TOFINO, British Columbia — Dozens of sea lions broke into a salmon farm in Canada in March, and workers at the farm have been trying to remove them ever since.
Cermaq said the problem began with a “breach event” when it was harvesting fish near its Rant Point farm in Tofino, British Columbia, CBC reported. That “breach” was in March, but the company said the problem has continued to get worse, with at least two dozen sea lions there by Saturday, CBC reported.
The result is sea lions eating massive amounts of farmed salmon. “They are having an all-you-can-eat buffet right now,” conservationist Bonny Glambeck said to CBC.
The farm at Rant Point keeps the farmed salmon in pens, with as many as 20,000 fish per pen, the company told The Toronto Star. The pens are enclosed by netting, but the sea lions have made it inside the barrier.
In a statement, the company told CBC that the sea lions were not trapped by the nets in the pens, and had entered instead by “jumping over the stanchions.”
The company told The Toronto Star it so far has not been successful in its attempts to frighten the animals away using loud noises. The company said it was working to harvest the pens the sea lions are targeting to “minimize any potential impacts” and said, “The site will be fully harvested by the third week of April.”