Speaking for the Salmon
PROCEEDINGS
Encouraging Innovative Solutions for Sustainable Salmon Aquaculture Workshop
Edited by Patricia Gallaugher and Laurie Wood
Continuing Studies in Science and
the Centre for Coastal Studies,
Simon Fraser University
AVAILABLE ON-LINE
The Speaking for the Salmon series examines issues impacting the survival of wild salmon in British
Columbia. Projects in the series include workshops, think tanks, proceedings and video
presentations.
Past topics include:
Salmon and Nutrients: A seminar on science and policy, Dec. 2008
Haig-Brown Symposium on Sustaining Wild Salmon: Moving from Words to Action, Aug. 2008
A Think Tank on Transferable Shares in the Salmon Fishery, May 2008
Encouraging Innovative Solutions for Salmon Aquaculture, Nov. 2007
Fraser Sockeye Salmon: Moving from Talk to Action, June 2007
Groundwater and Salmon, March 2007
Summit of Scientists on Aquaculture and the Protection of Wild Salmon, Jan. 2007
Getting the Missing Story Straight: Part II A Ten Year Retrospective on Fraser Sockeye Salmon, Nov. 2005
Scientists’ Roundtable on Sea Lice and Salmon in the Broughton Archipelago Area of BC, Nov. 2004
A Community Workshop to Review Preliminary Results of 2003 Studies on Sea Lice and Salmon in the
Broughton Archipelago Area of British Columbia, Jan. 2004
World Summit on Salmon, June 2003
Summit of Scientists: Nutrients & Salmon Production, Nov. 2002
Summit of Scientists: Sea Lice, July 2002
Aquaculture and the Protection of Wild Salmon Follow-up to March 2000, Oct. 2001
Hatcheries and the Protection of Wild Salmon, June 2001
Rivers Inlet: An Eco-System in Crisis, Nov. 2000
Summit of Scientists: A review of the DFO Wild Salmon Policy, May 2000
Aquaculture and the Protection of Wild Salmon, Mar. 2000
Pacific Coast Salmon: Status of Stocks and Habitat, June 1999
Thompson Steelhead: A resource in crisis? Oct. 1998
Summit of Scientists on the Scientific Underpinning of the 1998 Management Decisions for Pacific Coho
Salmon–Consensus report, June 1998
Stock Selective Salmon Harvesting, May 1998
Speaking for the Salmon Inaugural meeting, Jan. 1998
Preface
It is well recognized that we will need aquaculture, and particularly fish protein, to provide food for
the burgeoning world population. Wild fisheries, as currently exploited, will not be able to meet these
needs.
The purpose of this dialogue-based workshop, hosted by the Centre for Coastal Studies at Simon
Fraser University, was to examine and suggest innovative ways for the British Columbia salmon
aquaculture industry to move forward in a sustainable fashion, with minimal impact on existing wild
salmon stocks and coastal ecosystems.
The workshop focused on recommendations for closed-containment, best practices for net cage
farming, pest management, fallowing and siting. In addition, participants examined the concept of
coastal zoning and how this might be used to reduce the stress on wild stocks and coastal ecosystems.
What follows is an edited record of the workshop that took place at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for
Dialogue at Simon Fraser University Vancouver in November 2007. In the dialogue, comments have
not been attributed to participants unless they gave formal presentations or were invited to participate
in panel discussions.
Acknowledgements
We gratefully acknowledge the financial support from our sponsors:
 Consortium for Genomic Research on all Salmonids Project
 Linking Knowledge with Local Knowledge Working Group of the Ocean Management
Research Network.
We also thank the facilitator, Michael Harstone, Senior Associate, Compass Resource Management,
Vancouver, BC and all of the presenters and workshop participants for sharing their views openly and
respectfully.
ISBN 978-0-86491-304-3
Copyright
©Simon Fraser University 2008
Table of Contents
PART I
ALTERNATIVES TO NET CAGES:
ADDRESSING THE FEASIBILITY OF CLOSED-CONTAINMENT SALMON AQUACULTURE ………….… 1
What are the conditions for success and failure? For example, scale, economics, eco-labelling,
environmental impacts and energy cost.
Can closed-containment systems be scaled up to large production rates?
An update on the Middle Bay closed-containment salmon aquaculture ………………………….. 1
Richard Buchanan, President, AgriMarine Ltd., Campbell River, BC
History
Next Steps
Marine-Based Closed-Containment System at Middle Bay
The Middle Bay Site
The Scope of the Operation
Sustainability Issues
How it Works
Dialogue
What happens to the solid waste?
Is your new system with these new tanks escape-proof? And with respect to disease, how is your system
different for disease from conventional farming?
With respect to disease problems, if your system is a flow-through system, how is it different from
conventional aquaculture?
Life Cycle Assessment of closed-containment salmon aquaculture ……………………………... 5
Peter Tyedmers, Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
The project
Defining Life Cycle Assessment
LCA analysis – what it can and cannot do
Using the LCA approach for the analysis of salmon farming
Results
Farming rainbow trout and sockeye salmon in freshwater and on land …………………..….. 10
Larry Albright, Professor Emeritus, Biosciences, Simon Fraser University, and Director,
Freshwater Aquaculture Association of BC, Burnaby, BC
Production of the Freshwater Aquaculture Association of BC
Growing Sockeye salmon in Freshwater
Water is the most significant limitation
Summary
Response to the Presentations on Alternatives to net-cages – addressing the feasibility
of closed containment salmon aquaculture ……………………………………………………...….… 12
Based on the presentations, what can we now conclude about the feasibility of closed-containment, including
the question of scale?
Jay Ritchlin, Campaign Strategist, Marine Conservation, David Suzuki Foundation, Vancouver …...
12
Dialogue ………………………………………………………………………………………………….….. 13
Closed-containment
Discharge from tanks of Middle Bay facility
Tank overflow and potential for disease transfer
The materials used in construction of the tanks at Middle Bay
What are the energy requirements for operating these tanks?
Anchoring the system
Solid organic pollution in the closed system
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Controlling the spread of diseases
What are the roadblocks to moving this technology forward?
Life Cycle Assessment
LCA – impacts of transport of product to market
Feed composition in the LCA analysis
What kind of chemicals are put into it? And could these be passed on to human beings?
Does the fish feed composition impact other fisheries in the world?
Phosphorous content of feed
Assessment of power requirements using the LCA model
Freshwater Land-based Culture of Sockeye Salmon
What kinds of chemicals are added to the feed?
Rerouting aquifer freshwater
Potential impacts on wild salmon of removing volumes of water from the aquifer
How many firms are actually raising sockeye to market? Is the flesh different in a freshwater
raised sockeye?
Chemical additives to feed in marine based systems
PART II
NET-CAGE SALMON AQUACULTURE - EXAMPLES OF BEST PRACTICES ………………………….… 22
Can we farm salmon in net cages in such a way that protects wild stocks and the adjacent ecosystems?
What are the general principles of best practices that can be applied universally to salmon farming in BC?
How can employment of best practices be economically sound and transparent?
Case Study: The approach taken by Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company, Scotland ...... 22
Nick Joy, Managing Director, Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company, Scotland.
Aquaculture in the context of world fisheries
Aquaculture in the future
Principles of the Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company
The Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company approach
Choice of fish feed
Dealing with solid waste
Dealing with non-solid waste through nutrient balancing
Other practices related to respect for the environment
Research projects
What if you could treat animals without medicines?
What if there was a plentiful sustainable marine protein?
Will we find better ways to contain our fish?
Targets
Case Study: The approach taken by Creative Salmon Company, Tofino, BC ……………….... 26
Tim Rundle, Senior Biologist/Operations Manager, Creative Salmon Company, Tofino, BC
About Creative Salmon
The goal to achieve certified organic status
On the path to organic certification
Environmental objectives
Fallowing strategies
Feed management
Disease management
Sea lions
Escape management
Social objectives
Responses to Net-cage salmon aquaculture – examples of the best practices …………………... 30
Based on the presentations, how should we proceed with salmon aquaculture in BC?
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Robin Austin, MLA-Skeena, and Member, British Columbia Legislative Special Committee on
Sustainable Aquaculture, Victoria, BC ………………………………………………………………..…... 30
Focus of the report
Report recommendations
Chief Bob Chamberlain, Kwicksutaineuk-ah-kwa-mish Band, Simoon Sound, BC ................................. 31
Cumulative impacts on the ocean bottom
Aboriginal title and rights
Global acceptance of the impact of sea lice
The need for best practices in the Broughton
Larry Greba, Advisor, Kitasoo Fisheries Program, Vancouver, BC ………………………………….….. 32
Adaptive management in the salmon aquaculture industry
Relevance to salmon farms of the Kitasoo Band
The Agreement also addresses economic benefits to the community.
David Lane, Researcher, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, Vancouver, BC ……………..…. 34
Disease control
Siting of farms
Dialogue ………………………………………………………………………………………………...…… 35
Organic certification
The use of floating feed
Why the focus on closed-containment?
Would closed-containment be an option for the Kitasoo Band?
With respect to transparency
The CAAR – Marine Harvest partnership
Transparency and the exchange of information on sealice
Impact of aquaculture relative to other activities including enhancement
Data analysis
Sea lions in Tofino
PART III
PEST MANAGEMENT …………………………………………………………………………………......... 40
What are the implications of and effective alternatives to the use of chemo-therapeutants on salmon farms?
Using an Integrated Pest Management approach for sealice control …………………………...... 40
Myron Roth, Aquaculture Analyst, Province of British Columbia
Sea Lice Biology
What is Integrated Pest Management?
Intervention
Therapeutants and treatment
Setting action levels for sea lice
Therapeutants
BC Sea Lice Management Strategy
Next steps
What Can Genomics Offer? …………………………………………………….……………………….. 46
Ben Koop, University of Victoria presented by Simon Jones, Fish Health Research Scientist,
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC
New Approaches to Managing Pest and Wild-Farmed Salmonid Interactions …………...….… 47
Sunil Kadri, Director, Aquaculture Innovation, Glasgow, Scotland
Direct and indirect approaches
Technologoy 1 is the Bioemitter
Technology 2 encompasses the idea of blocking settlement cues
Technology 3 involves immune system modulators
Technology 4 involves exercise of fish in cages
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Responses to Pest Management …………………………………………………………………………. 51
What does this suggest about best practices for pest management for salmon aquaculture in BC?
Paddy Gargan, Senior Research Officer, Central Fisheries Board, Glasnevin, Dublin, Ireland ……..… 51
Impacts of aquaculture on wild stocks
Best practices in prevention of disease
Simon Jones, Fish Health Research Scientist, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC ……….… 53
Fish health management plans
The uniqueness of British Columbia
Robert Mountain, Musgamagaw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council, Alert Bay, BC ………………...…….… 54
Prevention of sea lice in the Broughton
Far field effects
Dialogue …………………………………………………………………………………...………...…….… 55
Applying the schematic to wild fish instead of fish in pens
Welfare of the fish
All-in all-out and fallowing practices
Sea lice are a problem
Dealing with other pathogens
Synchronous fallowing
Farming Atlantic salmon rather than Pacific salmon
Fallowing policy
Susceptibility of wild Atlantic salmon compared with farmed Atlantic salmon to sea lice
Innovation
PART IV
COASTAL PLANNING FOR SALMON FARMS ……………………………………………………....……. 61
What lessons can British Columbia learn from coastal planning processes in Europe?
Which is most appropriate for BC, closed-containment or net cages?
What are the challenges and solutions for developing and implementing a coastal plan?
What should such a plan need to consider?
Coastal Planning in Iceland ………………………………………………………………………….….. 61
Sigudur Gudjonsson, Director, Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, Keflavic, Iceland
Genetic studies of Atlantic salmon in Iceland
Management of salmon
The economic value of the salmon sport fishery in Iceland
Salmon farming in Iceland
Future coastal planning in Iceland
Dialogue
Coastal Plan for the Two Brooms Area in Wester Ross, Scotland ……………………….…......... 64
Colin Wishart, Principal Officer (Coastal), Highland Council, Scotland
Key statistics
Current key issues
Coastal Planning in Scotland
Case Study: the Two Brooms Coastal Plan
Aims of the planning project
Key issues in the project area
Key challenges
Components of the Two Brooms plan
Lessons learned
Wider conclusions –learning from Norway
Implementation of the Two Brooms plan
Which way forward for coastal planning in BC?
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How to zone
Dialogue
Implementing Coastal Plans in Norway: The Example of Akvasis, Hardangerfjord …...….…. 71
Inge Doskeland, Hordaland County Council, Norway
Trends for aquaculture in the future in Hordaland
Local and regional coastal zone planning
Dialogue
Responses to Coastal Planning and Salmon Farming ………………………………………….…… 77
What is the vision for salmon aquaculture on the British Columbia coast?
Clare Backman, Environment and Compliance Manager, Marine Harvest Canada,
Campbell River, BC ………………………………………………………………………………..….…… 77
Comparing the aquaculture industry in Europe and in British Columbia
The Marine Harvest - Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform Framework for Dialogue
Areas for collaboration
Research projects
Closed containment
Dan Lane, Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario ……….… 78
Definition of space
Governance
Dealing with uncertainty
Best practices
Siting of farms
Diversification
Role of government
Rob Paynter, Manager, Marine Planning, Integrated Land Management Bureau, BC Ministry of
Agriculture and Lands, Victoria, BC …………………………………………………..…………….……. 80
Dialogue ……………………………………………………………………………………………………... 80
Can we agree on a vision?
What are your views for the market?
On diversification of farmed species
Is there an integrated plan for the Broughton?
Wrap up
How do we take the vision forward?
List of Tables
Table 1.
Table 2.
Table 3.
Table 4.
Table 5.
Table 6.
Table 7.
Table 8.
Table 9.
Table 10.
Table 11.
Table 12.
The solution for Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company. ……………...…………………....... 23
Respect for the environment. ………………………………………………………………..……. 24
Techniques to improve environmental performance. …………………………………….…….… 25
Targets. ………………………………………………………………………………………….. 26
Some examples of the involvement of Creative Salmon in the community. ………………….….. 30
Prevention strategies. ……………………………………………………………………..….…… 42
Setting action levels. …………………………………………………………………...….…… 43
Summary of therapeutants and treatments. ………………… …………………………….…… 44
BC Sea Lice Management Strategy. …………………………………………………...…….…… 45
Mucuos development on Salmon in Scotland - average weight of mucous. ……..………….…… 50
Gildeskål Research Station trial with salmon in Norway 2007 - sea lice counts. ……………...… 50
Aquaculture Industry in the Hordaland region compared with BC. ………………………....…… 72
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List of Figures
Figure 1.
Figure 2.
Figure 3.
Figure 4.
Figure 5.
Figure 6.
Figure 7.
Figure 8.
Figure 9.
Figure 10.
Figure 11.
Figure 12.
Figure 13.
Figure 14.
Figure 15.
Figure 16.
Figure 17.
Figure 18.
Figure 19.
Figure 20.
Figure 21.
Figure 22.
Figure 23.
Figure 24.
Figure 25.
Figure 26.
Figure 27.
Figure 28.
Figure 29.
Figure 30.
Figure 31.
Figure 32.
Figure 33.
Figure 34.
Figure 35.
Figure 36.
Figure 37.
Figure 38.
Figure 39.
Figure 40.
Figure 41.
Figure 42.
Figure 43.
Figure 44.
Figure 45.
Figure 46.
Figure 47.
Figure 48.
Figure 49.
Schematic of the AgriMarine Solid Wall Containment System. …………………………..….… 3
Wave action and effect on mooring. …………………………………………………..……….… 3
Finite load analysis. ……………………………………………………………..………………... 3
A typical schematic of tank design. ………………………………………………..………….…. 3
Schematic of marine closed-containment system at Middle Bay. Middle Bay Limited Partnership
Closed Containment Salmon Farm, Middle Bay, Campbell River, BC, Designed by Westmar
Consultants, Inc. ……………………………………………………………………………...…... 4
Overall scheme of a product’s life cycle. ……………………………………………..……….…. 5
LCA of salmon farming. ……………………………………………………………………...….. 6
Scope of the analysis. ……………………………………………………………….………….… 7
Infrastructure inputs. ……………………………………………………………………..…….… 7
Cumulative energy demands. ……………………………………………………………..…….... 7
Use of ecosystem services by net pen. ………………………………………………………...…. 8
Global warming potential. ……………………………………………………………………...… 8
Acidification potential. …………………………………………………………………….…..…. 8
Eutrophication potential. ………………………………………………………………..…….….. 9
Decreasing dependence on local ecosystem services. ………………………………..……….….. 9
The compromises. ………………………………………………………………………………. 23
Selection index (data from 2005 analysis). ……………………………………………………... 24
Location of existing farm sites. ……………………………………………………………….… 27
Sea Lion numbers in Tofino Inlet 1993-2007 (3-5/yr 1993-1999, 60/yr 2000, 8-10/yr 2001-2005,
300+/yr 2006, 1083/yr 2007). ………………………………………………………………...… 29
Sea Lion issues. ……………………………………………………………………………….… 29
Life cycle of sea lice. ……………………………………………………………………….…... 40
Sea Lice morphology (Lice Figures Redrawn from Kabata, 1979; Schram, 1993; Piasecki,
1996 ©Ichthyologix, 1998). ……………………………………………………………….…..... 41
Pathology of sea lice on salmon. ….…………………………………………………………..... 41
Aspects of Integrated Pest Management. ………………………………………………….….… 42
Sea Lice sensitivity to Aquagard. ……………………………………………………….….…… 45
Fish health surveillance zones. ………………………………………………………………….. 45
Broughton Archipelago. ……………………………………………………………….………... 46
Salmon and trout relationships. ……………………………………………………………….… 47
Bioemitter on Site. ………………………………………………………………………….….... 48
Bioemitter systems in sea lice control. …………………………………………………….….… 48
BioEmitter systems in sea lice control. ……………………………………………………….… 48
Calcium Sensing Receptor allow larval crustaceans to sense preferred environments. ……..…. 49
Functional nutrients from yeast. ……………………………………………………………....… 49
The Optomotor Response. …………………………………………………………………….… 51
Six freshwater species in Iceland. ………………………………………………………….…… 61
Catch of Atlantic salmon worldwide. …………………………………………………….……... 62
Areas where salmon farming is banned in Iceland. ……………...…………………………...… 63
Cod spawning areas in Iceland. ……………………………………………………………....… 64
Highland region coastal plan. ………………………………………………………………….... 65
Marine planning zones. …………………………………………………………………….…… 66
Marine areas covered by ICZM forums/partnerships. ………………………………………..… 66
Location of Fish Farms 2000. ………………………………………………………………...… 67
Location of fish farms 2001-2003. …………………………………………………………….... 67
Coastal Plan for the “Two Brooms” Area (2006). ………………………………………...…… 68
Sale of Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout 1996-2006. ………………………………………... 72
Aquaculture sites in Hordeland. …………………………………………………………….….. 73
Map of Hordaland communities. ……………………………………………………….….…… 74
Status for kystsoneplan og arealplan isjo. …………………………………………………….... 74
Siting by traffic lights. …………………………………………………………………….…… 76
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PART I
ALTERNATIVES TO NET CAGES:
ADDRESSING THE FEASIBILITY OF
CLOSED-CONTAINMENT SALMON AQUACULTURE
___________________________________________________________________________
What are the conditions for success and failure?
For example, scale, economics, eco-labelling, environmental impacts and energy cost.
Can closed-containment systems be scaled up to large production rates?
An update on the Middle Bay closed-containment salmon aquaculture
Richard Buchanan, President, AgriMarine Ltd., Campbell River, BC
History
In the late 1980s a Norwegian company Hagensborg built a land-based facility for closed containment
salmon rearing near Cedar on Vancouver Island; however, it failed during the commissioning and was
not financially successful and was eventually shut down. From 2000-2005, with assistance under the
Marine Pilot Technologies Initiatives by the provincial government, AgriMarine undertook the task of
testing the Cedar facility to learn the pros and cons in operating a closed-containment salmon
aquaculture pilot project.
AgriMarine raised both Pacific and Atlantic salmon in this flow-through, closed-containment system,
of concrete construction. The main lesson learned was that while closed-containment provided
excellent rearing conditions for different species tested, the cost of land-based rearing is too high to
be competitive in the marketplace.
Next Steps
In 2004 we began to look at alternative closed containment techniques that we believed would be
more cost effective. The three key costs that needed to be addressed were construction, the scaling-up
to a commercial size that would yield a similar production capacity as a net cage, and energy costs.
To be more cost-effective and address these three key issues, AgriMarine determined that the closedcontainment system, or the solid-wall system, needed to operate in the ocean or marine setting , so we
began to explore different options . The energy costs on the land-based system were 18 percent of the
cost of production, which was unacceptably high. By putting the system into the ocean setting; the
energy costs fall to approximately five percent of the cost of production.
Marine-Based Closed-Containment System at Middle Bay
To facilitate this transition from a land-based facility to a marine-based closed-containment facility,
AgriMarine assisted in establishing a non-profit organization to demonstrate the closed-containment
commercial scale-up at Middle Bay near Campbell River. The non-profit is the Middle Bay
Sustainable Aquaculture Institute (MBSAI).
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The objectives of this project and MBSAI are to demonstrate the technical and economic viability of
commercial scale salmon rearing in solid-wall containers. We refer to it as “solid-wall” rather than
“closed-containment” because it is not like a land-based closed-containment system where there is
water recirculation. However, the approach shares many environmental benefits with the concept of
closed containment. The Middle Bay project advances the previous smaller-scale research by
AgriMarine and others on land-based systems and previous marine-based soft-wall rearing
technology. In addition, the project will compare the costs to net cage systems.
The Middle Bay Site
Middle Bay is in Discovery Passage, located within the District of Campbell River between Menzies
Bay, at Seymour Narrows and the centre part of Campbell River. There is large tidal movement
through the passage and the site is subject to south-easterlies in the winter, blowing up through
Discovery Passage. The Middle Bay marine site of 30 acres goes from the shoreline out to
approximately 150 feet depth in the channel. The infrastructure of roads, services and docks are in
place. We are proposing to build four tanks, each having a capacity of 5,500 cubic meters; each tank
will be 30 meters in diameter and 12 meters deep. The smaller smolt tanks are installed and there are
smolts currently in grow-out. The smolts will be transferred into the larger tanks as they are built.
Note that there is strong tidal action in front of the tanks.
The Scope of the Operation
The objective of this operation is to establish continuous harvests of market salmon from the four
tanks. Middle Bay has ponded the smolts in September (2007) and will continue to pond smolts into
the new tanks as they are built. We will monitor the environmental effects on the surrounding marine
environment, and the biological performance of the salmon during grow out. We will also be testing
consumer acceptance of the product through their label, “EcoSalmon.”
There have been engineering and construction feasibility studies, and tank material investigation and
selection over the past two years. With reference to the latter, we looked at concrete and aluminum as
potential materials. However, the material that has been chosen is a fiber glass laminate with closedcell foam in the wall that gives it structural strength so that the tank will float and withstand marine
loads (the material is also used to build ice-breakers). It is as strong as steel, but lighter than
aluminum. We have completed an environmental load analysis, finite stress analysis, and mooringload analysis and we have undertaken tank fluid modeling, and sloshing tests. At the site, we have
conducted tidal current movement assessments, flora and fauna documentation, species identification,
and geotechnical investigations. All of these investigations are required under the federal and
provincial regulatory approval process for salmon aquaculture sites.
Sustainability Issues
There has been considerable consumer resistance to farmed salmon raised with existing open net cage
practices and there are perceived and real impacts on the wild fishery from these operations. There
are also negative impacts from the interaction with marine mammals. In addition, there have been
significant losses of farmed stocks due to plankton, escapes and disease. As well, communities are
often divided over licensing of new operations, and there has been much insolvency in the industry
with consolidation of the industry by multinationals.
There is public policy uncertainty with regard to the existing industry and it is our hope that solidwall containment will achieve more consumer acceptance. With our system, there should be no loss
from escapes. We are recovering the waste and therefore there will be minimal environmental
impacts. We create an ideal rearing environment in the tanks for healthy fish stocks.
There is community consensus and First Nations generally support of our initiative. The company has
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conducted a consultation process on the use of this technology in British Columbia. The system
appears to be economically efficient in the location of existing infrastructure and market proximity. If
we are successful, there will be an opportunity for export of this technology.
How it Works
Figure 1 is a schematic of
how this system works. The
fish are in the rearing tank.
The waste gravitates to the
centre where it is removed
and put through a treatment
system. There is some
overflow out of the top,
which is low in suspended
solids. The objective is to
remove the settleable
portion of the suspended
solids from the rearing tank.
Figure 2 is a model that
shows the wave action and
effect on mooring. Figure 3
shows the finite load
analysis on the tanks from
tidal movement.
Figure 1. Schematic of the AgriMarine Solid Wall Containment System.
Figure 2. Wave action and effect on mooring.
Figure 3. Finite load analysis.
The environmental analysis that will be conducted will show the biomass balance, feed fed, fish
biomass production and waste loads. It will also measure the changes on the marine flora and fauna,
if any. In addition, we will measure trace pathogens through the
inflow in the rearing environment as well as the discharges. We will
estimate the carbon imprint of this system relative to conventional
net-cage practices. Finally, we will conduct a socioeconomic study
relative to community and regional impacts.
Figure 4. A typical schematic of tank design.
Figure 4 is a typical schematic of our tank design concept. Note the
tank is inside jump nets to keep the fish from jumping on the
walkways, the outside walkway and fencing. The freeboard is about
1.5 meters above the ocean surface, so that there is little chance of
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marine mammal entry.
Figure 5 is a conceptual layout of a six tank farm, showing waste collection barge and utility shed.
Figure 5. Schematic of marine closed-containment system at Middle Bay. Middle Bay Limited Partnership
Closed Containment Salmon Farm, Middle Bay, Campbell River, BC, Designed by Westmar Consultants,
Inc.
Dialogue:
What happens to the solid waste? (Tim Rundle, Senior Biologist and Operations Manager, Creative
Salmon Company, Ltd)
Richard Buchanan
It is filtered out and presently we are composting it, but we intend to test application of the waste as a
fertilizer on land. Until now, the focus has been on the rearing system. But we are currently removing
the waste in a 50-ml filter system (a filter that is also used in Norway in hatcheries). We will look at
alternative uses for the waste at a later date.
Is your new system with these new tanks escape-proof? And with respect to disease, how is
your system different for disease from conventional farming?
Richard Buchanan
In this particular site, there is a well-mixed high-energy marine system so there is no lamination in the
flow. If there was a problem, we could go deeper with the water intakes. The intakes at this site are
25 feet down and testing shows that even out in the channel, it is a well-mixed site. At the previous
Cedar site we drew water from 20 meters depth and in the four years that we operated we did not
experience any problems with sea lice or lethal plankton. It is unlikely that we will have these
problems at the Middle Bays site as the tidal action is too great.
With regard to the issues of escapes, we are presently using a Future Sea system (FST) for smolt
entry. It is a heavy gage plastic bag with a waste trap at the bottom. During the storm in midNovember 2007, we found that the waste trap had come off and we observed fish outside (we could
not determine whether they were wild fish or not) but we did not lose any significant amount of
inventory. The FST design is a vulnerable system, however. Our design is a solid wall and it is
different construction so there should not be any rupture of the tank.
Tim Rundle
Typically, big escapes have been the result of serious events like major storms or equipment failures.
But many minor escapes happen due to human error, harvesting, and that sort of thing. I don’t think
you can get around those sorts of human errors on a small scale.
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With respect to disease problems, if your system is a flow-through system, how is it different
from conventional aquaculture?
Richard Buchanan
There are a couple of differences. We do not have waste below the system that would act as a vector
for disease and we are pulling water from depths and controlling the rearing water environment by
exchanging the water every hour. Those factors should minimize disease problems.
Tim Rundle
In a conventional cage the water changeover is even greater than once per hour. At depths of 25 feet
intake, there will be a lot more biological activity than if you were sucking your water from depths
such as at the AgriMarine Cedar site.
Life Cycle Assessment of closed-containment salmon aquaculture
Peter Tyedmers, Associate Professor, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia
(This presentation is in part based on research
conducted by Nathan Ayer for a Master of
Resource and Environmental Science thesis. A
publication of this work is currently under
revision. This research is a subset of a much larger
global project - a global salmon production LifeCycle Assessment project, a partnership between
Dalhousie University, Ecotrust (US) and the
Swedish Institute for Food and Biotechnology.)
The Project
There are two phases to this project: The first
phase focused on Alaskan salmon fisheries and
salmon farming systems in British Columbia; the
second phase will apply the same framework of
analysis from phase one to the examination of the
farming systems of Chile, Norway and Scotland.
Defining Life Cycle Assessment
Life Cycle Assessment is a biophysical accounting
tool generally used in industrial manufacturing
contexts. However, it is now being used more
frequently in a food production setting to look at
environmental burdens. Or one can think of it in
terms of the environmental performance in the
production of a product or provision of a service.
Typically, it is described as trying to encompass
the “cradle to grave” of the product or service, or
as the Swedish refer to it, “from field to fork”
(Figure 6).
Figure 6. Overall scheme of a product’s life cycle.
The context of the analysis can be quite broad. It is always important to describe the specific
boundaries of any one analysis. It is also important to highlight what the Life Cycle Assessment
(LCA) process is good at analyzing.
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LCA analysis – what it can and cannot do
Typically, “impact categories” that are the results of an LCA analysis are things such as:
contributions to greenhouse gas emissions, stratospheric ozone depletion, acid precipitation,
eutrophication, aquatic toxicity, abiotic resource use, and energy input. There is generally a heavy
focus on impacts of chemical waste streams.
LCA, as currently practised, is not a good tool to be used to address and compare biological or
ecological impacts or socioeconomic ones, although there is methodological work currently underway
to advance the application in these domains. Current work is focused on finding ways to do that; here,
however, the focus is on the more traditional Life-Cycle Assessment strengths.
Using the LCA approach for the analysis of salmon farming
The LCA of the salmon farming system that Phase 1 of the project examined included harvesting fish
from the wild going into reduction fisheries (Figure 7). This includes:
• the components of the typical aggregate inputs,
• the salmon feeds that come from agriculture through processing, all the way through to feed milling,
• the production of smolts and grow-out of animals,
• processing into three different forms of filets,
• storage, wholesale, and ultimately retail.
Figure 7. LCA of salmon farming.
The analysis is taken all the way through to the consumption of, for example, a typical 225 gram filet
that a consumer would eat somewhere in the US.
This presentation does not show the results up to that final terminus of the consumer, but instead
looks to the point of harvest. Specifically, it addresses the grow out context, and presents the analyzed
data for four different grow out systems for salmonids. The four systems included:
1. the conventional sort of marine-based, net-pen system located in British Columbia,
2. one of the marine-based floating-bag systems that was trialed in BC,
3. a land-based flow through system (data were made available for the material and energy
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inputs of the Cedar site for their last production cycle),
4. and a high-intensity, fresh-water, land-based recirculating system that grows Arctic char,
located near Truro, Nova Scotia.
Figure 8. Scope of the analysis.
Cumulative Energy Demand (MJ/t)
Results
Figure 9 provides an indication of the amount of
material intensity required by these production
systems, expressed in kilograms per ton. This
analysis of life-cycle material inputs also
addresses the projected life of a facility. For
example, if the facility is expected to last 20 years,
it examines the estimated production over the 20
years – the analysis is applied not just to the
production of one year but rather is attenuated
over the whole projected life of a facility. This
shows very significant differences in
the material requirements to produce one ton of
salmonids from the four different systems.
Infrastructure Inputs (kg/t)
In Figure 8 the dashed line provides a sense of all the subsystems where data collection was
undertaken to feed into the model. Using well-established databases of what are called “background
processes,” they included information on some of the broader inputs such as material energy inputs
and the steel production and plastic production and emissions associated with those. Those data were
available on existing databases and did not require analysis. This work encompasses smolt
production, feed production, direct energy inputs to these systems, oxygen provision, infrastructure,
construction and maintenance, and chemical inputs.
Figure 9. Infrastructure inputs.
For example, the re-circulating system had
almost a ton of materials associated with the
projected production of a ton of fish over the life
of the facility. That was mostly in the form of
concrete. In terms of energy demand for these
systems, Figure 10 shows the cumulative energy
demand over all of the subactivities that feed
into producing a ton of fish, expressed in
megajoules per ton.
The notation at the bottom of the figure refers to
“closed systems” on average Canadian
Figure 10. Cumulative energy demands.
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electricity mix. This is important because the electricity mix can actually drive a number of impacts.
In this case, the model assumed that it was not a BC specific mix or a Nova Scotia specific mix but
rather an average source of electricity.
The energy demands associated with the feed provision vary slightly between these systems. The feed
that the model used for this work was constant - it was assumed that the same basic feed profile fit
into each system. The observed differences were a function of the economic feed conversion ratio
(FCR) - the amount of feed required to hit the water, divided by the tons harvested. The big difference
observed in this figure is that a lot more energy was required to drive some of these other systems.
Why is that? The reason is that a net pen takes advantage of ecosystem services to provide a current
against which fish swim which also means that it carries in fresh oxygenated seawater. It also
disposes of wastes and provides thermoregulation (Figure 11). Those services have to be replicated
in a confined system, and the more confined and isolated the system is from the broader environment,
the more there is a need to substitute technology, technology that consumes significant amounts of
energy.
Net-pen takes advantage of ocean ecosystem services for:
• Currents
• Fresh seawater
• Dissolved oxygen
• Temperature regulation
• Flushing of wastes
Figure 11. Use of ecosystem services by net pen.
These types of energy take various forms. The landbased facility heats the water in the winter, chills the
water in the summer, and has oxygen and ozone
generators. It is very energy intensive.
What happens if the results are expressed in terms of
contributions to global warming? Figure 12 describes
the tonne CO2 equivalent per tonne of final animals
harvested. Again, there are slight differences in feed as
a reflection of economic FCR. The large differences
come from the energy inputs required to power the
system and, again, this is reflecting the electricity mix
averaged across Canada.
Figure 12. Global warming potential.
Figure 13 shows contributions to acidification, expressed in
terms of kilograms CO2 equivalent per tonne animals
harvested, and a similar pattern is observed. It appears then
that the more intensive the system is, the more energy and
energy-related impacts result.
Figure 14 documents eutrophication potential and this shows a
slightly different pattern. The eutrophication potential associated
with just the provision of feeds shows slight differences between
the four systems. But if one compares the results from the farm
Figure 13. Acidification potential.
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site and post-farm site, the big difference is that the freshwater
system had two advantages. Some of the wastes
that settle out are being sequestered or
accumulated into a concrete tank. The plan at that
facility is to eventually pump it out and use it as a
fertilizer in an adjacent greenhouse.
At the same time the wastewater stream is being
processed in a sanitary sewer system. Hence,
there is removal of a certain amount of the organic
waste that would otherwise be contributing to
eutrophication potential.
Figure 14. Eutrophication potential.
System Comparison
The marine-bag system had the lowest impacts generally of all the closed systems for which there
were data. This was a function of two things; the lower FCR that happened in their trials, and; the
lower pumping requirements because of the relatively low head to move water from outside a bag to
inside a bag.
The land-based re-circulation system had the highest impacts across five of the six impact categories
modeled. It had the highest energy demands per tonne and the highest material inputs per tonne. That
translates into broader field environmental impacts.
What is interesting about this sort of work is that it also highlights the importance of location. Not
only is it sensitive to where a site is located – for example, if you build it above water and you have to
pump up hill that is a big problem – but also where you locate your facility geographically has an
impact because it dictates the energy mix from which you are able to draw.
Other results from this study, that addressed energy in terms of a typical British Columbia energy mix
of 90 percent hydropower, showed lower overall emissions in many categories. But the general
patterns remained the same.
Using locally specific electricity mixes, the bag system outperforms the net pen and the land-based
systems have the most impact. Figure 15 represents a very simple schematic showing the relationship
between the dependence on local ecosystem services and material and energy inputs.
If one can imagine these four systems arrayed as in this cartoon, from left to right, then one can
observe a decreasing dependence on local ecosystem services (Figure 15) as it moves from a more
open to a more contained system. There is an associated increase in material and energy intensity that
accompanies that as a direct result of having to substitute technological services for ecosystem
services. One could describe this process
essentially as environmental problem shifting from
local ecological impacts, if one assumes for a
moment that these containment systems of various
forms do help to avoid impacts of a local
environmental nature.
Figure 15. Decreasing dependence on local ecosystem services.
There is a price to pay however; and it means that
material and energy intensities increase, as do
contributions to global impacts. It is important to
note that this is not unique to this sort of activity.
Humans have a tendency to do this with many of their environmental solutions. Often in addressing
one local impact, we tend to shift problems to broader spheres and to global commons.
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Farming rainbow trout and sockeye salmon in freshwater and on land
Larry Albright, Professor Emeritus, Biosciences, Simon Fraser University, and Director,
Freshwater Aquaculture Association of BC, Burnaby, BC
Production of the Freshwater Aquaculture Association of BC
The production of the Freshwater Aquaculture Association of BC is small - currently about 700 tons –
but it has increased 400% from two years ago. The diversity of product is increasing as well. The
mainstay product is rainbow trout but sockeye salmon in addition to coho are now coming into
production in freshwater. Tilapia production is up to about 50 tons per year and there is an increasing
interest in the development of tilapia farming. There is also going to be sturgeon production placed
into the food fish market in a year or so and depending on the granting of permits there will be whitelate shrimp which will be grown mostly in closed-containment systems.
Growing Sockeye salmon in Freshwater
Over the past 18 years technology has changed to allow them to produce coho, kokanee and even
sockeye salmon completely in fresh water. In the early years, the sockeye were not viable.
The problem in achieving marketability was related to mortality. It was possible to culture sockeye
salmon in the early years but there was vertical transfer of the organism that caused Bacterial Kidney
Disease (BKD). This meant that the second crop from the eggs of the first crop had an enhancement
of BKD. By the fifth crop there were usually only one or two fish left. They had to develop a
mechanism of carrying out this culture without any therapeutants and without any antibiotics, in
freshwater. They have now got it down to a system where they routinely get about 90 to 95 percent
survival to harvest for a four-pound fish, without therapeutants, in freshwater.
The public perception is good. These freshwater products are accepted throughout the province and
they go to the best BC restaurants. The individuals that have come to see the production mechanisms
have pointed questions about things that require further work but, in general, they are pleased. There
has been good press as well.
There are a number of reasons for this. It appears that the ecological footprint is minimal under these
conditions. The average farm is about three to four acres and the water is artesian freshwater, at
usually less than one thousand US gallons per minute. A big advantage in BC is the abundant
underground water that flows from the snow fields and the ice fields of the mountains to the lowlands
underground. It does not originate with pathogens. If pathogens are in the water, they are filtered out
so that the artesian freshwater, which is available without power use, does not have viruses, bacteria,
fungi, metazoa, or protozoa. This is a distinct advantage in the culture of these animals.
Regulations require that there are settling ponds in the freshwater land-based sites. In general, about
85 percent of the fecal material and uneaten food is precipitated out onto these ponds. They are flowthrough systems for energy efficiency, and efficiency of growth. When the pond is emptied, the
accumulated material is used as fertilizer.
There are some developments to do with feed for freshwater culture through a new group in Canada,
the Inter-Provincial Partnership for Sustainable Aquaculture Development (IPPSAD) - the Fresh
Water Aquaculture Association is a member of it. The first development is a new type of food for
freshwater culture that has a phosphorous content of approximately one-half of the traditional feeds.
The problem is that Agriculture Canada has mandated the phosphorous level in feeds to be around
two percent. The goal of the association is to lower the phosphorus level to one percent and this can
be done effectively with new feeds that have been developed by the Danish and tested in Canada.
This lower level produces less pollution and most likely can be used for freshwater culture. On the
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marine side, however, it may not be necessary because seawater tends to be low in phosphorous
content. These feeds are marginally more expensive but they also result in marginally better
production.
The biggest limitation to successful aquaculture is water and this is the most critical factor. The
second important factor is the people and the third important thing, much less important than the first
two, is the animal that one is culturing, if it is a finfish product.
Water is the most significant limitation
With the artesian wells the water supply is limited to about 500,000 - 800,000 US gallons per minute.
That then limits the production to about 50 tons per farm unit. Therefore, the ecological imprint is
dispersed amongst the various locations in the province with no one large production unit at any one
place.
The great advantage of using BC artesian freshwater is that it does not have microbes in it. In almost
all cases it appears that no antibiotics or any other therapeutants are required when finfish are cultured
in freshwater from artesian origin. As a result there are four freshwater farms that are certified
‘schedule two disease free’ in BC – they are certified as ‘disease-free’ by DFO. And they are used as
the egg supply sources for the trout. Diseases are a concern in freshwater culture but they are not a
problem.
Summary
The BC freshwater farm industry has the distinct advantage of using pathogen-free groundwater, low
electrical use, and is mainly certified disease-free. There is an extensive history of appropriately
culturing finfish for in excess of 50 years. Indeed, there is one farm that has been in existence
continually for 45 years. Because they use trout ponds, troughs, tanks and raceways, and they are
mandated to use screens (the screens can vary depending upon the size of the animal from a half an
inch to a quarter of an inch) escapes are exceedingly rare, or almost non-existent.
Sustainability is the overriding concern of the farmers within this group and the reason is that most of
them own their land. They want to be sure that the land that they bought, and that they live on with
their neighbours, retains its value and remains sustainable, and at the same time they wish to stay in
the good graces of their neighbours because they have to live with them. Therefore, they have put a
great deal of effort into ensuring that it is successful. There is sufficient income in a farm that
produces about 50 tons a year – if it uses artesian freshwater, the profit margin should be about 26
percent. If it is pumped water, it will probably be around 17 percent.
There are some excellent groundwaters in BC that have not yet been exploited. If you look at the
runoff from the ice fields and the snowfields in the mountains, these waters could be exploited, in
many cases artesianing up, without pathogens, for the growth of the animals. A lot of finfish,
including all of the salmonids, can be grown in fresh water through their complete life cycle with
multiple generations.
Where are these fields? Many of them are on First Nations reserve land where there is also an
unemployment problem and thus there is an available labour pool that could be trained to use this
situation. If a band has an aquifer that could produce approximately 5,000 US gallons per minute
artesianing then it could exploit this situation and put in a farm that could, in a sustainable manner,
produce between 100 - 200 tons a year annually for the band. If marketed in BC, this could produce
an adequate income for those individuals from the band working at the site.
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Response to the Presentations on Alternatives to net-cages – addressing the feasibility
of closed containment salmon aquaculture
Based on the presentations, what can we now conclude about the feasibility of closedcontainment, including the question of scale?
Jay Ritchlin, Campaign Strategist, Marine Conservation, David Suzuki Foundation, Vancouver
First, I would like to note that we did not discuss in any detail the external impacts to the environment
that are currently being documented and occurring. The questions are: How do you gauge the costs
of those impacts and how do you balance the value of those with some of the impacts that Peter
Tyedmers noted in his presentation?
Also, Peter made a comment about the Life-Cycle Analysis not being well suited at the present time
to assess those impacts. Currently the systems that are used are receiving ecosystem services without
really having to account for, or pay for, their use. Therefore, when we look at the financial viability
(and this is one of the things that we are attempting to put some more rigour into, in our work with
Marine Harvest Canada) we need to assess that and address those values.
How do you determine if this is viable? One of the things you need to do is to try to develop a way to
look at what it means to compare significant local impacts with potential global impacts. And how
does one do that? This is a real challenge.
Another important point to note here is that there are existing resources in British Columbia; that is,
an existing set of stocks and species of wild salmon. Some of our European guests here have seen the
impacts in their ecosystems and their regions where the wild salmon stocks are negatively impacted
by a variety of stressors, including aquaculture. This is one impact that we have the opportunity to
control in BC. As climate change puts many ecosystems at risk, it is incumbent upon us to control
those impacts that we do have some power over.
The project being conducted by Richard Buchanan has great promise. It will be interesting to see if
we can make this a commercially viable industry that can produce a reasonable economic return that
includes the economics of our local ecosystems.
There was discussion about a few of the cost inputs, feed being one of them. There are aquaculture
systems that produce food with much less feed input intensity.
The industry of aquaculture around the world is not just about farming salmon. There are many types
of aquaculture currently practiced, often in closed systems, growing food for people, and with great
success. We do salmon here in British Columbia right now in a large way and we also have shellfish
farms and other types of aquaculture. I want to be sure that we keep our minds open to the concept
that aquaculture is an opportunity to produce food and that we are not only talking about one way of
doing things.
The other note is about the work that Peter presented. The systems that he modeled, with the
exception of the land-based recirculating system, were acknowledged as ‘trial’ systems. They were
not at their peak efficiency and as Richard noted, the work that he is doing in an attempt to get the
floating systems working in Middle Bay is precisely to address some of those high energy inputs of a
land-based system that were clearly not ideally designed as far as energy efficiency goes.
In summary, there are current impacts of aquaculture on the wild ecosystem and wild salmon, causing
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some of us great concern. We have an opportunity to test, try and demonstrate a commercially viable
alternative to open net pens. Of course, there are going to be assessments necessary along the way to
determine whether or not we are making the best choice. But we need to do this because the weight
of evidence in terms of the impact of aquaculture on wild salmon, suggests that it is imperative that
we make some of these changes.
Dialogue
Closed-containment
Discharge from tanks of Middle Bay facility (A Biology professor)
With respect to the discharge at the top of these tanks (referred to in the presentation) can this be
quantified? What percentage of the inflow water is actually being discharged that way and what are
the implications of that for potential disease transmission?
Richard Buchanan
First, we wanted to design a tank that was mechanism free so that there wouldn’t be cleaning
mechanisms in the tank other than hydraulics. To achieve a high removal of settleable solids, some of
the water has to be discharged over the top while the vortex is pulled to the central part of the cone.
Our modeling shows that about 60 percent of the flow, which is low in solids, will go over the top
while 40 percent of the water with 90 percent of the solids will go to the centre. The way that the
hydraulics are designed in the tank means that the solids will be swept to the centre, where they will
be collected. However, some water needs to go out the top or there will be too much vortexing out the
bottom. The tanks have been designed to control that so that the bottom flow can be adjusted relative
to the overflow in order to get maximum removal of solids.
Tank overflow and potential for disease transfer
The Biology professor responded: With 60 percent of the water being discharged over the top, it
hardly seems like closed-containment. In terms of disease transmission, if you can prevent disease
from getting in there in the first place, then it is not an issue. But, if disease gets in there, you have a
lot of that water being exported to the environment, potentially containing disease organisms.
Richard Buchanan
The initial design is to remove solids - settleable solids likely have most of the disease if there is
disease in the feces material. But it is not designed to treat all water. We are pumping one hundred
thousand litres per minute into the tank and the treatment system, so to remove or to purify that flow
is not practical.
Clare Backman, Environment and Compliance Manager, Marine Harvest Canada
There are many aspects of the operations of Marine Harvest that relate to the examples presented. For
example, the freshwater tanks described by Larry Albright are similar to some of the operations that
we have in our existing hatcheries. Some of the recirculation that was described by Peter Tyedmers is
similar to some of the hatchery operations that we have too. And even the floating tanks in seawater
have been tried in B.C. and experimented with before.
There was a comment by the Biology professor with respect to the overflow of water and the question
about the potential for disease transfer. As farmers, we are very concerned about the health of our fish
and we want to ensure that the fish are maintained in a good state of health, not conversely in a state
where they are always releasing some disease pathogens. I would expect that Richard Buchanan is
going to take the greatest care he can in keeping his fish healthy so that the overflowing water is not
spreading some disease pathogen.
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The materials used in construction of the tanks at Middle Bay (Clare Backman)
The design for the tanks of the Middle Bay project has been changing in terms of the material being
used. First, it was concrete, then it was solid aluminum and now it is a laminate. Clearly, this is
evidence of an ongoing adaptation and development similar to what we experienced with the design
of the conventional net cages. Can you explain some of the reasoning behind those changes in your
facility leading to the selection of the laminate material, and can you provide some detail that is not
too proprietary about how that is constructed?
Richard Buchanan
We have looked at the design and have done extensive modeling on the site as well as load analysis. I
did not provide all the details of the analysis in my presentation. The environmental load analysis and
the performance of the tanks have influenced the material selection in addition to the construction
feasibility.
We started by looking at using concrete because that was our experience at Cedar and the concrete
tanks could last many years. But the difficulty we had with concrete was the growth on the inside of
the tanks – it is an ideal environment for growing kelp. When we designed the first tanks we used an
octoform as the material for providing the smooth surface that is required so as to minimize the
amount of kelp production. But as we moved forward with the engineering and the practicality of
building tanks and launching them, concrete tanks for the size of the facility we are planning to put in
would weigh almost 1,500 metric tons. The only way that we could build tanks of this size and
weight would be in a dry dock and then they would have to be floated out or transported on a
submersible barge. Therefore the weight issue and the surface material became a concern as we did
more modeling on the site.
We looked at hatcheries where aluminum is used extensively as well as fiberglass. We then started to
examine these materials focussing first on aluminum. We had to do significant design work to
determine the cost and the practicality of producing tanks made of aluminum. The aluminum was ten
percent of the weight of concrete so at least the tanks could be lifted in and out of the water.
However, the commodity price of aluminum at that time and the need to order materials three months
in advance in addition to not being able to mass produce it quickly, and the issue of electrolysis,
became important factors in our decision not to use aluminum.
In order to overcome those issues, we then looked at fiberglass. One of the reasons that we had not
selected fiberglass initially was related to its the strength for this size of application. But as we
investigated it more, we found a firm that builds icebreakers and all-terrain vehicles here in British
Columbia, using a laminate. The laminate has solid cell foam in the centre of it so that the foam
provides 90 percent of the structural strength, but it allows the panel to float. So we have come up
with a very hard material. It is as good as steel, and yet lighter than aluminum. The aluminum tank
was 80,000 metric tons and the laminate is 20,000 metric tons. Therefore, it can be easily lifted by a
50-ton crane and set in the water, or taken out of the water for barnacle removal.
What are the energy requirements for operating these tanks?
Richard Buchanan
We are operating one of the pumps now. Each tank will have two pumps that deliver 50,000 litres per
minute. The pump currently operating is drawing ten horsepower and we are pumping around 30,000
litres per minute into the smolt tank. Projecting out for our large tanks we expect that at full capacity
we will be drawing somewhere around 20 to 30 horsepower – that would mean a cost of less than one
thousand dollars per month per tank.
In terms of the oxygen requirements, we are generating oxygen using a system similar to what was
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observed for the Arctic char facility in Nova Scotia. The oxygen system draws 20 horsepower and
we are only using about 50 percent of our capacity. Those were two big issues that arose from
previous research in British Columbia - power usage and oxygen generation. From what we can see,
the systems that we have selected (the Aircept and the Future Sea Pumps), address those energy
issues and we should have the cost of energy to production down to less than eight percent for oxygen
and power.
Anchoring the system (Tim Rundle)
With respect to the four tanks, does it take a significant amount of anchoring to hold that kind of
system in place, especially where there is a large current?
Richard Buchanan
There is a coastal model that Westmar used for modeling anchoring systems. We have designed an
anchoring system based on the wave loads and the currents at this site. The tanks will be anchored
from the base of the wall to eight anchors driven into the floor of the ocean, so there won’t be any
anchoring lines at the top of the tanks. They will be anchored from the bottom of the wall with
stabilizing anchors at the top just for positioning, not for carrying the anchoring loads. Indeed the
environmental loads for anchoring are significant.
(Tim Rundle)
Are you planning to actually test those systems before you put fish into them? With our high-current
sites we have probably got on the front end six or eight anchor lines, with probably 15 -- 20 tons on
each line. And that is with two-inch mesh. In your case, with a solid wall with no give, I am
assuming that you are testing the system before the fish will go in.
Richard Buchanan
Yes, we will test the tanks and are relying on Westmar Engineering to properly specify the anchoring
and so is the Province in their ultimate approval of the installation.
Solid organic pollution in the closed system
(Inge Doskeland, Hordaland County Council, Norway) How important is the solid organic
component of the equation in the closed system? In Norway, the issue of organic pollution is not that
critical anymore because the sites that are chosen can take quite a lot of organic input.
Richard Buchanan
It partially depends on the location of the facility. Our First Nation participants could probably
address the organic load impacts on shellfish in British Columbia. Clearly, there are impacts from
organic loads on other resources from net cage salmon farming. With our system, however, we hope
that the environmental footprint will not even be measurable. We want to locate our systems in
municipal areas where we will not be adding additional organic loads. We are trying to maintain a
pristine rearing environment inside and outside of the tanks to achieve the production that we want.
Controlling the spread of diseases
(Jay Richlin) If disease breaks out, the opportunity exists in a closed-walled system to shut down the
system and retain the disease. The cost of bearing that disease then rests with the fish farmer, not the
surrounding environment. Obviously, prevention of disease or treating it through filtration is
preferable. But it is also then preferable to keep those diseases on the farms rather than let them pass
back out into the wild.
What are the roadblocks to moving this technology forward?
(David Lane) There have been hundreds of successful closed-containment operations around the
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world that are mostly land-based and mostly freshwater. So there are unique challenges in applying
this to seawater and salmon. Why do you think there haven’t been more people trying out new
technologies on the BC coast? More specifically, what are the barriers there? When we look at other
kinds of technologies, wind technology, for example, we note that they have gone through many
phases of development. It takes quite awhile to get a new technology off the ground and make it
commercially viable. Now we are seeing major wind operations in Europe, a whole new technology
that is viable. What is needed to get past the roadblocks? What is the role of government? What can
help?
Richard Buchanan
A lot of the previous work has been on land-based, closed-containment and recirculation systems. In
1997, under the Salmon Aquaculture Review, the government retained an engineering company to do
an estimate on what a closed-containment system would cost.
Their report came in at over $100 million and that became a kind of a backstop to the public thinking
that closed-containment systems were not viable because of the high capital cost. However, Future
Sea had started to look at putting these systems into the ocean where the costs would be lower.
Unfortunately, they selected a material that did not have a lot of structural integrity over time.
Therefore, it is a matter of evolution and over time there has been more concern and public pressure
for solutions to existing practices.
(David Lane ) During the long period you have been working to get your current system established,
what were some of the hurdles that could have been avoided? Do we need, for example, government
programs to help this get off the ground?
Richard Buchanan
The BC industry suffered many ups and downs in its history, partially due to world competition, and
Chile coming into the market with lower production costs. That made it hard to attract capital other
than from multinationals, particularly Norwegian companies that have come into the province. So the
capital has not been available to the independents and the small companies to develop the technology.
First, we had to design a system that made sense to take to the market and to ultimately find the
support from government and private agencies to fund the experiment. Our research experiment will
cost $10 million and not even the large companies are spending that amount to look for alternate
solutions to net cage practices. Therefore, it is a matter of timing and growing public concern is also
an important factor.
Life Cycle Assessment
(Michael Harstone) Based on the Life-Cycle Assessment analysis, is there any sort of global message
that came out of that in terms of how economically viable the various systems are, and was there
another floating system similar to the AgriMarine system?
Peter Tyedmers
The work undertaken in this project did not include an economic analysis; they did not look at
financial costs. However, this is potentially one of a suite of tools that could be used. The economic
signals that our society bases most of its decisions on do a very poor job of communicating impacts of
other forms. We currently do not put an adequate price on contributions to climate change, for
example. Therefore, LCA is one tool that can be used explicitly to try to provide information outside
of financial costs.
With reference to the data for floating systems, the system for which we did have real data, and one in
a broad sense that is most similar to the newest system that is currently being built, was the marine- 16 -
based bag system. The volumes that were trialed were most likely very small compared to the
anticipated volumes for the Middle Bay site that is now being built. Therefore, this is a broadly
comparable system in a physical or morphological sense. We will see what those numbers look like
once it actually runs. These models are easily built once the data are available, but until you have real
data you are just guessing.
LCA – impacts of transport of product to market
(Jay Ritchlin) Was the energy contribution and impact associated with the transport of the product a
function of the geographic location of the systems? For example, a comparison between a land-based
system located close to processing versus a net pen out in the middle of the water that requires barge
and boat transport to and from, for all the products and people.
Peter Tyedmers
Those intermediary transport steps were included in the accounting. For example, I could have
shown you the implications of all inputs to a system delivering a fillet to a consumer in New York,
Las Vegas or San Francisco. In that case, transport distances do come into play, but the most
important factor is mode of transport. Hauling bulk materials and feeds, using barges and rail for
example, generally makes relatively small contributions compared to the impact associated with
generating the feeds in the first place, or energy inputs to pumps, oxygen generators, and ozone
generators. Bulk transport of commodities, food miles, is not an issue.
Feed composition in the LCA analysis
(A representative from the Yukon Salmon Committee) With respect to the food that the fish eat, how
much feed was included in the analysis?
Peter Tyedmers
Because the feed can be such a big driver of these impacts, in this analysis we kept the feed
composition the same as a theoretical input to all four of them. The data reflect not one specific feed
formulation from one of the big feed mills, but instead they reflect the mix of feed inputs to a mill
over its entire year. The data were weighted relative to the contribution across all the feeds produced.
It could be thought of as an integrated average feed, a weighted average feed from the mill and data
from around 2003.
What kind of chemicals are put into it? And could these be passed on to human beings?
Peter Tyedmers
With respect to the inclusion of non-nutritional aspects of the feed generally they are pre-mixes and
other things. I do not have a good understanding of the full suite of those and how they are used.
Some of the pre-mixes are added in very small quantities. If this question is related to possible
antibiotic use or other things and how that might have effects down the road, these tools are probably
not suited to address that question.
Does the fish feed composition impact other fisheries in the world?
Peter Tyedmers
In terms of how much fish meal and oil is reflected in the feed that we were modeling, it was a 50
percent animal-derived and 50 percent plant-derived integrated diet. At that time in BC they were
using some livestock and poultry processing wastes as well which accounted for a small fraction of
the animal-derived portion of the diet. However, marine fishmeals and oils are a substantial
component of many salmon diets.
There has been lot of research conducted over the last 15 years around the world, in Canada as well,
to determine how to achieve substitutions of plant proteins and oils for animal proteins and oils in
- 17 -
feed. In practice, currently, there is still a fairly high dependence in most feeds on the marine proteins
or oils, in particular on the oil side because of the nutritional benefits associated with the omega-3 and
omega-6 fatty acids.
Phosphorous content of feed
(Sunil Kadri, Director, Aquaculure Innovation, Glasgow, Scotland) In the LCA presentation you
were showing eutrophication potential and comparing phosphorous discharge in both marine and
freshwater environments. Given that we know that in marine environments phosphorous does not
measure eutrophication potential, how do we interpret your data? For example, did you do some sort
of a correlation between phosphorus and nitrogen?
Peter Tyedmers.
This speaks to one of the coarseness aspects of the LCA framework. In the attempt to have some sort
of a common measure of contribution, it is easier to understand this in a global-warming context. If,
for example, you have many kilograms of emissions of methane, or CO2, then these are easily
correlated, although you still have to make some assumptions. What is the radiative forcing horizon?
Twenty-five years? A hundred years? For expressing eutrophication potentials to waters, it uses
phosphorous as the reference value. But you are absolutely right, in that it is receiving-environment
specific and therefore it does not tell you anything about the specific implications of where those
receiving environments are, or what their current state is. So for example, in the attempt to have a
unifying measure of all potential eutrophying emissions from agricultural fields in the prairies, or
Southern Ontario, from producing soybeans or corn, emissions are associated with electricity
generation all the way through to very localized discharges. In bringing all those together you have a
coarse measure that tells you nothing about local effects. It simply gives you a sense, at almost a
global scale, about what the potential contributions from those systems are.
Assessment of power requirements using the LCA model
(A representative from the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council) With the LCA model
results, as you moved beyond flow-through systems, the carbon emissions increased. The model,
however, was run based on average energy sources in Canada. Have you modeled individual types of
energy sources or could you do that so that you could get a comparison of the carbon emissions?
What sort of power is used, is it diesel or gas generated or is there small hydro or a hydro grid? It
would be interesting to see your model run with different types of energy sources to see what the
implications of different power sources are.
Peter Tyedmers
In the publication of this research, we have included both sets of numbers based on the BC electricity
grid, it was approximately 90 percent hydro, 10 percent gas turbine. However, if you were to present
the data based just on the location-specific energy mix, then you would have the three systems on the
BC mix, and the Nova Scotia one which is about 70 percent coal-fired with 10-15 percent oil, and the
emission would be so different that you would lose a lot of the resolution. Therefore, for practicality
and in an attempt to reflect performance on a standardized energy grid, we presented the results here
using the average energy sources in Canada. However, it is very easy to model the alternative
implications of the locally specific primary energy mix that goes into electricity. And you could ask
questions like: “What if we powered it all on wind?”
I imagine you would have a striking difference between Nova Scotia and BC, based upon 70 percent
coal versus 90 - 95 percent electricity from hydro.
Peter Tyedmers
If we had, for example, described the global warming potentials expressed in terms of the inputs of
- 18 -
those local energy sources, then you would not get a sense of the gradation because they are so
dramatically different - the recirculation system from Nova Scotia has the largest energy inputs
regardless of form of primary energy carrier used to generate electricity. However, if you then
expressed results in terms of global warming potentials, it would dwarf the other ones even more
dramatically.
The PFRCC representative responded:
From my perspective, as one who is trying to reduce global warming, it would, in fact, be more
intriguing to see a line that was flatter. You have provided an extreme example, compared to BC, of
how carbon increases as you move through the steps away from a flow-through system. In terms of
somebody trying to look at ways to solve environmental problems while at the same time not adding
to global problems by increasing carbon emissions, if the differences are much less in BC, that would
be an interesting analysis.
Peter Tyedmers
We have those results. We could have just as easily presented all the systems as if they were all
located in British Columbia and you would have seen the exact same relative emissions. The absolute
values would have just been lower. My objective is to try to show you by holding other characteristics
constant (feed and electricity) how the demands for material and energies between these production
systems drive implications.
We could have shown you the results based on all systems theoretically located in Nova Scotia, and
the absolute values would have all been higher, but the relative impacts would have been
proportional, or the same, as I demonstrated. We could also have done it with an average mix of BC
so that the absolute values would have just gone up or down. But the relative implications of that
trend in terms of the different technologies would have been the same.
Freshwater Land-based Culture of Sockeye Salmon
How does the disease-free certification process work?
Does the status “disease-free” certification mean that this is guaranteed? That there is no disease in
these fish? If there are diseases present then what are the consequences?
Larry Albright
If the farmers state their intentions to export the product outside of Canada, then the Department of
Fisheries and Oceans will come around and test the farm for source schedule-two diseases. Basically,
these are viral diseases such as IHN, IPN, and VHS in addition to bacterial diseases of common
pathogens such as the ones that cause furunculosis, vibriosis, bacterial kidney disease, and enteric red
mouth. They will also look for whirling disease.
The problem is that it is very difficult to get a salmonid that is free of the species Renibacterium
salmoninarum, the organism that causes bacterial kidney disease. For that organism, specifically,
they will still certify that the stock is ‘disease free’ although it does in fact carry that organism. They
conduct a suite of viral and bacterial tests (costing approximately $7,000) and if they cannot detect
any of these organisms in the stock after each six-month period over one and a half years, then it will
be certified ‘disease free’.
There are currently four ‘disease-free’ freshwater farm sites in British Columbia.
What kinds of chemicals are added to the feed?
Larry Albright
Our feed comes through the food chain and it is 42 percent protein, and 17 percent lipid. Of the
- 19 -
protein, one-quarter is of marine origin because of the omega-6 and omega-3 fatty acids, which
salmonids need. However, there are no chemicals as such added to the feed other than natural
proteins, lipids, and a small amount of starch and minerals. With the newer feeds being developed for
freshwater culture, we can still obtain very good growth using half the amount of phosphorous. The
important point is that there are no chemicals added.
(Sunil Kadri) You mentioned the reduction of phosphorous in feeds in order to reduce environmental
impact, which is important. However, I am sure you are also aware of the consequences of having
reduced phosphorous in Europe at the same time as having grown fish much faster. We have been
growing fish faster because of good breeding, good nutrition and good husbandry, not because of
adding chemicals. But the result has been that the phosphorus included in the diet, and particularly
the phosphorous to calcium ratio, has not kept up with the growth rate and that ends up being a major
fish welfare problem, as well as a fish production problem. Fish welfare, of course, comes under the
sustainability umbrella.
The question is: When you are trying to push these phosphorous levels down, are you taking any kind
of precaution or doing the monitoring to ensure that you maintain your phosphorous and phosphorusto-calcium ratios sufficiently to so that this does not harm the fish?
Larry Albright
The research on reducing phosphorous levels was carried out in Alberta and Quebec, regions of
Canada that are limited in terms of water. The partnership investigated the use of the Danish feeds in
this situation and they ended up with positive results. There is now an agreement to use this Danish
technology with the feed companies in Eastern Canada to try to accentuate and accelerate aquaculture
for the local markets in Quebec, and portions of Ontario and Alberta. Since I did not personally do
this research it would be best to obtain this information from the source. However, I do know that the
feed trials were carried out and the growth rates were good, and the health of the rainbow trout was
excellent.
Rerouting aquifer freshwater
By rerouting natural aquifers are you not putting natural stocks in danger?
Larry Albright
One of the First Nations bands that I am working with has about 5,000 U.S. gallons per minute
coming from the aquifer and they are currently culturing rainbow trout, producing about ten tons a
year. We have looked at the water quality downstream of the farm and we cannot determine any
environmental impact at all. The Dissolved Oxygen is the same and the fecal material does not seem
to be a problem. However, the Band is exceedingly careful as they expand in this situation with
respect to any environmental impacts. Generally, as you go through the hinterland of British
Columbia, there is a lot of water that is aquifering from the high mountain regions that is pathogenfree. And it can be used, I believe, to culture finfish in freshwater, providing one is very careful to
monitor the situation to minimize the impacts.
Potential impacts on wild salmon of removing volumes of water from the aquifer
(a member of the Commercial Salmon Advisory Board) The volume of water that was flowing
naturally from artesian output into streams is being interrupted to pump into a facility. Are there
potential impacts on wild salmon? We know that chum salmon come in late in the year and seek out
groundwater, which is warmer, to ensure their accumulated thermal units are adequate to spawn and
to hatch at the right time. Is anyone trying to measure the reduction in volume between the natural
artesian production passing through a facility and perhaps causing reduced flows in stream?
- 20 -
Larry Albright
It would have to depend upon the individual case. For this farm, the water is all artesianing and the
distance from the artesian source to the lake is about 500 metres. In this case, there is no stream. The
stream may be about 10 metres because it goes into a marsh-type situation and then into the lake. One
would have to look at the hydraulics and the stream flow, and the distance from where you want to
interrupt the water to use it as well as the receiving water.
One important point is that these waters are very low in nutrients. So in some cases it may be
beneficial to take that water and use it for aquaculture purposes and put it back into the stream where
it may even enhance the stream with productivity with regard to nutrients which may not be there,
such as phosphorus or nitrogen.
(Jay Richlin) It is important to note that the issue in BC regarding water flow and what is interrupted
or not interrupted goes far beyond what might get used for artesianal-based aquaculture. There are a
lot of other water licensing and water allocation use issues in this province that are not dealt with in a
comprehensive way.
How many firms are actually raising sockeye to market? Is the flesh different in a freshwater
raised sockeye?
(A representative from NOAA Fisheries in Alaska) It is exciting to learn about freshwater culture in
a disease-free environment for a high-quality product like sockeye salmon. How many farms are
actually raising sockeye to market? With respect to the sockeye flesh, does the colour look like it is
from a freshwater-raised sockeye salmon? Are any carotenoids added other than those that occur
naturally from the marine-based protein in the feeds?
Larry Albright
We are most likely the only producer in North America. The rest have given up. The advantage that
I had is I worked at the university and had access to research facilities.
With respect to the carotenoid level and the colour of the flesh, if we use an astaxanthin canthazanthin
mix of 40 parts per million, it is the appropriate equivalent to a chinook salmon. What we are going
to be doing is to take it up to 60 parts per million of astaxanthin which will result in a much redder
colour. However, it will never be the colour of a wild caught sockeye salmon. The reason for this is
because the wild sockeye salmon consumes a lot of zooplankton such as krill and it has an
overabundance of astaxanthin, which by the law of mass action accumulates there. In aquaculture,
however, we are using floating trout feed, which is 42 percent protein and 17 percent lipids, although
we may bring it up with regard to the lipid content. If you carefully select for high lipid content
strains, then you can have a competitive advantage. But with the 60 percent astaxanthin such as
NatuRose, which is the natural compound, it does colour adequately for the market. The taste is not
the taste of a wild sockeye. It is somewhere between a sockeye and a coho salmon.
Chemical additives to feed in marine based systems
(Jay Ritchlin) In marine finfish aquaculture, chemicals are added to the feed and sometimes
antibiotics, and Slice® treatments are added to treat for parasitic infestations. They are added to the
feeds in varying amounts and this also varies from region to region. For example, Norway, British
Columbia, Chile, all have very different levels of inclusion and use. Unlike the feed that Larry
Albright uses, not all salmon feed used in farming on the coast is completely free of additives other
than fishmeal and fish oil or some grains.
- 21 -
PART II
NET-CAGE SALMON AQUACULTURE
EXAMPLES OF BEST PRACTICES
___________________________________________________________________________
Can we farm salmon in net cages in such a way that protects wild stocks and the adjacent
ecosystems?
What are the general principles of best practices that can be applied universally to salmon
farming in BC?
How can employment of best practices be economically sound and transparent?
Case Study: The approach taken by Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company,
Scotland
Nick Joy, Managing Director, Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company, Scotland.
These are a set of solutions that have worked for the Loch Duart Salmon Company, but these may not
be solutions for others. There need to be ways to go forward and ways to provide incentives and
encourage people to improve.
As a farmer, the first thing that I have to accept is that I impact the environment – that is a fact. I have
to accept that and try to deal with it. As a company we try to embrace change.
Aquaculture in the context of world fisheries
The total world fishery landed tonnage for 2005, based on FAO data, was 142 million tons. The
global production of capture fisheries was 93.8 million tons, a reduction of 1.2 million tons from the
previous year, while the aquaculture production was 47.8 tons, an increase of 2.3 million tons from
the previous year. Clearly, aquaculture is here to stay. With increasing numbers of reports of
decreased or failing capture fisheries it is obvious that the aquaculture industry will be contributing
increasingly to the demand for fish protein in the future.
The question is how? And what sort of aquaculture do we want? What techniques do we already have
and what is under development for use in the near future? Clearly, we have to determine ways that
we can learn and move our knowledge forward. We also have to ask ourselves whether or not we can
expect progress to arrive fully formed. If we accept that this is not the case, then we need farmers and
environmentalists to have a constant, realistic dialogue based on sound reasons with no dogmatic
positions. That is the essence of how we have moved, and will continue to move, things forward in
the UK.
Aquaculture in the future
As farmers, we have to evaluate, analyze and accept our impacts on the environment and we also
have to find ways to deal with them. In addition, we have to accept that we are human and that means
- 22 -
that we can fail. My company has, for example, failed in the last two weeks with the escape of
10,000 fish in a recent storm. That was a failure in terms of our basic principles. It is important to be
able to admit that you have failed; everybody fails at one time or another.
Principles of the Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company
In order to achieve the sort of aquaculture that our company believes we need, we have to answer a
series of questions. We know that if we ignore the environment, then we ignore ourselves, because
we are part of the ecosystem. If we treat our animals without respect, then we deserve the problems
we have vested upon us. It is noticeable at this workshop that welfare does not appear to be a major
issue here in BC.
Do we really want chicken farming or pig farming at
sea? Do we really want to face those sorts of issues?
Do we want to create another industry that thinks
about welfare third? I have worked with salmon for
30 years; I still think they are the most beautiful
things on the planet. Do I really want to work on a
farm that doesn’t think welfare is the most critical
part? The answer is no.
Finally, we want to produce something that people
want to eat, that is good for them, and we do not
want to have a level of disrespect for the people that
eat the food we produce. The question that follows
from that is: What are the compromises that have to
be made on a daily basis in order to balance all those
things? Often, they act against each other (Figure
16). There are issues, for instance, between the
Figure 16. The compromises.
environment and welfare and the use of medicines. There are issues between cost and the
environment and cost and welfare.
What sort of materials should be used for the feed? How much do they cost? At the end of the day if
a profit is not made, having made the wrong decisions, then the company will no longer be in
business. One has to remember that the decisions that have to be made are not immediate. For
example, today we may decide that this particular ingredient is the most sustainable one on the planet,
but it costs five times more than what we currently use. The effect of that decision is not necessarily
going to be found tomorrow, because it takes three years to grow our salmon. Therefore, we have to
have a vision of what the market will pay, what the people who buy our fish will pay, three years
down the line.
We have to decide what the best is, within a number of
contexts. In order to work out how to make those
individual compromises, there has to be a set of
principles. Once you decide on what your principles
are then every decision that is made can be defined by
those principles.
Table 1. Our solution.
Our Solution:
• Respect for the environment
• Respect for the salmon
• Respect for the people who work with us
• Respect for the people who eat our salmon
Table 1 describes the set of principles used by our
company. We try to respect every part of this when making decisions about our business.
In 1998 I met with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and asked them to
- 23 -
make a scheme for salmon. Although we knew that this would increase our costs, we wanted to
enshrine in our business a principle that addresses the welfare and respect for the animal. Our
objective for bringing in ISO14001 certification was to try to prove that we are doing what we say we
do - that was our way to show people that we had respect for the environment. We accept that
everything we do should be questioned. The measure should not be ‘if we fail’, because we are
human and we will fail. Instead, the measure should be the quality of our strategy and our
commitment to it.
The Loch Duart Sustainable Salmon Company approach
Table 2. Respect for the environment.
Upstream
Feed Ingredients: fish meal, fish oil, vegetable matter,
micro ingredients
Local Issues
faeces/seabed effects
antifoulants
predator control
Local Solutions
fallowing/nutrient balancing
‘swim throughs’
non-lethal deterrents
Medicines for welfare only, best equipment, ‘Press
Release’ on all escapes, indigenous species only.
We analyzed every aspect of our business
from upstream to downstream and we tried
to analyze every impact that we were
making, accept the fact that we were making
these impacts, and then try to do something
about them. It is not just a matter of
prioritizing the impacts and automatically
dealing first with the one of highest priority,
because quite clearly, there are some that
are easy wins, and those can be addressed
very quickly. In fact, we have done this
already. We have now moved on to some of
the tougher ones (Table 2).
Choice of fish feed
We are currently feeding fish to fish and we have already accepted that this is a temporary position,
and it will change. As an example of how we go about selecting our fishmeal, in 2003 we unilaterally
declared that we would have no blue whiting in the diets. There was no economic reason for this
decision. Instead, our reason was that blue whiting was fished without a TAC and it was being
heavily over-fished, and we could highlight these issues by banning it from our diets. That decision
cost us over 120,000 pounds sterling that year. But our customers paid for it – they had to pay the
increased price and increased cost.
We are now looking at ways of defining the sustainability of each fishery. In fact, our feed company
has initiated a program to analyze all the fisheries that it uses, and it is paying for this analysis out of
its own pocket.
These are the sorts of things that can be
accomplished by starting to accept that you have
an impact. You cannot only start to change the
way that people perceive you but you can also
change the way that your suppliers operate. The
graph in Figure 17 represents this type of an
analysis, with the vertical axis representing a
‘criteria index’ as a function of a number of
different fishmeals (horizontal (x) axis; note that
the specific names of the types of feed have been
removed as they are irrelevant).
Figure 17. Selection index (data from 2005 analysis).
- 24 -
We select the components of our diets based on this score. The idea is, of course, that it encourages
better prices for those fisheries that get a higher score, but that means that our feed also costs more.
Dealing with solid waste
In 1992 we examined the effects of feces and solids, produced on our sites, on the seabed. We
created a system of year fallows and now have a program in place where we operate and analyze the
results of year fallows, looking at every site that we use, and monitoring the impacts, right from when
the fish go to sea, through to the point where they are harvested and then right through to fallow, and
back again.
The idea in the long term (I have to stress this is long term because we have a lot of sites and it takes
a lot of time to do it) is to demonstrate that at the end of every year fallow, the site returns to the state
it was at the beginning of the cycle. However, the problem is, that in order to do that, we have to run
at least three times through a full cycle which is nine years.
Current information suggests that the sites revert to the same position and start the same every time,
so there is no evidence of an accumulative effect. We also know that the seabed reworks all the solid
material that is there and we know that the seabed is re-colonized by prawns and other invertebrates
over this period.
Dealing with non-solid waste through nutrient balancing
A significant proportion of feces and wastes from fish is soluable and there has to be some way of
dealing with that. We held a number of meetings to explore the idea of balancing the nutrients,
wherein what is put in, is taken out. If, for example, you grow seaweed, then you put in “x” amount
of nitrogen and phosphates and you take out “x” amount of nitrogen and phosphates.
We are committed to try to do this and we have a commercial project currently operating – over the
next two years we hope to start producing significant amounts of seaweed.
Other practices related to respect for the environment
Our company has not used anti-foulants for over a decade. Our general view is that if you are using
something on your nets that is designed to kill all the marine organisms that settle on it, then it will
not be good for an animal that is swimming its entire life about a half a metre away. The principle of
use of medicines for welfare only is a very old one.
We do use seal scarers. They are not 100% successful, but we do our best to keep seals away.
We use the best equipment and we test every site. A marine architect looks at each site, works out the
parameters that we are going to face, and then selects the strongest equipment to deal with that in
order to prevent escapes. If there are escapes we always put out a press release. In general, we prefer
to stand up and say, “Look, we got it wrong,” before someone else tells us that we have.
We only grow indigenous species, and that
includes the seaweed and sea urchin species.
We do not grow anything that does not grow
naturally in the area. We also have the last
Scottish breed stocks being used in Scotland.
Table 3. Techniques to improve environmental performance.
• focussed feed source selection
• fallowing
• swim throughs
• polyculture for nutrient balancing
• what is yet to come?
Table 3 describes the techniques that we are
currently employing or that improve our
environmental performance.
- 25 -
Research projects
We are also currently involved in several research projects to improve our environmental
performance.
What if you could treat animals without medicines?
One project that has just been initiated involves treatment for sea lice and other parasites– it involves
something that is put into the sea, that leaves nothing in the sea, and that does nothing except promote
health, and it requires almost no energy input. There has been considerable success with this product
already and we hope that within a year we will be protecting our entire site using this method.
What if there was a plentiful sustainable marine protein?
Another project involves looking for a plentiful sustainable marine protein that has almost no
environmental impact, where the food waste could be used, and would be highly nutritious for the
fish. We hope to announce in January 2008 that we will be able to move towards a net ocean gain,
that is, a gain in ocean biomass, through the use of this protein. If this does occur, then much of the
upstream criticisms will disappear. This is probably the most exciting thing I personally have
encountered in 30 years.
Will we find better ways to contain our fish?
We are trialing a new type of net, called Dyneema®. It is a polyethylene net that is twice as strong as
current materials, is resistant to abrasion and does not foul much. However, it costs three times as
much as the standard nets. Again we have to ask
ourselves: Will our customers pay for this in three
Table 4. Targets.
•
years’ time? My guess is yes.
•
•
•
•
•
Net gain in ocean biomass
No medicing use at all
Salmon that tastes like wild salmon
Use of food waste to generate more food
Integrated aquaculture
Targets
Table 4 describes a list of our targets. One is to
achieve a net gain in ocean biomass where for every
kilogram of fish that we take out of the sea, we
produce more than a kilogram of fish. Another target
is to have no medicine use at all. That is a difficult but worthy target. Every other form of
aquaculture requires the best sort of production. Salmon aquaculture should be no different. We also
would like to produce farmed salmon that taste like wild salmon, again a difficult target to achieve.
There is also potential for operating a system where we use food waste to generate more food.
Finally, we are striving to achieve an integrated aquaculture system. We know that monoculture on
land has been discredited and we have to accept that we cannot go on with monoculture at sea either.
And to close, Walt Rodgers of CNN came to visit about five years ago where he wandered around the
farm. He was quite aggressive in his interview with us. When he arrived he was very anti-salmon
farming; however, I was very proud to hear the close of his interview before he left when he said, “It
doesn’t have to be rapacious capitalism or the environment – as long as you have a set of principles.”
Case Study: The approach taken by Creative Salmon Company, Tofino, BC
Tim Rundle, Senior Biologist and Operations Manager, Creative Salmon Company,
Tofino, BC.
About Creative Salmon
The Creative Salmon Company Ltd. operates four sites in the Tofino Inlet area on the West coast of
Vancouver Island and they are based out of Tofino in Clayoquot Sound. Clayoquot Sound was
designated a UNESCO biosphere reserve in May of 2000. Creative Salmon has six leases available to
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them and all of these
sites are located in the
traditional territory of
the Tla-o-qui-aht First
Nations. Figure 18
shows the location of
the area and existing
farm sites.
The farm site at the top
right, Tranquil Site, has
been fallow since 1999,
and Creative Salmon is
currently in the process
of trying to relocate it.
One of the smallest
salmon farming
companies in the world,
Creative Salmon was
formed in 1990. It is
Canadian owned and
operated and only
grows indigenous
species of Chinook
salmon. Their focus is
on quality, not quantity.
Figure 18. Location of existing farm sites.
The goal to achieve certified organic status
Creative Salmon is one of the founding members of the Pacific Organic Seafood Association
(POSA), and although Creative Salmon is not certified as organic, achieving this certification
provides a goal for which to strive.
On the path to organic certification
The company has a number of defined objectives relating to food production and animal welfare, and
environmental and social factors.
In terms of food production, they focus on wholesome food products that will make a significant
contribution to a healthy diet for consumers. That means, for example, that their market fish have not
received antibiotic treatments. In the past they used antibiotics in treatment of the fish three or four
times per day over a 24-month period but, beginning in 1995, they reduced that amount to the point
where by 2001, they no longer treated their market fish with antibiotics. They do not use sea lice
treatments or hormone treatments. The diet consists of fishmeal, fish oil and organically certified
wheat, the largest component being fishmeal, which is a cause of concern. Currently, on the path to
organic certification, they are encountering problems in sourcing vegetable proteins and oils that are
certified as organic. The pigment used in their feed is produced from a natural source, Phaffia yeast,
and the product has high levels of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
They are currently involved in a sea-lice monitoring program on wild salmon in Clayoquot Sound in
collaboration with the Ahousaht First Nation, Mainstream, and the Tla-o-qui-aht First Nation. These
data are currently being analyzed and early results indicate that very few sea lice have been observed
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on the farmed Chinook salmon.
Creative Salmon also has a number of objectives related to animal welfare including: minimizing
stress, reducing the incidence of disease, and meeting the nutritional, physiological and behavioural
needs of the fish. They work to maximize fish health by using quality smolts from an in-house
breeding program, grown at Sea Spring Hatchery to their specifications, in addition to using quality
feed from a local company again produced to their specifications. They also have a program
involving four biologists and dedicated managers and crew that continually monitor the fish.
Especially important and key to animal welfare are their fish husbandry practices. Their experience
has been that minimal handling, stocking at low densities, and low stress are the key factors that
contribute to not having to use antibiotics. The densities at harvest reach a maximum of ten
kilograms per cubic meter, but most often they are in the eight to nine kg/m3 range, and that is right at
the very end. For the rest of the time the fish are present in much lower densities. In terms of
handling practices, they do not grade, split, or handle the fish until harvest time. To ensure as humane
a harvesting process as possible, for the last few years they have used a percussion stunning system
and they are currently exploring the possibility of using electrical stunning systems.
Environmental objectives
In consideration of achieving minimal impacts on the environment and healthy water conditions, they
focus on the use of sustainable foods, minimizing disease and preventing escapes. They have a
monitoring program in place to measure impacts in compliance with the regulations in the industry.
In fact, they had the first program of its type on the coast, preceding the government regulations.
As with the Loch Duart company, they do not use anti-foulants on their nets. This means, however, a
lot more work for the crew. As a small company, they rely more on labour and less on equipment.
Without the use of anti-foulants the nets need to be changed several times in the summer in order to
keep maximum flow to the fish.
Fallowing strategies
They make decisions on their monitoring program beyond what is required under the regulations. For
example, although they may already be regulation compliant, they might decide to fallow a site in
order to reduce possible impacts. They employ two methods of fallowing. One is to fallow at every
cycle, which is a three to four month fallowing between grow-out groups. They also employ a longer
term of fallowing, from two to four years. Of their six locations, they made the decision not to farm
one specific site, despite regulation compliance. The rest of their operation currently rotates between
five locations, which they believe reduces the environmental footprint.
Feed management
Since 1996, every meal in every pen is monitored using underwater cameras and the amount of feed
is adjusted to appetite. Feed waste is minimized, although given the environment in which they
operate with open-net cages, a certain amount of feed waste is unavoidable. The trick is to decrease
that waste while still providing the fish with everything they need for health and growth. Having a
crew right out beside the net cage when the fish are being fed helps to keep that connection with the
fish.
Disease management
All brood stock is screened for disease and they have very high quality smolts. There is continual
monitoring and biosecurity with a focus on prevention. They have a very low incidence of disease,
with typically greater than 90 percent survival during an 18 month grow-out cycle. They are able to
bring the fish for one of their cycle entry times up to close to 15 pounds at the end of the cycle, for
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Chinook.
Sea lions
As far as their objectives go, they have recently failed in terms of minimal impact and fish welfare
with regards to dealing with the resident sea lion population, and they acknowledge that. This issue
has caused a lot of stress for their company and its employees. It is very demoralizing, not only with
the death of the sea lions, but also with having the fish that the employees have had such close contact
with for two years, lying on the bottom of the pen and being placed in mortality buckets.
The graph in Figure 19 shows the statistics
for numbers of sea lions in Tofino Inlet from
1993 where there were only five animals in
total, to 2006, where 300 sea lions were
observed up in the inlet, with a new haul out
site north of their farm sites. In winter 2007,
the numbers reached close to 1,100 animals
at the haul out, although an estimate of what
would have been in the inlet at the time is
probably closer to 1,500 sea lions. This has
caused very significant problems for their
operations.
Figure 19. Sea Lion numbers in Tofino Inlet 1993-2007 (3-5/yr 1993-1999, 60/yr 2000, 8-10/yr 2001-2005, 300+/yr 2006,
1083/yr 2007).
The issue is related to the bottom of the net cages where there is a “shark guard” directed at the
dogfish in the area, with a drop netting of about four feet - basically it creates a false bottom (Figure
20). The sea lions were hitting fish from the side of the pen, and the fish would fall to the bottom.
The sea lions then came up from the bottom and chewed those fish, and in the process they created a
hole in the shark guard. They then entered into the shark guard and were not able to find a way back
out.
Creative Salmon has
significantly improved this
design by custom building
stronger predator nets. These
nets are deeper, with smaller
mesh, and they can hang more
weight. They have modified the
grower nets as well and have
removed the shark guards. In
addition, they have doubled the
mesh on the bottom and laced it
so that there are no openings
that a sea lion can get into.
They have put a section of semirigid panel right on the bottom
as well and have added more
down lines for additional
weight. On a site, there is now
close to 70,000 pounds of
hanging weight, as they try to keep
Figure 20. Sea Lion issues.
these nets stiff. Finally, the new Wavemaster pen systems have doubled the width of the walkways,
- 29 -
allowing for more of a barrier.
Escape management
To control the incidence of escapes, they routinely do maintenance and daily system checks. They
use only high quality nets and do frequent net strength testing. They use containment nets when
handling fish and only use engineered pens and anchoring systems.
Social objectives
In addition to their extensive environmental objectives they have objectives related to the well-being
of their employees and the local community. This includes a program that encourages the use of local
resources, and one that provides a safe and healthy working environment for the employees, in
addition to the promotion of organic aquaculture and a healthy product. The employees are really the
key to the success at Creative Salmon.
They are also actively involved in the community. They were the first aquaculture company in BC to
employ a First Nations liaison representative. Table 5 provides a list of some of the community
activities in which they are involved.
Finally, from the point of view of the Creative Salmon Company, sustainable aquaculture involves
the generation of economic benefits while operating with respect for their employees and community,
the environment, the fish, their suppliers and their customers.
Table 5. Some examples of the involvement of Creative Salmon in the community.
• Baseball, Basketball
• Clayoquot Sound Community Theatre
• Coastal Resource Family Resource Centre
• Cops for Cancer
• Edge to Edge Marathon
• First Nations Surf Camp
• Fish Contribution to Non-Profits
• Golf Tournaments
• Legion Salmon Derby Barbeque
• Music Festivals
• Pacific Rim Arts Society
• SCAT Program
• School Farm Tours
• Starlight Exravaganza
• Strawberry Island Research Centre
• Tla-oqui-aht First Nations Canoe Races
• Tofino Business Association
• Tofino Enhancement Society
• Ukee Days
• Whale Festival
• Wickaninnish Elementary School Hot Lunch Program
Responses to Net-cage salmon aquaculture – examples of the best practices
Based on the presentations, how should we proceed with salmon aquaculture in BC?
Robin Austin, MLA-Skeena, and Member, British Columbia Legislative Special Committee on
Sustainable Aquaculture, Victoria, BC
Foremost, I would like to comment on the incredible candour of the presenters.
As our committee traveled around the province, we heard from people from Europe (Norway,
Scotland and Ireland) with respect to the controversy and contentious issues that were arising in BC
around the environmental impact of salmon aquaculture. They would say, “Why are you still
debating this? We figured this out in Norway or in Ireland, about ten or fifteen years ago.” This got
us to thinking about finding ways to move beyond the contentious part of the debate, and to recognize
what Nick Joy spoke about very candidly, which is to say, “Yes, open net cages have an impact on
the environment”. I believe that this is now also recognized in British Columbia.
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Focus of the report
Our report focused on how salmon aquaculture can thrive in BC - we want to see aquaculture grow in
British Columbia, not shut it down. We have to find solutions that will enable changes in order to
solve some of the problems that have been seen here, and to allow this industry to grow to where we
have more jobs, not less jobs.
Report recommendations
The report made three main points in addition to a number of other recommendations. We
highlighted the main points because we wanted the government to focus on these. This included the
recommendation to move to some form of barrier between the farmed and the wild fish; that is, to
find some form of closed-containment. We suggested that they consider moving to ocean-based,
flow-through containment, not closed-containment. The second recommendation was to put in place
a moratorium on further development of fish farms north of Cape Caution. The reason for this is that
the largest river system in BC that is still fish farm free, is the Skeena River and its watershed. We
thought it important to avoid some of the controversies that have taken place in the more southern
regions of coastal British Columbia, especially the problems associated with the farms that are
unresolved. The third main recommendation was to increase the emphasis on shellfish aquaculture,
particularly taking into account the extensive traditional knowledge of the First Nations’ people of
this province and the fact that they were involved in many forms of mariculture long before European
contact.
Chief Bob Chamberlain, Kwicksutaineuk-ah-kwa-mish Band, Simoon Sound, BC
Cumulative impacts on the ocean bottom
There were some common points that I observed in these presentations. Both companies are raising
local species only and I believe that is something that has to happen here in BC. Also, I noticed that in
the discussions about environmental impacts, there was a focus on fishmeal production and the
environment within the net pen itself. This clearly needs to be a greater focus for farms in BC, and
not just a discussion about the ‘footprint’. We need to be more aware of what this industry is doing to
the ocean bottom. When there are so many farms located in such small areas, the destruction of the
ocean bottom from each site starts to hold hands and then there is more of a cumulative impact on a
regional level, rather than one by one at a time, which is how the licensing application reviews the
farms.
Aboriginal title and rights
One thing that is different for the aquaculture industry in British Columbia compared to salmon
aquaculture in other locations in the world, is the court upheld existence of Aboriginal title and rights.
This is something that needs to be seriously considered and discussed at all levels of this industry.
The recognition of Aboriginal rights is fundamental in BC. The province of BC has a new policy that
is supposed to recognize First Nations title and rights within their respective territories and develop
new mechanisms for shared decision-making.
However, as one of the Nations that is having difficulties with the salmon aquaculture industry, we
have not been able to participate in shared decision-making with respect to how this activity is
conducted within our traditional territory, which the BC Supreme Court has recently upheld with the
Chilcotin people about the very existence of Aboriginal title.
Global acceptance of the impact of sea lice
I do not think it is possible to manage wild salmon within the context of open net-cage aquaculture in
BC. Recently, when I met with a senior fisheries bureaucrat in the Norwegian government my first
question was, “Can you confirm to me that open net-cage aquaculture produces a large amount of sea
lice which in turn kill outward migrating wild salmon smolts?” His reply was, “Of course.” For me
- 31 -
then it seems ridiculous that the province of British Columbia is still doing research to answer this
question. We appear to be diverging from what is an established fact globally and pretending that the
coastline of British Columbia is somehow different in this respect.
The need for best practices in the Broughton
There are far too many fish farms in a very small region, particularly within our territory. We need to
determine the carrying capacity for regions within the coastline; for example, we believe that 29 or 30
farms in our little area are far too many. We need to look at the siting of farms. There are other
regions of the world, for example in Norway, where the aquaculture industry has been required to
relocate the open net cages to reduce the impacts on wild stocks in specific regions.
We also need to establish realistic fallow routes designed and implemented in ways that respect the
wild salmon migrating in and out of the territories. We cannot establish fallow routes where the
foundation of the fallow routes is to maintain the present production capacity of the aquaculture
industry within a region. We need to establish the same type of respect at the government level for the
wild salmon stocks. When I see the value, as was shown earlier today, of the overall market share of
aquaculture produced product, compared with the declining wild salmon production and value, it is
truly a shame. In coastal British Columbia commercial fishing has been the life blood of so many
communities, and the aquaculture industry will be unable to replace that.
It is my hope that through our discussions, we will be able to embrace the notion of looking at
something other than just the local footprint. We need to look at what the impacts of this industry are
within a broader regional environment and in terms of other marine resources. For the people of the
Kwicksutaineuk-ah-kwa-mish Nation, our very culture and existence have relied upon the abundance
and food quality of what we have traditionally lived on, from time immemorial. That includes species
other than salmon, although salmon are central to what we do and how we exist. When we start to
see eutrophication and general nutrient loading in regions with resulting impacts on bivalve species,
we have serious concerns. These are the other food resources that we rely on and every time one of
these species declines, it is another infringement on our Aboriginal title and rights.
Larry Greba, Advisor, Kitasoo Fisheries Program, Vancouver, BC
Adaptive management in the salmon aquaculture industry
There were some excellent points made in these presentations with respect to open net cage salmon
aquaculture. It is interesting to see the evolution of the industry in British Columbia and elsewhere
where industry has been brought to task with respect to oversight by NGOs and the general public
who have interests in various values that initially are not considered by salmon farmers. It is
refreshing to see that with these companies there is a maturing of that relationship, where the
company is willing to admit their failures, embrace change and do adaptive management. That is a
big part of where we have to go in BC.
Relevance to salmon farms of the Kitasoo Band
In the operation at Klemtu it would be our dream to have low densities, but I do not agree that the
biggest question around growing salmon is whether or not we should be using indigenous species or
non-indigenous species. Overall, the fact is that the industry is reacting and changing in order to meet
the concerns of people.
In Klemtu, the situation is quite different, because the Kitasoo Band, the Xaixais First Nation, has
taken more of a community ecosystem approach to the development of the industry. They have had
the luxury of being remote, and being the only people within their territories which cover a large area,
about 100 miles by 100 miles.
The Kitasoo Band has developed an Agreement, or a social contract, with the company that they have
partnered with, Marine Harvest Canada. This type of agreement is relatively unique in Canada, if not
- 32 -
in the world. It essentially puts the control in the hands of the First Nations in the community and as a
result, the people have had direct input into the siting of the farms, for example. From the beginning
there has been advice from a group of people who have lived and worked and fished in that area and
know the area better than anyone. They know which areas are benign or not as important in terms of
providing foods for their people, and this knowledge is taken into account when locating the farms.
The scale of operation is critical - as we have heard in various other parts of the province, and around
the world, scale is probably the most important factor to consider. Like anything we do in the
environment, it is a question of how much we do and in what size of an area.
The Agreement also addresses economic benefits to the community.
Half of the annual income for the Kitasoo Band is now related to salmon farming. Eighty percent of
the people working on the farms are from Klemtu, from the band. One hundred percent of the people
that work in the processing plant for eight to ten months of the year are also from the Kitasoo First
Nation.
When it comes to monitoring impacts, it is important to note that some things are more incremental
and take time to show impact. The operation at Klemtu has been very fortunate by having in place a
longstanding fisheries program and they also hire independent scientists to come in to do impact
assessments around the salmon farms. They do not just look at the suite of issues that government, or
the industry, generally look at, which tends to be narrowly focused. Instead they develop monitoring
programs around the things that the community values. Most important are the foods that people are
harvesting from around the farms. They work with Health Canada, for example, to assess antimicrobial residues in some of the other seafood products that are around the local farms and they also
monitor sea lice to ensure that wild salmon are not impacted. Certainly, embedded within the social
contract with the company is that there has to be continuing food opportunities for the community
with respect to access to wild stocks. If there are problems where this may be jeopardized, then
through the agreement, the community has the ability to shut the whole operation down. In addition,
they monitor the biodiversity around the farms. The community recognizes that there will be localized
impacts, within the footprint of the farms and they are also interested in what goes on on the
periphery and in how far the impacts of the farms might go.
Approximately $40,000 - $50,000 of the AFS money is spent annually on the monitoring programs.
The results of the programs are then relayed back to the company in terms of doing adaptive
management. For example, they might say, “Look, we’re seeing this, we don’t have a big published
report but we’ve got people who are quite skilled. We’ve got a set of data that is pointing in this
direction.” Instead of spending ten years to obtain a final report, the response is often, “Yes, it is a
problem” and they engage the company in trying to look at creative solutions, sooner rather than later.
It is refreshing to see a small company such as Creative Salmon operating in the community. One
new issue that the Kitasoo operation is dealing with is the move towards amalgamation of companies,
and subsequent changes within the corporate structure. They need to know whether or not these new
companies will have same triple bottom line concept that, for example, Nutreco had when they
initially engaged with them ten years ago.
One issue that has not yet been discussed in this workshop pertains to transparency. Kitasoo has had
some real problems with this. They gather a lot of information and produce some reports, but none of
them are published via the usual scientific peer-reviewed avenues, although this would be their
preference. However, they are caught between the industry and the First Nation. They want to do
good science and have, at times, partnered with each of the major academic institutions in British
Columbia. But some of the research from these institutions goes beyond science into the realm of
advocacy. This makes it very confusing in terms of research partnerships. Again, that is perhaps an
evolution that we all still have to go through. Everybody has their own personal biases but certainly
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academia has to be held at a different standard in terms of how they apply some of the knowledge that
they have.
David Lane, Researcher, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation, Vancouver, BC
There are two main points that I noted from the presentations. First, it appears that smaller companies
seem to be better able to launch into testing better practices and to develop innovative technology.
Secondly, based on these two examples, Loch Duart Salmon and Creative Salmon, although they are
clearly trying to do a better job the kinds of calamities that we have heard about in the news still
happen. Here are a couple of the headlines, just from this month: “Fierce Winds Prompt Salmon
Escape at Loch Duart”, “Farmed salmon producer Loch Duart says as many as 14,000 of its fish may
have escaped.” And there were headlines from last year on the sea lion problem that Creative Salmon
has acknowledged: “Creative Salmon, Tofino Area Fish Farm Company, Last Year Found 110
Drowned Sea Lions Trapped in its Nets.” These kinds of environmental catastrophes are just not
acceptable.
The question is: Are there better practices that can be used for open-net salmon farms? Some
solutions have been put out here for discussion, but let’s look at the limitations of them. We have
new laws regarding predator control that have to be in every salmon farm management plan and yet in
the experience of Creative Salmon, that was a failure. They are initiating new measures and that is
admirable, but why aren’t those kinds of measures regulated in the first place?
Disease control
Sea lice is probably the biggest issue that has been in the news. There are regulations laid out in a sea
lice management program. One of the issues raised above was that chinook salmon seem to be less
susceptible to sea lice. Yet in BC there is a move away from farming chinook salmon and towards
more production of Atlantic salmon. The main solution put forward for sea lice at the moment is
using the chemical, Slice®, but often it does not work. Initially when Slice® is used it drastically
reduces sea lice on the farms, for some period, but what most people do not know is that farmers are
given the option to harvest out their fish. If the harvesting out happens during the critical period
where small migrating wild salmon are going out in the April, May, June period, and there are fish in
the water being harvested, then Slice® cannot be used. So the fish just sit there with high loads of sea
lice and that has an immediate effect on the wild juvenile salmon in the region.
A lot of research is going on in terms controlling disease – but really the only thing that is being put
forward is best practice. Major disease outbreaks still happen and yet little attention is paid to the
impacts on wild species. Very little research is being conducted by any level of government as to
what the impacts are on wild salmon or other species, from disease transfer from fish farms.
Siting of farms
Another issue, raised earlier by Chief Chamberlain, and one that is never thought of in terms of ‘best
practices’, is the density of fish farms in certain regions in BC. The Broughton Archipelago is the
most impacted region right now. In order to protect wild pink salmon in that region probably all of
the farms on the Tribune Channel migration corridor will need to be removed so that pink salmon can
get out of there during the spring. There is no management plan that can allow that to happen on a
consistent basis, unless those farms are removed. And yet there is no program in place to determine
where the worst sites are in terms of potential environmental impacts, particularly from sea lice
infestations. Furthermore, there is no program in place to address the need to relocate these farms out
of the migration corridors in order to protect wild salmon.
In summary, the ‘Best Practices’ approach should be encouraged. However, if there are better
practices, they should be regulated. They should be applicable to all companies, and to all sites.
Despite regulations, we have seen time and time again that calamities occur and wild salmon and
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other species take the brunt of this. We have 40 million wild salmon on the BC coast. This is a
circumstance that does not exist anywhere else where salmon farming is a major commercial
industrial activity. Clearly, we need to protect those salmon. We believe that the only solution is to
get them into closed-containment. It is good to have these discussions looking at: How do we move
there? Is it viable? and, How do we move towards something that does protect our ecosystems?
Dialogue
Organic certification
(Peter Tyedmers)
In Europe there are a number of farms in different contexts that are certified to organic standards.
What is the utility of pursuing organic certification in the context of conventional net-pen production?
Nick Joy
I have very strong views on organic status and I have to alert you to that before I reply. The culture
of animals requires welfare and if you begin with a principle that says that you cannot use medicine
then you are automatically accepting the poor welfare of an animal. This was what we faced when
we first started growing animals within organic schemes. The original premise of organic was the
health of the soil. My own view is that organic does not work with stock. There are now four
different schemes in place, one French, one German and two British. They all have different
standards and as a consumer it is very hard to understand what you are buying when you are buying
organic. I should point out that Loch Duart is not organic and we have no intention of being organic
in the future.
The biggest problem with organic that has developed is that when you start being prescriptive and
say, “Thou shalt,” with whatever you are doing within farming, and it is controlled by committees,
then this actually limits innovation. Generally, innovation occurs in companies that are free to act
quickly, which is one of the things that the Loch Duart operation can do. I can make a decision in ten
seconds as to where we go next. I don’t want to attack organic standards, and the people who are
trying to create the standards, because clearly their intention is to produce good and safe food for
people. My problem is that essentially it has become a compromise and when you compromise on an
issue like organic, it is very hard to justify where you have gone.
In terms of organic certification for salmon production, although the process does not necessarily lead
to certification, what it does is imply that there has been a detailed look at every single aspect of the
culture process of, in this particular farm, chinook salmon. The organic concepts are involved in
examinations of all the different aspects of the culture. What the company can do as a result of this,
whether or not they become certified as organic, is to say, “This is the feed these fish are receiving.
These are the conditions under which the fish are raised. We can basically certify that this is true.
Here is the fish. You make up your own mind.” There is a traceability factor here which results from
looking at something from an organic point of view.
The use of floating feed
Larry Albright
The majority of the freshwater trout farmers are now using floating feed. When they shifted over to
floating feed a number of years ago, they noticed that they got the same production with 15 percent
less feed, indicating that they were losing about 15 percent of their feed to the bottom of the culture
facilities. The floating feed would stay on the water for at least 12 hours and the farmers could then
feed the fish more efficiently. I have raised this subject with the net-pen farmers and their comment
is that it bounces out of the cage. However, this idea has not been explored sufficiently well. For
example, if one put a skirt around the net cages for several feet above and below, then the floating
feed should stay in the tanks and not fall to the bottom. If some did bounce out by wave action or
- 35 -
action of the feeding fish, it would be picked up by the birds and that feed would be disbursed far and
wide and actually enter the food chain for the birds. This is one thing that the net-cage farmers may
want to explore.
Why the focus on closed-containment?
What are the alternatives to the alternative? There is, for instance, the possibility of offshore
aquaculture. There are also possibilities of rearing salmon for longer periods on land. What was the
thinking that lead to the main focus on closed-containment?
(A representative from the aquaculture industry) What I observed from the presentation is that
closed-containment would, in fact, worsen some of the environmental impacts, such as carbon
emissions. Closed-containment could also mitigate the market impacts by increasing production costs,
making farmed salmon more expensive and less price competitive and this then would improve the
market for wild salmon.
Robin Austin
One of the unique things about British Columbia is that, as David Lane pointed out, we have 40
million wild salmon still to protect. That is not the case, for example, in Chile or in Norway. A lot of
the controversy that happens in BC results from our desire to make sure that we are not adding to the
pressures that already exist for wild salmon. Therefore, our committee, having listened to many
people, concluded that there needs to be a barrier between the farmed and the wild fish.
If you increase the costs to any industry, that cost has to ultimately be paid by the consumer. The
notion that we have to continue to stay with the technology because here in British Columbia we are
competing in a global marketplace with a place that can produce Atlantic salmon much cheaper – that
is, Chile –is a specious argument. When I go to the grocery store, and I look at the choice of cuts of
beef, there is a huge range of value depending on which cut of beef I want to have. I would agree with
Nick Joy in the sense that if an industry decides to make a decision that is going to increase its costs,
then it has to concern itself with what the consumer would be willing to pay for that change. I believe
that here in British Columbia and around the world, if people see salmon aquaculture done in a way
that is more environmentally sustainable, they will gladly pay for that.
Would closed-containment be an option for the Kitasoo Band?
(A representative from an NGO) I’ve been to Klemtu and one thing I do know from having been
there is that this community is benefiting substantially from marine resources, including from salmon
aquaculture. This is a community with strong linkages to the sea and they clearly want the marine
environment to continue in a healthy way. Given that the people of the Kitasoo/Xaixais Nation are
interested in exploring some of the options that Robin Austen’s Committee proposes, and the closedcontainment technology that Richard Buchanan is experimenting with, what would be the barriers for
the Kitasoo people to move forward and explore ways of implementing closed-containment or flowthrough, floating containers?
Larry Greba
Certainly when we saw the results of the Committee’s report, even though there were some
concessions given to Kitasoo directly around moving fully to closed-containment, that caused concern
for a group of people who are trying to build a sustainable model around open-cage farming. We
should note too that after ten years of fairly intensive farming, we still have not seen the negative
impacts that others have seen, such as in the Broughton. If there are going to be impacts there, then
clearly it will take a longer time to occur. The Klemtu area in Kitasoo territory is probably the most
remote area in BC. It is very expensive to produce energy there, for example. This could be a real
disincentive for companies to stay in a remote area like this, and it is likely that they would gravitate
back to where they could get the cheapest source of power. Also, if they were involved in a closedcontainment system, why would they not establish it closer to the markets? Why would they locate it
- 36 -
in the middle of nowhere?
The Kitasoo people would be willing to try to experiment with closed-containment and we feel there
could be some innovative solutions identified, especially with all the hanging lakes that the Kitasoo
have in their territory and the ability to generate power. The remoteness factor, however, would be a
deterrent. There are other communities, in closer proximity to larger centres such as Port Hardy or
Prince Rupert, that have similar opportunities. We are continuing to go down the road to prove our
sustainability model around open-cage farming. That is our mandate back to the community.
Although we might be willing to try to move into closed-containment, or another form of aquaculture
where there is a barrier between farmed and wild fish, there are a number of significant barriers to
moving in those directions.
With respect to transparency
(A representative from the aquaculture industry) On the issue of the importance of transparency I
believe that it is important on all sides. For example, it is important for us to know who the
environmental organizations are that are involved in the anti-farming campaign, and who funds the
scientific research, and to know about the integration of aquaculture science messages and earned
media to shift consumer and retailer demand.
Robin Austen
Regarding transparency, I agree that it has to go both ways. Just as Nick Joy commented, when his
company has made a mistake they put out a press release that says, “Listen, we have made a mistake,
we had a severe escapes and 14,000 salmon left.” By the same token, I would hope that that same
transparency approach would apply to the sources of funding for the research being conducted in
British Columbia. But let us understand why we got to this point in British Columbia. Here we have
ended up with two groups who in some cases went to the extremes and then threw rocks at each other.
What we tried to do on our Committee deliberations was to ignore the more extreme rocks and try to
focus on the central issues of what really is environmentally disturbing and how we could mitigate
these issues. After listening to long debates and hundreds of presentations and reading hundreds of
submissions, we came to the conclusion that there needs to be a barrier between the farmed and the
wild salmon.
Tim Rundle
After hearing the message so often, it appears to me that the anti-aquaculture argument is attacking
the messenger and it is deflecting attention away from the real issue. It gets monotonous after awhile,
especially when groups such as the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform have had 25 or more
meetings with Marine Harvest trying to accommodate the vision of Marine Harvest and also the
vision of wild salmon on this coast. It would be good to get onto the subjects that are really
important.
The CAAR – Marine Harvest partnership
David Lane
With reference to the membership of CAAR, my own group has been established here for 25 years.
We have about 2,000 members from up and down the coast and they are all concerned about wild
salmon. There has been a positive change in the last couple of years towards more dialogue between
environmental groups and the fish-farm industry. That has included dialogue on the science, to the
point where we are now working together at establishing some of the most critical science questions
of hot debate in BC. We want to get at these questions through jointly agreed upon methodologies
and researchers. We are hoping that this work will produce answers that we can all agree on and that
will put the polarized debate further behind us and create more dialogue as well.
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Transparency and the exchange of information on sealice
Craig Orr, Executive Director, Watershed Watch Salmon Society
The issue of transparency was one of the reasons why the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform
started working with Marine Harvest, in the spirit of wanting to better understand what was
happening on the farms. We did not have the information, and to the credit of Marine Harvest, they
allowed us to go on the farms and count lice and they have also provided us with counts of lice. This
issue is a cause of great concern for those of us who are concerned about wild salmon. Transparency,
however, does come with a risk and there is a risk both ways. It is a fine line, and sometimes rather
subjective, in terms of where people resort to advocacy and how they describe what the science says.
If you do not share those data, then the risk is that you are accused of hiding something and not
cooperating.
Creative Salmon is working with a species that is historically known to have fewer lice problems. Is
there a chance in the future that you will work with the NGO community and share those data that
you are collecting, and accept their offers to help you work with the analyses so that we can
understand if there is or is not a louse problem in your farming system?
Tim Rundle
The data being collected belong to the group (Creative Salmon, Mainstream, Ahousaht and Tla-o-quiaht First Nations) and therefore I cannot make the decision here on the spot. As a group, we have
come together and monitored the wild salmon in Clayoquot Sound. We expect to meet in the near
future to decide on who will be analyzing these data. But herein lies part of the dilemma. With
transparency comes the need for a lot of trust. And the question always is, “Who will analyze those
data?” Do we hand it to someone that historically has been pumping out anti-aquaculture
propaganda? Do we hand it to someone that has worked with the industry? Or do we hand it to
someone else who is entirely independent of both the industry and the NGO communities? Then,
what always comes into question, are the actual data. This is unfortunate because the integrity of
whoever is involved in the collection of these data is also brought into question. The first step for us
is to proceed with the data analysis, then discuss it as a group, and after that we will have to see.
Impact of aquaculture relative to other activities including enhancement
Tim Rundle
It is important to put salmon farming in the context of other factors that may impact the sustainability
of wild salmon in BC. For example, approximately 22 million smolts go into the sea. They do not
start out in closed-containment, but they are contained. Very few of them actually get out because
there is an approximate 90 percent survival of smolt to market fish. On the other hand, in the ocean
around the Pacific Rim, there are approximately six billion hatchery-raised Pacific salmon, which are
raised under the same conditions, in most cases, as in the aquaculture industry, whether they are
Pacific or Atlantic salmon. Those hatchery fish are put into the Pacific Ocean - some of them are for
salmon enhancement and some of them are for ocean ranching. Notably, the cultured fish do not eat
anything significant from the food chain or the wild Pacific salmon. On the other hand, the six billion
hatchery fish that go out into the Pacific Ocean (amounting to around 25 percent of all the salmon in
the ocean) are feeding on the wild feed supply. As a matter of perspective, there is no question that
we should be looking at salmon aquaculture, but we should put it in perspective; that is, salmon
aquaculture in British Columbia is only about 0.8 percent of all the fish that are actually put out into
the ocean.
From a numbers perspective alone, we also need to consider what else is happening out in the ocean,
whether it is climatic change which affects the amount of available feed that there is or stocking
situations which might result in too many fish for the feed supply, which can in turn be detrimental to
all the fish species. We need to get this in perspective because in the long run the objective is to save
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the wild salmon. There is a danger that by focusing too closely on aquaculture, we will use all of our
resources for that purpose and lose the wild salmon by neglect.
Data analysis
Larry Greba
Kitasoo has been collecting data, which are summarized and then utilized in various ways. These data
are often not analyzed to the point where they can be published in peer-reviewed literature. We want
to move to that point but we find we don’t have the capacity to do this analysis. If there is capacity at
the government or industry level, then we may have a problem in terms of their respective biases.
The sector that should be able to assist us is academia. However, the advocacy position of some of the
academic community makes it difficult for us to determine whether or not they can produce unbiased
reports.
Sea lions in Tofino
(A participant) You were very clear in saying that the great number of sea lions is a relatively new
problem for you and that it is not something you could have anticipated. Is there any evidence as to
why the sea lion population has increased? Is the increase related to the existence of salmon farms?
And, therefore, does the loss and gain balance exist?
Tim Rundle
Based on discussions with DFO scientists, it appears that the population is actually relatively stable
for the California sea lions, the species with which we are having problems. In the 1980s there were
no California sea lions in Clayoquot Sound, but now they seem to be extending their range north. Of
the approximately 1,500 animals that were in the inlet last year, there was an equal division between
Steller lions and the California sea lions. It appears that they have moved up from Barkley Sound
into the haul out in Tofino Inlet. There have also been large numbers of bait fish present in the inlet
in the last two years, including pilchards, and some herring, and we have not witnessed this before.
We believe that these new species are what has brought the sealions into the inlet. It will be a good
test this year as it doesn’t look as if the bait fish will be present in such abundance. Most likely, our
salmon farming operation could not sustain the amount of the biomass needed to support this number
of sealions; that is, 1,500 300-kilogram animals. Clearly, there is something else happening and that
needs to investigated. The next question will be: What will happen to the wild fish populations in
Tofino Inlet?
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PART III
PEST MANAGEMENT
____________________________________________________________________________
What are the implications of and effective alternatives to the use of chemo-therapeutants on salmon farms?
Using an Integrated Pest Management approach for sealice control
Myron Roth, Aquaculture Analyst, Province of British Columbia
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is about learning to live with the pathogen. Many parasites in the
wild exist in equilibrium with their hosts. The parasites in salmon have evolved over millions of
years and they live in a sort of balance with their host. If the balance starts to tip one way or the other,
then the parasites become a disease. In health management it is commonly said that the presence of a
pathogen does not always mean a disease. However, when it does mean a disease there is a problem
that needs addressing.
Sea Lice Biology
Figure 21 shows the ten stages in the life cycle of sea lice. Sea lice are direct transmission parasites,
parasitic copepods.
Figure 21. Life cycle of sea lice.
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There are two nauplii stages – these are free-swimming, non-feeding stages. They molt into the
copepodid stage which is a modified stage where a couple of antennae have evolved into small hooks
allowing the parasite to attach to the host (Figure 22). This is followed by four developmental larval
stages referred to collectively as the chalamus stage. This stage is characterized by growth of a
frontal filament that extends out of the head and attaches to the fish. Two pre-adult stages follow and
then the pre-adults molt into adults and the adult females produce egg strings.
Figure 22. Sea Lice morphology (Lice Figures Redrawn from Kabata, 1979; Schram, 1993; Piasecki, 1996 ©Ichthyologix, 1998).
There are two general species of sea lice
on the BC coast: Lepeophtheirus
salmonis, the salmon louse which has a
preference for salmonids; Calagus
cleminsine and one other species of the
Calagus genus, more generalist kinds of
sea lice that are much smaller and prefer
a variety of different hosts. They tend
not to be as common on salmon and
they are not nearly as much of a
problem. The adult females of the
Figure 23. Pathology of sea lice on salmon.
Lepeophtheirus salmon louse can get
quite large and so they, in particular, are a concern and the cause of a lot of mechanical damage. When
fish get infected with lice, the first evidence is the appearance of small gray patches where they tend to
congregate, behind the fins and on the head (Figure 23).
- 41 -
When the lice get onto the flanks they cause small pinpoint hemorrhaging and little red spots appear
and begin to disfigure the salmon, ultimately causing a lot of downgrading in terms of quality. If the
infection has been underway for a long time, then the damage can be quite destructive. For example,
in the top right-hand photograph in Figure 23 the lice have actually chewed through the skin and the
muscle is visible. This is a real welfare issue for the fish and it has to be addressed.
The salmon louse infects farmed salmon as well as wild Pacific salmon, especially chum and pink
salmon. Research has shown that Atlantic salmon are several orders of magnitude more susceptible
to infection than are Pacific salmon, and there is a more pronounced pathology in the Atlantic,
compared with Pacific, salmon.
What is Integrated Pest Management?
IPM is a multifactoral approach to pest management that involves a series of evaluations, decisions,
and controls that take advantage of all pest management options and strategies to achieve long-term
solutions. Sea lice control is not just about treating fish with some drug and it is not just a process. It
is not short-term control and it is certainly not eradication. It is an interactive process. With IPM you
try to manage the equilibrium to achieve long-term solutions.
There are four main aspects to Integrated Pest
Management (Figure 24). The core of an IPM program is
what is done to stop lice from being there in the first
place. This is prevention and it forms the central element
of everything that is applied. Prevention includes topics
such as the fish health management plan and the sea lice
monitoring component of that plan.
It could also include factors related to siting of farms,
stocking densities and all the things related to best
management practices (see Table 6). For example, many
years ago in Scotland they found that they could achieve
more in sea lice control through fallowing and year class
separation than they could by trying to manage sea lice
with therapeutants. Combined, these strategies achieve
the goal of maximizing the best environment for the host
and creating the least favourable environment for the
pathogen. If the hosts are healthy and not stressed then
Figure 24. Aspects of Integrated Pest Management. they have natural defenses that can fight off the parasites.
The next step is to establish action levels. Decisions have to be
made as to what level action needs to be taken and what level is
tolerable for the fish. In establishing this action level, you have to
understand something about the pathology and critical mass.
Many of these parasite populations can expand exponentially so by
keeping the numbers low it is possible to manage critical mass.
Table 6. Prevention strategies.
1. Location of Sites
2. Year Class Separation
3. Fallowing
4. Husbandry
• Selective Breeding
• Stocking Densities
• Nutrition
•Hygiene
•Predatory Control
5. Innovative Technology
The environment also has to be taken into consideration. Once the
action level has been determined, the most important thing to do is
to monitor the situation. It is not just a matter of going out and
counting lice now and then. There has to be a regimented codified
monitoring program. It is important that the monitoring program is regular and detailed. The people
who are counting sea lice need to be able to distinguish Caligus from Lepeophtheirus species and they
must know what life stages are present, as that will determine the different actions that will be
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employed on the farms. For example, a number of years ago in Scotland, a treatment was available;
however, it only worked on the adult stages of life. Therefore, it was imperative that before a
treatment was applied, it was determined that the majority of the population distribution was adult,
and not larval, stages. If it was predominantly larval stages, then the treatment would have no effect.
Intervention
The next step is to seal this with some intervention strategies. Intervention is used when all else fails.
For example, if there is a storm and that is followed by an immediate sudden increase in sea lice
numbers, then there has to be some intervention that can bring the numbers down, in order to
maintain the equilibrium. It is also important to have in place a continuing research program that
addresses subjects such as monitoring strategies, what the action levels mean, and various techniques
for prevention. A lot of research has been used as the basis for developing good strategies for
managing fish and managing sea lice. However, at the same time, the information from the research
program needs to be related to measurements of the effectiveness of the monitoring and intervention
strategies. For example, much data is collected from monitoring procedures, but often it is not
adequately analyzed.
Therapeutants and treatment
Much more research is needed in the area of therapeutants and treatments; for example, to determine
innovative ways to manage fish so that they do not get sea lice infections, or innovative ways to
manage sea lice numbers if they rise above the action levels. There are some therapeutants that have
been tested and used, only to find later that they are not effective. For example, in Norway and
Scotland, they developed the use of cleaner fish as a biological control but although this strategy
seemed to work there were a number of limitations to its effectiveness. Sea lice lures have been used,
such as traps where sea lice are attracted to a collection device and then funneled into a trap – again it
was not particularly effective. The ultimate treatment would be a vaccine for sea lice and there is
currently a lot of research focused on this topic. However, the development of a vaccine for this kind
of target is very complicated and difficult. A more detailed discussion on therapeutants follows
below.
Setting action levels for sea lice
All jurisdictions including Europe, Chile and Canada, have found that by setting action levels for sea
lice, quite a bit can be achieved in terms of sea lice management. Table 7 describes typical action
levels for sea lice per fish in BC, New Brunswick, Maine, Norway and Ireland. In a sea lice count
made on a monthly basis with an action level of less than three motile lice per fish, if there are more
than three motile lice per fish,
Table 7. Setting action levels.
then the veterinarian has to
BC:
Year Round – 3 motile lice/fish
try and do something about it.
NB:
Year Round – 5 adults/fish, 0.25 adult females/fish
First, they step up their
Maine: 5 Adults/fish, 1.0 adult females/fish
monitoring, going from once
Norway: December – June: 5 motile lice/fish, 0.5 adult lice/fish
per month to twice per month.
July – November: 10 motile lice/fish, 2 adult female lice/fish
In New Brunswick the focus
Ireland: March – April: 0.3-0.5 motile lice/fish
May – February: 2 adult female lice/fish
is on adult sea lice and in
Norway and Ireland they
focus on some critical periods where they lower the action levels for triggering action.
There are a number of intervention strategies that can be used in addition to the use of therapeutants
for treatment of sea lice. For example, studies have shown that if fish are moved from one pen to
another, and put through a transvac pump, then a large percentage of the lice is knocked off, and
captured in the exhaust water and removed from the system. However, this strategy is not fully
effective in dealing with the lice and it compromises the condition of the fish. Another intervention
- 43 -
strategy is to relocate sites. In extreme situations they have tried to take a whole site and tow it to an
area where there is a fresh-water lens, to try and reduce the lice burden. An additional strategy is to
harvest the fish. This is effective in reducing the infectious burden on the site. Clearly, anything that
can be done to reduce the numbers is going to contribute to getting control of the situation. The final
strategy is treatment.
Therapeutants
Table 8a provides a list of several compounds that are used in Canada for sea lice control at one point
or another. The top three compounds involve bath treatments where a tarpaulin is placed around the
pen and then the compound is added to the water. Compounds 4, 5, and 6 are in-feed treatments. All
of these therapeutants have been used on the east coast of Canada where they have significant
problems with sea lice. Only compounds 4, 5 and 6 have been used on the BC coast. Although a
number of these compounds have been used successfully in the past in Eastern Canada, Norway and
Scotland, the registrations for all of these products have been withdrawn for a long time. Part of the
problem is that they are very difficult to apply and are not very efficacious - basically they only affect
the adult stages of lice. In terms of the in-feed compounds, ivermectin, developed originally in
Ireland, has been used on the west and east coasts of Canada and is prescribed by veterinarians ‘offlabel’, meaning that it can be used for treatment in the absence of any other viable option. By and
large, ivermectin has not been used for a long time. Cal-X® is another product that was developed
and used but is far less effective than the compound Slice®, so that the economics more or less drove
it out of the marketplace. It has registration in Canada but the product is not sold or distributed here.
Best by far, is the compound Slice®. It is safe and effective. Ironically, the market is not big enough
to support many more products.
Table 8. Summary of therapeutants & treatments
8a. Therapeutants:
1. Salmosan® (azamethiphos)
2. Salartect® (hydrogen peroxide)
3. SHC Pyrethrin Spray® (pyrethrum)
4. Ivomec® (ivermectin)
5. Cal-X® (teflubenzuron)
6. Slice® (emamectin benzoate)
8b. Treatments:
1. Availability
2. Efficacy
3. Mode of Application
4. Time to Harvest
5. Temperature
6. Coordination with other sites
7. Timing (winter vs. spring)
8. Treatment Assessment
9. Resistance Management
• Treatment Rotation
• Accurate Dose/Duration (accurate weight samples data)
•Sensitivity Testing
.
Table 8b summarizes some of the therapeutants and treatments currently used. The problem, from a
pest management point of view, is that the same product is used over and over again and the more
that you use it, the greater the probability of selecting for resistance, where there is an increase in the
quantity of dose rate of a chemo-therapeutant required to produce a given response. The graph in
Figure 25 demonstrates the decrease of sealice sensitivity to dichorvous (Aquagard), a chemical
therapeutant. Lice were sampled from a number of sites from different geographical locations in
Scotland and a 24-hour bioassay was developed. This demonstrated a range of sensitivities to
dichlorvous. The net pens labeled one and two, in a clinical situation could not be treated. They were
refractory to the compound that was registered for use, whereas those that were in sites labeled 13 or
14 were completely susceptible to the treatment. These results are a function of using a treatment too
much over a short period of time where it also has selective toxicity to the target parasite. Ideally,
with an Integrated Pest Management program, one would rotate the treatments. However, the classic
- 44 -
problem has been that it is so difficult and
expensive to develop these products and get
them registered, that there is just not the
market for many products.
BC Sea Lice Management Strategy
There are four main elements to the BC Sea
Lice Management Strategy (see Table 9),
which are woven into the regulatory
structure such that people also have to have
a fish health management plan in place and
on file with the aquaculture veterinarian.
Figure 25. Sea Lice sensitivity to Aquagard.
As part of that plan, they must also have a sea lice monitoring program in place. A key function of the sea
lice strategy is mandatory sea lice monitoring. In terms of the research and development component, the
province does not do the research directly but they always try to stay abreast of all the research that is
ongoing, and they support the research on
Table 9. BC Sea Lice Management Strategy.
sea lice conducted by other agencies. They
Mandatory Sea Lice Monitoring
coordinate communication and have
• Must be part of Fish Health Management Plan
education and training programs to ensure,
• Condition of Licensure (November 2003)
for example, that the people who are out
Research and Development
there monitoring sea lice know which stages
• Identification of priorities, ACRDP Project work
they are identifying.
The coast has been divided into various
zones (see Figure 26) where sampling is
conducted once a month. Those data are
then fed into a database and are made
available the public via the website.
Coordination and Communication of Lice Monitoring
• Technical Advisory Team (Province, DFO, Industry)
• Mandatory reporting (quarterly, MAL website)
• MAL Auditing of farms to validate numbers
Education and Training in Lice Identification
For example, the graph in
Figure 27 that was compiled
using data from this website
shows the sea lice numbers in
the Broughton Archipelago
from October 2003 to July
2007. The yellow lines are
the year class one fish and the
black line represents the year
class two fish. This shows
that over three and a half
years, there is a general trend
on the farms for there to be a
very low level of lice, down to
about one louse per fish. If
that level is maintained, then
there is a good balance and it
is not a problem to manage.
Figure 26. Fish health surveillance zones.
- 45 -
Figure 27. Broughton Archipelago.
Next steps
In terms of our next steps, we plan to continue with the monitoring and reporting program that we
have in place and we will continue to support research initiatives. We will also make sure that we are
reviewing and re-evaluating the program so that we can respond to new technology and tools that
may be developed and to the latest results of scientific studies. Finally, we intend to continue to
communicate with the public through the website and forums such as this.
What Can Genomics Offer?
Ben Koop, University of Victoria - presented by Simon Jones, Fish Health Research Scientist,
Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo
Genomics is the study of the genetic composition of a plant or animal and how that information
relates to the structure and function of that organism. This field of research promises to not only be
beneficial to our understanding of sea lice but also to our understanding of diseases that are caused by
other pests such as viruses, bacteria and other parasites.
The work being proposed through a new project, Genomics in Lice and Salmon (GILS), is focused
specifically on developing a better understanding of the interactions that take place at the interface
between the louse and the fish; that is, how the fish responds to the attack of the louse and how the
louse responds to the fish. A better understanding at the genetic level of how these two animals are
interacting with each other could lead to opportunities to develop treatments such as vaccines or new
therapeutants, and a better understanding of how the louse might respond to a specific drug.
This project will build on the work developed through the Consortium for the Genomic Research of
All Salmonids Project (cGRASP) program. This program has focused primarily on the genome of the
Atlantic salmon and by extension on Pacific salmon and most other salmonids.
Figure 28 shows how closely related salmon and trout are to one another and the high degree of
similarity among most of the salmon and salmon-related species, including whitefish. In a practical
sense this means that tools developed for use at the genetic level to understand Atlantic salmon can
also be applied to genetic studies with Pacific salmon or even Salvelinus species, such as the chars.
- 46 -
Figure 28. Salmon and trout relationships.
The research conducted through the cGRASP
program, over the last three years, has led to the
identification of over 50,000 genes from the
Atlantic salmon. This information, now available
in a public database, has been applied and used to
develop powerful tools such as gene chips or
microarrays. Using these tools, it is possible to
determine for some specific genes whether they
are turned on or off, for example, in response to
changes in temperature or salinity. These tools
also allow researchers to look at processes such as
development, and they can be applied to better
understand environmental impacts, such as the
response of a fish to toxicants.
The GILS project proposes to build on the salmon microarray to compare Atlantic salmon with
Pacific salmon species in terms of how they respond to sea lice infections. It also proposes to examine
how the louse responds back to the salmon. Unlike the salmon, however, there is very little genetic
information available on the genome of salmon lice with only 150 genes, or approximately one
percent of the genome, having been identified to date. The project will develop information on the
genetics of the salmon louse and then build the same sort of gene chip or microarray tools to obtain
information that will help to understand how the sea louse responds to specific treatments and perhaps
to develop drug identity targets or vaccine targets. Using the same kind of technology, the project
will also conduct research to better understand how the salmon responds to the parasite. For example,
the technology could be used to compare Atlantic salmon, which are known to be highly susceptible
to sea lice, with some species of Pacific salmon, which are known to be more resistant to sea lice.
Myron Roth described the development of resistance in sea lice with the frequent, and often
inappropriate, use of medication. This new technology could be used to help identify markers in the
sea lice that could be predictive of the development of resistance. In addition, the technology could
contribute to an understanding of how sea lice may differ from one another at the population level,
and that information could provide some insights into the origins of the lice.
Research conducted in 2007, focused on the genome of the sea louse, has led to the discovery of
significant differences between the salmon louse in the Pacific and the salmon louse in the Atlantic, to
the point where they are possibly different species. Could we use this technology then, for example,
to recognize differences in sea lice according to the stream of origin of the salmon?
New Approaches to Managing Pest and Wild-Farmed Salmonid Interactions
Sunil Kadri, Director, Aquaculture Innovation, Glasgow, Scotland.
There are some innovative technologies currently being developed in the area of pest management,
particularly in Europe. This presentation is not going to show you new means of doing the same old
thing and it will not discuss sea lice vaccines or the latest chemo-therapeutants. These things bring
benefits to the industry and thereby to wild fish, but they also bring their own problems. I am more
interested in different approaches to sea lice management and wild-farmed fish interactions.
Direct and indirect approaches
Four technologies are described below, all of which are based on prevention rather than cure. They
are based on natural approaches or non-chemical approaches and therefore should not have any direct
environmental impacts and should not lend themselves to the development of resistance in sea lice.
Technology 1 is the Bioemitter.
This new hardware technology, developed in Scotland, appears to reduce parasite loadings in caged
- 47 -
salmon and has been
demonstrated to be
effective for both sea lice
and worms. The company
also claims that there are
visible improvements in
overall fish health as well
as in the nutritional value
Figure 29. Bioemitter on Site.
of the flesh for human
consumption. Figure 29 shows a photograph of the
bioemitter on site. Each structure is approximately eight
feet long and there are four of them floating in one cage.
Two of the four Bioemitter structures are actually emitting.
Figure 30. Bioemitter systems in sea lice control.
One is supposedly a disease Bioemitter, and one is an
environment Bioemitter. The auxiliary Bioemitters keep the electromagnetic field that is being
emitted within the cage radius (Figure 30).
Figure 31 presents typical results obtained when using this technology to control sea lice infection.
Note that the levels of gravid females have stayed at zero throughout. A caveat is that these are
obviously the best data the company has been able to provide. It appears that it does not always work
per Fish
well; however, something isSealice
happening
because it does reduce the number of treatments required.
The problem is that there is no
science-based research being
7.0
conducted to determine how
6.0
this technology works.
Together with some industry
5.0
and government stakeholders
we have put together a
4.0
scientific program to examine
3.0
how this equipment functions
andto determine what it is
2.0
doing to salmon and what it is
1.0
doing to lice. This will enable
us to develop best
.0
management practices so that
0
2
6
9
10 11 12 14 17 20 21 22 23 25 26
it can be used effectively and
consistently.
Gravids
juveniles
mobiles
Figure 31. BioEmitter systems in sea lice control. Sea lice per fish comparing gravid, juvenile and mobile fish.
Technology 2 encompasses the idea of blocking settlement cues.
This is a ‘blue sky’ project. The concept is based on the knowledge regarding functioning of Calcium
Sensing Receptors, which are part of a system of physiological control. The Calcium Sensing
Receptor (CaSR) responds to amino acids and polyvalent ions and mediates different physiological
processes within animals. To date, work has been conducted by a company called Marical, to try to
prevent fouling by barnacles. They have been studying the settlement patterns of barnacles and they
know that calcium receptors are an important factor in determining settlement. There are some
compounds that enhance settlement, the receptor agonists. Other compounds act as receptor
antagonists and will cause the barnacles not to settle (Figure 32).
- 48 -
Figure 32. Calcium Sensing Receptors allow larval crustaceans to sense preferred environments.
Under different environmental conditions in the intertidal zone, with adult barnacles being present
and releasing amino acids and peptides, there is possibly the right mix of salinity, amino acids and
nutrients to allow the barnacles whether or not to choose to settle. The concept is to apply this
knowledge to the interaction between sea lice and salmon. There are many calcium receptors in
salmon skin which indicates that there is a possible parasite-host interaction there, and there are
numerous calcium receptors in the sea lice as well. The theory is that the settlement of sea lice onto
salmon is mediated by calcium receptors. Together with our partners we are building on this
knowledge to develop a project to determine whether the same sorts of substances that play a role in
the settlement of barnacles might affect the interaction between sea lice and salmon skin. One
possibility is to identify a cue blocker to
prevent settlement based on an in-feed
additive, where some sort of natural
compound would be fed to the salmon,
and would then create a blocking of the
cue for settlement by sea lice.
Technology 3 involves immune system
modulators.
The modulator demonstrated in Figure 33
is a natural yeast cell-wall product. It is
the cheapest and most effective one and it
modulates rather than stimulates the
immune system, which means that there is
a big energy saving for the fish.
Figure 33. Functional nutrients from yeast.
This compound (BioMos) increases mucus production in the fish, both in the intestine and on the
skin, and through increased mucus production on the skin it prolongs the zero-lice period. This means
that when the fish are stocked in the sea and they have no lice on them, treatment with this immune
- 49 -
system modulator could prolong the period until settlement. After treatment with other products it
can also prolong the period until there is resettlement.
Table 10 shows the results of some research conducted in Scotland on mucus. Note that the two
experimental sets started off even and a month later, there was about double the amount of mucus on
the fish that had been fed the additive, which it should be emphasized, is not a chemical.
Table 10. Mucus development on Salmon in Scotland - Average weight of mucus g.
Control (Pen 3)
Bio-Mos (Pen 14)
Day 2
0.1181
0.1181
Day 12
0.392
0.4765
Day 22
0.40
0.605
Day 35
0.405
0.827
Table 11 shows results of a study conducted in Norway, measuring total sea lice counts, where the
two counts conducted after treatment showed significantly less lice in the treated compared with
control pens.
Table 11. Gildeskål Research Station trial with salmon in Norway 2007 – average sea lice counts.
20 – Aug - 07
Fertile females
Moving lice
Larvaes
Skotte(Caligus
elongates)
Sum
03-Sep-07
Fertile females
Moving lice
Larvaes
Skotte
(Caligus
elongates)
Sum
Control
3.5
14.25
5
12
BioMos
0.5
1.75
0.75
15
T Test
0.08
0.1
0.11
0.14
34.5
18
0.05
1
30.75
15
12.5
0.5
22
9.25
8.75
0.18
0.18
0.17
0.14
59.26
40.5
0.04
Technology 4 involves exercise of fish in cages.
This technology was developed to provide high-level production performance on all sites. It allows
for the location of sites in areas that otherwise might be unsuitable for maximizing fish performance.
It is known from research conducted in Vancouver as well as Norway, that if fish are exercised, or
have been swimming at an optimal speed, production will be maximized, and as well there will be
improved welfare and flesh quality. While this research has been conducted by manipulating current
speeds, it is not possible to manipulate current speeds economically in cages. To address this, another
method has been developed to exercise the fish, using the optomotor response.
- 50 -
Figure 34. The Optomotor Response.
Most people are familiar with the optomotor response. For example, if you are sitting on a train and
the train is stationary and then the train beside you starts to pull out, you will get that feeling of
movement. While humans use the optomotor response for balance and orientation, fish use the
response for position stabilization and schooling. This then provides us with a potential way to
control swimming speed without using currents. Physiologists have been using this knowledge for a
long time in order to get fish to swim in response to moving background.
Figure 34 describes a system where rather than having any moving parts, which do not lend
themselves well to aquaculture, there is a light array that moves, and the fish swim in response.
Results of a three-fold increase in swimming speed over short-term trials in tanks showed a 36
percent increase in growth, with 20 percent less food being used to achieve the same growth as the
control fish; that is, 690 grams of food for every kilogram of fish grown. There was also a 45 percent
drop in the hormone, cortisol, which provides a measure of stress in fish. Clearly, then, fish welfare
was improved, and the health of the fish was potentially better. Preliminary results also show
evidence of a reduction in sea lice counts.
In conclusion, there are several promising alternatives to the current approaches used on farms in
terms of dealing with pest management and these can provide a means for aquaculture sustainability
through innovation, pest management, and fish health in general.
Responses to Pest Management
What does this suggest about best practices for pest management for salmon aquaculture in
BC?
Paddy Gargan, Senior Research Officer, Central Fisheries Board, Mobhi Boreen, Glasnevin,
Dublin, Ireland
- 51 -
Impacts of aquaculture on wild stocks
A comment was made earlier in this workshop that in Europe there seem to be a general acceptance
of a direct impact, or the possibility of impacts, of aquaculture on wild stocks and that is true. The
European Parliament has issued a communiqué that describes the increasing body of evidence
showing direct links between problems with wild fish and aquaculture areas.
In addition, the findings of some of the research that has been conducted in Ireland have shown direct
impacts of salmon aquaculture on wild salmon. You should not be surprised, therefore, that here in
BC under certain circumstances the wild salmon will be impacted by sea lice.
Our team is dealing with alternatives to the use of chemo-therapeutants. As Myron Roth indicated,
prevention is clearly preferable to treatment. Significant alternatives include the siting of farm
locations, year-class separation and fallowing. Obviously, the prevention of a pest buildup is
preferable to having to apply treatment.
Best practices in prevention of disease
The problem is that we all make reference to practices such as separation of generations and
fallowing and single year classes, but these practices are not implemented in the field that often. In
Ireland, there are principles of best practice for salmon farming and the first one is complete
separation of generations. That is something that we actually do in Ireland, - we do not have grower
fish beside smolts. I believe that in BC you do not separate, to any great extent, your smolts from
your growers.
Also, we would recommend one tidal exclusion – the one we used to start off with was one kilometer,
which was not necessarily based on biological reality. If there is fallowing to one tidal exclusion then
that will have an impact, biologically.
The second principle is synchronous fallowing. If there are other farms in the same vicinity that are
not fallowing synchronously, then this practice is a waste of time. Another observation that I have
made about the farms in BC is that not all the farms in the same locations are even on the same
production cycle. Certainly, in Ireland, we have smolts in one location and growers in a different
location and they are all on the same production cycle.
In BC there seems to be a wish to move towards closed-containment. But, if this is cannot be
achieved in the short term, then an alternative would be to implement the basic strategies that have
been successful in Ireland; that is, everybody farming on the same production cycle, everybody
treating synchronously, and everybody fallowing, and here specifically this would mean fallowing on
the migration route. This happened in 2003 in the Broughton, and it appeared to be very successful.
If I was a salmon farmer and I was told, “You have two choices. You can move to closedcontainment or you can work with your neighbours and try to have fallowing on the migration route,
put the smolts on those migration routes and get new sites in alternative areas”, I know which option I
would choose.
There is also the issue of new sites in British Columbia. We have the problem in Ireland, in that
whenever anybody mentions a new site for salmon aquaculture, there are objections. However, if this
practice was sold in the context of no net increase in production, that it is a new site related to a
fallow site or to a smolt site, then logic would show the public that if it was going to improve pest
management, and improve conditions for wild fish as well, it would be something that should be
investigated.
Myron Roth talked about setting action levels, and noted that if there were more than three motile lice
- 52 -
per fish, then action would need to be taken. However, an important point here is that the juvenile
fish going to sea are as small as three centimetres in length, while in Ireland they are 12 to 15
centimetres. The action level in Ireland is 0.3 to 0.5 ovigerous, and we have seen in many instances
where that level has been kept as the trigger for the action level, and yet there have still been impacts
on wild fish. If the outmigrating fish are only three centimetres long, then it appears that the action
level of three mobile lice per fish is too high. The fish in Europe are five times bigger and in many
cases the lice level that needs to be maintained is five times lower. Finally, the size of the farm is also
important. There is no point in having a three-motile lice action level if the farm has a large stocking
density.
Simon Jones, Fish Health Research Scientist, Fisheries and Oceans Canada, Nanaimo, BC
Fish health management plans
It is important to recognize that in addition to sea lice, pests, in this case, could be any number of
viruses or bacteria or other parasites that we know are common and occasionally impact farmed
salmon, and could conceivably be of relevance to a disease interaction between farmed and wild fish.
In this context, in British Columbia, each farm company is required by license to develop fish health
management plans that incorporate strategies for managing the farm populations in the face of
diseases, in a generic sense. Sea lice and sea lice monitoring strategies are part of the fish health
management plan. This relates to earlier discussions in terms of managing, for example, in closedcontainment in the absence of treatment of incoming water. A fish health management plan may be an
appropriate tool to minimize the risk associated with disease in a farm population and therefore
minimize its potential spread to wild fish.
The uniqueness of British Columbia
Secondly, it is important to be aware of the uniqueness of the situation in British Columbia. A
research project involving a group of scientists from Norway, Scotland and Canada is focusing on sea
lice in coastal communities. Specifically, the group is looking at similarities and differences in how
farm-based salmon populations contribute to lice and what the impacts and the dynamics are in the
local systems. This type of research provides an opportunity to look at the similarities and differences
in different coastal communities and relate those to biological features that may be unique to each
jurisdiction. It also takes into account the different regulatory processes that are in place in each of the
countries.
There are some unique elements on the coast of British Columbia. First, the wild salmon populations
are Pacific salmon, and each of the species is almost as different from the others as they are from
Atlantic salmon. There are also apparent differences in the susceptibility of the various Pacific
salmon species to sea lice. A challenge faced by salmon biologists is that despite many years of
research on factors that affect the abundance of wild salmon populations there is still a lot of
uncertainty as to what drives the cycles of abundance. This applies particularly to pink salmon
because their two-year cycle seems to be prone to this rapid change in abundance. Yet despite this
uncertainty, we seem to be quite comfortable to make claims and show concern that salmon
aquaculture may be playing a role in this. I believe that it is reasonable to assert that as a possibility,
and certainly we see evidence that there are benthic impacts and impacts to the quality of the water
surrounding the farm salmon - this is measurable and indisputable. We know that there are sea lice
on farmed salmon and we can measure larval sea lice in the water surrounding the farmed salmon.
But that information alone is not the same as saying that these things cause changes in the abundance
of wild salmon populations.
Finally, it is important to generate objective science-based information that we, as stakeholders, can
- 53 -
confidently base our decisions on whether government, industry, or non-government organizations.
But we should also learn to be flexible and adaptive in terms of altering our worldviews based on the
availability of new technology and information as it applies to the perception of impacts caused by
salmon aquaculture.
Robert Mountain, Musgamagaw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council, Alert Bay, BC
As someone who works on the ground, and lives in the heart of the Broughton Archipelago, I have
been witness to everything that has happened in our territory in the past few years. I would like to
invite you all to come to the Broughton to see what I see - it is very sad.
Prevention of sea lice in the Broughton
With respect to prevention and stocking densities, I would like to note that the sea lice work did not
start until after 2001 and that was the same time that the fish farms started to expand. In 1999 and
2000 the total number of farms expanded fourfold and many of the new farms were sited directly on
migratory routes. The Europeans that have visited the Broughton have commented on the large size
of the sites, compared to the ones in Europe, especially of concern because our channels are much
smaller, and there is no avenue for our fish to get by the farms, resulting in them becoming infected
with sea lice. The first step of prevention has not been applied here – the farms are sited where they
should not be. The stocking density is also too high, and the action levels for treatment are too high,
given the small size of the fish.
In terms of treatment, all that is being done is ‘control’ through the application of the chemical,
Slice®, rather than focusing on the elimination of sea lice. There is documented evidence that there
are still sea lice on these fish after treatment. The problem is that the Broughton has 28 farms with
outmigrating fry travelling past them, picking up the lice here and there. If one farm doesn’t harm
those fry, they can accumulate sea lice as they pass the other farms – therein lies the problem. The
concentration of fish farms is simply too much for the area, and the wild fish have no avenue for
escape.
In terms of the presentations of the provincial and federal government scientists (see Roth p. 40,
Jones p. 46), I find it ironic that most of their work is conducted on Atlantic salmon with very little
work being focused on the wild fish. They seem to be focused on protecting Atlantic salmon to keep
them safe and healthy – that is what the management plans focus on as well. However, the focus
should be on keeping our wild salmon healthy, especially when we consider that the mandate of the
federal government agency is to protect the wild salmon.
Switching to closed-containment would solve the disease problems, especially with respect to sea lice
transfer from farm to wild fish. We believe that closed-containment will be a great asset in terms of
saving our wild salmon.
Far field effects
I am also concerned about the effects of the chemical treatments used on the farms. I observe the
material that accumulates underneath the pens and on our clam beaches, where there is evidence of
far field effects. In fact, we documented far field effects as far away as 12 kilometres. Over time, the
accumulated wastes from the farms move, they do not appear to dissipate or dissolve. We are
concerned about how these chemicals, such as Slice® and whatever else is in the feed and the feces,
affect the other parts of the ecosystems in our area, including the prawns, crabs, and clams that are
part of our food supply. The abundance of these other species appears to be decreasing and our
concern is that this is the result of the wastes produced by the fish farms. Rather than just taking a few
samples out of the sediment underneath the pens, we would like to see tests conducted that assess the
accumulation of all these chemicals, to learn about how they are affecting all of our resources.
- 54 -
Dialogue
Applying the schematic to wild fish instead of fish in pens
(A Biology professor) It is interesting that in the description by Myron Roth of pest pathology and
disease and welfare (and Robert Mountain has made this point in a somewhat different way), that it
was all related to the fish in the pens, the Atlantic salmon, and not to wild fish at all. I wonder what it
would it look like, and how we would change our way of thinking, if we took the schematic that was
presented and applied it to wild fish? What would prevention look like? What would action points
look like? For example, might the action points be when the prevalence and intensity on wild fish
reached a certain level, then action would need to be taken rather than when it reached three motile
lice on a large Atlantic salmon in a pen. What would intervention look like then?
Welfare of the fish
And what would welfare look like? There have been a number of comments about welfare issues for
fish in pens. But, what about the welfare of individual wild fish? Part of the heartache that
Alexandra Morton feels, for example, is from seeing fish with their skin literally eaten off by sea lice.
And yet you tell us that Atlantic salmon are orders of magnitude more susceptible than Pacific
salmon. If 75 percent of the wild fish of the Broughton have lice on them, then what would orders of
magnitude more than that look like? Clearly, those individual fish, whether we can nail down a
population consequence or not, are suffering. And if we applied our concern for welfare to individual
fish in the wild, then we might have quite a different take on this.
Simon Jones
That is an area that I am quite interested in; that is, trying to understand what impacts are in wild fish
and how you can identify a threshold or identify a measurable effect in a wild population that would
tell you something about its possibility of survival. Last year, we began to look at the juvenile pink
salmon that we collected in the Broughton Archipelago for sea lice and also for evidence of other
issues. We found significant results in these fish that related to their health, including other parasites
and evidence that they are being exposed to toxicants. These latter findings are almost certainly not
directly related to salmon aquaculture. If there is a population of pink salmon that is not pristine but
carries naturally occurring parasites and other deformities or disease issues and then imposed on that
are sea lice infections that may come from salmon farms, you really do not know what your baseline
is. You are dealing with a population that may already be compromised.
In terms of the numbers of sea lice, we found in the last two years no more than 12 - 13 percent of the
juvenile pinks had lice on them, much smaller than the 75 percent level you have indicated. It doesn’t
mean it is not significant, but it is very difficult to identify what is a significant threshold.
All-in all-out and fallowing practices
Myron Roth
To address the comment form Paddy Gargan with respect to ‘all-in, all-out’, when I was working
several years ago in the industry on this coast, the company had moved to ‘all-in, all-out’ stocking
and separation of year class. There may be one or two companies that are exceptions, but by far the
vast majority of companies in BC are all stocking larger smolts from hatcheries. They stock to
harvest and it is ‘all-in, all-out’. Also, many companies have a fallowing policy in place.
With respect to sea lice counts, it is important to understand that the lice count data for the trigger
levels are lice counts on the farm fish. We are not saying that it is okay to have three lice on small
fish.
With respect to research and development there is a lot of work being done in this area. Fisheries and
- 55 -
Oceans researchers have been out there every year since 2001, sampling all the species of Pacific
salmon. They have amassed a huge data set addressing the epidemiology of sea lice on Pacific salmon
populations on several locations on the coast.
Where Slice® is concerned, the sponsor has submitted quite an extensive environmental assessment
package to look at the effects on non-target organisms. Although a lot of that information is
proprietary, Environment Canada was involved in some fairly detailed studies to look at the effects on
Dungeness crabs and spot prawns. We are hoping to get this information and be able to comment on
whether or not there should be more work done in that area. It is important to ensure that compounds
do not have any short-term or long-term effects on non-target organisms. This is all the more reason
why these compounds should be used as little as possible and why veterinary oversight is so
important.
Sea Lice are a Problem
(A fisheries Biologist) As a fisheries biologist, I feel uncomfortable when I hear that the salmon and
sea lice problem is getting bigger and that it is a Pacific-wide problem. There is a principle that says
when you want to solve a problem you have to go for the most important factor that applies to the
particular problem you are experiencing. I don’t think that the environmental conditions in the
Northern Pacific are the reason why we have seen an increase in sea lice on small pink salmon. The
real reason that we have seen more sea lice on those salmon is the interaction with farmed fish. We
know this because this has been observed over and over again in Europe. Whether or not this has
been compounded by toxins or other things, relates to the chicken and egg problem; which one comes
first - the toxicant, or the lice? It is irrelevant to know which one complicates the life of the salmon.
What we do know is that it has an impact and we can act now and get some adaptive management
type of knowledge out of it. We do not have to study it for the next ten years - we already know that
the fallowing can help, for example. It is not clear to me that fallowing is already frequently
practiced in BC. To my knowledge synchronized fallowing has only occurred once on this coast, and
that was in the Broughton in 2003. I have not heard anything about a synchronous fallowing policy. Is
there anybody who can tell me that this is a policy that is actually happening throughout the
Broughton Archipelago and where it is happening?
Clare Backman
The implementation of the sea lice action plan by the province requires that during the sensitive
period of the out migration of the smolts from March 1 to June 30, all farms must respond to the
presence of sea lice on their fish. This means that all farms, all companies, must recognize the same
period on the calendar to respond. They are in effect producing the synchronicity that you have asked
about although I agree that there is no formal program in place between companies, nor is there a
policy in place. But there is, via the sea lice action plan, a mechanism to ensure that the synchronous
approach is used – this occurs right across the province, including Clayoquot Sound, Klemtu, and
Quatsino Sound, not just in the Broughton Archipelago.
(A Biology professor) Was it not true, though, that last spring (2007) during the time when that
should have been happening, Marine Harvest was taking fish out of the pens in the Broughton to
market and therefore was not able to apply Slice®?
Clare Backman
Whenever we are growing fish, there will be actions taken to ensure that sea lice numbers are
addressed either by harvesting and removing the fish, or by the application of Slice®. Marine
Harvest posts that information on their website. The response to this strategy is a very significant
decrease in the sea lice numbers. The question that is being asked here is when you are removing fish
from the farm and numbers of fish are being harvested out, is there a period of time when there are a
- 56 -
few fish left in there, maybe in February or March, that have not been treated because they are in the
process of being harvested out? The answer to that question is yes - this does happen from time to
time. However, it is a very small number of fish compared to all the rest of the fish that are subjected
to the synchronized treatment.
Bob Chamberlain
Dr. Gargan mentioned the standards that they use in Ireland for what triggers an action in relationship
to sea lice infections. He also explained that they have larger smolts and a lower lice count threshold
before there needs to be an action. We have smaller wild salmon smolts, which are indeed more
susceptible to an impact, and yet we have a higher threshold for sea lice counts before there needs to
be an action.
I am surprised at how quickly Dr. Roth has dismissed this information and instead has declared that
the Province will be studying this topic in some manner. Many of the scientists that I have spoken to,
including those who participated in a meeting of scientists in January 2007 in Alert Bay, have agreed
that around the globe it is well understood that sea lice are located around open net cage sites and
these lice are detrimental to wild out migrating salmon smolts. The finfish question is: When are the
governments of Canada and BC going to stop wasting taxpayers’ money by doing more research and
trying to wiggle a way out of it, instead of embracing what is known around the world and bringing in
a fundamental change to the way that this industry does business in Canada?
Dealing with other pathogens
(A graduate student in Biology) What are the other major pathogens that Atlantic salmon are faced
with on a yearly basis in BC? And what management plans or strategies are actually in place to
mitigate those kinds of consequences? For example, if there is an IHN outbreak or a problem with
furunculosis, the question is: Is there a specific threshold or management plan that is then
implemented? Or is it simply just through good husbandry and good animal welfare practices that the
occurrence of these things is minimized?
Myron Roth
Other pathogens that affect Atlantic salmon include in addition to sea lice: IHN, furunculosis and
possibly other bacterial pathogens. However, these are largely managed and therefore are not seen
very often. There are also other pathogens that do not cause pathology in live fish, but can cause
problems in marketed fish. For the most part, with current fish health management practices, when
the treatment is applied to deal with one bug, it will apply to most other bugs. If good husbandry is
practiced, stress is minimized, and the appropriate management techniques are applied, then the
incidents of disease should be minimized significantly.
Where sea lice infections are concerned, there are very specific requirements for monitoring,
reporting and dealing with them. IHN was another case where there were very specific requirements
because we wanted to try to contain the spread of the disease. The problem with the other diseases is
that they are commonly found in the environment. In disease management you have to separate those
bugs, which are obligate pathogens and are very infectious, and could be new pathogens. Otherwise,
if opportunistic pathogens come along, they can cause problems.
Synchronous fallowing
On the issue of synchronous fallowing, it is something that the province is aware of and they are
hoping to move in the direction of trying to get companies to work in management units. This is not
easy to do from a regulatory perspective. In 2003, there was a fallowing of a corridor but they found
that the sea lice numbers did not decrease appreciably in wild fish as a result of the fallowing. Maybe
this was not a good data set and therefore they need to try the strategy of synchronized fallowing
- 57 -
again.
(A Statistics and Actuarial Sciences professor) Myron has challenged us to come up with some
evidence and I have some. Last summer there was an inadvertent fallow route created in the lower
part of the Broughton Archipelago and we have collected some data from that route and are analyzing
them. We have a graph that demonstrates that there were almost no lice on the fish that were caught
on that fallow route. In addition, there were many more lice on fish from the other areas, near other
farms, that were active. This evidence will be published soon.
Farming Atlantic salmon rather than Pacific salmon
(A student representative from Chilliwack Secondary School) If Atlantic salmon are more
susceptible to disease and sea lice infection then why do we farm Atlantic salmon here in the Pacific?
Myron Roth
Atlantic salmon are more susceptible to some diseases and indigenous Pacific species like Chinook
salmon are more susceptible to other diseases. For example, Atlantic salmon are quite refractory to
diseases like BKD, which Chinook salmon are very susceptible to. The reason that people farm either
Pacific Salmon species such as Chinook or Atlantic salmon preferentially is that overall there is a
better profit margin with the Atlantics; that is, you can get more fish per unit growing space. You
could grow Chinook salmon and would get away from some problems but then you would take on a
different set of problems. These companies are farmers and they are trying to make money. With
Atlantic salmon they will make more money dollar for dollar than they would with Chinook salmon.
Fallowing policy
Bob Chamberlain
In terms of the discussion of fallowing, I believe that Marine Harvest has a fallowing strategy in place
within their business. However, I wonder if that strategy is practiced with a primary respect for wild
salmon, or is it in place to meet other regulatory requirements, such as monitoring the sea floor.
Whether or not there was a reduction in the amount of sea lice in the fish farms in 2003 as a result of
the fallow, at the very least the fallow allowed for a path, a last hope, for the smolts to get out to the
ocean.
The question is: With respect to the fallowing strategy that Marine Harvest has for the Broughton, is
it focused on other regulatory requirements that they must operate under, or is it a strategy for
creating a safe corridor for out-migrating wild salmon?
Another specific question is: Why is the Glacier Falls site currently being stocked and yet that was
one of the sites that the government provided funding to Marine Harvest to relocate?
Clare Backman
The rationale behind the fallowing of farm sites is twofold. First, the fallowing strategy is part and
parcel of the monitoring of the sea floor and the acknowledgment of the remediation of any nutrients
and waste materials that have fallen to the sea floor. That is monitored carefully and the company is
required to achieve a very low level of waste materials before they can return the smolts to the cages.
Because of the way they manage the farm sites and look after the waste, that occurs over a very short
period of time, usually three or four months, but there is a full year class separation going on there at
the site.
The second focus of the fallowing strategy is directly related to disease issues including sea lice or
any other parasite that may be present at the farm site. It is good farming practice to make sure that
when you take out a year class of fish that you leave the farm empty for a period of time. The
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physical structures are cleaned, and nets are moved and taken away for cleaning. In that period of
time, three to four months minimum, for any resident pathogens that may have become established
during the two years prior to this, and here this refers to naturally occurring resident pathogens such
as bacteria, there will be an opportunity to break that cycle so there can be no infection from those
particular pathogens for any new fish that are brought in.
Simon Jones
I do not share the views expressed by Chief Bob Chamberlain. I believe that by promoting the need
for research, I am not dismissing action levels. As a scientist, I expect that the process of research is
going to provide answers that are relevant to the situation on the coast of British Columbia. At the
same time the action levels that are adopted should reflect the best information we have at the time in
terms of being effective at minimizing the risk to wild populations.
With respect to a point made earlier that we have only been systematically counting sea lice on
juvenile pink and chum salmon since 2003; there are no published data on sea lice collected in a
systematic way in the Broughton Archipelago prior to 2002. There is some evidence that sea lice
have been present from the mid-1960s in this area but this information was not collected
systematically.
There was a systematic fallowing in 2003 in the Broughton Archipelago and that year the numbers of
lice on pink and chum juvenile salmon were very low. The following year there was no fallow and
the numbers of lice were probably an order of magnitude higher on the pink and chum salmon. In the
years since, there has still not been any systematic fallowing in the Broughton Archipelago and yet in
2005, 2006 and 2007 the numbers of lice decreased to levels similar to those observed in 2003. This
indicates that there are other processes going on, independent of salmon aquaculture, that are driving
the abundance of sea lice on pink and chum salmon, and this is why we need to conduct more
research. We need to understand what these processes are. Research is important to develop the tools
that we need in British Columbia to manage salmon aquaculture properly. In my opinion we should
not dismiss the action levels that are in place until we have better information to improve those action
levels.
Robert Mountain (Question directed to Simon Jones)
With respect to the prevalence of sea lice being only 12 - 13 percent, my understanding is this refers
to a consolidated number of all the pinks in the Broughton. There are no farms in Knight’s Inlet or
Kingcome Inlet, so the total for the Broughton misrepresents the degree of infection at specific
locations. We would like to see the numbers broken down into specific sections of the Broughton so
that we would know how many sea lice ended up on the fry before the fish farm, compared with after
the fish farm.
Simon Jones
We have looked at sea lice on the migrating pink and chum salmon for each zone in the Broughton. It
is different and what is interesting is that it is consistently different year after year. Some zones are
always low and some zones are always high. And some of the high zones are locations where there is
salmon farming and almost all of the low zones represent locations where there are no salmon farms.
There are other things that are different between the zones such as salinity, for example, that is always
low where there are no farms and no sea lice and high where there are farms and sea lice. The other
interesting point is that when you consolidate the numbers, in the years that were low, such as 2006
and 2007, and 2003, each individual zone was low as well. Although some zones are higher than
others, if you compare year over year, the high zones in the low year were very low, and the high
zones in a high year were much higher. Therefore, it is true that some zones are consistently high and
some are very low, but they follow that year-to-year trend as well, despite that difference.
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Clare Backman
With reference to the comment about a fourfold increase in production in the Broughton since 1999,
the production of our company, Marine Harvest, has been stable since 1999.
Paddy Gargan made some suggestions about some of the practices that could be explored, including:
fallowing between crops of fish; no overlap in year classes for the transfer of any diseases or sea lice;
and, synchronized fallowing and treatments. In fact, the first two strategies are currently in place in
BC; that is, separation of year class and fallowing between groups of fish. In terms of synchronized
treatment of sea lice, that occurs as a result of the sea lice action plan. However, this is probably
where there is room for some improvement in terms of operating between the different farms. For
example, the different companies could sit down and actually work out synchronized treatments and
synchronized fallowing for the very reasons that were raised here.
Susceptibility of wild Atlantic salmon compared with farmed Atlantic salmon to sea lice
In Ireland and in Europe, has there been any indication of a difference in the effect of sea lice on the
wild Atlantic salmon compared with farmed? Has there been anything documented on different
sensitivity to sea lice there? Clare Blackman for David Lane
Paddy Gargan
It is difficult to determine what the impacts of lice are on wild fish because they basically migrate out
into the open ocean and you don’t see them again. Unlike sea trout that come back into local rivers,
covered with hundreds of sea lice, once the salmon go out into the estuaries we never see them again.
However, we have caught them by trawling in the sea with ocean trawls and have observed high lice
levels on them.
We have been conducting Slice® experiments involving the release of batches of fish, 5,000 in each
of two groups, one treated with Slice® and the other not treated. This research has been conducted
over three years in four different bays for a total of 12 release groups. The results show very
significant differences with much greater numbers of the Slice®-treated fish coming back, being
caught in our drift-net fisheries and in traps in the rivers. The only direct evidence we have for wild
salmon is that we repeatedly show that they are impacted going through these short coastal bays as
they go out to the open ocean, to Greenland and the Faroes, to feed. They do not stay in the area, they
migrate through fifteen kilometre long fjords or bays, and we can show a tenfold difference and
tenfold impact in mortality of fish that are not treated with Slice®. There is considerable information
now available in Norway as well on the same problem. They have much longer fjords and therefore a
greater exposure time for the smolts. What surprised us was that for the short bays in the west of
Ireland we can show statistically significant differences in survival rates. That is worrying because
we always knew aquaculture was impacting sea trout but we now know definitively by repeated
experiments that salmon are being impacted as well. And these salmon that going to sea are 18
centimetres long; you can imagine the impact that lice will have on smaller fish.
Innovation
(A representative from the Pacific Fisheries Resource Conservation Council) The PFRCC issued an
advisory on the Broughton Archipelago five years ago in November 2002. It recommended that there
be more research and monitoring, whole bay approaches to sea lice, and a sea lice action plan. The
monitoring that is underway is good. However, it seems to me that at the moment much of the
research is being conducted in an opportunistic fashion. Perhaps there is a need for a group that would
be charged with looking at innovation and what can be done in small steps in order to make more
progress with the sea lice action plan. Then, even if you don’t end up with a solution that pleases the
most cautious sort of person, you are still making progress and trying more things.
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PART IV
COASTAL PLANNING FOR SALMON FARMS
____________________________________________________________________________
• What lessons can British Columbia learn from coastal planning processes in Europe?
• Which is most appropriate for BC, closed-containment or net cages?
• What are the challenges and solutions for developing and implementing a coastal plan?
• What should such a plan need to consider?
Coastal Planning in Iceland
Sigudur Gudjonsson, Director, Institute of Freshwater Fisheries, Keflavic, Iceland
Genetic studies of Atlantic salmon in Iceland
The freshwater environment in Iceland is very diverse with only a
few species, for example there are only six species of freshwater fish
in Iceland, compared with 42 species in Norway (Figure 35).
Genetic studies on the Atlantic salmon of Iceland show that there are
distinct stocks in each river and in the larger river systems there is
more than one stock. Also, the stocks within the same region are
more related to each other than to stocks in other regions. The
strains that are used in salmon farming are from Norway and those
show the highest genetic distance from the rest of the populations.
The populations also show local adaptations, such as differences in
life histories, timing of migration, and timing of spawning.
Management of salmon
There is a ban on fishing of salmon at sea in Iceland, and in
freshwater fishing effort is fixed, with a limited number of rods
allowed for a limited number of days. The average catch ranges
between 35,000 and 50,000 salmon each year and ‘catch and release’
is an increasing trend.
Figure 35. Six freshwater species in Iceland.
One thing that makes fishing in Iceland different from many other places is that the fishing rights are
privately owned – the rights go with the land adjacent to a river or a lake. Since 1980 it has been
mandatory that landowners form a fishing association for each watershed. Each member or landowner
owns a share, pays a share of the expenses of the association, and gets a share of the income. Every
member has one vote in the association and since 1994 it has been mandatory for each association to
belong to the Federation of River Owners.
The economic value of the salmon sport fishery in Iceland
There are about 100 salmon rivers in Iceland; 20 of them have very good fishing. They offer very
sophisticated angling facilities. Packages are offered for fishermen where everything is included:
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travel, lodging, food, guidance and fishing. These packages are very expensive in the best rivers
especially at prime time, but the demand is high.
The total economic value of the salmon sport fishery in Iceland is 12,000 million Icelandic Krona
(Iskr), or approximately $200 million Canadian. The net income for the river associations is about 15
to 20 percent of that. That is probably the highest income per salmon caught in the world. About
55,000 – 60,000 Icelanders pursue sport fishing every year – that is one third of the population of
Iceland but a lot of visitors also come to Iceland to fish. In a recent survey, people indicated that they
are willing to pay two times what they are paying today in order to have the resource in the future.
The income from the sportfishery is very important for many rural communities around Iceland – in
some areas it represents up to 50 percent of total income. This fishery has created about 1,200 jobs in
Iceland and if there was no salmon fishery, then there would be a loss of between 2.6 and 3.1 hundred
million Iskr per annum from the economy. A fishery for trout and char is now being developed and
has good potential for returning higher income.
Salmon farming in Iceland
We know that the catch of Atlantic salmon worldwide has been decreasing and decreasing very fast
(Figure 36). Atlantic salmon
stocks are extinct in 27% of
their original watersheds, and
are endangered in 30% of the
other watersheds. There are a
number of possible causes of
these declines including
habitat destruction, pollution,
acid rain and fish farming
practices and there are many
efforts underway to try to
reverse these negative trends.
Figure 36. Catch of Atlantic salmon worldwide.
Salmon farming started in Iceland in the late 1980s with a lot of sea cages being placed in a number
of locations, possibly without sufficient planning. There were a lot of problems including many
escapes and a lot of disease and operation problems. As a result many companies ceased operations or
went bankrupt. Some of them, however, continued to operate in the early 1990s using land-based
units. In the late 1990s, some companies started to grow salmon in sea cages again and for the last
few years production has been about 6,000 metric tons.
Before these later developments, however, a number of risks analyses were conducted to assess the
impact of salmon farms on wild Atlantic salmon. We know that if you are rearing salmon in cages,
some of them escape, and although escapes are low in percentage they are high in number because
there are so many fish on the farms. There are also serious concerns because farms are using a strain
from Norway, not local strains, and there are also concerns with respect to diseases and parasites,
especially sealice. A very significant issue is genetic mixing and breakdown of local adaptations. We
also know, from studies in Ireland and Norway, that the survival of escapees depends on the time of
the year and size of the fish when they escape, with higher survivals if they escape in spring and
summer. Salmon that escape at the smolt stage return to the site; however, a lot of escapees migrate
further away. It comes down to the fact that the highest risk is closest to the farms.
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Figure 37. Areas where salmon farming is banned in Iceland.
At the same time, we place a high value on our salmon rivers; not only are they a very important part
of the nature of our island but also, the salmon fisheries are very valuable for the economy, especially
in the rural areas.
In order to minimize the risk that salmon farming was posing for the wild salmon fishery, salmon
farming has now been banned throughout Iceland in areas that are closest to the main salmon rivers.
You can see from the map in Figure 37 that the fjords and bays indicated with lines across them are
areas where salmon farms are not permitted. In other areas, for example in the northwest and in the
east, salmon farms are permitted. That is where the main salmon farming operation was until very
recently. However, salmon farming has decreased again in Iceland and the companies have gone into
cod farming in sea cages. Arctic char is also being farmed in land-based units. The reason for the
shift to these species is the higher prices that they bring. Also, Arctic char can be grown, for
example, at higher densities. There are also problems with the feed supplies. Fishmeal and oil
supplies are becoming more expensive and some of the forage fisheries, herring for example, are now
being produced for human consumption, instead of being used to produce meal and oil.
Future coastal planning in Iceland
It is clear to us that further coastal planning is needed for Iceland. A number of focus areas have been
discussed, including the future protection of some important special areas. For example, how should
we plan for future activities involving cod farming, mussel farming, recreational fishing, and sailing?
It is obvious that coastal planning and management is going to be more and more important in the
future. To address this, the University of Iceland has recently put in place the Centre for Coastal
Planning and Management.
Areas are being clearly defined for some activities. For example, the map in Figure 38 shows the
location for the main spawning areas for cod in Iceland, and the areas (in green) where they have
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allowed experimental farming
of cod. Clearly, there is the
potential for conflict in these
specific areas and good
planning will help to resolve
this.
Figure 38. Cod spawning areas in Iceland.
Dialogue
Chief Bob Chamberlain - With respect to the areas where you do not allow the salmon farms on the
coast, could you give a brief explanation as to why?
Sigudur Gudjonsson
The main reason is that the bays and fjords that are closed for farming are the ones that have the best
salmon rivers flowing into them.
David Lane - Did you actually have to close down the farms that were there or is it only for banning
of future farms?
Sigudur Gudjonsson
In most places we did not have to remove any farms because the plans were in place before they were
allowed to go in there. Obviously it is easier to do this before than to try to manage it afterwards.
(A participant) Do you have any operating Atlantic salmon farms that are land-based in Iceland?
Have you ever lost any Atlantic salmon rivers in Iceland? And is there any evidence of hatcheryreared Atlantic salmon actually breeding in any rivers?
Sigudur Gudjonsson
We did have some land-based salmon farms in Iceland but today they are all used for farming Arctic
char. There is one salmon farm in the north that is operated in a brackish lagoon. In the late 1980s
when cage rearing was first started in Iceland, we had a lot of escapees in the rivers. In later years,
we have had only a few.
Coastal Plan for the Two Brooms Area in Wester Ross, Scotland
Colin Wishart, Principal Officer (Coastal), Highland Council, Scotland
In Europe, public awareness is at an all-time high for marine management in general, and it is wellrecognized that Norway has blazed the trail in this field.
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Key statistics
In 2006, there were about 250 active salmon farming sites, most of them in the Highlands and the
Islands, and they produced 132,000 tons of salmon, compared with productions in 2005 of 84,000
tons in Canada, 374,000 tons in Chile and up to 582,000 tons from Norway. The salmon farming
industry in Scotland generates about 800 full-time equivalent jobs in addition to nearly 4,000 other
jobs in upstream and downstream sectors.
Current key issues
The key issue in salmon farming in Scotland, similar to BC, is to maintain the competitiveness of the
industry while safeguarding the environment and other coastal interests. That means sustaining the
scale of the operation, keeping the costs of production down, and allowing room for growth of the
industry while at the same time guiding development to appropriate sites and away from sensitive
ones and working within the environmental carrying capacity.
Improving the regulatory framework is another of the key issues. About half of our salmon farms
were given leases without public consultation in the early 1980s and without full planning
assessment. As of April 2007, this has been brought into the statutory planning system, and we are
now streamlining and simplifying the application and environmental impact assessment procedure.
Another key issue is improving
relations between the fish farming
industry and other coastal interests.
There is no doubt that the issues
around salmon farming have
polarized many settlements on the
west coast and we have to re-build
public confidence in, and
enthusiasm for, aquaculture.
Coastal Planning in Scotland
Coastal planning in Scotland started
with aquaculture plans in the
Highland Region in the 1980s. The
map in Figure 39 shows the range of
sea lochs on the west coast for
which plans have been produced
from that period onwards. Sectorspecific plans are still being
produced for these areas. Other
Local Authorities are now active in
this field or starting to be and there
is a general move towards broader- Figure 39. Highland region coastal plan.
based coastal planning. All the
current plans for the inshore marine area, however, are advisory. As of April 2007, however,
aquaculture is within the statutory planning system and as a result, statutory coastal plans should
follow. At the national level there are extensive discussions going on currently about the design of a
wider marine spatial planning system, not just out to 12 nautical miles but possibly out to 200 nm.
The pace at which that is likely to develop, however, is not clear.
There are now new Local Authority planning boundaries for dealing with fish farms which basically
take the existing Local Authority boundaries and extend them offshore, for a minimum of three miles,
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although in some cases where there is a big area, such as between the outer Hebrides and the
mainland, that line is going to be 12 miles out or even more (see Figure 40).
Figure 40. Marine planning zones.
Figure 41. Marine areas covered by ICZM forums/partnerships.
Another dimension of coastal planning in Scotland is local coastal partnerships. The map in Figure
41 shows the areas covered by these partnerships. These are essentially voluntary groupings.
Currently in various stages of development, they mostly focus on non-spatial strategies, awareness
raising projects and work with communities. They are struggling for long-term funding, but may get
more support in the future from the government for helping to deliver marine spatial planning.
One proposal currently on the table is from the Scottish Coastal Forum for Regional Policy Areas for
coastal zone management. This is a bit of a hybrid between the Local Authority planning boundaries
and areas covered by coastal partnerships. There are also a number of pilot projects underway
through the Scottish Sustainable Marine Environment Initiative (SSMEI), an exploratory initiative led
by the Scottish government. Due to finish in 2010 it involves the preparation, on a trial basis, of
broad-based marine spatial plans in three areas: the Shetland Isles to the north, the Sound of Mull to
the west and the Clyde Estuary area, a large area in the south west.
There is a different approach in each of these areas with an overall focus on environmental
sustainability and capacity studies. The Clyde Estuary project has done some very interesting work
on developing interactions, producing matrices that describe all the different activities in the estuary
and how they impact on each other, and classifying the specific type of interaction whether it is
competition, positive, negative, or conflict. They have also helped to build a strategy for all the
sectors, taking the aspirations of each individual one and gradually bringing them together. That is
still in process and a project to watch in the future.
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Case Study: the Two Brooms Coastal Plan
The Two Brooms Coastal Plan was the main output of the Atlantic Coast Wester Ross Project. It is
the first marine spatial plan in Scotland to take a comprehensive, all-sectors approach. It was a nonstatutory project, time limited – the whole plan was effectively produced in 28 months – and took an
ecosystem-based approach. A test for joint working between the different agencies, government as
well as local agencies, was involved. The project also included a secondary comparative study of
coastal planning in Hordaland, Norway.
Figure 42. Location of Fish Farms 2000.
The Two Brooms name is derived from the
area’s two major sea lochs, Loch Broom and
Little Loch Broom. Until 2000, this was a quiet
area with a few fish farms (black squares) and
some game fishing rivers (Figure 42). However,
there was no Area Management Agreement in
place then, and therefore no process in place to
deal with keeping the two sides speaking to each
other and working together cooperatively.
Between 2001 and 2003, things started to ‘hot
up’ (Figure 43). There were proposals for
expansion of farms in Little Lock Broom, the
proposed renewal of an old unused lease close to
the mouth of a river to the east, and a proposal to
activate a site that had been lying undeveloped
for 13 years which managed to circumvent the
Environmental Impact Assessment regulations.
In addition, there was a proposed new site in a
remote sensitive area to the north of the Scoraig
Peninsula. The community of Scoraig, which is
located on that peninsula, is very proud of its
ecological credentials and it started to feel
squeezed by all these proposals within the
vicinity, and the Area Management Agreement
discussions began to falter. There was a lot of
distrust between the riparian owners and the
local fish farming industry and the whole area
generally became a regional hot spot.
Figure 43. Location of fish farms 2001-2003.
Aims of the planning project
First there was a need to fill a gap in the coverage of plans for the west coast. Also, we hoped to
reduce the level of conflict surrounding the development of fish farming and identify opportunities
for sustainable development of all industry, not just aquaculture. In addition, we hoped to
complement the new terrestrial plan that was in place for this area. We were also testing the potential
for a multi-sectoral approach, as opposed to a single sector approach. At the end of the day, we hoped
to develop a transferable model for coastal planning in the Highland region.
We recognized that coastal plans can take different forms and focused on the question “What form
best suits Scottish conditions?” Norway has a more established system of coastal plans and this was
an important frame of reference for the Highland region. We were particularly interested to see if we
would be able to produce a plan like the one in place for the Austevoll area just south of Bergen, a
well-presented plan now in its third generation.
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Key issues in the project area
The key issues in the Two Brooms area included: the scale and location of aquaculture; the safeguard
and rebuilding of wild salmon and sea trout stocks; and, patterns of commercial fishing and stock
management. Rural development and sustainable employment, protection of wildlife, both coastal
and marine, and assessing the potential for development of recreation and tourism industries, were
also among the many issues we addressed. Another issue of critical importance was the management
of high quality coastal landscapes, since the whole of this area has been designated nationally as an
area of high landscape value.
Key challenges
We faced a number of significant challenges in trying to achieve the project objectives. The first one
was the variability in the quality of information that we received from across the sectors. It was easy
to get information on some sectors but not others, particularly with respect to fishing activity. With
the high degree of variability in the information coming through, it was difficult to retain balance,
especially since we were approaching this in a systematic way and attempting to map all the factors
using GIS systems. You have to have a multi-agency approach for this type of exercise but the
questions are: How do you reconcile the different views when different organizations have different
agendas? How do you engage the fishing industry when a lot of the participants are working offshore
much of the time and have no tradition of working with other sectors? And how do you sustain
interest in your plan over the longer term? Probably the most difficult challenge was associated with
the fishing industry. There was a feeling within this industry that the key decisions are all made in
Edinburgh rather than locally, and they questioned why they would want to get involved in an
initiative at a local level.
Components of the Two Brooms plan
The plan (Figure 44) provides an overview for the whole area, looking at the key features, objectives
of the strategy and recommendations, laid out sector by sector. Area policies and advice are
presented using two sets of policy
zones, coastal and nearshore and
marine and offshore. As well there is a
discussion of arrangements for
monitoring and follow up to the
report.
The coastal and nearshore policy
zones were linear bands essentially
without an outer limit being defined.
These were based on landscape
character traits and areas of visual
containment. The associated policies
are directed very much to fish farming
locations and the scale of fish farming
and landscape management.
The marine and offshore policy zones
were based on hydrographic
subdivisions and were basically
underpinning the coastal ones. Here,
the associated policies were directed
more towards marine nature
conservation and fishing activity.
Figure 44. Coastal Plan for the ”Two Brooms” Area (2006).
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The format for each of the area policy zones would include an assessment of the characteristics of that
zone, its opportunities and constraints, and an appraisal of development potential, in addition to some
policy advice. These are all linked to a map showing the policy zones and key features (Figure 44).
A new Two Brooms Plan (August 2006) will hopefully reflect a new start for aquaculture locally and
ultimately reduce the conflict. The plan gives a fresh appraisal of the area’s opportunities, constraints
and potential. It has identified relocation priorities for fish farms, which for the most part were the
farm sites that were in the inner lochs. As well, to give confidence to the industry, it has extended a
security of tenure for existing fish farms, pending availability of suitable alternative sites and
government aid for relocation. There are now some new mechanisms in place for accessing
government aid but thus far it has not been tested to any great extent. They have identified some new
sites that would be suitable for finfish farm relocation. However, there is no mechanism to prevent
shellfish farmers from stealing these sites. That actually happened with one of the prime relocation
sites at a very early stage, almost before the ink was dry on the draft plan.
Lessons learned
A key lesson that we learned is that working in partnership is labour intensive. It is important to
clarify your objectives early on – this can minimize problems that occur later. It is also important to
consider your information needs well ahead of the game and figure that into cost and timescale
estimates for the project. At the end of the day, however, the cookie might not crumble the way you
want in terms of data and you have to be prepared to improvise. That is something that we learned
from Norway; that is, sometimes there was not as much science underpinning some of the very wellpresented Norwegian plans as we had expected initially. But there is political accommodation
underpinning them and that is important. We also learned that identifying suitable sites for relocation
of fish farms is not enough in itself; there has to be a way to safeguard them from rival development
interests and that requires further measures.
You can bring terrestrial plans and marine plans together but this involves different approaches and
that fusion will take time. Certain user groups are inherently more reluctant to get involved in an
exercise like this compared with others, and you have to allow for varying levels of commitment.
At the end of the day, integrated coastal zone management is about coordination – it is about finding a
balance between different interests - and somebody has to call the shots. It requires effective
leadership and a diplomatic touch.
Wider conclusions –learning from Norway
After visiting Norway, in the later stages of the project, we came to some wider conclusions. While
there is no doubt that integrated coastal plans can be successfully prepared at the local level, the
statutory basis which the Norwegian plans have in place helps to ensure that all the relevant interests
are involved.
Prescriptive spatial planning for the marine area at or above the regional level, rather than at the local
level, is more difficult. That is probably why the Norwegians have avoided doing spatial plans at that
scale. It is sometimes easier to deliver the sort of compromises necessary at the local level.
Facilitation and support from the next level of government up encourages progress and it is
appreciated more than direction. The Norwegian government has been very supportive of its local
areas in that respect. Combining terrestrial and marine plans can be straightforward if it is done on a
staged basis, as Norway has demonstrated. Finally, local authorities can clearly play a useful
coordinating role at the regional and district level but other agencies are important for knowledge
input and implementation.
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Implementation of the Two Brooms plan
The road ahead is clearly not as straight as we would like it to be. Our partner agencies have
committed to use the plan and they will use it for things like evaluation of applications for licenses,
planning consent, progressing with fish farm relocation proposals and evaluating applications for
grant aid for projects. They will also use it in their own way for policy development. But this is a
continuous learning process and each agency and interest will take their own lessons from it, and they
will appraise and learn in their own way. We will produce a monitoring report within three to five
years and we have already thought about the key indicators that we could use for that.
At the end of the day, how do we measure success? There has to be a perception of added value.
One of the key ways that you can get that is through follow-up projects that build on the survey work
that was done originally. Another measure of success is the stimulation of new development, and
indications of compliance with the plan, as well as increased public awareness.
One interesting new development is the development of marine biotope maps which not only identify
what seabed habitats are there but also examine the relative economic values and sensitivity of each
of these, so that those values can then be connected with the local area policies more closely.
Which way forward for coastal planning in BC?
Clearly, conflicts of interest are a drain on resources and if you can preempt them with good planning
guidance then it is a lot cheaper than fixing things after they are broken. Voluntary arrangements can
definitely get you some of the way but if there are properly funded statutory arrangements, then at
least it gets all the relevant people in around the table and provides a stable infrastructure and
resource base for doing the planning work, as the Norwegian system has demonstrated. In terms of
implementation it also allocates clear responsibilities for who does what. In summary, it is not so
much a case of whether to zone but who to zone and how and then how to make it stick once you
have done it.
How to zone
In terms of how to zone, there are two options using sieve mapping that might be helpful. The sieve
mapping process involves mapping all the different opportunities and constraints and layers. It is
systematic and lends itself well to computer use, but it does require breadth and depth of information,
tailored to purpose. It helps to identify the ‘hot spots’ and priorities systematically but constraints
tend to be a lot easier to map than opportunities. There is a tendency sometimes for the industry to
feel that it is getting the worst end of what falls out of the sieving process. Weighting of the different
factors can be contentious and at the end of the day, you might get a lot of little slivers of polygons in
the GIS map that do not actually link readily to the areas people identify with.
Another option is to use natural boundaries. People relate to these more readily than they do to the
polygons that a GIS system generates. However, they may not always be sharply defined. They may
be physical or perceptual, but they will lend themselves to policy making, more is terms of an
intuitive and holistic approach and ‘rough and ready’ policy judgments, which is sometimes the best
that you can achieve.
Dialogue
(A representative from the NGO community) In reference to the interaction matrices: Is there a way
to incorporate cumulative effects in the matrices?
Colin Wishart
I don’t know if that methodology has been taken forward but it is a question which everybody is
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asking at the moment; that is, how do you deal with cumulative effects. All three of the pilot studies
for the Scottish Sustainable Marine Environment Initiative will be worth watching in the future in
terms of the methodology that they generate. They will be taking advantage of previous work that has
been done in the field and trying to move it forward in specific areas. However, for the Clyde study,
which involves a very wide range of interests, and a much bigger area than most of the others, there
seems to be a genuine groundswell of interest in the exercise. There is an incentive for that
methodology to be developed.
(A representative from the Pacific Salmon Forum) You have obviously been doing a great deal to try
to find ways to bring people together and that is commendable. But what I am concerned about is how
much agreement there is in Scotland on the basic science. Here, while we are doing a great deal of
work and spending millions of dollars trying to get a basic agreement on what the science says, we
are not there yet, although we are farther along than we were a few years ago. What are you doing
and how are you doing it?
Colin Wishart
We are at a similar stage as you are. My worry, as a planner, is that a lot of the key science that has
been done is not sufficiently separated from the policy making apparatus. There is key science being
done by the government fisheries research laboratory in Aberdeen, but it is my feeling that those
scientists are very wary about nailing any of their colours to a mast. I would like to see more
independent scientific voices in Scotland to help guide people like me who are trying to find a middle
path through all these conflicting standpoints.
(A representative from the Pacific Salmon Forum) It is the view of some of us that here in British
Columbia, the government would be delighted if both the fish-farm industry and those concerned
about wild fish, including our Aboriginal people, could come to some kind of agreement on what the
basic scientific data say about the conditions and about what we should do. In my opinion, the
provincial government is not trying to force that scientific consensus. Does that relate to where you
are in Scotland?
Colin Wishart
As a planner I am used to working with relatively imperfect information because sometimes it is all
there is. If you wait for perfect information you could wait for a long time. It appears to me, that in
some ways, the Norwegians have been very pragmatic in the approach that they have taken to the
management of their aquaculture industry and coastal planning. They have acknowledged that they
do not have perfect information and yet they try to reach an accommodation between the different
interests. They have a culture of cooperative working which in some ways, is exemplary. It allows
them to reach a reasonable position on a staged basis. However, there is no quick fix in terms of
some of the questions you are posing about scientific information - there are no easy answers.
Implementing Coastal Plans in Norway: The Example of Akvasis, Hardangerfjord
Inge Doskeland, Hordaland County Council, Norway
Hordaland is situated in the town of Bergen on the west coast of Norway. The following briefly
describes the status of aquaculture in Hordaland, some planning initiatives in the region, and the sorts
of support systems that are available for planners.
If we compare Norway with British Columbia, although different in size, there are a lot of similarities
geographically with respect to the numbers of islands and fjords. Norway, however, does not have the
great stocks of wild salmon, not the same issues with sea lions, and overall the situation is not
directly comparable to British Columbia.
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Table 12 compares the aquaculture industry in the Hordaland region with British Columbia. There
are some clear differences; for example, the intensity of salmon production in Hordaland is far greater
than in British Columbia. Note that the Hordaland region is also high in terms of intensity of
aquaculture activity relative to other regions in Norway. There has also been a trend to significantly
increased production for the past several years.
Table 12. Aquaculture Industry in the Hordaland region compared with BC.
BC
Number of sites
Production, tons
Production pr.site, tons
Production pr.km. coastline, tons
127
78.000
614
2,9
Hordaland
230
112.00 (Norway 700.000)
488
12,8 (8,4 Norway)
Figure 45 describes the production of the Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout industry over the past ten
years. Although this industry tends to go up and down from year to year, in the last ten years there has
been an increase in production of about ten percent per year. In 2007 total production will most likely
exceed 700,000 metric tons.
700 000
600 000
Tonn/Tons
500 000
400 000
300 000
200 000
100 000
0
1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006
Laks (Atlantic Salmon)
Regnbueorret (rainbow trout)
Figure 45. Sale of Atlantic salmon and Rainbow trout 1996-2006.
Trends for aquaculture in the future in Hordaland
There is a current trend of increasing the size of each farming unit to as large as 5,000 tons biomass
(compared with past average size of around 2,000 tons biomass) with possibly fewer units. This is
interesting from a planning perspective in that we might not need as many new locations. We need to
identify the extremely good locations and the ones that are least in conflict with other interests
including the wild stocks or recreational interests. There is a trend now for the industry to prefer
more exposed localities so as to reduce the conflict with other users. However, technology must be
available in order to anchor the larger units in these more exposed locations.
Significant increases are also predicted in farming of cod in this area over the next three years. Based
on the number of fry that are now in the grow out phase in the sea, if there are no significant problems
with disease or other factors, then we expect that cod will be the next species to be produced in large
volumes in Norway.
This growth in the industry has put pressure on the management and planning systems. Policies and
plans will have to be revised more often and there will have to be increased capacity to cope with the
growth. Hardangerfjord is one of the most concentrated aquaculture areas and there is currently a lot
of research going on to determine whether it is above the limit of the carrying capacity of the marine
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system. The regulatory body will now be implementing a special regulation regime specifically
tailored to this area.
The final trend that we face in Hordaland relates to the anticipated impacts of climate change, which
are already being experienced in some areas. We anticipate changes in the north south ranges of
several species, for example. Norway has a long coastline, however, so there is the opportunity to
move production of some of these species further north, for example, according to their temperature
preferences.
Figure 46 is a map showing the locations of all the aquaculture facilities in Hordaland. The area
within the border located in the west and outside the fjord is where the biggest cluster of farms is
located.
Figure 46. Aquaculture sites in Hordeland.
Note that there is less aquaculture activity in the inner, compared with the outer, parts of the fjord.
This is one of the key issues now being discussed in terms of protecting wild salmon, since the
mouths of some of the big salmon bearing rivers are located in the inner part of the fjord. There are
differences between the landscape of the inner and the outer parts of the fjord.
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Local and regional coastal zone planning
There are 33 local communities in Hordaland
(Figure 47) and these municipalities have the
right, but not an obligation, to plan the sea areas.
This not only includes what happens on the
surface of the sea, such as fisheries, aquaculture
and conservation activities, but also in the water
column and on the seabed. Most of the plans now
integrate land and sea plans in one document.
Within the plans, they can designate either
specific use in some zones, or a combination of
activities for a specific zone. Participation and
open hearings are mandatory in this planning
process.
Figure 47. Map of Hordaland communities.
It will become more important to plan at the regional scale in the future, as there are significant crossborder differences between municipalities, although they have much the same nature and geographic
qualities. Also industry tends to be more interested in larger areas and does not necessarily recognize
municipal borders.
Coastal Zone planning has been underway in
Norway for over 20 years, starting in 1985 when
the Planning and Building Act was opened to the
sea area. The Act has been revised several times
since then with a new revision expected in 2009.
The question is: Who decides? The trend is for
more power to devolve to the local and regional
political levels, in part because of the changes in
the aquaculture industry. For example, aquaculture
applications that come into conflict with local area
Coastal Zone plans are not acceptable. It is
therefore very important for the national sector
interests to be active in the early phases of the
planning process in the municipalities, in order to
have their interests fairly represented. Obviously,
the industry has an important role to play in
decision-making, because they create jobs in the
local society, and at the political level sustaining
these small communities in the peripheral regions
is of the highest priority. Hence the industry has a
rightful influence on this planning process.
Most of Norway is now covered by coastal zone
plans. Figure 48 shows one area that has a
Figure 48. Status for kystsoneplan og arealplan isjo.
combination of different sectors. In this case
aquaculture is acceptable in the large, light blue areas. There are specific areas designated for
aquaculture, for harbour/port interests, for conservation, and for other resource users.
For some years, we have been developing tools for local planners; that is, not to make decisions for
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them, but instead to provide them with the tools so that they can develop different scenarios; for
example, what happens if we put a specific activity here or put it there? A lot of work has already
been done on the development of geographical information systems to support planning and in the
future this will become more and more important because of the rapidly increasing amount of
knowledge that is now available. However, this information is also becoming more and more
complex.
For example, there may be a complex model of estuary circulation in the fjords and a lot of data on
temperature and salinity. However, very few planners can actually put this information to good use.
In addition, economic and environmental issues are getting more important with increased growth in
the industry and this will require new tools so that these factors can be included in future plans for the
area. It is also important to think of a new generation of planners coming up – these planners may be
very good at using computers but they may not be that skilled at reading conventional maps and
reports and digging into the background information. Therefore, we have to design these systems
quite differently from what we have done in the past.
The systems are specific to each region. However, although the data are specific to each system, the
systems themselves could be a good arena for cooperation between regions and countries such as
Canada and Scotland, who may have some of the same issues.
The advantage of these systems is that they are dynamic, similar to Excel spreadsheets. If you get
better information on one topic then you can input it to achieve a better model, and the end result
should also become more precise. These systems are also interactive; for example, the user could
specify what kind of aquaculture facility they want to simulate, or the localization or the size of the
aquaculture facility for a variety of different species, be it blue mussels, cod or salmon.
We still use the typical sectoral maps on an Internet mapserver where the planners can see what
interests are present in different regions. However, much of this information is not very useful for
most planners. There are also some good databases, but many of the planners do not understand
them, as often they require considerable knowledge of marine biology.
We have worked on incorporating information in greater depth and this has involved integration and
analysis of the data. For example, we identified potential growing areas and then compared that with
information from the growers, input material from a number of different parameters, and then used
digital and qualitative models to determine the most suitable areas. In this case, we used just three
parameters, the depth interval, slope and exposure. We also initiated the concept of a ‘traffic light’
system using the colour codes green, yellow and red to flag suitability of a site for a specific activity
(Figure 49).
We are planning to evolve this a bit further. In principle there are three basic objects: the finfish farm
or the shellfish farm, the sea, and the land. We are hoping to develop this into ‘intellectual’ objects;
for example, the fish farms may have properties such as a specific flow through, cost of mooring and
anchoring the pens, seaworthiness, and distance from other farms.
The ‘sea’ component also has specific properties, such as depth, waves, currents, salinity and
temperature, and algal content. Compiling this information is very useful if it has to do with
localizing mussel farm activity. The third component is ‘land’, which could be associated with
properties such as waste water or infrastructure. Basically, this is a completely new concept of
localizing properties of a specific area, which encompasses these three ‘intellectual’ objects that
speak to each other.
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The goal of this type of mapping is to be able to move a fish farm, for example, around a specific area
and determine whether it would be in a good location or a bad location. It is confusing to use this
technology (Figure 49) at first because it communicates with its surroundings. If you, for example,
identify a very deep area, a fish farm may be designated as ‘red’ because may it be too expensive to
anchor. If you want to locate a blue mussel farm in an area with a low production of algae, there may
be a yellow or red sign, because the product is not economically feasible in that area. The website
(http://kart.ivest.no/hordaland/index.jsp) provides more detail with respect to how this database can
be used to identify appropriate activities for specific sites in a given area. We now want to develop
this further so that it could be used for other species such as cod and salmon, and we also want to
include more parameters in the equations.
Figure 49. Siting by traffic lights.
In conclusion, sustainability is paramount for our planning. The aquaculture industry is the second
most important industry in Norway, after the oil and energy sector. There are a number of
environmental challenges associated with the salmon farming industryincluding salmon lice, genetic
interference with the wild stocks, and organic pollution, as well as economic and social problems
such as area conflicts. However, we believe that these problems can be solved with good planning
processes, strict regulations for the benefit of the industry, and research and innovation. It is
important for us to continue this successful planning approach as the industry begins to diversify into
other species, such as cod and shellfish, and niche products.
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Dialogue
(A student representative from Chilliwack Secondary School) On the last slide you mentioned that
closed containment was not an issue today. Why is this – do you not think it would be a good idea?
Inge Doskeland
Based on my discussions with my colleagues in the Fishery Directorate the simple answer to this
question is that if we moved towards closed containment systems in Norway, then we would be more
or less out of business, because the margins for production are not high enough to sustain this
expensive technology.
Responses to Coastal Planning and Salmon Farming
What is the vision for salmon aquaculture on the British Columbia coast?
Clare Backman, Environment and Compliance Manager, Marine Harvest Canada, Campbell
River, BC
Comparing the aquaculture industry in Europe and in British Columbia
What we have heard about Europe sounds very much like home. There is an established salmon
aquaculture industry and other kinds of finfish aquaculture are being introduced. The industry has
grown and it has provided some income and value to local communities. It has encountered conflict
and difficulties, and it has moved ahead and learned and adapted. It is in a state of change.
It seems that in Europe the industry had its head down and was maybe not looking to see what was
being done around it and not being aware of the interests of stakeholders that were involved.
Obviously, there has been a change in that over time to ensure that broader interests are
accommodated. That also applies to the industry in British Columbia.
Looking forward in BC we can probably expect that the industry will continue to be involved in
growing finfish, and different kinds of finfish, perhaps in different locations, and maybe with
different kinds of equipment. We will probably still have some conflict going forward as well. In
both Europe and BC there is an emerging pattern of people communicating more and sitting down
together and working out their differences.
There are other similarities between the industry in Europe and in BC. Communication has increased
between different user groups and there has been greater attention paid to the siting of finfish farms
and to reducing the ecological and environmental concerns. There has not necessarily been a
complete movement away from net cage technology to closed containment. In Iceland they have
taken a different approach and they have moved towards closed containment on land and are coupling
that with a shift in species.
The Marine Harvest - Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform Framework for Dialogue
For the past several years, Marine Harvest has been engaging and communicating more with the
public, particularly through the Marine Harvest Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform Framework
for Dialogue. In 2004, when the concerns around salmon farming were probably at their paramount
level of conflict, particularly with respect to sea lice infections on wild salmon, the company that I
was working for at that time decided to take a different approach to dealing with the issues. And that
was to approach the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform (CAAR), and determine if there was a
way that together we could look at some common interests and possible ways to move forward on the
debate. This was not necessarily a popular move to make, from either side; everyone was a bit leery
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about getting together and sitting down and talking. But after a number of months of discussing what
sorts of things we could land on that would be of interest to each other, we did decide to do just that
and agreed to a program of dialogue. It is all about dialogue - about doing something that we have all
been doing here today, which is sharing a lot of information and trying to get correct information on
the table, and talking about research. It is also about being willing to hear each other and about being
willing to change.
We do not always agree on everything and we quite frequently get into positions where we have to
move on to the next item on the agenda. But we do come back and talk about the things that we do
not necessarily agree on. We are almost through our second year now and we have been having a lot
of discussion around some of the common areas of interest.
Areas for collaboration
We landed on four areas for collaboration in particular. One was the siting of some of the farms
within the Broughton and we have talked about where they could eventually be moved to or how they
might be modified. We have also been focusing on a program of research. In addition, we have been
talking about closed containment and about the ways that we can share data and learn more about
each other’s interests.
Research projects
We are currently at the point where we are about to bring together a couple of research projects that
will involve different who will work on questions that still remain unanswered with respect to effects
of sea lice, and the ecological differences between areas on the coast regarding wild fish and sea lice.
Closed containment
We are also addressing the questions around moving to closed containment. It is true that there is a
variety of ways of growing fish and one of the things that we clearly need to do is to examine what
has been done and compare technologies. We have agreed to conduct a review of what has been done
and look at the analysis of what we need to know to move forward. At the same time we want to look
at what is currently going on in terms of closed containment opportunities and learn from those as
well. Then, when we have that information in front of us, we can look at an economic model and
compare the costs and benefits associated with both types of growing. It is a fairly ambitious piece of
work. We intend to bring this forward and we will both learn from these projects.
In summary, there are elements of what we do right now where we can learn from the European
experience, specifically with respect to some of the discussion we had on fallowing and synchronized
treatment on some of our farm sites. I am looking forward to continuing the dialogue similar to the
one we are having today. The discussions will continue to inform the industry in British Columbia
and also my company, and as well this will inform the other voices and stakeholders that have an
interest in what we do. In the end, the objective is to move to the place where we can produce a high
quality, nutritious fish product in British Columbia and bring value to the coastal communities. We
will probably still have conflict, but maybe less than we have now.
Dan Lane, Professor, Telfer School of Management, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario
Definition of space
There are four points I would like to follow up on from the excellent presentations.
The first has to do with spatial definition. In BC we talk about spatial definition as we do on the
Atlantic coast and elsewhere. However, in Canada we do not have the same kind of regimen that we
heard about in the presentations. In other words, they are describing spatial definitions that have real
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meaning and authority. We are talking about property that has rights and property that needs to evolve
into a political entity of some sort. We have to work out how to do that but I believe that the
definition of space is important to define, as was mentioned in all three cases.
Governance
My second point has to do with what Peter Larkin called the way we are governed in this country in
terms of Fisheries and Oceans as the father, the father being the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans.
That paternalistic view, which is the way he described it, is probably old - I think that the kids have
grown up. The ‘kids’ are those spatial elements of our system that we need to define and to give
authority to. Our Fisheries Act needs to be revised so that these spatial definitions have real authority
and can act with the authority that they need to make the decisions they need to make. That point was
raised in each of these presentations.
The federal view, the paternalistic view, that says “we will look after you” is one that allows local
institutions, and this would apply to our industries as well, the out. Stewardship and co-management
are a key part of what we do. As long as the minister retains the authority, then stewardship and comanagement cannot be carried out. It is necessary for us to give that authority back to those local
areas so that they can carry out the responsibilities that they need to bear.
Dealing with uncertainty
A third point is that in situations where we have uncertainty and difficulties in dealing with problems
we are not sure about in terms of how they will evolve (stochastic problems), we need to embrace that
uncertainty. In dealing with coastal definitions we also need to embrace uncertainty and conflict.
The conflict that we see at the local level is not something that is completely unreasonable to resolve.
We need to embrace it and take the information we have and give the authority to those groups in
order to help them resolve those situations. That is the place where it will be resolved.
Best practices
Siting of farms
The last point has to do with best practices. I heard from the discussions about possible ways to deal
with aquaculture problems. I am in no position to tell BC what it might do or even to suggest that.
However, there are certain consistencies that can be drawn from what we heard. One of those has to
do with not having fish farms in locations where we know there are important natural resources and
the need to move fish farms away from these sites. There might be a message here with regard to
how we treat the issue of closed containment or containment in general; that is, containment with
flow through or various levels of containment that might apply. We may need to look at how we deal
with the siting of our fish farms. If we follow the principle that it is not a good idea to put fish farms
where there are natural resources flowing, such as the wild Pacific salmon stocks, and that we need to
try to deal with that in a way that makes things compatible, then I think we are on the right track.
Diversification
The issue of diversification of the aquaculture industry was addressed in all of the presentations; for
example, in Iceland and Norway they are now planning to farm cod. In Chile, which is among the
world leaders in farming of Atlantic salmon, they are sending a delegation to the Marine Institute in
Newfoundland to learn about cod farming. The notion of diversification is not one that we embody on
the Pacific and maybe we should think about that. Diversification has been shown to be the optimal
approach in many cases. We invest in mutual funds because we diversify the way we spend our
dollars and invest in order to minimize, or at least to level out, risk. Diversification in aquaculture
might mean polyculture, and that might mean doing other species, all indigenous, or perhaps maybe
not. For the industry and for the local communities dependent on the industry, diversification could
be a way to stabilize the risk and uncertainty.
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Role of government
Finally, with regard to the modeling and analyses that Inge Doskeland referred to, I think that
evaluation and setting up scenarios and development of tools for how we might proceed, is the real
role that our governments could play in assisting our local communities. If we devolve authority, as I
suggest we might do to our more local based systems, then we also need to help them, and at the level
where we have resources, at the federal level and provincial levels. Our ability to provide information
about what might happen, about modeling, and to provide tools and develop scenarios, is a way to
help those local groups with authority and to help them make the best decisions.
Rob Paynter, Manager, Marine Planning, Integrated Land Management Bureau, BC Ministry of
Agriculture and Lands, Victoria, BC
When reading the plan from Two Brooms and listening to the presentations from Iceland and
Norway, I noted the number of commonalities with BC. In so many ways we are dealing with the
same issues, and we have very similar approaches.
The goal of our sub-regional planning is to get beyond the site level footprint, and to have a
methodology for taking into consideration the broader impacts of a single use as well as the
interactions between all uses and activities, so that we can determine what the ideal opportunities are.
A significant point about Norway is that they have embraced the idea that planning is not a one-off
process and a mechanism is in place whereby plans are developed with a ten to twelve year horizon.
Although these plans are renewed only every four years they are reviewed annually for performance.
This process addresses the concept that once we make a plan, it is not finished. We need to go back
and figure out what we got right and what we got wrong. In this way, the planning actually remains
current and is consistent with our new understanding of technology and environmental considerations.
Inge Doskeland raised important points with regard to development of tools to enable us to move
beyond just dealing with integrated plans. This allows users or interested parties of all sorts to be able
to get beyond the plans and start to anticipate where the opportunities may lie using a commonly
agreed on set of parameters. That approach would help to reduce the level of discussion about who
does science better, which continues to plague not only this discussion but many others with respect
to resource management.
Colin Wishart made a very useful point about not waiting for the perfect science to come along.
Science, in many respects, is like the legal system in that you can probably argue many different
perspectives, using the same set of circumstances. What is important is to ensure that the decisions
are transparent and collaborative to the broadest extent possible. Colin also made a very important
point about the need for bringing together different agencies. All presentations stressed that there
needs to be opportunities for public involvement. The discussion about levels of engagement was
very interesting. I have seen, on a number of occasions, cases or situations where discussions are
swayed by the immediate perceived needs of the community, whether it is with respect to economic
growth or some other factor. I have also seen very different arguments at the more abstract regional
level of planning where the needs of the communities are not even considered. It is obvious that at a
scale issue, public involvement is a serious consideration.
Dialogue
Can we agree on a vision?
Chief Bob Chamberlain - Question to Rob Paynter
In your role as manager for marine planning at the Integrated Land Management Bureau (ILMB), do
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you have a possible timeframe for when you would actually take the “new relationship” to the ground
and develop a new mechanism for shared decision making with First Nations, within our traditional
territory?
Rob Paynter
When I asked Colin and Inge what they saw as the big distinctions between their situation and that of
BC, the first point they both raised was the considerable volume of wild salmon that are here as
opposed to in their own countries.
The other thing that came to mind for me is the relationship that the provincial government and the
people of BC have with First Nations. I have not yet seen a lot of practical examples of where the
“new relationship” has been demonstrated on the ground. From my perspective, it is a cornerstone of
the planning policy that guides ILMB and more broadly than that our work with a number of different
organizations including umbrella groups such as the Coastal First Nations. There is no doubt that we
are dealing with another level of government. The biggest issue right now is one of resources. Since
2004, funding and other resources available for marine planning have been significantly reduced.
We have agreed that for BC there is a need to reduce the level of conflict in the finfish farming
industry. This will eventually give rise to opportunities for sustainable development. According to a
study that I conducted, BC finfish farming ranks as one of the least sustainable industries in the
world.
What are your views for the market?
One criterion that was not included in this study, but which is important for sustainability, is
profitability. My questions to the BC salmon farming industry are: What is the scope of your market,
has it changed, and how will it change? Do you want to solidify your market? Do you see market
growth within a certain time span?
Clare Backman
In response to the questions, what is the market that we are currently selling to and what is the
immediate and future potential for that market, the west coast Canadian market is split into three
areas. We sell primarily to the United States. This shifts around but in general it is around 80 percent
of our market. The remaining 20 percent is the Canadian market and a number of Asian countries,
particularly Japan and Taiwan. These are the logical markets based on geography and they are
probably not going to change a lot.
In terms of the future, every business looks at the demographics in the markets where they sell to. In
our case it is an increasing population and it is also predicted to be an aging population over the next
15 or more years. The projection is for an increased interest in fish products, salmon in particular, and
therefore there is a potential for an increase in our business.
Tim Rundle
The majority of our market is west coast US, and to a lesser degree Canada and Japan. For a small
company like Creative Salmon, the way for us to survive is to have a niche product. Ideally with our
production we could sell everything into BC but that market is not available to us at this time.
Another focus for us is “value-added”.
On diversification of farmed species
Sunil Kadri
With regard to the markets and the point made about diversification, I want to make a point about cod
because that was used as an example of diversification. I can understand the need to manage risk, but
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a market needs to be built for this product. There has been talk about a cod boom for a long time but,
in my opinion, it is not going to happen. They have had a lot of larvae in hatcheries and they never
got out to the sea because there is no market for that cod. As with most aquaculture, you can get a
fresher consistent quality and volume of supply to the market relative to the fishery where the fish
have been on the boat for days and you don’t know what size they are going to be, etc. The result is a
higher price in the restaurant for a farmed cod. If there is a large cod boom, where is the market for
that? I don’t think we can be farming cod for a market for white fish that doesn’t taste of fish.
We are also going to farm tilapia in freshwater on land in recirculation systems. That too is
diversification.
(A fisheries Biologist) In BC, black cod (sablefish) culture is similar to salmon culture, in that these
species are predators and therefore require a lot of protein, usually from forage fish. A recent study
conducted at UBC determined what the return on a cultured sablefish in the market would be, where
most of the sablefish goes to Japan, compared with a wild fish produced through a quota fishery and
drawing a high price. They found that with aquaculture of sablefish, prices will go down because
there will be more available to the market. In addition, there is a risk for disease because of the
overlap in habitat between the juvenile sablefish and the probable aquaculture sites. This would
indicate that we could be facing the same kind of problems as we have with salmon. Therefore, if we
are going to diversify, we have to choose our species practicing much more caution than what we
have up to now.
Is there an integrated plan for the Broughton?
Question is to Clare.
(A member of the commercial salmon industry) If the BC government were to put in a mandate for
the Broughton Archipelago, as they do in Norway, that there had to be an integrated plan that all
stakeholders bought into, would that mandate actually result in such a plan? Would it help or would
it hinder progress towards a sustainable industry?
Clare Backman
In the Broughton Archipelago, we already operate under several plans that have been developed over
time, albeit for different purposes and at different times. Some people in the Broughton Archipelago
would rightly say that they were not properly involved in the development of some of those plans;
however, we are still abiding by them. Other people would say that there are farms in the Broughton
Archipelago that do not comply with those plans. In this case, they pre-dated the start of those plans;
however, any farms applied for after the plans were developed, have respected the intent of the plans.
This is part of the complexity of working in a dynamic organization and a dynamic location where
people bring these kinds of issues to the table – the plans keep changing and we are operating under
another plan approximately every seven to twelve years. Finally, if there were another plan brought
forward then the question is would it satisfy everybody? Certainly it would change. It would likely
have a certain period of validity but I am sure it would come up for change again. What we have
learned here is that as science progresses and as understanding changes and as new species are
brought forward, plans will have to change. There is always going to be a need to revisit what is
going on.
Wrap up
How do we take the vision forward?
Would the students from Chilliwack Secondary School care to comment on what they have heard in
these discussions given that they will inherit the successes and/or problems society creates today?
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Chilliwack Secondary Student Responses:
This is a summary of all our ideas and information. It is actually comforting to know that everybody
is trying to work hard to solve the problems. We are thinking of how to establish a balance between
the wild fishery and fish farming. By doing this, we could control the prices on fish farming to help
the fishing industry. We also, thought, as Bob Chamberlain suggested, that it would be good to
reduce the density of farms in some BC regions. By reducing the density in a small area like the
Broughton there would also be a reduction in the impact of the farms on the environment. We were
happy to learn about the small businesses such as Creative Salmon who are thinking about
environmental aspects and how they can decrease their environmental footprint on the ecosystem.
Craig Orr, Executive Director, Watershed Watch Salmon Society
What I have heard today has been a lot of information, and a lot of viewpoints on such things as
sustainability, exploitation, complexity, uncertainty, beliefs, economics, ideology, assumptions,
analysis, cooperating, conflict, rigidity, and adaptability. I am not really sure how you can crunch all
these words into a common understanding of what was said here today let alone a shared vision for
the future. What I actually have heard has been a shopping list of visions.
Some of the visions I have heard are about profit margins. Some are about healthy ecosystems and
communities. Some are about respect for Aboriginal rights and shared decision-making. Robin
Austin from the Special Committee on Sustainable Aquaculture and Sigudur Gudjonson talked about
visions of significant portions of a coast reserved for wild salmon and high economic return activities
– in a sense developing some kind of a zoning exercise which considers things like alternative uses
and carrying capacities of bays and defined areas.
I have also heard visions from salmon farmers; for example, they do not necessarily like to always be
the target of advocacy or anti-salmon farming sentiment. And I have heard visions of more research
before action as well as visions of immediate action without hiding behind calls for more research.
One of the visions is that we should stop shifting the burden of proof; that is, shifting the
responsibility to prove that lice come from farms and/or harm wild fish, onto the NGO’s, the public,
and the academics. Some famous ecologists have looked at the shifting of the burden of proof in a
number of resource management examples. It is extremely common and always frustrating. It takes
a lot of time and energy from the people in this room and the people who support the people in this
room to deal with this issue.
I have heard about the Marine Harvest and CAAR vision and I personally am helping to shape that.
We do not always get there but we are making some progress and we thank Marine Harvest for
opening up as much as it has in terms of letting us understand what is going on, on the farms, and
talking about solutions.
I also heard visions about closed containment, or what is more simply defined as separation of wild
and farmed fish, which a lot of the NGOs and other people in British Columbia believe is the way that
we have to go. I heard visions about integrated pest management too, and about innovations that are
worth pursuing.
My vision, after dealing with this issue for a number of years, is that we could collectively agree that
science is rarely advanced on definitive proof but is instead advanced by the weight of evidence
approach. We seem to be consistently abandoning the weight of evidence approach and instead we
seem to be trying to invent ways or reinvent ways on how science is advanced. If we could agree on
this one thing, that science is advanced on the weight of evidence, then we would be in a much better
position to actually achieve some common shared vision in this room.
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Rick Routledge, Professor and Chair, Statistics and Actuarial Sciences, Simon Fraser
University
I want to talk about principles that were enunciated by several people, probably most effectively by
Nick Joy. These principles would help to guide us in dealing with these issues in the future.
The first principle was to have respect for our natural heritage. If we do not have that, then we are in
serious trouble. I admired the comments about how we should aim to leave the natural environment as
we found it - maybe just through a farm cycle, but more importantly, for the next generation, for these
high school students, for example. We need to leave them with the kind of environment that we
inherited. There were many good ideas for strategies we could follow and try to develop to deal with
these issues. Important comments were made about carrying capacity, the role of fallowing, siting,
separation through time and place, and important issues of coastal zoning. Iceland has taken a
remarkably solid stance on that and the BC Legislative Committee made a strong recommendation at
least for a temporary zoning and no further expansion of salmon farms north of Cape Caution. There
were also many very interesting ideas for how to reduce reliance on chemicals, using integrated pest
management, fallowing and so on and many important issues came up for debate on dealing with
action levels, taking into consideration impacts on wild salmon as well as the farmed salmon.
There is one overriding concern, however, that leaves me still very depressed and that is this issue of
whether or not we have a problem. I have debated Simon Jones and several others for five hours in
front of the BC Legislative Committee on this matter. Today, I want just to put forward some
evidence related to fallowing that I find particularly compelling. In 2003 there was a fallow which
whose effectiveness continues to be questioned. In my opinion, there are no grounds for this. There is
indeed strong evidence published in two scientific papers that showed that the returns of pink salmon
from the ones that went out to sea that year rebounded.
Meanwhile, while we debate these issues, let us not forget Viner Creek chum. Viner Creek is a small
creek in the heart of the Broughton Archipelago. It has been the focus of a small restoration effort by
local residents. The population has declined slowly but steadily from an average of around 30,000
returning adults since the fish farming industry got going - except for the cohort that went to sea
during the 2003 fallow. These went largely unnoticed. It is a small population, and chum do not come
back at age two; they come back over a mix of ages later. That cohort came back strongly through
the early parts of the return cycle. The other cohorts going out did not. And in 2007 fewer than 100
chum carcasses were observed in Viner Creek. What more do we need to have evidence that we have
a serious problem?
The Europeans have recognized this and they have invoked the precautionary principle. It hardly
seems to me we have to invoke a precautionary principle. We have a problem and we have to deal
with it. If we do face that fact then there are a lot of opportunities for us to do some wonderful new
things. Let’s get on with that.
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