Farmed and Dangerous Wild Salmon Dinner at Aurora Bistro

In the course of a delicious four course dinner at Aurora Bistro last night, the case for halting salmon farming in BC was made by Dom Repta of the Campaign for Aquaculture reform, Friends of Clayoquot Sound and Farmed and Dangerous, and Paul Kershaw (a fisherman who related his first hand experience on the negative impact of salmon farming on prawns and herring). It can be summarized as follows:

• Escapes - the fish can escape and since Atlantic salmon (which are more predatory than Pacific salmon) are used, can disrupt the ecosystem negatively.
• Waste - salmon farms have a 60 km footprint with lots of fecal matter and are typically in high tidal zones which means the considerable waste generated by a salmon farm are spread widely
• Industrial and Chemical Use - e.g. Salmon farms routinely use SLICE a pesticide that's supposed to be only used for emergency
• Parasites and Disease - 70 times greater than natural salmon levels

Definitely a controversial subject. My bias is towards wild salmon only, do we really need to farm salmon? I don't think so! Especially when we can't contain them and isolate the farmed salmon from the ecosystem! What do you think? Please leave a comment or send an email. All non constructive feedback as per our usual site policies will be deleted without notice!