Farm Raised Salmon

[ExtraMSG]

Exactly, fresco. What beans should be working for, imo, is resolution of the issues she finds problematic with farmed salmon, not the elimination of fish farming. I think Fat Guy has made some similar comments in another thread somewhere.

I know beans has a bit of a personal stake, though, because, if I remember right, her grandfather was an Alaskan fisherman. But maintaining the status quo at the expense of not only the long term health of a species, but also of the world's population seems like a huge mistake.

Generally these aren't either/or issues anyway. Commercial Alaskan fishing will not disappear, it just may be reduced to where only those who know the difference and especially want to pay a premium, such as nice restaurants and gourmets, will buy the troll caught and line caught open ocean salmon. Very similar issue, in my mind, to local/organic vs corporate/commercial farming. There's no reason corporate/commercial/GM farming can't feed the world (to borrow ADM's tagline) while those who have the luxury to care about the DNA in a tomato eat from their local farms.

[robyn]

<<If you'd like to see the Alaskan fisherman getting a fair share, then purchase and support Alaskan fisheries by refusing to purchase farm raised garbage.>>

I don't know how old you are. I am almost 60 - and I have lived in Florida for over 30 years. Before farmed raised salmon - you only saw salmon here at very fancy expensive restaurants - and very very occasionally at food markets at almost $20/pound.

So what you are saying in essence to most of us in the US is we should never eat salmon at all. How about if we told you in salmon country never to eat anything other than free range organic poultry? Or organic oranges? Even if that meant your chicken would cost $15 and your orange juice would cost $3/glass? I don't think you're being realistic. Robyn

[badthings]

Exactly, fresco.  What beans should be working for, imo, is resolution of the issues she finds problematic with farmed salmon, not the elimination of fish farming.  I think Fat Guy has made some similar comments in another thread somewhere.

There is no problem with overfishing in the AK Salmon fisheries because, unlike, say, George's Bank, or the Grand Banks, or every Atlantic Salmon fishery, it has been managed relatively well. So you are not "saving" anything by eating farmed fish in lieu of wild Alaskan. They are going to catch their (sustainable) quota every year. The question is only how much they are going to get shafted on the price.

Conversely, fish farms actually exacerbate the problem they have repeatedly been asserted to solve here, which is the rapid depletion of marine biomass, period. There is no way to "resolve" this because it is how food chains work -- with the exception I mentioned of genetically engineering more growth hormone into the salmon, so they produce protein more efficiently. Reliance on fish farms to feed the world will actually eliminate the oceans as a source of human protein.

Both of these points have been documented above, so it is not really fair to impute irrational motives to beans.

I am not saying that anyone unlucky enough to live somewhere besides the West Coast should simply stop eating salmon. But I do not think it is a reasonable response to just throw up your hands and say "oh well." There is a solution, and it is intelligent fisheries management, not aquaculture -- or at least, not as we know it today.

[ExtraMSG]

There is no problem with overfishing in the AK Salmon fisheries because, unlike, say, George's Bank, or the Grand Banks, or every Atlantic Salmon fishery, it has been managed relatively well. So you are not "saving" anything by eating farmed fish in lieu of wild Alaskan. They are going to catch their (sustainable) quota every year. The question is only how much they are going to get shafted on the price.

Well, that all depends. Alaska's fisheries haven't always been managed well. And imagine the pressure if they were essentially the only significant fishery, besides BC's, in North America and the price has skyrocketed 10 or 20 times. a) You'd certainly have consistent pressure from fisherman to increase limits, b) You'd certainly have more poaching.

I am not saying that anyone unlucky enough to live somewhere besides the West Coast should simply stop eating salmon. But I do not think it is a reasonable response to just throw up your hands and say "oh well." There is a solution, and it is intelligent fisheries management, not aquaculture -- or at least, not as we know it today.

The "not as we know it today" is an important issue. Sometimes industries have to go through phases. Given the importance of farm-raised fish as a source of relatively low-cost seafood for people, don't you think something short of just tossing the salmon out with the seawater might be in order.

[DRColby]

There is no problem with overfishing in the AK Salmon fisheries because, unlike, say, George's Bank, or the Grand Banks, or every Atlantic Salmon fishery, it has been managed relatively well. So you are not "saving" anything by eating farmed fish in lieu of wild Alaskan. They are going to catch their (sustainable) quota every year. The question is only how much they are going to get shafted on the price

To say there is no problem with overfishing in Alaska is rediculious. One only has to look at the distance that AK fishermen travel to fill IQFs and you realised that fish populations can be - and are - depleated in AK. The state of Alaska has what they call time/catch records. There are far more hours per fish now than 20 years ago.

Some fisheries in danger: The Keni run, the Bristol Bay fishery, perhaps the Cooper River run. Look at what has happened ay Copper River. More fish are being taken and the price is dropping each year. BC has had to close the Fraizer - one of the world's great fisheries - to the taking of Reds because of over harvest and one other factor: What happens in the ocean.

Despite all our smarts, migratory fisheries still depend much on one thing: What happens in the oceans; water temperatures, how much feed is around, and pressure from open water fishing. In recent years on the West Coast the herring and anchovey cycles have peaked, thus there has been record salmon runs. it wasn't that way in el Nino years, warm-water fish, such as mackrel, migrated north and close to shore and gobbled up all the Coho and King fingerlings that made it to saltwater. California has ban gill nets. Its fish population has increased.

If overfishing was - or will be no problem in AK - then fish traps wouldn't be ban, subsistance quotas wouldn't be altered, and IQFs wouldn't dictate the harvest, and fishermen could stay home and fill their nets.

Dave

[beans]

Robyn:

Is that collective "you" me?

<<If you'd like to see the Alaskan fisherman getting a fair share, then purchase and support Alaskan fisheries by refusing to purchase farm raised garbage.>>

I don't know how old you are.  I am almost 60 - and I have lived in Florida for over 30 years.  Before farmed raised salmon - you only saw salmon here at very fancy expensive restaurants - and very very occasionally at food markets at almost $20/pound.

Age has nothing to do with it. My family adored those high selling prices, as do I. I've personally benefitted much from those golden days -- funded my university studies and provided for many lovely things in my life.

So what you are saying in essence to most of us in the US is we should never eat salmon at all.

Your spin on it and not my intent. If you wish to eat salmon, seek out salmon caught from the wilds of the Pacific waters from hard working fisherpeople supporting themselves and their families. It is, in fact, seen as the environmentally conscious thing to do given the disease and polluting filth salmon farms create in our coastal waters. Go ahead and place the large workforces of fisher people, biologists, fishery employees from California, Oregon, Washington and Alaska out of their jobs and support an industry that requires tremendous reliance upon wild populations of other fish as a food source, pollute coastal waters and places several hazardous risks to actual wild salmon populations. And all for the sake of having a once prized fish imitated by a lesser quality at a cheap price. Hooray for consumerism!

How about if we told you in salmon country never to eat anything other than free range organic poultry?  Or organic oranges?  Even if that meant your chicken would cost $15 and your orange juice would cost $3/glass?

Go ahead and feel free to do so. I don't care. Does it matter that I do anyway?

I don't think you're being realistic.

You are not in any position to ascertain such a personally evaluative statement about me. Please refrain from doing so in the future.

[beans]

Exactly, fresco. What beans should be working for, imo, is resolution of the issues she finds problematic with farmed salmon, not the elimination of fish farming. I think Fat Guy has made some similar comments in another thread somewhere.

I know beans has a bit of a personal stake, though, because, if I remember right, her grandfather was an Alaskan fisherman. But maintaining the status quo at the expense of not only the long term health of a species, but also of the world's population seems like a huge mistake.

Generally these aren't either/or issues anyway. Commercial Alaskan fishing will not disappear, it just may be reduced to where only those who know the difference and especially want to pay a premium, such as nice restaurants and gourmets, will buy the troll caught and line caught open ocean salmon. Very similar issue, in my mind, to local/organic vs corporate/commercial farming. There's no reason corporate/commercial/GM farming can't feed the world (to borrow ADM's tagline) while those who have the luxury to care about the DNA in a tomato eat from their local farms.

Somewhere up-thread I asked if this issue should be researched as to bringing salmon farming in-land, similar to that what is being developed and studied for shrimp, thereby significantly reducing pollution.

I'm not against all fish farming and am not in favour of its complete elimination. There are many examples of success to both the consumer and the environment.

Salmon farming needs to go a very long way in eliminating the adverse effects it creates for the sole purpose of succumbing to consumer appetites as well as producing a product that has any amount of decent flavour or texture.

[beans]

To say there is no problem with overfishing in Alaska is rediculious.  One only has to look at the distance that AK fishermen travel to fill IQFs and you realised that fish populations can be - and are -  depleated in AK.  The state  of Alaska has what they call time/catch records.  There are far more hours per fish now than 20 years ago.

  Some fisheries in danger:  The Keni run, the Bristol Bay fishery, perhaps the Cooper River run.  Look at what has happened ay Copper River. More fish are being taken and the price is dropping each year.  BC has had to close the Fraizer - one of the world's great fisheries - to the taking of Reds because of over harvest and one other factor: What happens in the ocean.

    Despite all our smarts, migratory fisheries still  depend much on one thing: What happens in the oceans; water  temperatures, how much feed is around, and pressure from open water fishing.  In recent years on the  West Coast the herring and anchovey cycles have peaked, thus there has been record salmon runs.  it wasn't that way in el Nino years, warm-water fish, such as mackrel,  migrated north and close to shore and gobbled up all the Coho and King fingerlings that made it to saltwater.  California has ban gill nets. Its fish population has increased.

  If overfishing was -  or will be no problem in AK -  then fish traps wouldn't be ban, subsistance quotas wouldn't be altered, and IQFs wouldn't dictate the harvest, and fishermen could stay home and fill their nets.

Dave

my head is beginning to ache...

Dave, if more fish are being taken, then there is more fish to take. Commercial openings are very regulated and monitored. Fish police float alongside, in the air and stroll around harbor docks. So, yes they do catch the bugger that has also taken more than their share out sport fishing, too.

Regarding fishermen travelling great distances, I have no idea what those folks are doing up north in Bristol Bay, but the guys filling the harbors with gill netters, seiners and trollers are fishing almost in front of downtown Sitka if it weren't for a few small islands and a couple mountains. This is Deep Inlet, and I've skiffed out in a beat up Boston Whaler to watch. Then go down the road, 7 miles, toward the Mill and you can watch them make their sets in Silver Bay. Conversely head down the toward the other available direction for another total of 7 miles to the Old Sitka site and Starrigavan and you can see the fishing happening in Katlian Bay. Just around the corner from that is Nakwasina. Sure skippers may decide on travelling south to Ketchikan or northeast to Tenakee Inlet, or brave open ocean to Slocum Arm and Khaz Bay. But many skippers charter a bush pilot for a short trip of fish spottting. (One of which is a friend of mine that also does contract work for Dept. of Fish and Game spotters to determine commercial openings). One skipper, I know, loves flight so much, he owns an ultra light that he takes out for a birds-eye view of where the fish are.

Also, I think I've stated this in some other salmon bickering thread, subsistence is another whole big can of worms, an entirely seperate issue and one of which I do not see any need to throw into this circus ring.

typos - bleh

Edited November 25, 2003 by beans (log)

[badthings]

serendipity

Kendall Powell, "Fish farming: Eat your veg [News focus]," Nature 426, 378 - 379 (27 November 2003):

Global aquaculture is on the rise, growing more than 5% per year over the past decade. That might sound like good news for the world's food supply, but there's a hidden cost behind some of the farmed fish on supermarket shelves. Many, including the popular salmon, trout and cod, are fed on wild fish. Lots of wild fish. Today, about 11 million tonnes of fish — 12% of the total haul from seas and rivers — are caught each year just to feed farmed fish. It takes 2 to 5 kg of wild fish just to produce 1 kg of a farmed fish such as salmon.

This will soon pose a huge problem. Farmed fish are fed on a diet that leans heavily on fish oil and fishmeal — a protein-rich powder of ground-up, cheap fish such as sardines, anchovies and eels — as a source of vital proteins and nutrients. A simple calculation shows that the current haul of fish oil and fishmeal will soon be outstripped by the needs of global aquaculture. If the number of fish farmed continues to grow at its current rate, and if the supply of oil and meal stays the same — as it has for the past decade — then demand will outstrip supply of oil by 2010 (ref. 4). If those projections are extended, fishmeal looks set to face the same problem by 2050.

Global aquaculture is on the rise, growing more than 5% per year over the past decade. That might sound like good news for the world's food supply, but there's a hidden cost behind some of the farmed fish on supermarket shelves. Many, including the popular salmon, trout and cod, are fed on wild fish. Lots of wild fish. Today, about 11 million tonnes of fish — 12% of the total haul from seas and rivers — are caught each year just to feed farmed fish. It takes 2 to 5 kg of wild fish just to produce 1 kg of a farmed fish such as salmon.

Over the past few decades, researchers have begun to think that one way to make aquaculture more sustainable is to change the diets of some of our farmed fish — to turn carnivores into vegetarians. It's a solution that carries its own challenges, but in the face of declining wild stocks and a booming aquaculture industry, many fish farmers and conservationists agree that if we are to continue farming carnivorous fish, this is the way to go.

(quoted paragraphs out of order)

[Jensen]

As if being tasteless and colourless wasn't enough, now it's toxic too!

[docsconz]

I knew farm-raised salmon is high in PCB's, but for some reason I thought the European salmon were better. Guess not.

[Salli Vates]

According to a new study, wild salmon contains less pollutants than farmed salmon, which are fed a limited, and sometimes more toxic, diet.

[beans]

In light of the news of late, bump!

[SiseFromm]

I'm glad what I knew all along is being touted and played heavily in a news story that hit today. The scariest is the salmon color wheel. Yikes. I like my fish not to have been dyed.

R. Jason Coulston

[ExtraMSG]

Heard this on NPR today. According to that story, Chilean salmon actually aren't that much different from non-farmed salmon. North American salmon, according to that report, aren't "close behind" European salmon, but rather somewhere between the two.

They also mentioned that pollutant levels are consistently being reduced in farmed salmon because farmers are switching to more plant-based feed. The industry reps expect the disparity to be greatly reduced in the next couple years.

One interesting thing is that if the recommendation is to only eat one salmon per month that's farmed and farmed salmon has about 10 times as much pollutants as non-farmed salmon, that would mean that you could only eat even non-farmed salmon about every 4 days safely, or just about twice a week.

One annoying thing is that there's no comparative risk analysis in the reports. Salmon apparently has pollutants that could cause cancer. But it also has properties that reduce the likelihood of some cancers, stroke, and heart disease.

What's the net effect? Maybe I'm 10 times more likely to get colon cancer, but 20 times less likely to get the number one killer, heart disease.

Edited January 9, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[ludja]

This is probably a silly question, but does anyone know if canned salmon generally uses farmed rather than wild salmon? It seems likely, since farmed is cheaper to produce.

My other question, (although I should probably do some googling first... ) is at what time did farm raised salmon take over wild in production? The last 10 years? (That's when salmon prices have seem to have dropped).

[fresco]

Actually, no. Think pretty well 100% of canned salmon is wild--mostly sockeye and pink, but some coho as well.

And you can blame (or thank) Canada, at least partially, and indirectly, for the drop in salmon prices.

About 20 years ago (perhaps more) Canadian scientists with government backing and Canadian fish and technology helped Chile establish a salmon farming industry. They can now produce fish cheaper than pretty well anyone else in the world and do so in enormous quantities, which has tended to put a very low ceiling on all salmon prices.

Much of the farmed salmon consumed in Canada now is from Chile, although this is not widely advertised, since Canada has major salmon farming operations on both coasts. Ludicrous.

[ExtraMSG]

I like it: Blame Canada.

It's interesting that the cheapeast producer is also the least polluted.

[Toliver]

Those feed companies wouldn't be headed by this guy, now would they?

Exxxxxx-cellent.

[ExtraMSG]

Here's a link to that NPR report. I don't have audio on this computer, so I can't listen to see if it has the whole thing or just the basic report (and I'm too lazy to change the switchbox to another computer and find it there or to get up and go to my laptop).

http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1589737

[VivreManger]

This is probably a silly question, but does anyone know if canned salmon generally uses farmed rather than wild salmon? It seems likely, since farmed is cheaper to produce.

I can't find the link easily, but in the Northwest and in the Canada forum during the summer of '03 I was involved in long and well-informed discussions of wild versus farmed as well as canned salmon. The bottom line is that canned is usually wild. In Canada where they offer many more varieties of canned salmon than in the US, it is sometimes labelled wild, but generally in the US & in Canada it is not. Curiously all the Canadian labelled salmon I bought in Quebec was actually canned in the US -- Washington State -- even if the packer was Canadian.

[badthings]

What's the net effect? Maybe I'm 10 times more likely to get colon cancer, but 20 times less likely to get the number one killer, heart disease.

bingo! I'm getting Hormone Replacement Therapy right now.

The relevant quote, from the other salmon thread:

he researchers used EPA guidelines to calculate the maximum amount of salmon that can be eaten before boosting cancer risk by at least 1 case in 100,000. For the most contaminated fish--from farms in Scotland and the Faroe Islands--the limit came to 55 grams of salmon (uncooked weight) every month, or a quarter of a serving. One half-serving a month of farmed salmon from Canada or Maine adds no significant risk, they say; and double that is acceptable for fish from Chile or the U.S. state of Washington. Some types of wild salmon from Alaska or British Columbia are safe to eat eight times a month.

Although no U.S. government agency has said how much fish one should eat, the American Heart Association recommends 168 to 336 grams per week. Consumption of the omega-3 fatty acids found in fatty fish reduces the risk of sudden cardiac death after a heart attack. For people with cardiovascular disease, that benefit outweighs any added cancer risk, Carpenter says.

[ExtraMSG]

That, then, would mean the American Heart Assoc. recommends 24 times the "safe" amount of fish. Man, Japanese people and Scandanavians must be so screwed.

[ExtraMSG]

New AP article on the industry's response:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...lth_fish_salmon

And another on the fish food makers:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...britain_fish_dc

Edited January 10, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)

[ExtraMSG]

SORRY ABOUT THE EXTRA -- GOT AN ERROR AND REPOSTED -- PLEASE DELETE

New AP article:

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=stor...lth_fish_salmon

Edited January 10, 2004 by ExtraMSG (log)