Canada is taking an important step towards the protection of wild Pacific salmon populations by banning ocean-polluting salmon farms in coastal BC waters. This decision comes in response to growing global concerns about the negative impact of salmon farming on wild salmon populations.

In BC, open-net pen salmon farms release parasites, pathogens and pollutants threatening wild Pacific salmon. “It’s like the tobacco industry in the 1960s and 1970s,” says Ivar Bjorkland, a professor of social anthropology at the University in Tromsø, Norway. “The industry is too financially powerful for governments to regulate farms closely.”

Read full article by The Globe and Mail here.