More fuel for the fire that those 80 jobs that are at stake weren’t doing their job that was required of them to keep the nets clean. This is after 30 years or more of supposedly being monitored by the State. And now the legislature wants to “study” this problem further. Why?
Washington state officials are looking at some new suspects in the collapse of an Atlantic salmon farm: sea creatures clogging the floating structure’s nets.
Nets from the fish farm off Cypress Island were heavy with marine life like mussels, sea anemones and algae, according to eyewitness accounts and underwater videos obtained by KUOW. Such “biofouling” can amplify the force of tidal currents as they push through the mesh of underwater net-pens.
http://kuow.org/post/fouling-creatures-are-new-suspects-great-atlantic-salmon-escape
Filed under: Puget Sound | Tagged: Fish Farming, Net Pens Aquaculture, Puget Sound |
Why study this further? Maybe to come up with some concrete, quantitative facts about issues surrounding the farms and the efficacy of the monitoring? Stories like the one linked to are not good sources of facts, rather it’s laced with rhetorical statements: “biofouling” can…”, “I guess”, “There seemed to be…”, “Fouling organisms can…”, “they can also…”, “The difference can be…”, ” heavy fouling can…”, “A properly designed fish farm should be able to…”
If one wants to come up with a better policy that will survive the future based on what we have learned, one needs more than “can”s and “should”s and “seem”s.
Maybe there is considerable information elsewhere, but this story didn’t shed light on that.
Would be interesting to determine if there are some unique characteristics in the Salish Sea. Atlantic salmon (cousins to steelheads) have been aquafarmed in many areas of sea and ocean, some for over 40 years. I have been told it is currently illegal to fish for Atlantic salmon off the east coast (Atlantic ocean).