Writer Alexandra Morton has lived in Echo Bay for the past 17 years. It's 500 kilometres north of Victoria and a good base for her study of Orca whales. It's also where BC's highest concentration of fish farms now exists — 25 of the province's 100 salmon farms dot the coast. The business is worth about $700-million a year. Most of it is owned by Norwegian and Dutch companies. "Truth is, I'd never come here now to study whales, never. It's an industrial zone, although it looks beautiful," Morton said. Morton says the farms are trouble for the area's wild salmon, which become covered in deadly sea lice when they swim under the giant pens. "You could have five fish farms in this area off the migration routes and they would not be a problem. But the corporations tell us they can't farm economically in that manner. They must have ten, fifteen, twenty farms in one area to make it feasible for them." Another potential problem is torn net pens, which can allow hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon to escape.
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