Video footage obtained by Animal Justice, an advocacy group, claims to show cruelty towards fish at a fish farm on the Sunshine Coast of B.C. While the BC SPCA said no violations were observed during an unannounced visit at the facility in January, an investigation and review of the footage is under way. Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) has also said its site inspection revealed no violations.
Northern Divine and its parent company, Caviar & Caviar, have yet to respond to requests for a response to the allegations.
On March 12, Animal Justice released a video and press release of what it says is the first undercover investigation of a fish farm in Canada, at the Northern Divine hatchery and fish farm in Sechelt. The group says it has filed a legal complaint with BC SPCA, and is advocating for a ban on caviar sale and production in Canada and for laws on fish slaughter. The video calls the aquaculture industry’s guidelines “weak.”
In its release, Animal Justice claims a number of issues at Northern Divine, including: fish stabbed to check for egg maturity, workers sucking eggs out of fish through straws with their mouths, cramped and filthy living conditions, fish frozen to death, starved to improve taste and fish cut open while still alive to retrieve their eggs. The video accompanying the press release purports to show these conditions. It also says a seven-foot sturgeon named Gracie has lived in a tank at the facility for at least 25 years. Animal Justice says Gracie is used as a broodstock fish.
“Northern Divine is inflicting heartbreaking cruelty to fishes who are forced to live in crowded, barren tanks before being brutally killed — all to provide luxury caviar to the handful of wealthy consumers who can afford to eat it,” Camille Labchuk, a lawyer and the executive director of Animal Justice, said in the March 12 press release. “Fishes can’t scream, but that doesn’t mean they don’t suffer — they’re sentient animals who can feel pain, and deserve better than to spend their lives in cramped, dirty tanks.”
Northern Divine Aquafarms Ltd. operates at Gray Creek Hatchery on approximately 60 acres of land near Sechelt’s East Porpoise Bay. It was acquired by Caviar & Caviar, an American company based in Florida, in 2023. The land-based fish farm is federally licensed to grow out white sturgeon caviar and rainbow trout, and run hatchery operations with chinook, coho, white sturgeon, Atlantic salmon and rainbow trout. According to a 2023 SeafoodSource article, the hatchery provides fertilized all-female coho eggs to hatcheries, while the fish farm specializes in organic high-end white sturgeon caviar. The Northern Divine website is no longer available online.
A March 12 statement from BC SPCA said the organization received hundreds of hours of video footage and written concerns about animal welfare at Northern Divine Aquafarms in December 2023. “Given the cross-jurisdictional nature of responding to these complaints, the BC SPCA immediately engaged the Department of Fisheries and Oceans to ensure all appropriate experts and authorities were involved in the investigation.”
In January 2024, multiple agencies including a BC SPCA representative and biology and veterinary experts attended the site unannounced. “During this attendance, there were no observed violations of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (PCA) Act by any of the experts present,” BC SPCA said. “The BC SPCA and the Department of Fisheries and Oceans continue to review the submitted video footage to determine whether there is sufficient evidence to support the recommendation of charges pursuant to the PCA Act. This process is expected to be time-consuming, especially given the magnitude of evidence, and the reality that the BC SPCA must prioritize focusing constable time on animals currently experiencing distress.”
DFO reaffirmed in a statement that no violations of conditions of licences were observed during its site inspection. “From a fish health perspective, the operators demonstrated a high level of attention to the fish in their care at the time of inspection."
White sturgeon are the largest and one of the longest-lived freshwater fish species in North America, DFO’s website states, and are a species at risk in Canada, where they face many threats in the wild. They are primarily found in two watersheds in Canada. They can live to be 100 years old.
With files from Stefan Labbé
