The Pure Salmon Campaign should be excluded from the farmed salmon debate
Opinion
It was not much of a surprise when anti-salmon farming campaigner Don Staniford- now with the Pure Salmon Campaign after being discredited as a campaigner with the B.C.-based Friends of Clayoquot Sound- came out swinging against a new set of draft standards for salmon farming developed after six years of interaction between industry folks, people from the fishing industry and environmental organizations from many of the countries where salmon farming is being practiced.
The standards, which were developed as a result of an initiative by the World Wildlife Fund which started a series of Aquaculture Dialogues for different species of cultured fish and shellfish, were posted for comments earlier this week, and while saner minds took it all in stride, the Pure Salmon Campaign went ballistic, suggesting that the credibility of the WWF would be in jeopardy as a result of its involvement in the process. Insiders of the industry and members of the responsible segments of the environmental movement would think differently, leaving the Pure Salmon Campaign with a severe lack of credibility.
The problem for the Pure Salmon Campaign and its supporters is that they have dug themselves into a hole so deep it is all but impossible to get out of. By its insistence to accept no other production method for farmed salmon than some form of “Closed Containment” (which the organization has yet to describe), the organization can not accept any method of growing salmon in net pens, and therefore no set of standards for this type of activity.
One of the main arguments presented by the Pure Salmon Campaign for its position on closed containment is its suggested negative impact on wild, out-migrating salmon smolt from sea lice originating from salmon farms in British Columbia. As it turns out, wild salmon has been returning in droves after environmentalists like the Pure Salmon Campaign not long ago predicted the ultimate extinction of those fish in Canadian waters. And predictions of an invasion of escaped Atlantic salmon in the Pacific Ocean along the coast of British Columbia, Alaska, Washington and Oregon has also failed to materialize.
