B.C.’s salmon farming industry has come under fire again, this time for shooting sea lions and seals.
According to a new Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) report, Marine Harvest, B.C.’s largest aquaculture company, killed 46 California sea lions between January and March of this year at its Mahatta West farm in Quatsino Sound.
The Living Oceans Society, which has long campaigned against open net-cage salmon farms and their impact on the environment, called the deaths “environmentally destructive.”
“The case for moving these net-cage farms into closed containment just keeps getting stronger,” said Catherine Stewart, the society’s salmon farming campaign manager.
“How long can our marine ecosystems keep paying the price for industry and government’s unwillingness to adopt innovative solutions?”
DFO said fish farms are licensed to undertake “predator control” of marine mammals that pose a danger to their facility.
The department also said that, as the number of fish farms has increased in coastal waters, so too have the number of predators, which see the farms as a potential food source.
The DFO report showed there were only four accidental sea lion and seal drownings in the first three months of the year.
Joel McKay
Twitter:jmckaybiv