New underwater video shot by researchers working with salmon biologist Alexandra Morton reveals in graphic detail the waste from a number of salmon farms covering the ocean floor beneath them.
According to a press release today from Morton’s group Salmon Are Sacred, “Jody Eriksson, who collected the waste samples and filmed under the farms, said: ‘It’s a wasteland down under the farms. We were shocked: piles of faeces, rotting feed, bacterial mats and bubbling gases’ a bottom smothered by waste. This is out of sight damage must be exposed!’
All video from Alexandra Morton’s Vimeo page.
Video# 1: In the Broughton Archipelago, under a Marine Harvest salmon
farm. The bubbles are methane. The waste is heaped in mounds devoid of
life other than bacteria. This was once a productive crab ground. The
Norwegian company just moved its livestock to another site and are
carrying on business as usual. The federal government gave this site a
licence to operate despite this obvious pollution, the province who is
supposed to be managing our seafloor has done nothing.
Video #2: Bacteria growing under a Marine Harvest farm in the Broughton Archipelago. The white is bacteria called Beggiatoa. It grows in the sulfur-loaded
environments associated with sewage, in this case tons of fish manure
under Marine Harvest’s feedlot. This was once rich crabbing grounds.
Marine Harvest just moved their livestock to another place in Broughton.
Apparently this is OK with the federal government because they just
issued a licence to continue dumping here.
Video #3: Healthy Glass Reef-Building Sponge, not affected by salmon farm waste. This is what these sponges should look like. Scroll down to next video to see dead sponges under a salmon farm.
Video #4: Dead Reef-Building Glass Sponges Under Salmon Farm. Reef-building sponges are extremely slow growing and remarkable fish
habitat in BC. The damage from this Cermaq/Mainstream salmon feedlot – owned largely by the
Norwegian government – will take hundreds of years to heal if ever.
Video #5: Approaching a mound of salmon farm waste.
It hurts my heart to see that people could knowingly destroy habitat like this. I am also saddened by the gagging that is being done around the Cohen commission. It tells me that right now it is all about money. The most powerful industrial forces, be they fish farms, oil companies or mines, can freely degrade our environment so they can make profits. And foolish people fall for the promise of jobs. This short term gain will cost us so much more as our precious web of life is irrevocably damaged. I pray for sanity before it is too late.
Time to put our vote where our concerns are – on May 1st the DFO needs to see that enough people know about the effects of this de-regulated industry and that we are going to vote in a government that will attend to this and other environmental concerns.
This is old ,old news.
The Scots had a moratorium on fish farms 20 years ago because of such concerns.
Is there any wonder the Europeans still consider us colonials ?
Atleast 10 years ago, I flew up from the coast with an abalone diver working out of Prince Rupert. He told me then that the marine life under the fish farms were devastated, that there was nothing there, and everything was dead. This is not a short term problem. I am amazed that no one has researched this before. It should be monitored very closely.
In the United Nations Declaration on F.N. Rights : It is very clear on Article 19 – states shall consult and cooperate in good faith with indigenous peoples concerned through their own representative in order to obtain their free, prior and informed connect before adopting and implementing legislation or administrative measures that may effect them:
Article 20 – Indigenous peoples have the right to maintain and develop their political economic and social systems or institutions, to be secure in the enjoyment of their own means of substance and development and to engage freely in ALL their traditional and other activities.
This is why someone has to pay for what they are doing in our backdoor, All our marine resources are in a downward trend since the arrival of fishfarms so who is accountable for our rights based issues that has totally devastated all First nations in the Broughton.