KPLU Local News
(2010-03-02)
Listen Now:
null
Sea lice attach to a pink salmon smolt
Sea lice are tiny parasites that can kill baby salmon. And while they exist in the wild, they're more likely to thrive in the crowded conditions of salmon net-pens, where tens of thousands of fish are contained together. When that happens, Randy Christensen says, it's not just the farmed fish who suffer.
"Many scientists will say that there is clear evidence that the levels of, particularly, sea lice outbreaks at fish farms are affecting our wild salmon stocks."
Christensen is a lawyer with Ecojustice Canada. He represented the Vancouver-based T. Buck Suzuki Environmental Foundation in a four-year legal battle to win the release of governmental records of the sea lice infestations.
Provincial officials claimed the records were confidential and their release could harm the aquaculture industry. But B-C's public records agency ruled it's not the government's job to protect the industry from potentially-embarrassing disclosures.
Christensen says the information should put salmon farms under closer scrutiny and -- he hopes -- stricter regulatory control.
© Copyright 2012, KPLU
