Radio Script
1998

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Fuming About Fish Farming
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STORY: Just north of Vancouver, British Columbia, is Johnstone Strait. There, the Pacific Ocean mingles with dozens of densely forested islands. The region is famous for its mountain vistas, migrating whales and wild salmon. But, increasingly, there's another sight that's catching people's attention. Dozens of large circular pens dot the quiet bays and inlets of Johnstone Strait. Inside the pens are millions of farmed Atlantic salmon. Growing salmon in pens is a lot easier than catching them in the wild, but it may not be good for the environment.

David Ellis is an investigative researcher for the nonprofit Suzuki Foundation, and he's author of a report called "Net Loss." The report describes the environmental hazards of salmon farming. Ellis says farmed salmon carry diseases--one of the most serious is called IHN. He says IHN in farmed salmon could be passed to wild salmon that spawn nearby.

ELLIS: "It's really happening. Our Fraser River sockeye salmon are migrating every year past farms that are infected with the disease to which they are highly susceptible. It's only a matter of time before the Fraser River sockeye are affected to some degree by this disease."

Fecal waste from fish farms are also a concern. Ellis says the eight to ten million salmon in pens around Johnstone Strait create the waste equivalent of a city of 500,000 people.

ELLIS: "We're allowing extremely large farms. They've gone to very large circular structures now. And there's a lot of poop beneath them and it's going to be a problem. And of course you also damage the ecosystem, the benthic life down there. Local people will tell you it's a dead zone beneath the farms and that's absolutely true."

Salmon farming is a major industry in British Columbia, employing 2,100 people and generating $165 million dollars in sales each year. Still, David Ellis of the Suzuki Foundation says the economic benefits don't outweigh the environmental troubles he says are sure to follow. Chief among them, he says, is the possibility that farmed salmon will escape their pens and out-compete their wild cousins for limited spawning habitat. Ellis cites data from the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association that 64,000 farmed salmon escaped their pens in 1994.

ELLIS: "Now we have a situation where our spawning beds in many areas are vacant, through poor management, too much fishing, and poor survival. The Atlantics have every chance to do their thing and adapt and spawn."

There is of course another side to this story. However, phone calls made to the British Columbia Salmon Farmers Association were not returned. They do have an Internet web page where the concerns David Ellis raises are addressed. According to the B.C. Salmon Farmer's Association, there is no evidence that disease has ever been transmitted from farmed salmon to their wild cousins. Further, the association cited Canadian government studies that found that of the 64,000 Atlantic salmon that escaped in 1994, only two were ever found in wild salmon spawning areas.

OUTRO: For Arctic Science Journeys, this is Robert Hannon reporting from Fairbanks, Alaska.