February 22, 2019 — Salmon aquaculture should be moved out of sensitive native salmon migratory habitats out of concern for the impact it may have on wild fish, according to Canadian Minister for Fisheries, Oceans, and the Canadian Coast Guard Jonathan Wilkinson.
In recent public comments, Wilkinson expressed alarm related to wild salmon stock declines.
“We need to move to area-based management, which means we are actually thinking about sitting these facilities in areas where you don’t run into issues around migration pathways, areas where communities are actually interested in the economic development that comes through [fish farming] rather than in areas where those communities are very much opposed,” Wilkinson told The Globe and Mail.