Salmon Farm Research Reveals Alarming Effects on BC’s Ecosystem

Vancouver, BC, August 22nd, 2018 – For the past two months Sea Shepherd’s research vessel the R/V Martin Sheen has ventured to every salmon farm on the Fraser sockeye salmon migration route between Vancouver and Alert Bay with Canadian scientists on board, collecting samples to determine the impact of salmon farms on wild fish populations. One of the scientists is independent biologist Alexandra Morton, who has been investigating the link between open-net fish farms, sea lice, viruses, and the decline of wild salmon populations for three decades.

Morton has collected farm salmon tissue and feces from the waters adjacent to approximately half of British Columbia’s open-net salmon farms. This is part of her ongoing research into the spread of farm salmon viruses into wild salmon habitat.

“I have results from the first five farms sampled this summer, all from the Discovery Islands,” reports Alexandra Morton, “100 percent were positive for piscine orthoreovirus,”