What is salmon farming?
Salmon farming is the practice of rearing hatchery-origin salmon from smolt to adult size in a net-cage, pond or contained system. As currently practiced on a commercial scale, salmon farming in most regions involves the use of large floating open net-cage pens, usually located in sheltered bays along the coast. In BC, the open net-cages are generally sited in close proximity to wild salmon streams and rivers. Learn more salmon farming facts.
Salmon farming is the practice of rearing hatchery-origin salmon from smolt to adult size in a net-cage, pond or contained system. As currently practiced on a commercial scale, salmon farming in most regions involves the use of large floating open net-cage pens, usually located in sheltered bays along the coast. In BC, the open net-cages are generally sited in close proximity to wild salmon streams and rivers. Salmon farm facts • A salmon farm is likely to hold 500,000 to 750,000 fish in an area the size of four football fields • The biomass of farmed salmon at one farm site can equal 480 Indian bull elephants – that is 2,400 tonnes of eating, excreting livestock • Salmon are carnivores. On average it takes two to five kilograms of wild fish (used in feed) to produce one kilogram of farmed salmon • In one study, over a billion sea lice eggs were produced by just twelve farms in a two week period preceding the out-migration of wild juvenile salmon.1 • Infection with one to three sea lic
Overview Salmon farming, also known as salmon aquaculture, is the industrial mass production of salmon in an artificial environment. Farmed salmon are usually raised in net cages, essentially floating feedlots, located directly in the ocean. They vary in size and a single farm may contain up to a million fish. Their impacts on the surrounding marine and forest environment and human health are staggering. In fact, salmon are one of the very few carnivorous species in the world that humans have been foolish enough to farm. Small-scale netcage salmon farming in BC began in the early 1970s. Today, farmed salmon has become BC’s largest legal agricultural export. Salmon farms are found throughout the coast of British Columbia, with the heaviest concentration in the Broughton Archipelago off northern Vancouver Island. Most salmon farm expansion is occurring in the Great Bear Rainforest, directly threatening this fragile ecosystem. Salmon and the Great Bear Rainforest Salmon is the lifeblood o
