Canoeists at the end of The Paddle for Wild Salmon make their way into downtown Vancouver Oct. 25, 2010.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
Standing outside the Vancouver Art Gallery on Monday, in front of hundreds of people shivering in the rain, biologist Alexandra Morton had one message: Protect wild sockeye salmon.
"It's our right to have wild salmon, we don't even need to find a reason," she told the onlookers.
"No fish farms!" they shouted back.
Ms. Morton had arrived with a flotilla of first nations chiefs, conservationists, activists and politicians after a five-day paddling trip from Hope to Vanier Park. Nearly 500 people marched across the Burrard Street Bridge to the opening of the Cohen Commission, demanding that British Columbia Supreme Court Justice Bruce Cohen order salmon feedlots to release salmon disease records.
Salmon are Sacred, the advocacy group that organized the Paddle for Wild Salmon, believes that diseases from salmon farms have caused wild sockeye salmon stocks to decline in the last 18 years.
"Whatever's going on with these fish, it's happening between the Strait of Georgia and the north end of Vancouver Island, and that's where there are 70 salmon farms that these fishes are swimming by," Ms. Morton said. "If we want to know what's going on, we need to turn every stone and this is one of them."
Last year, when less than a million sockeye salmon returned to the Fraser River, Ottawa appointed Justice Cohen to head a judicial inquiry into the disastrous run that caused many commercial and aboriginal fisheries to shut down.
While 35 million sockeye came back to the Fraser River this summer and fall, some wild salmon advocates believe it to be a one-time event.
"We cannot be spellbound by this incredible, miraculous, one-off salmon run this past summer," said Bob Chamberlin, chief of the Gilford Island Indian band, and chair of the Musgamagw Tsawataineuk Tribal Council in the Broughton Archipelago. "It tells me the ministry doesn't know what's going on with wild salmon fisheries in B.C."
"If we know why we got these fish back we would be done, but we have no idea," Ms. Morton said. "So we need to know what was different and we'll look at water temperature, predators, food supply, but we also need to look at disease."
Marine Harvest Canada, which operates salmon farms on B.C.'s coast, releases records of salmon health every year to government regulators, said the company's sustainability director, Clare Backman. The reports indicate that no significant diseases are apparent.
"What they're calling for now is the actual raw data that the reports are made from," Mr. Backman said. "We're happy to produce that data. It just demonstrates that our farmed fish are quite healthy."
A full report from the inquiry and recommendations to the federal government are expected to be produced next spring.