“It’s an impact that we can actually do something about.”

Activist and photographer Tavish Campbell has been fighting for the protection of wild salmon for nearly his whole life. Two years after British Columbia’s fish farming industry was caught dumping piscine orthoreovirus-infected blood into Canada’s largest wild salmon migration route, he returned to those waters. He wanted to see if, in light of recent scientific confirmation of the devastating impact of this virus on salmon, anything had changed for the better.

Beth Finney (BF): These discoveries were made two years ago. Why is this still going on?

Tavish Campbell (TC): These farms are still operating all along the coast, growing fish that are infected with this virus. It’s not just about the processing plant, because even if the plant got some magical filter and cleaned up their act, ultimately these infected fish are still being grown in a wild salmon habitat. It’s not the processing plant that’s the problem. The problem is that we’re growing these fish in open pens in wild salmon habitat that are infected with this virus.

BF: So people are eating infected fish?

TC: Yes exactly. There’s not really been any research that I’m aware of, examining the potential impacts of this virus on humans. Currently we’re mainly concerned about its impact on other salmon. But yes people are definitely eating it. Most importantly, since the last Bloodwater story came out, the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) published a paper that was very important because it showed that this virus does harm both Atlantic and Pacific salmon.

BF: Are you surprised that this behaviour is still continuing without any reprimand?

TC: In a sense I’m not surprised because DFO finds itself in a real bind – there’s a conflict of interest because on one hand they’re mandated to be protecting wild salmon, but they’re also mandated to promote aquaculture. It’s a conflict of interest that causes issues for them when they are faced with having to actually regulate this industry. It’s been interesting watching their response to this most recent paper. It’s been basically to try and cover it up and ignore it. This is not the first time they’ve been taken to court about allowing the release of infected fish farm fish into the ocean and they just refuse to acknowledge, and they refuse to do anything about it.

BF: Why do you think certain parties are so comfortable trying to cover this up and ignoring the urgency of the situation?

TC: It’s certainly a question we ask ourselves a lot here. I think part of it is this problem that you have one ministry that’s tasked with both regulating and promoting an industry. So, in a sense they want to see the industry thrive because it’s their job. It’s creating jobs for them – the aquaculture management division is a big part of DFO. It should be split up into two ministries. You should have one ministry that’s just solely responsible for ensuring the health of our oceans, our salmon and our coastlines. And that shouldn’t be mixed up with having to promote an industry that has obvious impacts on that.