Is anyone missing some salmon?
In September, the Atlantic Salmon Federation (ASF) found farmed salmon in monitoring traps along the Magaguadavic River in New Brunswick. Domesticated salmon are easy to tell apart from their wild brethren and conservationists are used to finding the occasional stray farmed salmon.
“If we get one or two from time to time we don’t think much about it,” said Johnathan Carr, ASF research and environment director.
But the organization found 10 in a week and received a call from the Maine Department of Marine Resources of three more escapees of similar size in the Dennys River. The non-profit put out an alert and notified the New Brunswick government. The fish have been culled and are being analyzed for issues that could pose a threat to wild aquatic species.
Thirteen fish found could mean thousands more may have escaped their pens but didn’t make it to fresh water, said Carr. Farmed salmon aren’t built to survive in the wild, and scientists estimate that less than one percent of escapees in bay aquaculture sites make it to freshwater.
“We’re looking at a few thousand fish that escaped, at least,” Carr said.
There’s only one problem: no one’s claiming the fish. No aquaculture company operating in the Passamaquoddy Bay is reporting a breach in containment nets. The origin of the fish remains a mystery.
And that mystery calls into question new regulations meant to prevent undetected farmed salmon escapes. Under provincial regulations that went into effect in 2010, aquaculture companies operating in New Brunswick must report the escape of 100 fish or more to the government and to ASF. But so far, no company has reported missing salmon, according to the provincial government.
News of the escape worries salmon conservationists, who fear the escaped salmon will interbreed with the few endangered wild Atlantic salmon left in the northeast and weaken the perilous gene pool. There’s also concern that escaped salmon could spread sea lice that hurt lobster, said Dwayne Shaw, executive director of the Downeast Salmon Federation in Maine. A sea lice outbreak spread by aquaculture fish hurt the lobster industry in the 90s.
Since that outbreak, Maine has put into place safeguards, like third-party audits and inspections of holding pens, plus the need for aquaculture companies to put breach contingency plans into place. There has been no major incident of escaped salmon in the state since those regulations have gone into effect, said Carr. Escapes have decreased dramatically in New Brunswick since 2000, as well, he added.
New Brunswick’s regulations historically have not been as strict as those in Maine. But in 2010, the provincial government made it mandatory to report escapes. Two incidents have been reported in the province since the new regulations went into effect. Still, no plan is foolproof, said Shaw.
“Despite all the protective measures”¦fish keep escaping,” he said.
Though the size and weight of the fish are the same size as those grown in Passamaquoddy Bay, the Atlantic Canada Fish Farmers Association has said there is no evidence its members have neglected to report an escape. Every member of the association has been reviewing its operations since the escaped salmon were found and one company is analyzing tissue samples of the culled fish, said Pamela Parker, the association’s executive director.
Parker believes that ASF is out of line for publicity that implies the aquaculture industry failed to follow provincial regulations.
“There is no evidence that this is a breach in the regulatory obligations,” Parker said.
Carr of the ASF hopes such incidents will point to the need for the provincial government to adopt aquaculture regulations more in line with those in the state of Maine. But Parker says the regulations already are similar as those in Maine, and that the association is already following Maine’s guidelines voluntarily.
ASF has long promoted the concept of land-based aquaculture to prevent escapes, but it’s an idea the industry dismisses as cost-prohibitive. Short of that, Carr hopes such incidents point to the need of greater cooperation between salmon stakeholders and greater effort to monitor for escaped salmon.
He argued that the provincial government needs to communicate more with conservationists about this issue. (Attempts to contact the official with the most direct knowledge of this issue within the New Brunswick government were unsuccessful; a government communications representative said the official was on vacation.) Carr maintains that ASF didn’t even know the 2010 regulation included an obligation to report to ASF until after the regulation went into effect. And the provincial government is, in essence, leaning on ASF to monitor for escaped salmon without providing funding to the non-profit, he said.
“The government really should be more proactive,” Carr said. “It doesn’t make any sense the way it’s working now.”
Craig Idlebrook is a freelance writer.