D.C. Reid
September 18, 2008
Victoria Times Colonist

So you thought fish farm sea lice problems were restricted to pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago? Not so. In fact, the problem is vastly worse than we have been told. New studies from the U.S.A., Canada and Norway indicate lice and the diseases they carry are killing all five salmon species in B.C. and also herring.

You may recall Alexandra Morton was the biologist who set off alarm bells that fish farm sea lice resulted in a healthy 150,000 annual pink run from the Broughton Archipelago being reduced to virtually nothing. She is now in court trying to get the memorandum of understanding that DFO signed with the province to carry the can declared as invalid, and thus that DFO will have to step in -- if they lose -- and we have to wait many years for them to clean up the industry.

Read the full article in the Victoria Times Colonist.

August 20, 2008
Courier Islander

The Georgia Strait Alliance (GSA) is congratulating the Strathcona Regional District for joining the call to the Province to fund the development of closed containment aquaculture.

At their July 31 meeting, the Strathcona Regional District passed a resolution asking "that the provincial government allocate funds toward the establishment of a closed system aquaculture innovation and development fund to assist with the implementation of a plan to transition commercial scale open net-cage fin-fish aquaculture to closed containment system aquaculture".

Read the full article in the Courier Islander.

Judith Lavoie
July 06, 2008
Victoria Times Colonist 

Giant tanks, looking as if they were spawned from a liaison between a hot tub and an ice-breaker, could be the answer to escapes of farmed salmon.

The provincial and federal governments want to explore closed containment tanks for salmon farms, but so far, research has failed to find any viable, cost-effective closed system.

Read the full article in the Victoria Times Colonist.

Anna Mehler Paperny
July 5, 2008
Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- A continent away from their native waters, disoriented and out of captivity for the first time in their lives, 30,000-odd Atlantic salmon are roaming free off the British Columbia coast.

Their mass exodus from a pen at Marine Harvest Canada's Frederick Arm site on July 1 is B.C.'s largest farmed-salmon escape in eight years. It has spawned a government investigation, with Environment Ministry conservation officers combing the site to find out exactly what went wrong.

Read the full story in the Globe and Mail. 

Jamie Komarnicki
July 5, 2008
Globe and Mail 

It's been a tempestuous year for global salmon-farming powerhouse Marine Harvest Group.

The Oslo-based company is the biggest player on the salmon farming scene. It has about 7,500 employees worldwide and produces one-third of the world's farmed salmon and trout in Norway, Chile, Scotland, Canada and the Shetland Islands.

Read the full article in the Globe and Mail. 

Carolyn Heiman
July 3, 2008
Times Colonist

A lone commercial seiner combed waters around Frederick Arm north of Campbell River yesterday in a vain effort to catch 30,000 escaped farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

The escape was one of the biggest for Marine Harvest Canada, the largest aquaculture business in the province.

Read the full article in the Times Colonist.

July 1, 2008
Campbell River Mirror

Campbell River-based Marine Harvest has promised to keep controversial farms in the Broughton Archipelago inactive during the spring out-migration of wild salmon.

And so far, environmental groups are applauding the promise, although they still want to see salmon farms out of the ocean.

Read the full article in the Campbell River Mirror.

Brian Morton
June 27, 2008 
Vancouver Sun

B.C.'s largest aquaculture company said Thursday it plans to create safe corridors for migrating pink salmon in the Broughton Archipelago by emptying salmon farms during the spring out-migration of wild juvenile fish.

The plan follows warnings that Central Coast pink salmon face extinction as a result of sea lice infestations caused by salmon farms.

Read the full article in the Vancouver Sun.

Mark Hume
July 2, 2008
Globe and Mail

VANCOUVER -- Nature photographer Andrew Wright first visited the Broughton Archipelago, off Vancouver Island's northeast shoulder, in the summer of 1990, shortly after emigrating to Canada from England.

"It was glorious to paddle a kayak in the company of bears and whales and to witness the source of energy in this productive bio-system, directly attributable to thriving salmon, numbering in the millions," he writes in an e-mail.

Read the full article in the Globe and Mail.

Judith Lavoie
July 04, 2008  
Victoria Times Colonist 

Provincial investigators are searching for answers following a massive escape of Atlantic salmon from a fish farm near Campbell River on Canada Day.

About 30,000 Atlantic salmon swam away from Marine Harvest Canada net pens in Frederick Arm, north of Campbell River, after a deepwater anchor slipped and allowed one corner of the underwater pen to collapse.

Read the full article in the Victoria Times Colonist. 

Tarjei Kidd Olsen
July 2, 2008
Inter Press Service

A group of Chilean and Canadian scientists and activists visited Oslo to press home the accusations at the company's annual general meeting last month.

The Norwegian-run company, Marine Harvest, denies many of the claims, and accuses the activists of running errands for rich U.S.-based lobbyists.

Read the full article at Inter Press Service.