Nearly two dozen sea lions breached a Tofino, B.C., fish farm and won't leave

Nearly two dozen sea lions were spotted feasting on farmed Atlantic salmon over the weekend on Vancouver Island – and they still haven’t left the fish farm.

Conservation group Clayoquot Action was notified of the break-in by a whale watching group on Sunday, and has been observing the stellar and California sea lions since.

“Some of them were coming and going from the pens, and so we're quite concerned about entanglement,” said Bonny Glambeck, campaign director with the group. “It's really common for these sea lions to get injured in this situation.”

Fisheries and Oceans Canada said Cermaq’s Rant Point farm has reported ongoing challenges with sea lions since March 23.

The DFO said the facility has predator netting and electric fencing around the open-net fish pens, yet somehow, the sea lions breached its defences.

On Tuesday, Cermaq provided a statement to CTV News saying the animals managed to get in by "jumping over the stanchions."

"It is important to note that no sea lions are trapped or inhibited from exiting the farm at this time, should they choose to leave," the company added.

Now the concern is if the sea lions don’t leave on their own, history could repeat itself.

In 2016, when another Cermaq fish farm near Tofino had 15 sea lions inside its pen, the DFO authorized the company to shoot and kill the animals.

“The sea lions were shot over the course of two days,” said Glambeck. “We're really concerned that that might be the fate of these sea lions.”

She observed Cermaq using an acoustic deterrent device to scare off the animals, but said it doesn’t seem to be working.

“They sound like a large gunshot and they were using them repeatedly, every three minutes or so,” she said. “We’re really concerned about the use of these to scare the sea lions out of the pens because they can damage their hearing, they can hurt their eyes.”

In an email, the DFO said, “Attempts to deter the sea lions and to remove them from the net pens, with least harm to the animals, have been ongoing in consultation with DFO biologists. Currently the sea lions have not been deterred by passive deterrent efforts to remove them.”

Cermaq said staff are doing their best to get the sea lions out "without harming them, our people, or our salmon."

"Several methods are being utilised including the use of containment materials and active harvesting of targeted cages to minimize any potential impacts. Efforts are cyclical as dealing with animals who have learned behaviour can prove challenging," the company said.

Andrew Trites, director and professor at UBC’s Marine Mammal Research Unit, said there is a narrow window to get the sea lions out of the pens and now it will be a difficult task.

“I think the longer they stay, the more habituated they become and all the noises and other things just become part of the background noise, that it's not going to be effective. So another approach is trying to crowd them out to see whether or not you can sort of push them out the way they came in,” Trites explained.

With the plentiful fish, he said the sea lions are highly motivated to stay.

“This is a time of the year when males in particular are bulking up. They're looking for food, more to eat, and these fish farms look to be like we just arrived at the deli,” he said.

But there aren’t as many fish as there typically would be because Cermaq is currently harvesting, according to the DFO.

The department said there is a “strict requirement” that none of the sea lions be killed.

It said there has been no indication that a large number of Atlantic salmon have escaped the facility.