What are the salmon farm issues in Atlantic Canada?

Open net-pen aquaculture is causing enormous harm on both coasts of Canada. While issues surrounding the plight of wild Pacific salmon in B.C. have gotten more attention lately, it is crucial to note that many of the same issues are present on the Atlantic coast. There, salmon farms threaten the heavily depleted wild Atlantic salmon populations through the transfer of sea lice and disease, much like in B.C.

The salmon farming industry leases scores of sites in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland. In fact, despite the federal government’s transitional commitments for the Pacific coast, the industry has major expansion plans for Atlantic Canada where provincial governments have jurisdiction over the aquaculture industry.

What is known about salmon farm threats to wild salmon on the Atlantic coast?

In 2020, New Brunswick sea lice counts peaked at greater than 40 adult female sea lice per fish in the spring, with sustained numbers often higher than those in B.C. Endangered wild Atlantic salmon populations are forced to navigate vast clouds of sea lice all along New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy coastline, home to the highest concentration of salmon farms in the Northwest Atlantic. The impact of sea lice on wild salmon populations outside of the Bay of Fundy is difficult to discern because there is very little data made available in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Disease also presents a major threat to wild salmon in Canada’s Atlantic. Through the first five months of 2021, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency recorded 22 outbreaks of Infectious Salmon Anemia (ISA), a lethal and highly transmissible virus known to cause heart and skeletal muscle inflammation in both farmed and wild Atlantic salmon. ISA routinely requires the culling of hundreds of thousands of infected fish, including a recent cull of 450,000 juveniles in Newfoundland in 2020. ISA-culled fish are still sold to consumers in Canadian grocery stores, despite the fact that our U.S. trading partners will not import infected harvests. The full nature of the damage done by the transmission of ISA from farmed to wild salmon is not known in Atlantic Canada because such research has not been adequately funded.

Introgression, which is interbreeding between aquaculture escapees and wild salmon, presents another threat to wild populations specific to the Atlantic. Hybrid fish are often not fit enough to survive in the wild. Fisheries and Oceans Canada research from the South Coast of Newfoundland, the second most heavily farmed region in Atlantic Canada, has revealed more than 20 salmon rivers now face the potential for population decline through introgression. Similar science is sparse in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia since many wild salmon populations near open net-pen sites are already too low for primary research. On New Brunswick’s Magaguadavic River, for example, annual fish counts by the Atlantic Salmon Federation in 2019 found only a single wild salmon (down from 900 just two decades ago) compared to 78 aquaculture escapees.

What about other fisheries?

Chemical and pesticide sea lice treatments at open net-pen sites also threaten nearby lobster populations, along with several other species of significant commercial value on the East Coast. In 2013, New Brunswick served a $500,000 fine to Cooke Aquaculture when the company killed hundreds of lobsters with cypermethrin, a now-banned sea lice treatment product. Thousands of chemical treatments were administered across 57 New Brunswick farms between 2010 and 2016. And while the industry claims to be moving towards mechanical pressure-washing or hot water treatments, 22.7 percent of all sea lice treatments in New Brunswick in 2020 still involved pesticide products.

Fish farm threats are growing

Wild salmon populations in the Canadian Atlantic are hanging on by a thread in many cases. Both independent and government researchers are beginning to acknowledge the risk that open net-pen salmon farms pose to heavily depleted wild salmon stocks. Still, closed containment transitional commitments have not yet been made for the Atlantic coast. On the contrary. Because fish farms are being forced out of B.C., the salmon farming industry is seeking to expand operations on the East Coast of Canada. These expansions would further threaten wild salmon populations and existing lobster fisheries, displace more commercial fishers from their traditional grounds, and add to the disruption of traditional coastal livelihoods.