My name is Martin Davis. I'm a councillor with the Village of Tahsis, and I wrote this letter on behalf of the mayor and council and the people of Tahsis.
Tahsis is a tourism-dependent community situated on the west coast of Vancouver Island in Nootka Sound. In the summer, large numbers of anglers come to Tahsis for the sport fishery here. There is also a small commercial fishing fleet that works out of the nearby community of Zeballos.
Most of our current economic activity revolves around the sport fishery. This fishery is enhanced by our volunteer-run fish hatchery.
Since the turn of this century, nine salmon fish farms have been established or enlarged in Nootka Sound. All are situated along major salmon migration routes. In November 2009 there was a significant outbreak of sea lice at two of the farms in our area. In one the contamination averaged 24 lice per fish, and at the other it rose to 41. These data, produced under contract to a fish farm company, were made available to the Tahsis council.
This outbreak was at levels unseen in wild fish and led to the removal of the farmed fish before maturity. Video and plankton net collection by an independent researcher clearly show enormous numbers of sea lice in the water surrounding the farm and attached to a boat. Farm workers have anonymously stated that the lice were resistant to the systemic pesticide Slice, which is used normally to kill them.
Fish farming in this area has had problems before, including high mortalities from summer anoxic conditions combined with plankton blooms. In 2004 mortality was 100%; the dead fish were taken offshore and dumped at sea, creating a 15-kilometre-long slick of rotting fish.
Salmon have apparently evolved their fall river spawning behaviour as a survival strategy to avoid contaminating their fry with sea lice when they hatch and leave the rivers in the spring, as sea lice are intolerant of fresh water. The presence of fish farms short-circuits this strategy by providing captive dense host populations of adult salmon that, when infected by lice, produce millions of lice larvae that attack the smolts as they migrate past the farms on their way to the open sea. While the fish farms here have recently responded to this outbreak by moving to a model in which the farms are harvested before the passage of smolts, this could only potentially work every other year, as the average grow-out period for farmed salmon is 22 months.
Tahsis council is extremely concerned with the impacts of these activities on wild salmon, which have been in decline for years in our region. Fish farms negatively affect our economy, which derives no employment or other benefits from them, despite their presence in our waters. The fish are also not processed in our region. They work at cross-purposes to our village fish hatchery by contaminating hatchery smolts when released into the wild. While smolts released from our hatcheries can be delayed until they grow to a more resilient size, the same cannot be said for wild smolts.
In conclusion, Tahsis needs to protect not just the wild salmon, but its own economic interests. After the closure of our sawmill and the subsequent downsizing of our local logging industry, we need to look after what we have left for our economic survival. With that in mind, we ask that the federal government phase out open-containment fish farms in Nootka Sound. While this may negatively impact the local fish farm industry, we propose that they relocate to Tahsis and build land-based closed-containment facilities there.
We know that this technology exists and is proven, and all it will take to move this forward is political will. We're willing to work with the seafood companies to find a solution that is mutually beneficial to all.
Thanks.