I don't disagree with aquaculture in principle, but it's being done dangerously and with little concern for the wild stocks. As a residence of a province where sea pen aquaculture is being pushed as the saviour of the fishing industry, this typed of article turns my stomach.

Brad

Fish farms linked to sea lice outbreak
Parasite found on farmed B.C. salmon infecting wild fish stocks, scientists say
CATHRYN ATKINSON

Special to The Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- For the first time in Canada, scientists have used data from the world's largest aquaculture company to draw a link between sea lice from Atlantic salmon on British Columbia fish farms and soaring infection rates in wild salmon migrating nearby.

After an infestation caused the near collapse of wild spring salmon stocks in the Broughton Archipelago in 2002, Craig Orr, executive director of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, collected information from the Norwegian company Marine Harvest on sea lice at its fish farms in the region.

"We had predicted 3.6 million [wild] salmon returning to the Broughton in 2002. What we got back, according to the [Department of] Fisheries and Oceans count, was 147,000 fish - a 97-per-cent crash that was only in the Broughton," said Dr. Orr, who is also the science co-ordinator for the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform.

Watershed Watch is a non-governmental organization that monitors B.C. water systems.

Dr. Orr also studied a sea lice action plan brought in by the provincial government after the collapse -- the only time any such plan to curb sea lice population growth has occurred in B.C. -- in his search for growth patterns in the parasite's demographics.
The results were published last week in an article for the North American Journal of Fisheries Management.

Dr. Orr discovered that 12 active, open net-cage farms in the Broughton, which is composed of dozens of islands between the B.C. mainland and the northern tip of Vancouver Island, contained between one and five million Atlantic salmon and produced billions of lice eggs over an 18-month period in 2003 and 2004. Louse-egg production peaked during late winter in both years, just before the seaward migration of juvenile wild salmon.

His article confirms that when lice-egg production was reduced by early harvesting of farmed salmon, infections on wild juvenile salmon near the farms declined dramatically -- including a 42-fold reduction near one emptied farm.

"What we do now know is what's happening on these farms. And it's transparent, finally. And that's critical," Dr. Orr said.

"We do hope that the [government] management agencies and the industry are willing to work towards reducing those peaks of lice just before the juvenile fish come out. That's why we're doing all this."

He praised Marine Harvest for making the data available, something aquaculture companies have done in Europe but not yet in Canada.

Dr. Orr said he wants to see a change in practices, especially from the provincial government, which oversees fish farming in British Columbia.

"We are critical of government because they aren't producing data. They aren't making these companies share the data like they are in Europe, with the exception of Marine Harvest -- and they didn't make them. [Marine Harvest] volunteered it," Dr. Orr said.

The migration of wild spring salmon usually begins in the first days of March.