A potentially large U.S. television audience will get a front-row look at British Columbia's contentious salmon farming debate this Sunday when the newsmagazine 60 Minutes airs the segment Salmon Farms: Helping or hurting wild salmon?
Dr. Sanjay Gupta visited North Vancouver Island last October to record the piece, which features interviews with Ian Roberts of Marine Harvest, local environmental activist and scientist Alexandra Morton, commercial fishermen and a lawyer representing a Canadian government commission examining salmon.
Gupta also interviewed 'Namgis Chief Bill Cranmer at the Kuterra land-based Atlantic Salmon farm near Port McNeill, though Jackie Hildering, then the communications liaison for Kuterra, said it was unknown whether the Kuterra interview would air during Sunday's show.
The program is likely to feature footage of the natural beauty of Vancouver Island's coastal regions, providing a potential boon to tourism among a 60 Minutes audience that measures greater than 10 million viewers on average.
But nobody is quite sure how salmon farming may be portrayed in Sunday's show, and the B.C. Salmon Farmers' Association has pre-emptively compiled a .pdf document, titled CBS 60 Minutes Backgrounder, to provide additional information about the industry. The document is available at the BCSFA website, www.salmonfarmers.org.
The 60 Minutes program is scheduled for 7 p.m. on CBS stations in each time zone. It is available on most cable or satellite TV packages on the North Island.