Tuesday December 2, 2025
National Fisherman —
While many wild salmon runs in Canada have rebounded in the absence of salmon farms on their British Columbia migration routes, the salmon farming industry is lobbying hard to convince the country’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, to rescind the ban on open net pen salmon farming.
Passed under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government, the ban was initially intended to get all salmon out of BC waters by 2025, but was pushed back to 2029. Now the big players, Mowi and CERMAC – which recently bought Grieg Seafood – are pushing to have the law repealed completely.
Advocating salmon aquaculture with the familiar litany of jobs, feeding the world, and reducing pressure on wild stocks, Fabian Dawson, writing in the online publication Sea West News, cites a new study that says that sea lice from salmon farms have little impact on wild salmon. He also makes claims about new feed ingredients, while everyone in the industry acknowledges that nothing can replace wild fish and krill.