Re: We Wai Kai Nation members: “We don’t want the fish farms in our territory”, says petition.
Petition organizer Barbara McCoy provides another example of some of the misinformation circulating around the issue of salmon farming in B.C. and elsewhere. Her assertion that the farms “are killing off all the wild salmon by attracting baby salmon that go into the net pens and get eaten by the older, farmed fish” is not supported by research conducted by the Department of Fisheries and Oceans.
Since the spring of 2017, DFO has been sampling the stomach contents of farmed Chinook and Atlantic salmon in B.C. to see if they contain any wild fish. All of the major salmon farming companies are providing access to their processing plants for this purpose. The results show very low levels of predation, consistent with the results of previous studies.
In 7,200 harvest-sized fish randomly sampled, 9 wild fish were found, making the prevalence 0.125 per cent. Six of these fish were herring, while three could not be identified, but were most likely herring, according to DFO.
Odd Grydeland
Campbell River