Moving salmon farms on land vital
You may have heard that the federal government has a new minister of Fisheries, Oceans and Canadian Coast Guard.
Unlike his predecessor from the east, Jonathan Wilkinson is a West Coast man. Also unlike his predecessor, he will understand what the wild salmon mean to all of us on the B.C. coast. From Indigenous communities to whom the salmon have given physical and spiritual sustenance for millennia, to tourist and commercial fishing, and all of us who want to eat wild salmon that is unadulterated from chemicals; to bears and marine animals who depend on the wild runs, and the forests who are fed by salmon carcasses, the wild salmon is part of who we all are.
To protect the wild salmon from farmed open net pens, where blood, guts and lice, as well as escaping Atlantic salmon, weaken our wild stock, there is a solution. Like it or not, farmed salmon are here to stay, and the best we can do to protect our coastal waters is to get them on shore, away from the ocean. New technology is fuelling land-based farms that produce vast quantities of fish in a cleaner water flow, but when the choice is between the devil and the deep blue sea, let’s chose the deep blue sea.
Please take five minutes to write, no postage required, to the new minister at House of Commons, Ottawa, K1A 0A6, and ask him to protect our wild salmon by moving fish pens on land. Deal with the excrement that produces at another time!
Paula Foot
Duncan