Sea lice still in the news in British Columbia
Supplied with ammunition provided by the anti-salmon farming environmental group Pure Salmon, Vancouver Sun columnist and long-term critic of the B.C. salmon farming industry Stephen Hume makes numerous references to old and new studies about sea lice and salmon farming conducted elsewhere. Somehow the fact that sea lice has never been a serious issue for farmed salmon health in B.C. never makes it into these articles. It seems to be much more appealing to quote all of the negative stories from other jurisdictions, and implying that the same situations must be taking place here.
There is no denying or doubt that various species of sea lice has had a detrimental effect on both farmed salmon and wild stocks in certain locations were salmon farming is practiced. References to these types of events elsewhere have been used to convince otherwise respected scientific journals to accept poorly researched articles about sea lice and salmon farming in British Columbia. Published papers about sea lice from salmon farms in the Broughton Archipelago have been widely heralded as gospel by industry critics, despite no consideration being given to whether there was any fish on the farms in question at the time of the studies.
Quoting an application for funding for an information-sharing project on sea lice between Norway, Canada, Scotland and Ireland, the Vancouver Sun columnist states that independent studies in 2004 shows that sea lice is costing the industry some $CAD 100 million annually "for sea lice prophylaxis and for removal of the parasites from carcasses during processing". After 23 years inside the B.C. salmon farming industry, I have not heard of any costs of farmed salmon processing being incurred by the removal of sea lice. Again, the political situation around salmon farming in B.C. is being influenced by what has happened or is happening in other jurisdictions, and popular columnists are going along for the ride, hoping, I guess, to sell more papers by doing so.
