DFO and operator attribute mass die-off to low oxygen, but one scientist who visited one far-flung site in a kayak worries the real cause could be more complicated.
On June 1, Stan Proboszcz loaded up his kayak and caught the ferry from his home in Powell River to Comox on Vancouver Island. The ensuing two-hour drive would take him past snow-crested peaks and deep forested valleys until he reached a boat launch in Gold River.
Before Proboszcz left, a colleague had tracked a number of boats that were allegedly bringing fish all the way around the south end of Vancouver Island and into the Nanaimo area. But the boats had nearly finished shuttling all the fish, according to the anonymous source. A vessel, Knight Dragon, appeared to be pumping something out of the farm, while another hose appeared to be discharging water from the ship into the open ocean.
Up to 1,000 tonnes of fish lost on one farm In emails seen by Glacier Media, Brenda McCorquodale, DFO’s senior director of aquaculture management, said in a response to Proboszcz that the department was investigating the die-off allegations and couldn’t comment further. When Glacier Media asked a DFO spokesperson about the death rates, they said cumulative mortalities at each salmon farm ranged even higher — from four per cent to 26 per cent between mid-May and early June.
DFO did not answer questions about why oxygenators on the farm did not prevent the death of the fish, and whether sea lice or other pathogens played a role. Proboszcz said he has asked for veterinary reports from DFO but has not received them. He said the whole incident, in particular the reason given for the die-offs, concerns him because the farm he visited had triple the allowable limit of sea lice, while a nearby farm had 10 times that threshold, according to numbers companies are required to publish online.
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