BC’s salmon farming industry is in the midst of a full-blown public relations war.
Earlier this month, the BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA) and the province’s largest salmon farming operations launched a $1.5 million advertising campaign to “get the straight facts” out about their industry.
The campaign, which includes TV commercials, a website and discussion forum (www.BCSalmonFacts.ca) and Twitter and Facebook pages, is designed to separate the “facts” about the highly controversial industry from the “fiction” farmers say critics have fed the public.
Mary Ellen Walling, executive director of the BCSFA, told Business in Vancouver the campaign is more about the public’s perception of salmon farming than the environmental groups that slag it.
“We’re not aiming this campaign at … the more strident environmental groups, we’re aiming this at the majority of British Columbians who just generally want to know more about what we’re doing.”
But Catherine Stewart isn’t buying it.
She’s the Living Oceans Society’s salmon farming campaign manager, and she believes the campaign is a reflection of the concern the public has about the impacts of salmon farming.
“I think the message has gotten through to people – the accurate message – that salmon farms are having a real impact,” Stewart said. “The weight of scientific evidence is clear. The crash in the Fraser River sockeye [run] in 2009 got people very worried.”
The campaign comes amid mounting pressure from environmental groups that are concerned that open-net salmon farms along B.C.’s coast are damaging wild salmon runs.
Environmentalists point to the 2009 Fraser River salmon run as evidence, which was so low the federal government called an inquiry to examine the problem.
The inquiry, known as the Cohen Commission, began reviewing evidence last year.
Ironically, the largest sockeye run in nearly a century returned to the Fraser River last August.
The issue has been further muddied by a December report that sea lice, which some believe come from salmon farms and devastate wild stocks, were not the cause of declines in B.C.’s Broughton Archipelago in 2002.
Then in January, a Department of Fisheries and Oceans researcher led a study that suggested a mysterious virus might be linked to B.C. salmon deaths. The jury is still out on whether salmon farms have affected B.C.’s wild salmon returns, but that hasn’t stopped campaigners from jockeying for public support.
Salmon farmers such as Marine Harvest Canada, Mainstream Canada, Grieg Seafood and feed suppliers EWOS Canada and Skretting are behind the BCSalmonFacts campaign.
Heavyweight advertiser DDB Canada has been hired to run the strategy, its previous work in the province includes the BC Dairy “must drink more milk” campaign.
The BCSFA’s Walling said the campaign was conceptualized before the Cohen Commission was established.
Grant Warkentin, a spokesman for Mainstream, said the campaign is a chance for farmers to show British Columbians how important the industry is to the economy and how seriously it considers environmental issues.
“I think part of the problem in the past has been we just haven’t said much of anything,” Warkentin said. “The timing is good now to counter that misinformation [about the industry].”
But Stewart took issue with the campaign’s altruistic notions. “They’re claiming that the ads are to correct misinformation and yet the ads are full of misinformation.”
The BCSalmonFacts website lists a series of facts about the industry and a series of myths, all of which can be commented on.
Moderators answer commentator’s posts and supply links, when available, to studies or research that supports their claims. Still, industry opponents haven’t let up. Visitors have called the website “propaganda” and a “lie.”
Stan Proboszcz, a member of the Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said the campaign uses “fuzzy” language to overwrite science he believes proves that salmon farms have affected wild stocks.
“It’s just a fair bit of clever advertising to possibly fog up the issue,” said Proboszcz.
But his group is part of a larger group known as the Coastal Alliance for Aquaculture Reform, an organization that’s campaigned against salmon farms and includes the David Suzuki Foundation, Georgia Strait Alliance, T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation and the Living Oceans Society.
Warkentin said the industry has made strides in recent years to become more sustainable, and the campaign is an effort to clean up its image.
Said Warkentin: “We’d like to see people come away with a better understanding of the industry … maybe it’s not what they thought it was.”
$800 million – salmon farming industry’s contribution to B.C. economy
6,000 – the amount of people directly and indirectly employed by the industry
80,000 metric tones – the amount of farmed salmon produced in B.C. annually
70 – the number of salmon farms operating at any given time