Data from our Wild Juvenile Salmon Monitoring Field Crew has gained the public’s attention and has been recently referenced in the report “Lousy Choices” written by Living Oceans and Raincoast Research.
Below is a brief quote from a Times Colonist news article highlighting the report, and the effects of sea-lice on wild fish.
To access the full news article, visit https://www.timescolonist.com/business/drug-resistant-sea-lice-out-of-control-on-coast-1.23481738
“This spring, independent researchers in Clayoquot Sound discovered juvenile wild salmon were heavily infected with sea lice. This after Cermaq Canada was found to have sea lice above management levels at its Clayoquot Sound farms. The company was forced to close one of its fish farms, Fortune Channel, this summer after a high number of lice were found at the site.
The report said that 96 per cent of wild juvenile salmon in the area were infected with an average of eight lice per fish, according to the researchers.
Some were found with as many as 50 lice, the report notes, which concerns researchers, who say it only takes one to three lice to kill the young fish.”
A juvenile herring covered with sea lice, Hot Springs Cove, 2018.
Photograph By LIVING OCEANS SOCIETY HANDOUT