Puget Sound Is Under Stress: Help Protect Native Species and Preserve and Restore Puget Sound

"Don’t buy the lies and bullying tactics of the industry spokesmen who sit on our local boards and collect their paychecks while trying to buy us off with a few clams, like their forefathers did with the Tribes over the centuries." Olympic Peninsula Environmental News

2/3 of killer whale pregnancies fail -

because of low availability 

of Chinook Salmon.

(Click here to read of Orca birth failures)

Our Sound, Our Salmon - Stop Net Pen Expansion in Puget Sound
While a fitting quote to why the intertidal tidelands are being allowed to be transformed into industrial facilities requiring little regulatory oversight, the above quote is in reference to another threat to Puget Sound: Salmon net pen farming. These large enclosed pens concentrate non-native salmon in densities so high that threats from disease and sea lice raise the risks to our native salmon, and the Orca who depend on them, to an unacceptable level. As with shellfish aquaculture, painting these operations as being nothing more than "farming" ignores the very real differences between terrestrial farming (on land) versus activities taking place in a marine ecosystem.

Washington is the only West Coast State to Allow Net Pen Farming

Alaska, Oregon and California have banned net pen farming. Our Sound, Our Salmon is now demanding that Governor Inslee stop following industry's lead and instead take a stand with those who believe there is more to Puget Sound than its ability to generate profits for corporations in the aquaculture industry. [Sign the petition here] They write:

"Puget Sound is our Sound. The salmon that swim in its waters are our salmon. They have been the lifeblood of our past, and they will be the lifeblood of our future.

"Cooke Aquaculture, an Atlantic salmon net pen conglomerate, is threatening the health of Puget Sound with their plans to further transform it into an epicenter of Atlantic salmon net pen production. We cannot risk putting our Sound, our salmon, and our future into the hands of an industry with a long history of negative environmental, social, and economic impacts - impacts that led California, Oregon, and Alaska to wisely ban this industry.
"It’s time for us to stand up for our Sound. It’s time for us to stand up for our salmon. And it’s time we stand up for our future by stopping the expansion of destructive Atlantic salmon net pens in Puget Sound and the Strait of Juan de Fuca." Our Sound, Our Salmon

Infected fish? Just dump them. After they've

been shedding virus for months.  

(From KING5)

Get involved and get educated

"In Puget Sound, the potential for catastrophic damage to wild fish populations as a result of Atlantic salmon net pens has already been demonstrated. In 2012, an outbreak of Infectious Hematopoietic Necrosis Virus (IHNV) caused the death of over 1 million pounds of net pen salmon. Worse still, this outbreak occurred during the time of year juvenile salmonids are migrating out to sea through Puget Sound." (KING5 - see video clip of news here)

Land based systems exist.

"The quality of the fish is extraordinary, the taste is great,

the look of the fish is fantastic."

Ned Bell, Chef at Four Seasons Hotel, Vancouver BC

You don't need pesticides, antibiotics, nor Puget Sound's open waters

"Kuterra is proof positive that you can grow Atlantic salmon on land in a sustainable and economical way. If Washington wants to increase farmed salmon production, we should do it by helping pioneer a burgeoning, environmentally responsible industry of land-based systems like Kuterra." (See Vimeo clip of Kuterra's upland operation here) 

Upland operations, currently operating profitably, separate the "farmed environment from the wild environment." At the same time they also provide a product which is free from pesticides and antibiotics which most consumers do not believe should be in seafood they consume. (See public response when pesticides in Willapa Bay in 2015 were proposed by shellfish growers here) 

Genetics at its best.

Disease at its worst.

(from Hard Evidence, a short video clip

from Alexandra Morton)

Is this really what you want to be eating? 

"On August 23, 2016, Alexandra Norton put a GoPro on a pole and submerged it for ten minutes in a salmon net pen run by Marine Harvest. This video is a compilation of what she saw – large numbers of farmed salmon likely suffering from viruses and Atlantic salmon preying on juvenile wild fish." To get a sense of what the reality of "open net pen" salmon are, look at the short clip taken by Alexandra Morton when cruising on the Sea Shepherd in British Columbia. 

Get involved so future generations

are able to experience Puget Sound.

Photo: Heather MacIntyre/The Pacific Whale Watch

Get involved. Tell Governor Inslee there is far more to Puget Sound than the ability to make a profit from open water net pens growing non-native salmon. If you don't 

Sign the Our Sound, Our Salmon petition here:

https://www.oursound-oursalmon.org/sign-the-petition#petition

or, Email the Govenor directly:

https://fortress.wa.gov/es/governor/

BC Salmon Farm Impacts on Wild Salmon to be Investigated by Alexandra Morton and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society

The Martin Sheen

Undercurrent News reports that biologist Alexandra Morton and the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society will begin a weeks long investigation of salmon farms in the northern area of the Salish Sea. Through use of Society's vessel, The Martin Sheen, Ms. Morton will audit and monitor salmon farms along the migration route of the wild salmon leaving and returning to the Fraser River along the eastern shoreline of Vancouver Island.

Salmon Net Pen Locations

and Routes of The Martin Sheen

and Wild Salmon

Along the route Ms. Morton will be looking for impacts from these pens of concentrated populations of salmon and risks those impacts pose to wild salmon.* Testing will look specifically at the plumes flowing down current from these structures, measuring concentrations of parasitic sea lice, Piscine reovirus, ISA virus, and Salmon alphavirus (see here for a discussion of the virus and their impacts).

*most farmed salmon are non-native with genetically modified species ("frankenfish") having been recently approved

Decades of research leave little doubt to the risks these operations pose to the wild populations of salmon. In Puget Sound there is a press by industry to expand these operations, putting at risk the native salmon runs. Marketing efforts which claim farmed salmon lessen pressure on wild salmon ignore the risks Ms. Morton continues to elevate.

Ms. Morton has spearheaded the effort to bring to light the risks posed by what has been marketed as a benign operation. You can help Ms. Morton on this page or the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society on this page. Get involved. Tell your seafood buyer to stop buying salmon farmed in open water net pens.