A company that Watershed Watch helped to expose for illegally operating a factory fish farm on Lois Lake, near Powell River, has been fined $350,000 in a B.C. court.
Back in April 2023, local fishing guide, Pat Demeester, tipped us off to problems at the site, including mass escapes of domestic farm rainbow trout into Lois Lake, the release of large quantities of styrofoam into the surrounding area and equipment strewn along sections of the lakeshore.
According to local fishers, an untold number of rainbow trout escaped the farm into Lois Lake, putting native populations of cutthroat trout at risk. I went to have a look for myself and witnessed anglers catch four massive rainbow trout, likely escapes, within a span of 20 minutes.
We issued a media release and social media posts on the situation.
Fishing guide, Pat Demeester, and a rainbow trout that likely escaped from the Agrimarine fish farm in Lois Lake, based on its size and shape, in this photo from last year. Demeester contacted Watershed Watch about the fish farm more than two years ago to raise concerns about fish escapes and the condition of the farm, which it turned out had been operating illegally.
A company that Watershed Watch helped to expose for illegally operating a factory fish farm on Lois Lake, near Powell River, has been fined $350,000 in a B.C. court.
Back in April 2023, local fishing guide, Pat Demeester, tipped us off to problems at the site, including mass escapes of domestic farm rainbow trout into Lois Lake, the release of large quantities of styrofoam into the surrounding area and equipment strewn along sections of the lakeshore.
According to local fishers, an untold number of rainbow trout escaped the farm into Lois Lake, putting native populations of cutthroat trout at risk. I went to have a look for myself and witnessed anglers catch four massive rainbow trout, likely escapes, within a span of 20 minutes.
We issued a media release and social media posts on the situation.
Photo by Philip Charles 2016 Klemtu
The company, West Coast Fishculture (Lois Lake) Ltd., a subdisidary of AgriMarine Industries Inc. and ultimately a subsidiary of Toronto-based investment company Dundee Corp. at the time the offences occurred, entered a guilty plea in a Powell River court in March. According to an Agreed Statement of Facts, the company was alerted to the violation but continued to operate their site for 483 days without proper tenure. The fine of $350,000 was much higher than the recommended $100,000 maximum for such violations but the case was unprecedented.
West Coast Fishculture agreed to have their fish farm out of the lake by the end of August 2025. The company said their site hasn’t had fish in the pens since fall of 2023.
We believe this exemplifies an unprecedented level of disregard for the law and wild fish in the lake. The illegal facility was a semi-closed containment farm and clearly had serious problems. An inspection by a federal fishery officer identified many violations including:
- Jump netting was improperly installed or not secured on 5 of 6 pens;
- Only one of the pens had bird netting installed;
- In the one pen with bird netting, a great blue heron had gotten into the pen and died;
- None of the fish in the active pens were adipose (fin) clipped, indicating farm hatchery origin;
- No signage of any kind was observed on the infrastructure, including docking stations or restricted access;
- The “raceway” on the Western end of the floating array had no jump netting installed; and
- The onsite manager was unable to provide any records of above-water inspections other than the two previous days (June 1 and 2, 2021)
In addition, the semi-closed containment farm was located 300-500 metres outside the boundaries set out in its original tenure.
The company, West Coast Fishculture (Lois Lake) Ltd., a subdisidary of AgriMarine Industries Inc. and ultimately a subsidiary of Toronto-based investment company Dundee Corp., entered a guilty plea in a Powell River court in March. According to an Agreed Statement of Facts, the company was alerted to the violation but continued to operate their site for 483 days without proper tenure. The fine of $350,000 was much higher than the recommended $100,000 maximum for such violations but the case was unprecedented.
West Coast Fishculture agreed to have their fish farm out of the lake by the end of August 2025. The company said their site hasn’t had fish in the pens since fall of 2023.
We believe this exemplifies an unprecedented level of disregard for the law and wild fish in the lake. The illegal facility was a semi-closed containment farm and clearly had serious problems. An inspection by a federal fishery officer identified many violations including:
- Jump netting was improperly installed or not secured on 5 of 6 pens;
- Only one of the pens had bird netting installed;
- In the one pen with bird netting, a great blue heron had gotten into the pen and died;
- None of the fish in the active pens were adipose clipped;
- No signage of any kind was observed on the infrastructure, including docking stations or restricted access;
- The “raceway” on the Western end of the floating array had no jump netting installed; and
- The onsite manager was unable to provide any records of above-water inspections other than the two previous days (June 1 and 2, 2021)
In addition, the semi-closed containment farm was located 300-500 metres outside the boundaries set out in its original tenure.
As we wait for details of the federal ban on open-net pen salmon farms, the Lois Lake semi-closed fish farm is a good reminder that fish farming does not work in the water in any form – open-nets or walled-pens.
This is something we will continue to advocate for as we work towards ridding B.C. of the remaining in-water salmon farms.