At minimum, you'd think the B.C. government would try to reassure us, by pointing to the experts they immediately pulled together to brainstorm how to evaluate the extent of the problem and methods to contain and control it. Instead, in his opening response to questions from the B.C. Legislature, Minister of Agriculture and Lands Don McRae quipped, "Well, we've got another example of spinning media headlines and fearmongering from the Opposition." Not exactly reassuring. ...
Canadian officials need to explain to the public precisely what they are doing to monitor and enforce biological safeguards on the fish-farm industry. Canada and the U.S. have a responsibility to protect the wild public resources they hold in trust for us all.
Read more. In a related article last week, Rachel Nuwer of The New York Times asks, "Should salmon farms move inland."
Glen Spain, the Northwest regional director for the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, suggests that onshore farms would diminish the need for "these massive undertakings in the wild."
For now, though, there is no indication that moving farms onto land is a viable plan. "That's probably not a standard thing we'd do, moving onto land," said Gary Marty, a fish pathologist for the Ministry of Agriculture in British Columbia. For starters, such a move would cost $1 billion to $2 billion, he said.
Although moving the farms would protect wild fish, diseases can still develop inland, Rosamond Naylor, the director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment at Stanford University, noted. She also points out that an inland system is more costly to operate and consumes more energy as clean water is replenished.
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