Mainstream Canada Newsletter

We were all shaken and saddened when we discovered a dead humpback whale at our Ross Pass farm this morning.

Our farmers and managers have decades of experience in salmon farming, and no one has ever experienced an incident like this before.

Mainstream Canada is proud to announce that the first fish have been entered into copper nets at the Plover Point farm site, as part of a research trial.

Two of the 12 net pens at Plover Point farm, which is located on Vancouver Island's West Coast north of Tofino, are made out of a copper alloy, which stays naturally clean and provides a solid deterrent to predators.

Mainstream Canada is the the first salmon farming company in BC to achieve two-star Best Aquaculture Practices certification this week, after its Tofino processing plant was certified.

Mainstream Canada is pleased to see that the Cohen Commission report released Wednesday urges research to fill in the knowledge gaps about wild and farmed salmon.

This scrutiny and research will help the public better understand how salmon farms operate, how they are sustainable and how they are part of the solution for protecting wild salmon.

Mainstream Canada today announced it has filed an appeal of a Supreme Court of BC decision in its defamation claim against anti-salmon farming activist Don Staniford.

The trial, which ran from January 16 to February 10 2012, was responding to a prolonged, malicious, and unfounded attack on Mainstream Canada and its employees.

A decision was delivered today in the defamation trial brought by Mainstream Canada against an anti-salmon farm activist.

The trial, which began on Jan 16, 2012 and concluded on Feb 10, 2012 in the Supreme Court of BC, was initiated by Mainstream in response to a prolonged and malicious attack on the reputation of the company and its employees.

For the second time Cermaq, parent company of Mainstream Canada, has been ranked as number one in the Seafood Intelligence global survey on communication of sustainability.

The last of the fish from Millar Channel farm have been removed and the site is now empty. The fish were taken to a rendering facility.

Mainstream Canada is now focused on developing a plan for cleaning and disinfecting the farm site, as per the requirements of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency.

The IHN virus has been confirmed at Mainstream Canada's Millar Channel farm, and the company has received an official order from CFIA to remove all fish from the site.

All fish will be removed from the farm and sent to a rendering facility. Strict biosecurity measures will be followed at all stages of depopulation, transportation, offloading, and rendering.

Millar Channel farm, located northwest of Tofino, was quarantined last week by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) after it tested positive for the IHN (Infectious Haematopoetic Necrosis) virus July 27.

Last Friday the IHN virus was detected after routine monitoring at one of Mainstream Canada's Tofino-area farms.

"Unfortunately, our Millar Channel farm has tested positive in qPCR tests for the IHN (Infectious Haematopoietic Necrosis) virus," said Fernando Villarroel, the company's managing director. "We are waiting for results from confirmatory tests."