A new study led by the Pacific Salmon Foundation and four nations in the north of Vancouver island suggests that the water collected near the Active Open Network Farms contains four times more harmful pathogens for the wild salmon than the samples collected near the inactive salmon farms.
The study, published in the magazine reviewed by Pares Scientific Reports, examined environmental DNA to determine the levels of bacteria, fungi and viruses that were previously demonstrated that they were harmful to wild salmon.
The Pacific Salmon Foundation says that the researchers collected samples of areas around the Boughton archipelago near North Vancouver island, including active and inactive open salmon farms.
“That gives us confirmation that salmon farms can contain and amplify the pathogens they can … therefore affect the wild salmon that lives in the area,” said Emiliano Di Cicco, a foundation researcher.
“We are a strong defender of getting the farms out of the water in a closed containment or any type of containment that protects the wild fish from the elimination of what comes out of farms.”
Di Cicco says that, of all the factors that affect salmon populations, including climate change, open network salmon farms are a risk that can be more easily eliminated.
$ 1.17B in annual economic activity
The salmon farms of the Open Network Atlantic are a controversial issue in many BC coastal communities.
Some coastal groups of the first and environmental have opposed the agriculture of Open Network, saying that they are linked to the transfer of wild salmon diseases.
The federal government has decided to close the open salmon farms of the province by 2029.
But the BC Salmon Farmers association says that the province could lose up to $ 1.17 billion in economic activity and 4,560 full -time jobs if Open Network Salmon agriculture is no longer allowed.
The association has strongly discredited this latest investigation, saying that the results overestimate the risk of pathogens to wild salmon.
The study is defective, salmon farmers say
Gary Marty, Senior Pathology Consultant of the Association, says that all animal populations have a disease.
“Anywhere where we have many animals, we will have more diseases than anywhere where we don’t have many animals,” Mary told CBC News.
“We also have wild salmon that sometimes migrates sometimes, and there is likely that there is a lot of illness near those wild salmon.”
Marty says there is little difference in the trends of the population of wild salmon near Salmon farms compared to populations that are not exposed to them.
In a written statement, the association says that the study shows “inconsistencies and data integrity problems.”
‘We call it’
The hereditary chief Ernest Alfred with Namgis First Nation, one of the four nations that includes the Brouchton aquaculture transition initiative, does not agree.
Alfred says that Salmon populations have recovered since most of the Open Network Salmon farms around the Boughton archipelago closed two years ago.
“In the whole place, we are seeing that dramatic numbers return, and this will have an impact on the entire coast,” News told CBC. “We called it. We said that you know if you eliminate the farms, this would happen.”
Alfred says that the Namgis were forced to participate in the investigation after seeing the decrease in the salmon number of the BC coast and after repeatedly listening to the industry and the government that there were not enough data to support the closure.
“For our people, the security of our wild salmon is essential,” he said. “It was easy for us to go aboard with the idea of ​​collecting that data and going to work and put our boots on the floor, so to speak.”
