The raging controversy over net pens, both here and in Canada, just got a bit more intense. The first hard evidence that net pen salmon are eating wild stocks of herring, that we as taxpayers are paying millions to try and restore. The net pen fish are probably also eating other juvenile wild fish. As one example of what this might mean to us, there have been oldtime fishermen I’ve spoken to, who claim that when the net pens went in on south side of Bainbridge Island, fishing collapsed in Agate Pass. Coincidence? Maybe. But no serious study has ever been made, that I can find, on whether there were problems caused by the net pens being introduced there.
This may end up being one of the most important environmental news stories of the year for the Pacific Northwest, especially at this point in time, due to the Washington State Department of Ecology continuing it’s PR campaign to say that net pens are ecologically ok for Puget Sound waters. It’s time to continue the call for a total ban on net pens throughout our Sound, and the greater Salish Sea. The little amount of science having been done on this industry is incomplete, and focuses only on whether the sea bottom, directly under and around the pens is restoreable. NOAA has never (from what I’ve tried to find) looked at the wider issues that implementation of pens may pose on wild stocks, either of salmon or herring, let alone whether locations where pens have been tried and failed, have ever recovered as NOAA claims they should. They can start right here in Port Townsend Bay, and investigate the sands just below where the last pens were located some decades ago.
UPDATE: since this article a person who is employed by an aquaculture operation, laughed off my concerns about farmed fish eating herring and wild stocks. “Of course they do!” was his answer. I had to remind him that this is the way this always goes. The industry denies any impact until confronted with their impact, then tries to laugh it off or bring out their shills to discount any attempt to bring science (that they don’t control) to the table. Sorry friend, but your lack of science to support your industry is going to ultimately bring you down. Live it up while you can.
“On August 23, 2016 I put a Go Pro camera on a pole and submerged it in a salmon farm run by Marine Harvest.”
https://www.voyageforsalmon.ca/first-hard-evidence/
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Net Pens Aquaculture, Puget Sound |
