Wild Fish Conservancy Takes Cooke’s Net Pen Proposal to WA Supreme Court

Cooke Aquaculture’s Port Angeles fish pens (previously shut down by the WA State for permit violations), site of proposed “Steelhead” farm pens.

Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director Wild Fish Conservancy, sent the following today:

Cooke Aquaculture, the company responsible for releasing over 250,000 nonnative and viral-infected Atlantic salmon into our public waters, will face another challenge in their attempt to begin raising domesticated steelhead in their Puget Sound net pens.

This decision comes in response to an unfortunate but not unexpected ruling by a lower court to uphold a permit granted to Cooke by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and to defer to the agency’s misguided decision to greenlight the company’s project without conducting a comprehensive scientific review of the risks and impacts posed to Puget Sound’s ecosystem. 

Read Wild Fish Conservancy’s press release here: https://wildfishconservancy.org/11-23-20-pr-on-supreme-court-appeal/at_download/file