The BC Salmon Farmers Association is applauding the removal of what it calls “sensationalist” and factually incorrect anti-fish farming ads from radio stations owned by Pattison Media.
It was only a partial victory, however, as other radio stations refused to pull the ads, and the one pulled by Pattison Media was later reinstated with a "slight tweak."
The ads from Wild First aired on radio stations owned by Rogers, Corus and Pattison Media, according to Brian Kingzett, executive director of the BC Salmon Farmers Association (BCSFA). The BCSFA complained, saying the ad contained inaccuracies.
Only Pattison Media agreed to pull one of the ads, though it appears a slightly tweaked version of the ad was later allowed to run, according to Wild First.
In an email to BIV News, Wild First said its radio ad on Pattison Media radio was paused but "with a slight tweak" it was later reinstated.
The ads stated, among other things, that wild Pacific salmon are “on the brink of extinction,” which the salmon farmers association says is false.
As BIV News has reported, some species of salmon have been in dramatic decline in B.C., but Pacific salmon in general are more abundant than ever before, according to counts available from the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission.
Much of the declines over the past decade or more have been in the southern ranges, like B.C. and Japan. Pink salmon, on the other hand, are more abundant than ever, and Alaska continues to get huge returns of sockeye salmon.
The salmon farming sector has been the subject of a campaign by anti-fish farm activists to have it shut down, and the industry has been fighting back with some aggressive fact-checking.
“We were just at a point where we were saying ‘enough is enough,’” Kingzett said. “We’ve just decided that we are going to push back on these ads, where we can demonstrate that they are wrong.”
In August, 2023 the BCSFA says CTV News removed a segment featuring an interview with an anti-fish farming campaigner, after the BCSFA complained about inaccuracies in the piece.
And in December 2023 the Canadian Aquaculture Industry Alliance (CAIA) managed to get anti-fish farm billboards removed, again for making what the industry said were false claims.
In that case, the claims were that open net salmon farms are banned in Washington, Oregon, California and Alaska – something the CAIA argued was not factually correct.
