to wild salmon on the B.C. coast.

They called on the federal and provincial governments to force fish farms to change from closed containment systems from open net pens in coastal waters.

Prince George Citizen - 40,000 salmon escape from B.C. fish farm; new call for closed fish pens

I wish the moron that brought Atlantic salmon to the west coast lives a long miserable life with multiple afflictions.

This Atlantic salmon thing has been going on for years and what have the governments (BC and fed) done? Obfuscate. They should make those Atlantic fish farms move away from shore. Bunch of brain-dead jerks should be made to eat nothing but Atlantic for the rest of their lives. The stuff is as tasty as whitefish. I think I'd sooner eat chum salmon.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Fish farms are toilets.

 

[Cliffy]

Whose brilliant idea was it to bring Atlantic Salmon to the west coast? Why couldn't they farm Pacific varieties? I wouldn't eat that stuff if you paid me.

 

[ironsides]

Free the Salmon
http://www.bassfiles.net/parachute.swf

 

[Tonington]

Whose brilliant idea was it to bring Atlantic Salmon to the west coast? Why couldn't they farm Pacific varieties? I wouldn't eat that stuff if you paid me.

That's like asking why does nearly every dairy farm have holsteins instead of jerseys. Atlantic salmon grow faster than Pacific salmon, and are more tolerant to domestication.

 

[earth_as_one]

Growing Atlantic Salmon in the Pacific should never have been allowed. Its a form of pollution IMO. (genetic pollution)

With GMO technology, this is just the beginning.

 

[ironsides]

Whose brilliant idea was it to bring Atlantic Salmon to the west coast? Why couldn't they farm Pacific varieties? I wouldn't eat that stuff if you paid me.

I am surprised you would eat any farm raised fish. Nothing like wild salmon, healthier with more vitamins and other good stuff lacking in farm raised fish. The only thing the farm raised fish can offer is higher cholesterol.

 

[Johnnny]

lol you guys know about what the pacific salmon species have done to lake huron?

 

[Cliffy]

lol you guys know about what the pacific salmon species have done to lake huron?

How did they get there?

 

[Cliffy]

I am surprised you would eat any farm raised fish. Nothing like wild salmon, healthier with more vitamins and other good stuff lacking in farm raised fish. The only thing the farm raised fish can offer is higher cholesterol.

Truth is I ate some farmed trout once and it tasted like mud. Haven't touched farmed fish since.

 

[gerryh]

How did they get there?

They were stocked to create a sport fishery. Not the same as the what has happened on the west coast. Apples and Oranges.

 

[Johnnny]

regardless of apples and oranges the effects are the same, the salmon in lake huron are ravaging the prey fish and at the same time the zebra mussels are recreating the ecosystem through filter feeding... And bad mix

 

[Tonington]

I am surprised you would eat any farm raised fish. Nothing like wild salmon, healthier with more vitamins and other good stuff lacking in farm raised fish. The only thing the farm raised fish can offer is higher cholesterol.

Most people eat cattle rather than game like deer, moose, or elk as well. The oceans cannot sustain most capture fisheries, because the models used by regulatory agencies like DFO, use the maximum sustainable harvest, which is in fact not sustainable.

Perfect example is the cod fishery. After kicking out foreign trawlers, Canadian ground fishers moved away from inshore fishing with lower numbers and lower costs (maximum economic yield) and embraced the maximum sustainable harvest. Year after year catches were high, until they dropped off the map. The maximum sustainable yield does a very poor job of protecting stocks, because for the most part there is not adequate information about groundfish populations. They seem healthy, up until they aren't.

By using a maximum economic yield, fishers can catch more per unit of catch effort, which seems to keep populations above these thresholds.

Farming fish will be an inevitability as long as these unsustainable quotas are modeled as they have been. A farmed fish cannot compete when there is a vibrant capture fishery. Costs are too high.

 

[#juan]

I don't know how many times large numbers of Atlantic salmon have escaped from one of the fish farms. Atlantic salmon are more aggressive than pacific varieties and I can't help wondering if Atlantic salmon are what wrecked the Sockeye run this year....combined with over-fishing as usual.

 

[Tonington]

In my opinion, the threat posed to smolt runs by the sea louse is by far the greatest impact that aquaculture has on the wild stocks of Pacific salmon. It's an issue that requires further study, one which I would like to find a position somewhere to study the problem in greater detail. The technology used to track fish has recently overcome some technical bottle-necks, and it is now possible to track smolt and adults with great detail.

 

[damngrumpy]

What surprises me is the number of questions, the BC Opposition has been condemning the practice for years, while the present government ignored the
dire warnings. There is a lot of problem with fish products in this country anyway.
Aside from the fish farms, the only fish you should buy is fresh fish the rest comes
from various parts of Asia now. Yes read the labels on those trade mark brands
what you see is not Canadian product, it's imported from places like China and
Thailand. Even Money's Mushroom is from China now and that is why I don't buy
it. Our companies have moved over there for wage and lower food safety
standards at point of origin.

 

[AnnaG]

lol you guys know about what the pacific salmon species have done to lake huron?

Nope. But they shouldn't be there.
What's this got to do with the topic?

 

[AnnaG]

Most people eat cattle rather than game like deer, moose, or elk as well. The oceans cannot sustain most capture fisheries, because the models used by regulatory agencies like DFO, use the maximum sustainable harvest, which is in fact not sustainable.

Perfect example is the cod fishery. After kicking out foreign trawlers, Canadian ground fishers moved away from inshore fishing with lower numbers and lower costs (maximum economic yield) and embraced the maximum sustainable harvest. Year after year catches were high, until they dropped off the map. The maximum sustainable yield does a very poor job of protecting stocks, because for the most part there is not adequate information about groundfish populations. They seem healthy, up until they aren't.

By using a maximum economic yield, fishers can catch more per unit of catch effort, which seems to keep populations above these thresholds.

Farming fish will be an inevitability as long as these unsustainable quotas are modeled as they have been. A farmed fish cannot compete when there is a vibrant capture fishery. Costs are too high.

Exactly. I have nothing against farming fish, IF IT IS DONE RESPONSIBLY. What is going on in BC is NOT.

 

[AnnaG]

I don't know how many times large numbers of Atlantic salmon have escaped from one of the fish farms. Atlantic salmon are more aggressive than pacific varieties and I can't help wondering if Atlantic salmon are what wrecked the Sockeye run this year....combined with over-fishing as usual.

I was wondering that, too.

 

[Niflmir]

Are there any wild bison herds left? Seems to me they were all supplanted by cow ranches. Wait, not all. There are 2 left, apparently.

Eventually the entire planet will be domesticated.