Furunculosis occurs naturally in BC, but the coho of the Broughton were evidently unfamiliar with the strain carried by the Atlantic salmon. Two years later, in 1993, the diseased Atlantics Scanmar put in the Broughton were resistant to all antibiotics used in BC salmon farms. DFO approved a new antibiotic, erythromycin, previously banned in fish destined for market. Again wild coho died, chinook stocks collapsed and DFO reported another coincidence, even though that was the first year antibiotic resistance appeared in the wild fish. While the British Columbia coast extends thousands of miles, not all of it is equally suited to supporting life.
Currents converge and upwell at specific sites, bringing food and oxygen together.
These fertile locations host salmon going and coming from the sea, prawns living well off the fallout, rock fish, sea cucumbers, herring and much more, and this is where salmon farms are dropping their anchors. Tons of farm waste are carried well beyond the farms on the strong northern tides to smother bottom life and feed toxic heterosigma blooms wherever it settles. Previously small and localized, algae blooms have become widespread, annual events. Even the farms can not tolerate them, hiring tugboats to tow them away from the advancing blooms. Herring fishermen discovered bright lights attract herring to the surface, but after a few bonanza years DFO quickly outlawed them because they were attracting the entire food chain into the nets.