A guide to salmon farming in BC
BCSFA, August 18, 2011
There are a lot of theories and presumptions made about BC's salmon farming industry - and too often those misconceptions have become the core of public knowledge about our business. Sometimes the questions are so big that they're hard to answer clearly and simply.
That's why, with the increased attention on salmon aquaculture through the Cohen Commission of Inquiry into the decline of Fraser River Sockeye salmon's ongoing hearings, we are happy to be able to share this comprehensive document.
Over 65 questions about salmon farming: from big to little, hard to easy - this document gives a clear answer to those most common inquiries about our business. The document is now public - and is posted under the Resources section of the website.
You can also access it here.
We hope it will help to provide more clarity on our operations - as we hope our involvement in the Cohen Commission will. Beginning next week (Aug. 24) the hearings' focus will turn to aquaculture after months of investigation into a range of other topics.
And we're ready for it. The BC Salmon Farmers Association has been working through its responsibilities in the Cohen Commission for 16 months now, since we were granted participant status in April 2010. It has taken a lot of resources: both in staff time, as we collect information requested by counsel, but also in financial resources. We are one of only a few participants who are funding our involvement ourselves - and the added cost has only added to the already high cost of production we face in this competitive business.
Despite the challenges, there have been a lot that has made our participation in the commission worthwhile: all participants and those in the public paying attention to the actual hearings have learned some interesting things about the state of our natural environment, and have heard about how much more we need to know.
The commissioner and his team has already looked at thousands of documents and talked to hundreds of people - many of them experts in their field, all of them passionate about the topics at hand. We at the BCSFA hope these days on aquaculture are helpful to the commissioner and to the general public.
This has to be a respectful dialogue. The passion around our wild salmon can sometimes motivate aggressive action, but we're committed to honest, courteous discussion, and will continue to be in the weeks to come. We hope this document will also help lay the foundation for that.
We will be at the hearings each day of the aquaculture sessions, though our members are only scheduled to speak Aug. 31 and Sept. 7 and 8. We plan on updating this page with progress reports each week - and hope you will check back here for any breaking news.
