One thing constant about D.C.Reid’s weekly comments, in the Times Colonist, is he never lets facts or common sense get in the way of his opportunity to trash fish farms.
I think it’s a bit of a stretch however to blame a chinook leukemia, that may have occured on some unnamed farm in 1992, for the Fraser sockeye crash in 2008.
Not one to miss turning a tragedy in Japan into another way of vilifying fish farms he voices concern that if a tsunami here included big waves (a tsunami is big waves, D.C.), then salmon farms could be ripped apart.
Well rest easy, because I can assure you that they will be torn apart as will everything within a few kilometers of the shoreline. Moving fish farms onto land to be safe from a possible tsunami makes no sense at all. You would have to locate them on high ground far from the ocean which makes it financially not feasable.
I suggest you widen your scope when looking for the cause of the wild salmon woes in this province. Look to overfishing by the net fleets as an example. Maybe then you will actually do some good and uncover the real cause of the Fraser sockeye collapse and the demise of other stocks.
Mike Morry,
Central Saanich