Puget Sound and its wild pacific salmon were put at risk last week when a net pen operated by Cooke Aquaculture that held more than 305,000 Atlantic salmon broke open near Cypress Island in Washington state. The company, like other salmon aquaculture operations on the pacific coast of the Americas, farms Atlantic salmon in Puget Sound waters where native chinook salmon are endangered.
In a statement last Tuesday, Cooke Aquaculture, which also operates salmon farms in the Bay of Fundy, blamed “exceptionally high tides and currents coinciding with this week’s solar eclipse” for the damaged caused to the net pens. Many have contested Cooke’s claim, however, saying the tides in question were nothing out of the ordinary for the region.
Cooke Aquaculture admitted that “it will not be possible to confirm exact numbers of fish losses until harvesting is completed and an inventory of fish in the pens has been conducted,” but the escape is believed to be significant, numbering in the thousands.
The pens had showed signs of trouble last month and were slated for upgrades after crews saw them moving in the currents.
Company guilty of illegal pesticide use in past
This isn’t the first time that Cooke Aquaculture has been in hot water. In 2013, the company lost upwards of 20,000 salmon from a sea cage on the south coast of Newfoundland, again blaming high tides and strong currents.
The company was also charged under the Fisheries Act in 2011 for the illegal use of cypermethrin on several of their Bay of Fundy farms after the death of lobsters in nearby traps and holding areas. Cypermethrin is not approved for use on salmon farms in Canada, as it is toxic to lobster, shrimp, krill, copepods and other crustaceans that form the base of the food chain in the Bay of Fundy. Kelly Cove Salmon (a subsidiary of Cooke Aquaculture) was required to pay $500,000 in fines and payments, the largest penalty ever levied under the Fisheries Act in New Brunswick and among the largest ever levied in Canada. The cypermethrin was used at 15 sites near six different communities between October 2009 and November 2010 “in an effort to control sea lice infestation and the associated losses to the company.”
The damaged Cooke Aquaculture net pen near Cypress Island in Washington state. Photo: Wild Fish Conservancy
Currents fast, tide high, but “not usual”
Despite Cooke Aquaculture’s contention that they were dealing with unusually high tides, Parker MacCready, an oceanographer at the University of Washington, told the Seattle Times that “the data speak for themselves: there were large tidal ranges around the day of the eclipse, but not out of the ordinary, and in fact they were smaller than during some recent months.”
Further, Grey Dusek, a senior scientist from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s tides and currents program challenged the suggestion that the eclipse was a factor in the escape.
“The eclipse itself would have nothing to do with this,” said Dusek in a statement. “The predicted tides and currents were fairly high and fast on the 21st due to the new moon and other factors but definitely not unusual.”
Preliminary NOAA measurements showed surface currents in the area were about three meters per second on Aug. 19, when the damage started. It’s a fast current, but nothing stronger than what was observed multiple days in June and July, NOAA said.
In any case, industry observers told the CBC that fish farms are often sited to capitalize on currents and should be built to withstand them.
Atlantic salmon farming a hot topic on the West Coast
The presence of Atlantic salmon fish farms — and their potential to escape from net cages — has been a hotly debated topic on the West Coast for years. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife have put Atlantic salmon on their list of invasive species that are not regulated, but are considered “highly threatening,” over worries they could harm native fish stocks through competition, predation or disease transfer.
In Canada, Fisheries and Oceans Canada monitors for escaped Atlantic salmon, but doesn’t use terms like “invasive” or describe them as any particular threat to local fish.
Michael Lapointe, of the Pacific Salmon Commission, told the Globe and Mail that the fish are unlikely to reproduce many offspring while in their non-native habitat.
“Three hundred thousand seems like a big number, but if you put it in context to the populations of wild fish that are out there it’s probably not that large,” Lapointe said. “They’re very unlikely to successfully reproduce and, if they do, I don’t think we have any history of them returning to spawn and coming back to the same stream.
“Unknowns” are concerning
Others say the problem with the escape is that it is unknown what the impacts may be.
“In my mind it’s really a dereliction of duty in terms of the regulating mechanisms in this country to not have an answer to that question, given that our coast of British Columbia here is literally awash in these potentially invasive species,” said University of Victoria ecologist John Volpe.
“Nothing good is going to come of these releases, and the … magnitude of negative impacts might be very, very severe.”
Ron Warren, fish program assistant director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, is also concerned about potential impacts to wild stocks of salmon. The department is urging US recreational fishers to catch as many of the Atlantic salmon as possible. A valid license is needed, but the fish do not need to be recorded on fish tickets and there are no bag limits.
“Catch as many as you want,” Warren says. “We don’t want anything competing with our natural populations. We have never seen a successful crossbreeding with Atlantic salmon, but we don’t want to test the theory.”
Media outlets reported over the weekend that Washington Governor Jay Inslee put a moratorium on issuing any new leases or permits for net pens until a full review of last week’s disaster is concluded.