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[oni_kage]

Thousands of salmon escape from B.C.’s largest farm
 
 
By Susan Lazaruk, Vancouver ProvinceOctober 24, 2009
 
 

VANCOUVER — Marine conservationists are asking fish farms to contain their Atlantic salmon fisheries after B.C.’s largest farm lost an estimated 40,000 adult fish through several holes in its net pens at its Port Elizabeth plant.

The 40,000 fish, almost five kilograms each on average, were healthy and close to their harvest weight, said Clare Backman of Marine Harvest Canada.

An investigation will determine what caused the holes and exact numbers lost, Backman said.

The fish represented more than a third of the population of the two pens — but at a total of 20 tonnes, it’s just a small fraction of the 40,000 tonnes produced each year by the company.

Marine Harvest has 18 million fish in its farms at any one time, about half of all farmed salmon in B.C., but the loss is worth $1 million, Backman said.

“We don’t like to see this happen,” he said. “If you lose too many fish, people lose their jobs” at the processing plants.

Will Soltau of Living Oceans Society in Sointula said a gillnetter friend of his caught Atlantic salmon — possibly some of the escaped fish — north of Malcolm Island, about 25 nautical miles from the farm.

The escape strengthens the society’s call for fish farms to switch to containment pens to prevent such losses, he said.

The invasion of non-native species into the ecosystem can disturb the Pacific salmon’s egg-laying sites and compete with them for food, he said.

The fish don’t interbreed.

Soltau called on the provincial and federal governments to fund research into a containment system for farmed fish, a proposal Backman said his company supports.

In the meantime, the escaped fish — which Backman said were healthy, never treated with antibiotics and were last fed pesticides in January to treat sea lice, chemicals that have long cleared from their systems — are free for the taking.

“They’re really beautiful fish,” he said. “Anybody who intercepts them out there, there are no restrictions on enjoying them.”

Vancouver Province

slazaruk@theprovince.com
© Copyright (c) Canwest News Service

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Thousands+salmon+escape+from+largest+farm/2142064/story.html

[troutbreath]

In the meantime, the escaped fish — which Backman said were healthy, never treated with antibiotics and were last fed pesticides in January to treat sea lice, chemicals that have long cleared from their systems — are free for the taking.



Goes double for me. I prefer the pesticides to antibiotics anyday.

[scotkemp]

woo hoo

FISH 1
GOVERNMENT 0

[troutbreath]

Escaped farmed salmon can hunt prey, biologist says
 
Smolt found in stomach of Atlantic salmon believed to indicate danger for the wild variety
 
By Judith Lavoie, Canwest News ServiceOctober 28, 2009
 
A wild Pacific salmon smolt found in the stomach of an Atlantic salmon on the lam shows escaped farm fish are capable of hunting prey, says a prominent critic of fish farms.

The smolt was found in the stomach of one of an estimated 40,000 fish that escaped last week from fish-farming company Marine Harvest Canada's Port Elizabeth farm in the Broughton Archipelago.

Biologist Alexandra Morton said she examined the stomachs of 20 escapers and at least one had been hunting during its two days on the loose.

"It was a 12-pound male Atlantic and it also had some other fish in its intestine," Morton said.

It's extremely unusual for a farm fish to hunt, according to Clare Backman, Marine Harvest director of environmental operations.

"It is certainly outside our experience. Our fish are cued in on little brown pellets," Backman said.

Morton said the 12-pound Atlantic was caught two days after the Marine Harvest fish escape and was 40 kilometres away in the company of several other farmed salmon.

"For farm fish in the wild environment, we always hear the biggest hurdle is eating wild food, but this does make you think this fish had experience capturing live prey," she said.

It is a worry, not only because of escaped fish catching wild smolts at a time of year when there are few around, but also because it suggests farm fish are eating wild fish attracted to farm pens by lights and food, said Morton, who this summer collected evidence of wild juvenile salmon, black cod, rock cod and herring in pens.

"Marine Harvest told me that, even if they get in there, their fish don't eat them. But if this fish can do this, I believe they will eat the wild fish in the pens," she said.

Andrew Thomson, department of fisheries and oceans regional aquaculture director, said research he conducted several years ago found fewer than five per cent of Atlantic salmon had prey in their stomachs when caught.

The average for Pacific salmon is 75 to 80 per cent, Thomson said.

"So it seems Atlantic salmon do feed on prey less successfully," he said, adding that researchers often found wood and bark, which resembled pellets, in the stomachs.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun





So you either need to be netiing them to catch the escaped ones or using pellets or Backman is full of it.

[Easywater]

It's extremely unusual for a farm fish to hunt, according to Clare Backman, Marine Harvest director of environmental operations.

Not too many pellets swimming around in the open ocean so they are going to eat other fish or starve to death.

Sad to see DFO still protecting fish farms.

[chris gadsden]

Ms. Jean Crowder (Nanaimo—Cowichan, NDP): Mr. Speaker, the escape of 40,000 Atlantic salmon off the B.C. coast will damage the already decimated Pacific salmon stocks, a fact the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans has failed to grasp. Last week, the minister gave permission to a B.C. fish farm to recapture these fugitive fish. It seems a little like closing the barn door after the horse has left.

    DFO already cannot find 9 million Fraser sockeye that disappeared earlier this year.

How do they expect to find 40,000 escaped salmon?

Will the minister come out of hiding and deal with B.C.'s collapsing salmon fisheries?

 

Expand

Hon. Gail Shea (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, CPC)

Collapse

    Hon. Gail Shea (Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, CPC): Mr. Speaker, I can assure the hon. member that the sustainability of our fish and seafood sector, including wild fish and farmed fish, is very important to this government.

    We did deal with the escape of the farmed fish. This is under jurisdiction of the province of British Columbia, but we are working with them.

We will be bringing forward a plan to deal with the low returns of sockeye salmon in the Fraser River.