CKNW Editorial
for July 13, 2001
So you think old Rafe has gone a bit overboard in his crusade against Salmon farming? Well, if so, you might be interested in a story in last Sundays London Sunday Times. There the usual problems are reported with respect to salmon farms in the north of Scotland. Pollution from fish cages has turned the wild salmon into an endangered species. Recent studies, reports the Sunday Times, have found that food and waste from fish cages can and does blanket the sea bed and damage wildlife over a wide area. And of course there is the sea lice problem that has wiped out the sea trout on the west coast of Ireland. They dont have the problem that we do where escaped fish dislodge native fish from their spawning grounds thats because the farmed fish and the native fish are the same salmo salar. What has happened, though, is an interbreeding that potentially damages the gene pool the very thing we wont have here until, of course, our rivers are full of spawning Atlantic salmon, descendants of escaped fish now interbreeding with new escapees.
But thats only incidental to the Sunday Times article which focuses on the farmed salmon as a food. To start with, farmed fish have four times as much fat as native fish. This, of course, is deliberate. Fat fish weigh more and bring more on the market. Sounds pretty smart, doesnt it? Except it is not smart to eat these beasts says the University of Surrey which has conducted extensive tests.
For one thing, when consumers eat farmed fish its not like eating a wild fish because all that extra fat makes the fish closer to bacon than fish. If youre eating fish to keep your weight down, you might just as well eat a few rashers of nice fat pork bacon.
But thats not the half of it. Fat is where dioxyns, PCBs and organo-chlorine pesticides are stored. And farmed fish get these noxious substances in the wild, as we all do, and from their feed. Having stored all these lovely things in their increased fat, they pass it all along to you. One study reveals that consumption of one 3½ ounce portion of farmed salmon a week would exceed the maximum acceptable doses of dioxyns. The British Food Standards Agency says that although eating two portions of fish a week remains safe, only one of those should be from farmed fish.
Do these studies apply to Atlantic salmon fed and raised in British Columbia? Im not certain but I certainly intend to find out. What is distressing is that these studies producing this information are coming out long after the genie has been let out of the bottle.
While he hasnt the guts to come on this show and answer the questions before you, here are some questions to pose to Fisheries Minister, our very own Herb Dhaliwal.
1.Are escaped Atlantic salmon now occupying spawning beds normally used by Pacific Salmon, which latter salmon are already endangered?
2.Do you think its just coincidence that huge sea lice populations, in farmed areas off Ireland, have killed off the sea trout populations? And is it just coincidence that were finding Pacific Salmon in areas of fish farms covered by sea lice?
3.Have you examined what happened in Norway when diseases from farmed fish virtually wiped out wild salmon stocks?
4.Do you dispute studies that show that uneaten food and fish waste from farm cages pose a huge environmental problem?
5.How safe is it to eat farmed salmon? Have you had any independent tests done? On which farms? How many samples? Are they random tests? If you do test, how often?
6.Much of the food given penned fish is itself fish product. Have you researched what environmental and ecological impact that has?
7.Why is the onus upon the public to demonstrate that fish farming is harmful? Why shouldnt the onus of proving fish farms are safe rest with the industry? And, given that both the health of our native fish and indeed those who consume farmed salmon is at risk, shouldnt that onus be a very high one indeed?
8.Finally, will you appoint an independent commission to examine these and all other questions concerning ocean fish farming?
What this is all about, folks, is money. There is more money by far in fish farming than in the wild fishery, commercial and sports combined. Just as there is more money by far in a dam of the Fraser River north of Lytton that there is in the Stuart system sockeye runs. Mr Dhaliwal and his provincial counterpart, Mr Van Dongen, are relying on two things
1.that they can create a fair accompli so that the omelet can never be made into eggs again
2.that British Columbians put money ahead of conserving the wonderful seven species of salmon that are the provinces signature.
And, I suppose, the ministers may be right. Perhaps we are prepared to see our salmon go the way of the carrier pigeon as long as theres money in it.
I intend to assume that is not the case and that preserving our salmon resources is worth more to us than profits in the hands of foreign owned fish farms with some low paying jobs connected to them.
I may be proved wrong about my fellow citizens but Ill feel a hell of a lot truer to myself and my kids heritage if I indulge myself in the assumption than no amount of money is sufficient to sacrifice our heritage and that the same spirit that saw us give up loads of power to the City of Seattle to save the city that saw us fight Alcans desire to produce electricity for sale at the risk of our salmon that saw us fight to save the upper pit from gravel mining that this spirit will rally to the defence of seven old friends called Chinook, Coho, Pink, Sockeye, Chum, Rainbow and Cutthroat.