Against Farmed Salmon

While serving in the Alaska State House, Harry joined an unprecedented coalition of fishermen, conservationists, government officials, Tribes, and scientists from Alaska, Canada, and Lower 48 that called on the Canadian government to safeguard wild fish stocks along the Pacific coast.

Harry co-signed a letter to Prime Minister Jean Chretien and President George Bush that called on the Canadian government to maintain its current moratorium on ocean net cages, improve existing practices, and initiate a meaningful public process to evaluate the impact of industrial finfish farming on wild fish stocks, fish habitat, and fishing dependent communities prior to allowing further expansion at new or existing sites.

“The coalition is attempting to persuade the Canadian government to leave its moratorium in place, because it considers the expansion of ocean net cage farming to be a significant threat to wild fish. People and interest groups from California to Alaska are signing on daily, galvanized by their long-standing commitment to the health of wild fish and local economies that depend on them.” - Dale Kelley, Executive Director of the Alaska Trollers Association

The independent investigations of British Columbia salmon farms revealed, among other things, that farmed fish commonly escape from net pens, invade wild fish habitat, prey on juvenile salmon, have the potential to transfer disease and parasites to wild fish.

Non-indigenous Atlantic salmon have successfully reproduced in British Columbian rivers and are now being found in Alaska streams. For over a decade, fishermen in Alaska have caught Atlantic salmon in fisheries as far west as the Bering Sea. Meanwhile, disease outbreaks continue to occur at multiple BC salmon farms and an increased presence of sea lice has been documented in areas near fish farms.