Massive salmon farms with up to a million fish each are an existential threat to wild salmon and other marine life

From more than 100, now about 50 open net-pen-net salmon farms in B.C. coastal waters raise invasive Atlantic salmon. Operated by Norwegian multinational corporations, these fish factories infect wild salmon and seriously threaten their health and existence by widely spreading lice, viruses and other pathogens and pollutants into the waters they travel.

In Atlantic Canada, there are similar concerns about the impact of fish farms on wild salmon, lobster, crab and other marine life.

Since the farms were introduced in the mid-1980s, the returns of adult wild salmon to B.C. rivers have declined so drastically that some runs are almost extinct. The same farm-related declines have been found elsewhere in the world.

Especially hard-hit are the one-third of all B.C. wild salmon populations that migrate to and from the North Pacific Ocean through the narrow waterways of the Discovery Islands and Broughton Archipelago. A lot of farms have been located here. Largely as a result of First Nations leadership, many are now removed as shown on the adjacent map.

Fish farms must be moved out of our coastal waters to help save our wild Pacific salmon.

A variety of factors affect the health of wild salmon populations including sediment from industrial forestry, habitat loss, pollution, climate change and natural disasters. Meanwhile, removing Atlantic salmon farms is the most direct action we can take now to help save them. 

And fish farm removals are followed by noticeable increases in wild salmon numbers! 

Press here to find out more about this good news story.

Take action to help save our wild salmon and the communities that depend on them, and write a letter expressing your concern for wild salmon and demanding effective and just government action to remove all the farms.

We are also very concerned that fishers in Southeast Alaska intercept and kill millions of Canadian salmon in non-selective net fisheries as they swim past Alaska on their way home.  Meanwhile, Canadian fisheries are closed to rebuild dwindling stocks.  Please write a letter to register you concern

Find more pages of information about wild salmon and various aspects of the fish farm issue at Find Out More.