Incidental catch: in the wrong place at the wrong time

Will Soltau is Sustainable Fisheries and Salmon Farming Campaign Manager for Living Oceans Society.

A while back I blogged about the outbreaks of the IHN virus at salmon feedlots in BC and how they may have been avoidable if a vaccine was used. As it turns out, 2012 was a bad year for disease outbreaks in the Canadian salmon feedlots on both west and east coasts. A lot of money was invested with no return. More money was spent culling fish under depopulation orders from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency. On top of that, Chile rebounded after their three year ISA epidemic and began re-supplying the market, driving prices down and squeezing margins in B.C. And when you add on the cost of a million dollar BC ad campaign with a high rent agency just before and during the downturn, a better example of throwing good money after bad would be hard to find. It's no wonder the salmon aquaculture spin doctors are so snarky these days.

What just recently came to light is the incidental catch associated with one of those disease events. 2.5 tonnes of Pacific herring that were unfortunate enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time were sucked out of the net pens along with the sick Atlantic salmon. "*The incidental catch of herring at this facility occurred during a planned depopulation to control the spread of Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis virus (IHNv)."

Setting the record straight on what we do around salmon farming

Opposition to net-cage salmon aquaculture in BC continues to escalate, particularly with new revelations of more positive findings for ISAv (Infectious Salmon Anemia virus). Lately, however, we've been alerted to some misunderstandings that are circulating with regard to our work to eradicate net-cages on the BC Coast. For the record, here are the facts.

We’d like to first stress that since its inception over a decade ago, Living Oceans has been committed to the total removal of all net-cage salmon farms from our oceans and a transition of the industry to closed containment. That commitment is shared by our partner organizations in CAAR (Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform) and has never wavered.


Citizens groups, fishermen, communities, activists and numerous First Nations have been protesting the proliferation of farms on the BC coast for over twenty years. But successive governments, both Federal and Provincial, have been equally committed to maintaining salmon aquaculture. It's a tough and ongoing struggle and sadly no strategies, to date, have succeeded in ensuring the removal of these farms.

Deadly salmon virus found in B.C. sockeye

The highly contagious virus that wiped out seventy percent of Chile’s farmed salmon industry has now been confirmed in B.C. wild salmon.

The devastating news that Infectious Salmon Anaemia (ISA) is definitely present in B.C. was delivered by Simon Fraser University (SFU) Professor Dr. Rick Routledge, whose research team found the infected sockeye while doing field work in Rivers Inlet on B.C.’s central coast.

This is the first time that ISA has been confirmed in the entire North Pacific.

Routledge, joined by SFU team member Nicole Gerbrandt and activist Alexandra Morton, announced the findings at a media conference in Vancouver and did not downplay the seriousness of the risk.

48 sockeye smolts that were collected by the SFU team as part of a long term study into the collapse of Rivers Inlet sockeye stocks were sent to Dr. Fred Kibenge at the Atlantic Veterinary College in P.E.I.. Kibenge confirmed ISA in two fish, confirmed it was a European strain of the virus and notified the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, as is required in the case of contagious and lethal diseases.