by WCWC Media

Thursday December 14, 2006 at 11:21 AM

FOC urged to close unsustainable salmon farming and protect wild salmon

Vancouver, BC. – Santa Salmon, along with the Wilderness Committee elves, handed out gifts to the public today – over 75% of whom oppose salmon farms according to public opinion polls – but put Fisheries and Oceans Canada (FOC) on the naughty list and handed them a special gift: lumps of coal. FOC has continuously failed to uphold their mandate to protect wild pacific salmon and have not taken action to close salmon farms along the west coast.

“Salmon farms hurt our wild salmon and marine life through lethal sea lice infestations, pollution through sewage, drug and chemical contamination, and colonization by escaped farmed Atlantic salmon,” claims Geoff Senichenko, Wilderness Committee Director of Research.

The Wilderness Committee also questions the sustainability of “closed containment” salmon farming and asks that salmon farming in any form be phased out completely.

“Salmon are carnivores – farming them doesn’t make sense. On land we farm herbivores, such as cows. It takes 2 to 8 kilograms of wild fish to raise one kilogram of farmed salmon, which is causing a global net loss of protein. It is not an efficient or sustainable use of the world’s wild fish and protein,” said Senichenko.

Santa Salmon and the Wilderness Committee elves are demanding FOC show political leadership and take decisive action to close salmon farms before the spring juvenile wild salmon migration, which will protect the wild salmon stocks from sea lice infestations. The Wilderness Committee is also urging FOC to phase out unsustainable salmon farming and find other more sustainable aquaculture alternatives, such as those that have been practiced with herbivorous fish in closed systems in Asia for thousands of years.

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For more information contact:

Geoff Senichenko, BSc Ecology, Director of Research: 604-683-8220

Visit http://www.wildernesscommittee.org/campaigns/marine/policy/fish_farms