Norwegian salmon company involved in killing sea lions in Chilean Patagonia National Park, violates the USA Marine Mammal Protection Act
The removal of South American sea lion (Otaria byronia) specimens is a common practice, derived from «non-explicit» corporate policies established in remote industrial salmon farming centers located in Chilean Patagonia. For this, various types of weapons are used, such as blows with an axe, the use of spears, and suffocation by pressing long poles on the heads of marine mammals trapped in the anti-predator nets of the rafts-cages.
This Third World environmental reality has accompanied for decades the destructive expansion of industrial salmon farming in the Los Lagos / Chiloe3, Aysén and Magallanes regions, while the regional authorities and the aquaculture business community try to make it invisible or relativize it so as not to affect the image and export interests of the offending companies.
This illegal practice occurs even in marine areas protected by the Chilean State, despite the fact that Otaria byronia is legally protected until 2031 by an extractive ban that prohibits and penalizes its hunting, capture, commercialization and transport.
Specimens of South American sea lion (Otaria Byronia) illegally killed in a salmon farming center on Capitan Aracena Island, Magallanes region. 2019. Photo: Ecoceanos Centre.
The incredible case of the Norwegian company that eliminates sea lions and grows salmon inside a Patagonian National Park
The Norwegian-owned company Nova Austral grows salmon for export inside the Alberto de Agostini National Park, Magallanes Region. And it exemplifies the failed chilean State monitoring and control system that makes it possible, among other things, that the complaints made by citizen organizations and local communities about the killing of sea lions in their salmon farming centers have not had any sanctioning effects.
To exemplify this situation, the Ecoceanos Centre filed a complaint on August 26, 2019 with the Investigative Brigade of Crimes Against the Environment (Bridema) of the Aysén region, for the killing of Otaria byronia in a salmon fattening center in Nova Austral, located on Capitan Aracena Island, Magallanes and Chilean Antarctic Region (see photo).
Photos and complementary information were attached, which, if the will of the Public Prosecutor’s Office and supervisory bodies had existed, would have allowed the identification of responsibilities and those who exhibited the specimens of dead sea lions, before being eviscerated and eliminated in the waters adjacent to the farm.
This was the fifth complaint filed since 2015 by Centro Ecocéanos and local people for animal abuse resulting in the death of common sea lions in salmon farming centers in Patagonia. Of them, only one had managed to end with a sentence, since three of them were closed without results by the Public Ministry (Fiscalía de Chile).
The investigation that managed to obtain a sentence affected two operators who carried out the slaughter, which occurred in 2014 in the «Benjamin 3» farm of the Chilean company Yadran, Aysen region, but not the person in charge of the farm, nor company executives, despite the fact that these acts are explained as the systematic implementation of opaque corporate policies.
Story of an announced investigative failure
After two years without information, on August 16, 2021, the chief deputy commissioner of the Bridema-Aysen Unit was consulted about the progress and results of the investigation. It was responded that the complaint had been forwarded to the Punta Arenas Prosecutor’s Office, opening an investigation, which had ordered investigative procedures.
On November 10, 2021, the Ecoceanos Centre reiterated this complaint before the Director of the Superintendence of the Environment (SMA) of the Magallanes, Patagonia Region, who requested the sending of complementary information. After four years, the results of the investigation are unknown. of state entities on this environmental crime of the Norwegian company.
The workers of the Nova Austral company confirm the corporate policies and operations to eliminate sea lions inside the National Park
On October 10, 2021, Mario Argel Uribe, a worker at the Aracena 19 and Aracena 9 farms of the Nova Austral company, located on Isla Aracena, in the Magallanes and Chilean Antartica region, had to fire himself, so as not to commit environmental crimes ordered by the company.
Interviewed by www.elmostrador.cl, Argel confirmed the complaints about the usual practices for the removal of sea lions in the fattening centers, “It is a common practice. Not only in Nova Austral, but also in the salmon farms from the Los Lagos region to Magallanes” (1),(2). In a previous interview, Argel had pointed out that «the most primitive way (to kill wolves) is with axes, but some people use shotguns or revolvers» (2).
These affirmations coincided with what was indicated by other workers from salmon farms, who estimated that in an average cycle of 18 months of cultivation, between 10 and 15 common sea lions were eliminated for each unit of cultivation, being able to sacrifice in some areas around 100 specimens per season (3).
2023: The Nova Austral Sea Lion saga continues
In March 2023, a new elimination of South American sea lions was denounced to public opinion, the Superintendence of the Environment and the Public Ministry. This time it had been carried out in February 2023 during operations to eliminate salmon mortalities at the «Isla Juan Punta de Bajo» fattening center operated by Nova Austral in the Skyring Sound, Magallanes Region (4).
The killing of sea lions had been carried out through entanglement actions, and subsequent suffocation of the trapped specimens. This event is related to the poor sanitary management of a massive mortality of salmon, which was deposited in nets in contact with the sea, and whose decomposition attracted a large number of these marine mammals from a sea lion colony located in Skyring Sound.
Nova Austral, in response to this new complaint, indicated that «it has no record, nor has it been notified by the authority of any complaint related to mistreatment or hunting of wolves (sic), a practice that it categorically rejects as going against its ethical standards (sic). and respect for the environment.
The Norwegian company stated that «for more than three years the company has strengthened its internal controls and to avoid bad operational practices, it has created an anonymous complaints channel (sic) managed by an independent entity, which to date does not record information on mistreatment of animals” (5)
At the same time, members of the Kawesqar Grupo de Familias Nómades del Mar community, registered the corpses of several specimens of sea lions in the surroundings of the facilities of the mega salmon company AquaChile, owned by the Chilean consortium AgroSuper, located in Rio Hollemberg, Puerto Natales.
One of the carcasses of common sea lions in front of the AquaChile facility. Hollemberg River, Puerto Natales, Magallanes region, Chile. March,2023. Photo: L.Caro.
The contingency plans committed for the application of the MMPA-US in Chilean waters are not being applied
Chile, as one of the main exporters of marine products to the North American market, has been adapting its fishing and aquaculture legislation to the requirements of the United States Department of Commerce, to demonstrate that its fishing and aquaculture activities do not cause damage to marine mammals greater than North American standards, and continue accessing the main market for its seafood products.
In June 2019, the Chilean State presented a report identifying the progress to meet the standards of the Marine Mammal Protection Act-US. There it was pointed out that through Supreme Decree No. 125 of 2019 of the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, the Environmental Regulation for Aquaculture (RAMA) had been modified. Subsequently, the Undersecretary of Fisheries and Aquaculture (Subpesca) issued Exempt Resolution No. 2811 of 2021, defining the type and scope of interactions with marine mammals with the industry.
Regarding which the contingency plans would be applied, referring to situations of entanglement and entry of species to the farming centers. In addition, the obligation to report sightings and interactions between marine mammals and the facilities of the farming centers was established.
Ecoceanos Centre: Failure to comply with protocols for salmon-marine mammal interactions questions the effectiveness and credibility of the Chilean State
In the repetitive episodes of lethal interactions between salmon farms and marine mammals denounced by citizen organizations, the companies did not apply the protocols established by the sectoral authority.
For Juan Carlos Cardenas, a veterinarian and director of the Ecocéanos Center, «the reiteration of these events in salmon farms defies current legislation and questions the credibility and real effectiveness of the regulatory measures adopted by the Chilean State to comply with the standards and requirements of the United States Marine Mammal Protection Act”.
The citizen organization points out that the sectoral inspection services have the obligation to ensure the application of the established procedures to discourage violations of national and international aquaculture and environmental legislation.
«We hope that the public ministry and the state regulatory entities report on the application of the established protocols, as well as the progress in the investigations, and applied sanctions»
In turn, the Ecocéanos Center called on the North American and Canada authorities and consumer and conservation organizations «to be alert about the illegal behavior of salmon companies that export to their market.» These situations are denounced by citizen organizations, specialists in marine mammals, and local communities, in the perspective that «the application of the Marine Mammal Protection Act of the United States contributes to the conservation of ecosystems and vulnerable populations of marine mammals from the south of the world.
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