Farmed salmon contaminating the Pacific ocean

[Catherine]

Quote:Is the Canadian general public widely aware of this issue?

I think the Canadian public is widely unaware of this issue. We may be surrounded by three oceans, but much of Canada is inland. The ocean is no real when you live on the prairies. 
We have a history of not protecting our lakes. Lake Winnipeg, where I grew up, was contaminated with mercury when I was a child. So fifty years ago they had to shut down the whole Lake Winnipeg fishing industry. I don't think we have really learned from that. We still pollute and abuse our water systems.

Quote:If the Pacific salmon are killed, that will have a tremendous knock-on effect on wildlife in Canada and the USA. Bears need the "Salmon Run" for instance, as the fish make their way up river to spawn.

This is a very complicated ecosystem. So many species are interconnected and interdependent. Putting a key species like salmon at risk is very irresponsible. We have no idea what the consequences will be.

On the whole we have treated the oceans as a garbage dump and who knows how that will effect everything. It is not going to be good.