More fish farms set for Canada's Pacific coast
Date: 13-Sep-02
Country: CANADA
Provincial officials said they will again accept license application for new farms, which raise mostly salmon, now that regulations have been completed for environmental issues such fish escapes and waste disposal.
Premier Gordon Campbell's government had planned to lift the moratorium in April but was forced to delay because the regulations took longer to complete.
British Columbia fish farms currently have sales of about C$320 million ($202 million) annually and supply about 25 percent of the farmed fish sold in the United States each year.
The farms, which raise fish in floating pens, usually anchored in coastal inlets, have long angered environmentalists and traditional fishermen who contend the operations threaten stocks of wild Pacific salmon.
The salmon farms usually raise species native to the Atlantic Ocean, and critics contend fish that escape from the pens will eventually begin to breed in the wild in coastal streams and displace native Pacific species.
The David Suzuki Foundation, a leading opponent of fish farming, complained the regulations allow the industry to police itself, and said lifting the moratorium marked a "dark day" for coastal fishing communities.
British Columbia's wild salmon stocks have struggled in recent years because of overfishing and the destruction of breeding habitat. Many commercial fishermen have lost much of their market to farming operations.
Farm operators deny they pose an environmental threat and argue there is no evidence that Atlantic salmon are able to reproduce in the wild on the Pacific coast.