"Fresh wild salmon is one of the best foods you can
eat, but farmed salmon is just the opposite. Farmed Salmon represents just
one of the foods which in the name of cost and supply has been dangerously
contaminated by intensive farming processes. The only effective way to change
things is to boycott it, but we must also be prepared to pay the full price for
the wild healthy version. The following articles are based on facts in
Canada and the US, but are equally representative of salmon farming in Norway
and the UK. " Judy
Behind That Farmed Salmon Steak
It's tempting: salmon fillets in the supermarket for just $3.99 a pound.
At a time when salmon catches are erratic from British Columbia southward,
you might have expected scarcity to have driven up the price. The
explanation is simple: a glut of farmed fish, amounting to half the world's
consumption, has flooded the market. But the ingredients in a farmed salmon
steak are quite different than what goes into free-ranging cousins captured
by nets or hooks. Take a look:
The excreta from one large B.C. fish farm are estimated to equal the
sewage of a city of ten thousand people - all of it flowing straight into
the surrounding waters, fouling nearby clam beds and other sea habitat, at
too high a concentration to be easily assimilated by natural forces. Salmon
excreta are one reason that environmental activists are pushing for fish to
be raised only in closed-containment systems, allowing the wastes to be
treated before being discharged into the water.
They Shoot Seals, Don't They
When seals see fish farms, they think "free lunch." To control their
losses, fish farmers shoot seals that frequent their farms, killing and
average of five hundred per year in British Columbia in the early 1990s.
They also try to scare the seals off with "acoustic deterrent devices,"
which emit a screamingly loud underwater sound. That racket also keeps
Orcas and Humpback whales far at bay, excluding them from valuable habitat.
My, How Pink Your Steaks Are
The better to fool you, my dear. Wild salmon flesh gets its color from the
fish's prey, particularly krill, tiny shrimp-like crustaceans. But farmed
fish eat pellets of fish-meal which would leave their flesh a pale gray
instead. Fish farmers know that gray salmon won't sell well, so they add a
dye called Astaxanthin to their feed.
Aliens on the Loose
Atlantic salmon have become a favorite of West Coast fish farmers, in part
because they can be raised at higher densities than native chinook. These
fish frequently escape from their pens into the wild. In 1997, one
Washington state farm lost 360,000 Atlantic salmon in a single incident.
Alien Atlantic salmon have been found to spawn successfully in Vancouver
Island streams, and fishery advocates are concerned that they will compete
with threatened populations of native Pacific salmon. Salmon on Drugs
Farmed fish are so densely confined that a typical one-pound Atlantic
salmon is within fifteen inches of its neighbors. Diseases can spread
rapidly through such packed quarters, so the fish are fed antibiotics
including oxytetracycline and sulfa drugs, just like most domestic chickens
or cattle. About 30 percent of the medicated feed goes uneaten; from
uncontained net pens it enters the sea's food chain, where it has been
found to kill natural marine algae and bacteria as well as cause
deformities in halibut larvae.
Nonetheless, the farmed fish still contract infections and parasites.
Wild stocks pick up those diseases in two ways - either from escapees, or
as they pass by the fish farms en route to or from their spawning streams.
Norwegian authorities have opted to poison twenty-four rivers with rotenone
- which kills all aquatic life - in an attempt to eradicate sea lice and a
lesion-causing disease spread there by farmed salmon.
Written by Seth Zuckerman and based on Net Loss: the Salmon Netcage
industry in British Columbia by David W. Ellis and Associates (David Suzuki
Foundation, 1996) and on personal conversation with Suzuki Foundation staff.
FARMED AND DANGEROUS, from CAAR (Coastal Alliance for
Aquaculture Reform).
Salmon Farming and Human Health
Nutrition
Thousands of years of evolution and a varied diet have resulted in wild
salmon containing high levels of Omega-3, a healthy unsaturated fat. Not
only does this oil provide wild salmon with its legendary flavour, the
unsaturated fat is also credited with many health benefits including
reduced risk of heart disease, depression, pre-clamsia, rheumatoid
arthritis, breast cancer and migraines. Farmed salmon, on the other hand,
contain more unhealthy fats. Preliminary research also shows that farmed
salmon has higher levels of PCBs and other contaminants than wild salmon.
The food given to farmed salmon does not contain the natural sources of
colour and as a result, their flesh is an unappetizing gray colour. To make
their product more marketable, fish farm companies choose what colour they
want their salmon from the Salmon Farm. Chemical additives are then added to
the fish feed.
Farmed Atlantic salmon contain 200 percent more unhealthy, saturated fat
than wild salmon. This has led some health professionals to question the
nutritional value of farmed salmon.
In a letter urging retailers to stop selling farmed salmon to customers,
Warren Bell MD, president of the Canadian Association of Physicians for the
Environment (CAPE) writes, "Not only is the fat content of farmed salmon
higher than that of wild salmon, but the composition of farmed salmon fat
is also less healthy than that of wild salmon fat." He also writes that,
"Another issue of concern to consumers is the fact that the monitoring of
residues of antibiotics and other drugs in farmed salmon is inadequate".
Antibiotics & Pesticides
Disease and parasites are frequent occurrences on salmon farms. Farmers
attempt to control these problems by using powerful drugs including
antibiotics and pesticides. Farmed salmon are fed more antibiotics per
pound, than any other livestock in North America.
Excess drugs make their way along the food chain. Research suggests that
between 74-100% of wild fish caught near farms contain antibiotics in their
flesh. (Diseases of Aquatic Organisms, 1994). Escapes fish caught in a
Broughton Archipelago stream were found carrying bacteria known to cause a
range of human maladies and these bacteria were resistant to 10 different
antibiotics. Excessive use of antibiotics has already led to the
development of antibiotic resistant "superbugs".
http://www.farmedanddangerous.org/farm_health.htm
So, join the BFSS (Boycott Farmed Salmon Society). It's absolutely FREE!