Rearguard action

April 8 2013 Shane Borthwick of Snow Island Salmon, a subsidiary of Scottish company, Loch Duart, is still pounding away in the press, and surely on government doors, trying to change the decision not to grant his company a licence to install open-pen salmon feedlots in Shoal Bay.

The citizens of the Eastern Shore have rejoiced over this decision. The citizens of Spry Harbour are still waiting hopefully to hear that a licence has not been granted for this bay either, because the scientific conditions that applied to Shoal Bay are identical to Spry Harbour.

Mr. Borthwick complains about improper government conduct in regard to his company, but he has yet to prove his competency in fish farm husbandry.

In 2009 he lost his entire “crop” of open-pen salmon at the Owls Head site. This winter, he once again lost his entire crop of open-pen salmon, something he cannot deny in media interviews when challenged. Why would any government give Mr. Borthwick a licence to continue this wanton and wasteful destruction of marine life?

Dr. Marike Finlay-de Monchy, president, Association for the Preservation of the Eastern Shore