Marine Harvest and Cermaq farming facilities are accused of poisoning wild salmon in the area. The natives of the area are now demanding that businesses pack up and leave.

Two livestock facilities in the Canadian province of British Columbia have been occupied by indigenous protesters in recent days.

In this area there are 20 breeding facilities, all Norwegian. 12 of them belong to Marine Harvest and eight to Cermaq.

The occupiers announced they would stay until the farms were stripped of their licenses.

Moved from Cermaq to Marine Harvest

First, a facility near Burdwood Island, owned by Norwegian company Cermaq, was occupied by locals on Wednesday. They stayed there for a few hours, according to sources in the area.

Other families then occupied a facility owned by Marine Harvest on Thursday. It is located on Swanson Island off Alert Bay in British Columbia. They are always there on Saturday morning.

Residents collect evidence

The occupiers of Swanson Island believe they have evidence that Marine Harvest is responsible for deformed farmed fish escaping from the facilities and that wild salmon in the area have been poisoned.

The families who occupied the farm also said they wanted a peaceful protest.

– Enough! To Marine Harvest: call back your transport ships and get these Atlantic salmon out of my territory, family manager Ernest Alfred, who claims to have collected evidence of unhealthy salmon, says in a press release.

The head of the Laich-Kwil-Tach family, George Quocksister Jr., has been collecting photographic evidence of unhealthy salmon for the past month, according to Canadian national television. Radio-Canada News.

– I examine them and see what is happening in them, and it is absolutely certain that it is not good, he tells Radio-Canada.

Marine Harvest denies the charges

Ian Roberts, community relations manager at Marine Harvest in Canada, answers Aftenposten’s questions via email.

He confirms that a Native American tribe “has expressed concern about our business and is currently occupying our private yards without permission.”

He writes that the Indians are supported by the environmental organization Sea Shepherd.

– In recent years, our company has invited Indians to visit our company and see how we operate, he writes, adding that the invitations have been declined.

He says the Indians’ visit this time was a surprise.

– We will let them stay on site so they can see how we operate, as long as they behave in a respectful and peaceful manner and do not disturb the employees or harm our fish, he says.

Roberts flatly denies that deformed fish are a major problem. When deformed fish are observed, they are removed from the dams. He also writes that there is no reason to claim that farmed salmon “poison” wild salmon.

The Marine Harvest spokesperson writes that no salmon have escaped from Marine Harvest facilities in Canada.

Fear of escaped salmon

Since last week, it’s a lot of attention on 305,000 salmon who escaped from a farm just south of the US border. Canadian Fisheries Minister Dominic LeBlanc says he is monitoring the situation closely. A ministry spokesperson told the CBC broadcaster that the risk of “genetic contamination” is low. Farmed Atlantic salmon cannot mate with wild Pacific salmon.

Neville Crabbe of the Atlantic Salmon Federation, an organization that works for wild salmon, says the biggest concern with farmed salmon is that disease from farmed salmon could spread to wild salmon.

Marine Harvest, controlled by Cypriot shipowner John Fredriksen, is headquartered in Bergen and is the largest fish farming company in the world.

Cermaq is also one of the largest fish farms in the world with operations in Norway, Chile and Canada. The company was long state-owned, but was sold in 2014 to Mitsubishi Corporation, which is now the full owner.