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A conservation charity said it’s concerned by what it calls a “growing trend” of wild fish killed by the salmon farming industry on British Columbia’s coast.

Stan Proboszcz, science advisor with Watershed Watch Salmon Society, said nine times as many wild fish were reported inside open-net pen farms in 2017 compared with 2011.

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“We saw quite a staggering increase in incidental catch over the years,” he said. “Something’s wrong here if we’re seeing this large increase in wild fish being killed inside salmon farms.”

The society crunched the number of “incidental catches” self-reported by industry to government during harvests, fish transfers and farm relocations.

But Proboszcz said the available data is incomplete and there needs to be more transparency about the apparent increase.

The farms raise Atlantic salmon in netted areas of the Pacific Ocean that allow a fresh flow of water and other sea life to enter.