From the Archipelago: What Should a Person Do?

October-November 2000

This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.

by Alexandra Morton

The fog hovered thick and white twenty feet over the steely gray surface of the water, threatening a complete white-out. The sides of Fife Sound rose into the fog, holding the trees in this cloud of dripping moisture. Tiny pearls of water condensed on each needle of the cedar and hemlock trees, running in rivulets between the cracks in the bark, dampening the ground and the lumpy backs of a thousand toads. This is a water-based world with every drop of the precious liquid slaking the thirst of plants and animals.

In the ocean the miracle of the pink salmon was playing out before my eyes. Silvery salmon were leaping in twos and threes wherever my eyes looked. In the tide lines, where currents meet and slide along each other, the splashing of these fish was constant, and in the broad expanses between these watery lines, it was occasional. The air smelled of their salmon-ness, a rich promise of sustenance gathered in two short years of eating plankton in the Pacific Ocean.

Pink salmon are good to this coast, leaving their natal streams without so much as one freshwater snack. As soon as they wriggle out of the gravel they head for the sea, moving in swarms of tiny life out to meet the ocean currents. They complete their life-cycle in the shortest time of any salmon-just two years. They feed low on the food chain, not consuming fish, but only plankton, preventing bio-accumulation of toxins. This, combined with their quick growth, makes the pink salmon the healthiest fish for us to eat, among a group of fish that are rich with the vital omega oils.

While the provincial and federal governments of this province have allowed the streams which coho and chinook salmon need for rearing to be destroyed, this negligence has not hurt the pink salmon as much. All they need is a bit of clean gravel low in the watershed for a few winter months. It doesn't matter to the pink if sun-baked clearcut slopes warm the run-off, creating stream temperatures lethal to other species. Nor does it matter to the pink salmon if zealous pesticide spraying kills off the insect world's delicate web of life, starving other baby fish. We are lucky to have this fish on our coast.

As I watched a mother and newborn harbour porpoise thread their way through the airborne fish, a small tug boat chugged into sight with a large barge in tow. It drew alongside and rage welled inside me at the disgusting lack of respect our species offers nature's greatest gifts. On this barge was a drum as big as a small car and it was turning several times in one direction, then pausing and turning several times in the other direction. Slopping over the side came the effluent of this drum. They were washing the nets of salmon farms and spreading the waste right in the midst of the wild salmon bound for the watersheds.

Barnacles and mussels grow on everything which touches the waters of our coast and the nets used by salmon farmers are quickly covered in this life. These shellfish filter the water and so they absorb the chemicals of salmon farming-drugs, anti-foulant paint, chemicals dyes which pink the farm salmon's flesh, bacteria and viruses. As if these pens anchored in the most vital places of our coast was not assault enough-this barge was grinding it up, releasing the poisons and washing it over the backs of wild salmon. It was sickening to witness. What should I do?

... A mother and baby humpback whale have moved into the archipelago. As the mother dives deep to feed, her fat and happy baby rolls, breaches and splashes on the surface, delighted with his long pectoral fins and powerful tail. Mum will wander off quite a ways then collect her youngster and together they roll at the surface and vanish. One boat was hit by the mother whale, when it roared up to her baby who was lying on the surface. It was only a warning tap, but a "tap" from a 50' whale is a blow to any hull. The skipper of the sleek white craft was shaken and will doubtlessly give whales the right away for a long time.

... Wherever I go there are brilliant yellow and red kayaks slipping along the surface. The voices of these paddlers carry far over the water as these visitors share the beauty of the world which surrounds them. I have seen many meetings of orca and kayak both in pods, one black, the other colourful, two large-brained mammals of vastly different lives passing briefly. As molecules of whale breath tunnel into Eddie Bauer wool I hope for bonds of protectiveness. Whales look so supreme, it can be hard to imagine they need you at all, but they do.

... When the commercial salmon fishery opened this year, I headed down to the fleet, got on the radio and began asking the fishermen if they had found any escaped farm salmon. My questions sparked anger in the voices which came back to me. Was I the Department of Fisheries and Oceans? Was I a fish farmer looking to reclaim my stinking fish? Gradually they realized I was there to take a count and make this tragedy public. Every boat I pulled alongside had farmed Atlantic salmon in its hold. No one from government was here to take stock and so I took what fish I could hold and recorded the numbers from the boats I couldn't reach. In a sad litany of government's inability to regulate salmon farms the calls came in. The boats had two, ten, forty, sixty Atlantic salmon, all eight to ten pounds. In four hours, 1050 Atlantic salmon had been tallied and the highest densities were clustered around the wild salmon and steelhead rivers of the Tsitika River and Naka Creek.

Years ago a Fisheries bureaucrat penned a memo asking a superior whether he should deny that Atlantic salmon would invade wild Pacific salmon habitat, or "plant the seed" in the public's mind now, that this would eventually come to pass. I guess he was told to go with plan "A"-deny, deny, deny. But the truth is coming up in fishermens' nets. The BC and Canadian governments have allowed the invasion of a species with the capability to wipe out native salmon stocks. What should a person do?

The orca are pulsing back and forth through Johnstone Strait, moving with the tide, feasting on wild salmon. They may also be consuming the soft, fat flesh of farmed Atlantic salmon, but I hope not. We lost a matriarch, Stripe, and her son and daughter are lost in the crowd, difficult to pick out. Stripe was the mother of a daughter who has been in captivity since 1969, named Corky. Dr Paul Spong, who lives nearby, had made it his life's work to reunite mother and daughter, but that hope seems lost. Kelsy's daughter had another baby, in fact scattered among the whales are the tiny youngsters of the next generation.

There have been several days of over 60 whales in Johnstone Strait and the network of boats and camps looking at the whales is working well, keeping everyone informed of the comings and goings of the different pods over a fifty mile stretch. While other species of salmon may be down, the pinks are certainly abundant and the whales are snapping them up. Later the bears will have their turn and the coast will continue to thrive another year despite the handicaps our species has set.

In June, meetings were held to decide the fate of several more rich locations where upwellings and winds swirl nutrients. Fishermen and women and citizens not employed by salmon farms attended and explained the importance of those sites. One was black with baby wild salmon feeding and resting at that site by the millions. Another had seals strewn along the beach having pups. But the local wisdom offered fell on deaf ears and this week the newspaper carries the obituaries of these life sustaining places in the form of salmon farm applications. Despite the clear words of Native leaders, multi-generation fishers and researchers-Norwegian salmon farmers want to remove these places from the food chain and kill what life dares come back. What should a person do?

Alexandra Morton is a marine mammal researcher in BC's Broughton Archipelago ©

For more information on escaped farm fish, see this issues's News