Community
Print
Salmon farming and the current climate crisis have been blasted after photographs of ‘starving’ grizzly bears have gone viral.
The photos, taken by Rolf Hicker near Knight Inlet on the British Columbia Coast in Canada, shows an emaciated bear and her two cubs searching for food.
‘It breaks my heart’
“I have not seen a single salmon in a river so far,” Hicker wrote on Facebook. “The bears are starving and it breaks my heart seeing this unfold.”
“I believe it is important to show this side too. Here in the Broughton is no salmon left for the bears (and whales I must assume?).
“Advertising still shows the happy bears feasting on salmon, well, sorry to say – not here.”
Volunteers from the area have delivered more than 500 salmon to the bears, in what one volunteer described to CNN as an ‘extreme measure to help our ecosystem’.
The current climate crisis, which has caused increased water temperatures, has also been blamed for the shortage of wild salmon.
‘A malignant cancer’
Don Staniford, Director of Scottish Salmon Watch, told MailOnline: “Salmon farming is a malignant cancer on our coasts and is killing off not just wild fish but also bears, whales and shellfish.
“Far from being a panacea, salmon farming is a pariah with global impacts. Consumers can help by boycotting farmed salmon.”
