Vandalism hits Cooke
There is no doubt that some people don’t like the salmon farming industry on either one of Canada’s east or west coast, but this dislike seldom gets expressed in the form of vandalism, although it has happened before. This time, Cooke Aquaculture says vandals cut fish pens loose in St. Marys Bay, and the equipment apparently was 'clearly cut away from the site,' said Cooke Aquaculture's Nell Halse, VP Communications to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) which posted the news late last week:
Nova Scotia RCMP are investigating a vandalism complaint filed by New Brunswick-based Cooke Aquaculture after the company says vandals cut loose one of its fish pens. The free floating equipment has since been secured.
Nell Halse, a spokeswoman for Cooke Aquaculture, says the company received reports from the Joint Rescue Co-ordination Centre on Thursday that an empty pen was floating free from a fallow salmon farm in St. Marys Bay, near Digby. "There was a pen that we found yesterday that had been cut away from one of our sites. Our guys have been out there last night and have brought it back to the site and resecured it," said Halse. "It was clearly cut away from the site."
Sheldon Dickson, a lobster fisherman, was fishing about one kilometre off Freeport on Thursday when he saw the equipment and called the Canadian Coast Guard. "One of the salmon pens, a complete one, was adrift and it was tangled up in some fishermen's gear," he told CBC News on Friday. "No fisherman would cut them adrift. We have so much lobster gear in that area that if it gets tangled up, we lose $100 per trap but we also lose the right to fish that trap, because we lose our tag."
Fishermen take to Facebook
Halse said because of this year's severe weather, the company did not have a chance to haul the equipment out before the start of the lobster fishery. The company left the equipment moored in the bay with plans to move it after lobster season "out of respect for the lobster industry," she said. The lobster industry in that area is very important. We have a good relationship with many of the lobster fishermen in the area and, in fact, many of them set their traps near the farm."
Some fishermen took to Facebook on Thursday, complaining of damage to their equipment from aquaculture gear that was adrift. Halse said the company has not received any complaints from lobster fishermen. "If people in the community have a concern about our farm or our equipment, we would appreciate hearing about it directly and also in a respectful manner," she said.
Halse said Cooke Aquaculture's equipment was safely secured to the mooring during an inspection last month and there have been no severe weather events since. "We were very surprised to get this message yesterday. When our people were out yesterday with boats, with divers, they found the cage that had been cut away and it was very clearly not an accident," she said.
Cooke Aquaculture has been in touch with the RCMP and has asked them to investigate. Halse said once the equipment has been inspected and the lobster season is over, the farm will be stocked with more fish and get up and running again.
