FAQ - About Salmon Farming

If you have a question about salmon farming in BC, please contact us.
We will post the most commonly asked questions with an answer.

Click here to view June, 2005 Fisheries and Oceans Canada report "Myths & Realities About Salmon Farming"

Has salmon farming contributed to the decline of wild salmon stocks?

Wild Pacific salmon stocks have seen significant declines over the last several decades - particularly since the early 1990's. The BC Auditor General published a report in 2004 which identified 18 environmental factors adversely impacting wild salmon. Click here to read the BC Auditor General's Report - Salmon Forever: An Assessment of the Provincial Role in Sustaining Wild Salmon

These findings confirm the results of a scientific paper published in 2000 which reviewed the causes of these declines and concluded that the declines were primarily caused by a combination of climate change, over fishing, freshwater-habitat destruction, and the genetic and ecological impacts of large-scale salmon enhancement projects. The paper concluded that all available evidence suggests salmon farming has not had a significant impact and in fact poses a low degree risk to wild salmon in BC (Noakes, et al., 2000).

Do farmed salmon compete with wild salmon?

With today's net pens farmed fish seldom escape into the wild. When escapes happen, the farmed fish do not appear to compete very well in the wild, or even to have a very high survival rate. Of the low proportion of escaped fish that survive to be caught or found in BC, over 94% have empty stomachs (McKinnel et al., 1997), indicating that their competition with wild salmon for food is insignificant. Very few farmed salmon have been found in river systems, and farmed fish have been shown to have a significant competitive and reproductive disadvantage compared to wild salmon (Fleming, et al., 1996). Competition for spawning locations between wild and farmed salmon is therefore negligible (Alverson & Ruggerone, 1997).

Can farmed salmon spread disease or parasites to wild fish?

Salmon farmers expend a great deal of effort to ensure they have healthy fish stocks (see Farmed Salmon Health). Farmers screen all their broodstock for disease, provide good water quality and nutritious feeds, and vaccinate the juvenile fish to stimulate their natural immune systems before they are brought to the ocean. Imported eggs undergo strict quarantine and multiple, redundant levels of protection and testing to ensure no exotic diseases are ever brought into BC. Farmed fish are therefore generally healthy and have a much higher survival rate than wild stocks. The only diseases that have been recorded on BC salmon farms are diseases that naturally occur in native BC fish populations (Kent & Poppe, 1998; Stephen & Iwama, 1997).

What are sea lice, and can they be spread by salmon farms?

Sea lice are small parasites that attach themselves to the outside of marine fish, and survive by consuming small amounts of slime or skin. They are very common on several species of wild fish in the BC waters, and most wild salmon are host to small numbers of sea lice. Salmon farmers use management techniques that help minimize the presence of sea lice within their stocks. This includes fallowing (leaving a farm site to sit empty for a period of time), combined with the practice of growing only one age class on a farm. This ensures sea lice are not spread from older fish to younger fish, which effectively breaks their host/parasite cycle. If sea lice do show up on a farm in significant numbers, veterinarians can treat the fish to remove the lice.

For additional information on sea lice and salmon please click here

Do farmed salmon consume more food than they produce?

All farm animals consume more food than the meat that we obtain from them. For example, cows require about 6 pounds of grain and chickens about 2 pounds of feed for every pound of meat that is produced. Salmon are in fact very efficient converters of food into edible flesh, and Atlantic salmon in BC consume only 1.1 pounds of feed for every pound they grow. Fishmeal is a large component of salmon feed, and the species used to make it are typically small or bony fish, with a low proportion of edible flesh and for which there are few alternative uses. Globally, salmon farms use about a third of all the fishmeal, and the rest is used in poultry and other animal feeds. Much of fish meal that ends up on farmed salmon food comes from Chile and Peru , where government controls on the fishing industry are designed to ensure sustainability.

Does farmed salmon depress the price that wild salmon fishermen receive for their fish?

Salmon farming has undoubtedly changed salmon markets in the world. Prior to the advent of farming, salmon were only available fresh for a few months during the fishing season, and prices swung wildly from year-to-year based on the changing returns of salmon. Fresh farmed salmon is now available every day of the year, and salmon has gone from a luxury product to a food commodity almost as readily available as chicken, beef and pork.

Overall, salmon prices are now more stable and somewhat lower than before farmed salmon became widely available. Demand, however, is also much higher than it used to be. The consumption of fresh and frozen salmon in the US nearly quadrupled from 1990 to 1999, mostly due to increased farmed salmon consumption (Knapp, 2000). Since BC farmed salmon account for less than 5% of total world salmon production, operations in this province are price-takers and do not have an impact on world salmon prices.

For more facts, click here!