Over the past decade, the Our Sound, Our Salmon campaign has united local communities, environmental groups, fishers, Tribal members, elected officials, scientists, and businesses in a powerful coalition. Together, we've fought to protect Puget Sound from the harms of commercial net pen aquaculture.

Our unwavering advocacy has resulted in landmark environmental victories, including the historic removal of all commercial net pens from public waters.

A Major Legislative Victory

In 2018, we celebrated our first monumental success under the banner of Our Sound, Our Salmon coalition by successfully passing House Bill 2957— a landmark law banning nonnative, Atlantic salmon net pen aquaculture from operating in Puget Sound.

In 2019, Cooke Aquaculture took advantage of a loophole in the public’s hard-fought law that would have phased out all their facilities by submitting a new proposal to transition their net pens in Puget Sound for the cultivation of steelhead/rainbow trout not covered by the existing ban on nonnative finfish aquaculture.

In response, the Our Sound, Our Salmon coalition quickly mobilized to prevent Cooke Aquaculture from obtaining new permits. These efforts resulted in unprecedented level of public engagement during the environmental review process, despite the process occurring during the heart of the COVID-19 pandemic. All together the public generated over 3,500 unique public comments, including input from six Tribal Nations, opposing the permits and demanding comprehensive environmental review before permitting this dangerous proposal.

Despite the public’s valid and widely shared concerns, the Department of Fish and Wildlife issued new permits to Cooke Aquaculture. In response, group of organizations within the coalition came together on behalf of the public to legally challenge the Department's decision to issue permits in the absence of comprehensive analysis of the environmental impacts.

Following the 2017 Cypress Island collapse, viral testing of escaped Atlantic salmon revealed that nearly 100% of the 260,000 farmed fish that escaped were infected with an exotic virus originating from Iceland that had never been documented in the North Pacific. This exposed that the net pen industry had imported Piscine Reovirus (PRV), a dangerous fish virus, from its egg supplier in Iceland and then amplified and spread the virus in their Puget Sound hatchery and net pens.

When it was clear Washington’s regulatory agencies were taking no meaningful action to respond to this viral outbreak, the Our Sound, Our Salmon coalition began an urgent new effort to hold our public agencies accountable for preventing the amplification and spread of this virus to wild salmon and steelhead.

Our dedicated advocacy resulted in state agency’s finally acknowledging the risk this exotic virus poses to wild salmon and major regulatory changes that enforced strict viral testing that effectively prevented the introduction this deadly virus into Puget Sound.

Working together, we took back our sound

As all commercial net pen leases were set to expire in 2022, we initiated the Taking Back Our Sound campaign, urging officials to reject the industry's requests for new decade-long leases and to prioritize the restoration of Puget Sound for the benefit and enjoyment of all.

Due to the steadfast advocacy of Tribal Nations and our united coalition, Washington made history by making the landmark decision to eliminate commercial net pens from Puget Sound and initiating a process to permanently prohibit this industry moving forward.

Since our foundation, our commitment to supporting British Columbia's initiatives to safeguard public waters from commercial net pens has been fundamental to our mission. In fact, the roots of the Our Sound, Our Salmon campaign can be traced directly to our Canadian partners who pioneered the first research investigating the environmental impacts of this industry in our region.

Over the last decade, the coalition supported the inspiring efforts of British Columbia’s First Nations, scientists, and advocates through various actions, including letters of support, participating in First Nation peaceful protests, and collaborating on new research. In turn, these Canadian partners have been instrumental in supporting our coalition's work, with our collective achievements enhancing progress on both sides of the border. Wild salmon and orcas do not recognize borders, and therefore neither can our initiatives to protect our public waters from the pollution, spread of viruses, and other risks associated with commercial net pens in the Pacific Northwest.

In 2024, the Government of Canada announced its commitment to transitioning all commercial net pens from British Columbia’s coastal waters and salmon migration corridors by 2029. We will continue to strongly support our Canadian friends and colleagues in working toward our shared objective of eliminating commercial net pens on an international and coastwide scale.