Blood from tons of diseased farmed fish is being pumped into British Columbia’s largest wild salmon migration route
With mounting concern that farmed salmon are spreading disease to wild salmon, Canadian diver Tavish Campbell decided to investigate for himself.
With an underwater camera, he dove into the pristine waters of Clayoquot Sound and Discovery Passage in British Columbia, to see what he could find.
His first stop was Brown’s Bay Packing Company on Vancouver island.
What he discovered shocked and disgusted him – plumes of blood from the plant’s drainage pipe bellowing into British Columbia’s largest wild salmon migration route.
“As I approached the outpour pipe and my light illuminated the bloody water, I think I just about choked on my regulator,” Campbell says in the video below:
According to Campbell, a third of all the wild salmon in British Columbia swim past Brown’s Bay and through the adjoining Campbell River.
After his discovery, he and a friend hopped in their truck and made their way to Lions Gate Fisheries’ processing plant in Tofino Harbor, where they found the exact same scenario, only this time it was rock fish and perch feeding directly on the blood water.
Campbell collected samples of the “blood water” from the outpouring and sent them to a scientist for analysis. They tested positive for numerous pathogens, including intestinal worms and piscine reovirus, which causes extreme inflammation of the heart and muscles of salmon.
A recent study reveals around 80 percent of Atlantic salmon on British Columbia’s coast have the virus. Some scientists have argued that the highly contagious virus can spread from salmon in open-net pen farms to wild salmon that swim past.
In a statement on its website, Brown’s Bay Packing Company claims it disinfects all discharge before releasing it into the bay, which they say is “a perfectly legal” practice.
While the booming fish farming industry was intended to replace dwindling wild fish stocks, it may now be threatening the existence of wild fish altogether.
Calling his findings “a national embarrassment to Canada,” Campell asks viewers to Prime Minister Justine Trudeau (justin.trudeau@parl.gc.ca) andPremier John Horgan (premier@gov.bc.ca) and demand that the salmon aquaculture industry be transitioned to land.