Where to start...
The website does have some useful information but it shouldn't be the only source of ones info because half the info is taken out of context for a specific time, specifically sea lice.This problem is better managed now and they only use pesticide at certain times of the year.This was only a reaction to harm that was caused to the wild juvenile salmon runs passing the farms at the time.
.And the info that's mentioned about the large amt of effluent being good for the environment ?please...... people see through that bs and no effluent is effluent .Purely bunk spin .
They try to compare Alaska salmon ranching to farming ,which clearly are different ways to produce fish, throughout the life of the fish .Its true that the ranched fish start out in pens, but for a very short time ,the fish spend majority of the life in the ocean ,a more natural way to grow.If you look at the hatchery system in bc its fairly similar,trout and salmon which are raised to size then released .This enables the fish to forage naturally ,vs farming where they have to use 1.5 kgs of feed for 1 kg of fish .
What specific science are you referring to is what I asked. You talked about bunk, out of context, slanted science. Ok, what science are you referring to? If it is easier pick out a blog post from that website. Where is this information about large amounts of effluent? Maybe start there.
Sea lice management likely has improved not unlike most aquaculture husbandry in BC. I do not think agriculture on land went off without a hitch either. I have no doubt when the industry first started out here it was not easy going especially when trying to cultivate Pacific Salmon species. Now the BC industry here is likely more regulated than other places in the world. What happened following that 2002 return was the creation of the Broughton Archipelago Monitoring Plan (BAMP) – involving salmon farms, conservationists, government and university academia. It is more than just using SLICE. Again, what do you actually know about sea lice management and monitoring before making the comments you are making now.
http://bamp.ca/pages/home.phpAs for the “harm” that was caused to the wild juvenile salmon runs passing the farms at the time that sort of implies that the farms were the sole cause of low survival of the 2000 Pink Salmon brood year in that area. Talk about half the information taken out of context because if you had read the report commissioned by the Suzuki Foundation they didn’t necessarily point the finger solely at salmon farms in the area. Not to mention the diagnostic work that was not even attempted on the Pink Salmon juveniles to rule out and bacterial or viral infection.
On a similar note, Dr. Brian Riddell (former Head of Science at DFO out here, now leads the Pacific Salmon Foundation) suggested that Krkosek et al 2007 in their study that predicted 99% collapse of Pink Salmon in the Broughton area erroneously used 2000 (record high escapement) as their starting point and a record low in 2002. Using such a short time series with such extremes it was inevitable that mathematical models were going to show negative productivity, he suggests. Personally, what he says makes sense because making bold predictions of Pink Salmon escapements using mathematical models over such a short time series has some degree of uncertainty.
Why not compare salmon ranching to salmon farming? One important thing that needs to be mentioned is that ranched salmon are not wild. That is just a marketing thing because ranched salmon are artificially propagated with broodstock collected and selected by humans. The only difference really is that ranched salmon are grown to a sufficient size in ocean net pens where they are large enough to be released to the open ocean to feed on their own (i.e. a more natural way?). Well, it may seem natural, but there is nothing natural about salmon ranching. You make it appear that because these ranched salmon spend the majority of their life in the ocean that their impacts are benign. However, there is growing research now that the billions of ranched salmon (mostly Pink, but also Sockeye) being released by US (Alaska), Russia, Japan and South Korea are having an impact on wild salmon through competition. How are wild Chinook salmon stocks doing in Alaska? Not great. If you had read the Cohen Final report you would have read testimony from Dr. Randall Peterman where he suggests that increasing competition from Pink Salmon could be real concern for wild salmon, in this case Fraser Sockeye. Not mentioned by fish farm critics like Morton, but others like Watershed Watch Salmon Society see this as a growing issue. Generally, Pink Salmon abundance in the North Pacific have increased significantly over the last decade.
Federal hatcheries do not release juveniles directly into the ocean and do not release billions annually into the ocean like the countries I mention above. As for food conversion ratio, it is 1.2:1 and is better than any agricultural animal on land. These ranched salmon are foraging naturally? Sure they are when they are in the ocean, but they are eating off the same plate as wild salmon stocks. Many researchers are concerned about this, it is something not mentioned by many fish farm critics.
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Topic: Get your facts straight? (Read 1346140 times)