First Nation to search for escaped farmed salmon
A news report by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) late last year (November, 2013) stated that officials had confirmed that over 750,000 farmed Atlantic salmon had escaped from farms in Newfoundland waters since the activity began, and that escaped fish had been found in at least 9 rivers on the Province’s south coast where most of the farms are located.
Geoff Perry, the federal Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) Director of Aquaculture Management in Newfoundland and Labrador said in an interview last year that the Code of Containment for the aquaculture industry, which was introduced in 1999 by DFO, the provincial Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture (DFA) and the industry, has significantly reduced the number of escaped salmon since that time. Perry said. “Approximately 1,500 fish have escaped from grow-out sites since 1999 when the Code of Containment brought in tough standards for nets, site designs, equipment and handling practices which are all aimed at minimizing escapes. The code has lessened the severity and frequency of escapes especially when you realize that there are about 13 million fish in active farm sites in the province”.
A similar situation has developed in British Columbia, although results of reducing escapes there were achieved some years ahead of Newfoundland- in line with the earlier start of the industry. Monitoring for strayed escaped salmon in B.C. rivers was all but halted a number of years ago due to extremely low findings. But as Clayton Hunt of NLNewsNow reports, this monitoring of wild salmon rivers seems to just be getting underway on the other side of Canada, where some First Nation officials don’t seem to have a very good understanding of the historical issues:
The grant of $45,691 (~€30,000) was from the Atlantic Salmon Conservation Foundation and is aimed at conserving rivers and strengthening wild Atlantic salmon in the province. Ross Hinks is an official with the Miawpukek Band. Hinks said that "Miawpukek Aquaculture Escapee Monitoring" program has two main aims. One of these aims is to determine the numbers of escaped farmed salmon that may be entering the river.
According to Hinks, the Band knows that escaped salmon have been in the river in the past. "We have been enhancing Little River for about 20 years, and people have been telling us for years that escaped salmon were in the river. However, it wasn't until one of our own officers actually caught an escaped salmon in the river in late fall that we knew for certain that escaped salmon were actually there. So, in this project we'll be trying to determine the number of escaped fish actually entering the river. We will be placing a counting fence on the river early this year. We will take scale samples from all salmon going through to determine if they are wild salmon or not. Any salmon determined to be escaped fish will be removed. "If we can't determine a fish is wild or farmed from a scale sample we will take biological samples to make a determination."
Hinks said that it's important to know the numbers of escaped salmon, if any, are entering the river today. "This issue is a serious concern to us," Hinks said. "In other parts of the world wild salmon have interbred with farmed salmon which has led to the destruction of some rivers in terms of salmon runs." (Emphasis added- the author knows of no watershed that has lost its wild salmon run due to interbreeding with escaped farmed salmon.)
Hinks said that the belief that farmed salmon cannot interbreed with wild salmon is false. "We did an experiment in Conne River with Department of Fisheries and Oceans officials which determined that sperm from farmed salmon is viable for interbreeding with wild stocks. (Emphasis added- this fact has not been disputed by the larger salmon farming community- Ed. note.)"This hasn't been proven in Newfoundland but it has been proven to have happened in other districts around the world. Our second goal in this project is to check out possible interbreeding in Little River by sending off biological samples to determine if this has happened or not. This is possible in farmed salmon who escaped in an early age and entered rivers with wild fish."
Hinks said that the Miawpukek Band hopes that Little River will become a 'designated river' for the province. He said that many areas have these designated rivers which are monitored to determine if escaped salmon have entered the river and if they may be interbreeding. Little River had seen returns of up to 800 salmon years ago, but the numbers have dropped drastically in recent years. Apparently, only 200 salmon returned to the river in 2013.
