I'll begin, just because I represent a farming company that has been in southern New Brunswick for 25 years.
We've had a very good record of not having escapes. As Bill said, there were some incidents last year, but they were not with our company, and they were smolts, so I can't really speak to the fate of those fish.
But we did have a sabotage event on our farms in 2005. That's a very long time ago. At that time we got permits from DFO. We would not be allowed to go out fishing for the escaped fish without permits, so we went to a lot of trouble to get all of that in place. But the reality is that most of the fish disappear very quickly and many are eaten by seals.
When we quote numbers and statistics, you have to be careful that you give the whole story. So yes, there may have been more farmed salmon that were found in a river, but we're talking ten farmed salmon. So the percentage is that there are more of the wild salmon. The returns, fortunately, are very low. But the numbers of aquaculture fish that have been found in the rivers in that area have been very small. There have been a few incidents, but they're very infrequent. In the early days that would happen much more often.
A lot of that is just because we've learned how to build the equipment to suit the environment. In terms of Cooke Aquaculture Inc., we have not had an escape. However, we are required under the new regulatory requirements to report an escape. If we think we may have lost 100 fish, we have to report that.
We have had incidents in the last year where we twice had to report that our divers found a hole in the net. We felt we hadn't lost fish, but we reported it anyway. Our company voluntarily reported even before the reporting requirement was there. In fact, in regard to this incident with the sabotage that I referred to earlier, we did contact the ASF people in Maine, everyone, immediately to let them know.
Our experience is that our fish are staying in the cages. That's where we need them to be and we're doing everything we can to keep them there. Unfortunately, there have been some incidents, but they have not been with our company.