Media Release & Recent Articles

Fishing for better farmed salmon answers

Business in Vancouver September 4-10, 2007; issue 932
Public Offerings: Timothy Renshaw

Stop press! Low summer Fraser River sockeye runs not blamed on salmon farms. That's a surprise, because pretty much everything else that has a negative impact on wild fish stocks hereabouts is pinned on salmon farmers by the stokers of B.C.'s anti-aquaculture machinery.

It's frustrating for aquaculturists, but it should likewise be frustrating for the public, because that machinery is promoting business outside B.C. at the expense of local enterprise.

Alaskan salmon spring readily to mind here, and that fishery has been springing to mind especially of late for Vivian Krause.

The former corporate development manager for Nutreco North America has been asking some pointed questions about the anti-fish farming lobby out west. Thus far, she's not getting many answers from such lead anti-fish farm zealots as the David Suzuki Foundation (DSF).

Of course, a lot of people might question Krause's impartiality on the issue, she once being in the employ of the former fish farming behemoth turned feed producer. But it's not Krause's impartiality that's on trial this time around.

The former Kitimat resident, who has post-secondary degrees in nutrition and roots in B.C.'s northern resource towns, has embarked on an inquiry into what she sees as a one-sided assault on B.C.'s salmon farming industry.

The former DSF supporter is concerned that the battering the industry has taken on the North American PR front is diverting evermore business north to Alaska.

That could be a good thing were the battering based on sound science. But, according to Krause, that is not the case.

Her legwork is too detailed to present here. But below are a few key points to which she's still awaiting DSF enlightenment:

* First: a question of underwater impartiality. The DSF gets a lot of its funding from American foundations, some of whom also fund the Alaska Seafood Marketing Institute and other Alaska salmon promoters. The harder the PR caning B.C. farmed salmon gets, the more consumers opt for wild salmon, most of which now comes from Alaska. So if the funding organizations aren't impartial, how impartial is the research they pay for?

* Is it really wild, and is it really better for salmon biodiversity?

A lot of the salmon considered wild and sourced from Alaska is 'ranched' - hatchery fish that are released into the wild: more than six billion annually into the Pacific Ocean, 1.5 billion from Alaska.

So what, say you? Sounds more or less wild.

Have a listen to Jan Konigsberg, Trout Unlimited's former salmonid biodiversity director, as quoted by Krause from a 2003 world salmon summit address: 'Hatchery-dependent fisheries are neither wild nor self-sustaining. Therefore, encouraging consumers to avoid farmed salmon and opt for Alaska salmon supports Alaska's salmon-ranching program, which poses a far greater threat to Alaska's salmon biodiversity than does salmon farming.'

Krause also maintains that these claims are not supported by sound science:
• eating farmed salmon is a health hazard;
• farmed salmon contain high levels of such contaminants as PCBs; and
• sea lice kill up to 95% of juvenile wild salmon.

None of her detailed questions to DSF related to these and other issues have been afforded more than cursory response.

Krause concedes that salmon farming isn't perfect. But it's improving, and it provides jobs and revenue opportunities for native and other communities that have been hard hit by coastal forestry downturns.

Preachers from the environmental pulpit sell the salmon game as black (farmed salmon bad) and white (wild salmon good).

But in the real world of jobs, business and community survival, reality has far more shades of gray.

Salmon farming has great potential to contribute to B.C.'s food chain and economy. The DSF would be providing a more valuable service to British Columbians were it to be an impartial advocate of better food choices, whichever side of the political fence they fall, rather than a knee-jerk opponent of such emotionally charged businesses as fish farming.

Timothy Renshaw (trenshaw@biv.com) is the editor of Business in Vancouver. His column appears every two weeks.