Your help is needed to prevent the potential collapse of some of BC's pink salmon stocks. Please read the following and contact Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans, (DFO) urging them to remove open netcage salmon farms on BC's coast and move towards sustainable, closed-containment aquaculture systems.

Last week, DFO released information on sea lice in the Broughton Archipelago. Their data indicate that lice levels are up in the area, with 72% of juvenile salmon sampled being infected.

While DFO's data doesn't completely match with that of independent scientists, who are finding higher infection rates (90% of fish sampled) and heavier average sea lice loads per fish, it still indicates that there are too many lice in the Broughton Archipelago.

However, DFO is still stating that “Little is known about the link between the fluctuations of pink salmon production, sea lice and salmon farms.”

Meanwhile, scientists in Scotland, where wild salmon runs have all but disappeared, have published the strongest evidence yet that salmon farms are the source of sea lice infestations which can spread up to three miles.

DFO must follow the precautionary principle: "the absence of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason to postpone decisions where there is a threat of serious or irreversible harm" (DFO website).

Contact our Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, Mr. Geoff Regan, as well as the critics for the Minister, and urge them to use the precautionary principle and remove all net-cages, from all salmon-rich areas before it is too late.

For more information on this issue, please see our website: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/Oceans/Fish_Farming/Salmon/

REGAN, Geoff
Minister of Fisheries and Oceans
Telephone: (613) 996-3085
Fax: (613) 996-6988
E-Mail: Regan.G@parl.gc.ca

Conservative critic: HEARN, Loyola
Tel: (613) 992-0927
Fax: (613) 995-7858
Email: Hearn.L@parl.gc.ca

NDP critic: STOFFER, Peter Arend
Tel: (613) 995-5822
Fax : (613) 996-9655
Email: Stoffer.P@parl.gc.ca

Bloc Québécois critic: ROY, Jean-Yves
Tel: (613) 995-1013
Fax: (613) 995-5184
Email: Roy.J@parl.gc.ca