Farmed salmon proving ruinous for northwest fishermen

KATU ^

[chance33_98]

Farmed salmon proving ruinous for northwest fishermen

NEWPORT - Pacific Northwest salmon have been choked off by dams, poisoned by pollution and heavily fished by sportsmen, commercial fishermen and Indian tribes. But it is salmon farming that threatens to do the industry in.

Two decades ago more than five thousand salmon boats fished off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Only about 500 do today.

Cheap farmed fish makes up 80 percent of the salmon sold in the United States.

Salmon farmers can assure grocery chains of all the fish they need to plan months ahead.

A Fred Meyer spokesman says the chain carries wild salmon when it can, but farm-raised is very important to meeting the year-round needs of their customers.

The fish farmers say they are just bringing modern methods to an industry that has stood still for decades.

[from occupied ga]

And the automobile put the buggy whip makers out of business - so what?

[Snerfling]

I remember when salmon was an exotic treat. Now it's like picking up a can of tuna from the grocery store. We probably BBQ a couple of pounds of salmon each week.

[Rebel_Ace]

Once again demonstrating the advantages of controlled agriculture and animal husbandry over "hunter-gatherer" techniques.

[Victor]

Hmmm.....bet the salmon fishing is pretty good off the Northwest coast these days.

[joesnuffy]

when pharmed salmon is readily available
pressure will be off the fished variety
their numbers should come back...
so at least sport fishing might pick up?

[Stirner]

Why are farmed salmon "cheap"? You have to feed them, and, as I understand things, salmon eat (smaller) fish. So you have to throw anchovies or other small fish to the penned salmon, which has to be more expensive than wild salmon who feed for free (or at least at no feed cost to the gatherers).

[TheEditor]

"Controlled" agriculture has a long way to go to match the wild salmon. Because the farmed salmon is fed primarily a diet of grain pellets it can't develop on its own the robust fatty acid profile that makes the wild salmon so healthy. Indeed, the farmed salmon's regimen must actually be supplemented with "fatty acid" pills just to stay alive.

The farmed salmon is a nice product. But it is not as tasty or as healthy for you as a wild salmon.

[CO_dreamer]

You are correct about farmed salmon. In addition, the feed they are given contains dyes to make their flesh pink. In fact, King Soopers in Colorado now labels their farmed salmon as 'color added'.

Farmed salmon is also fed anti-biotics, like other large-scale meat producers.

[talleyman]

Caviar emptor

[bigfootbob]

"Farmed salmon is also fed anti-biotics, like other large-scale meat producers."

Post proof to this claim, please.

[elmer fudd]

Actually the fishing is pretty poor and that's why the fishing industry is in decline. The fish just aren't there in the numbers they used to be. Hopefully if the comercial fisheries go under the salmon will begin to recover.

And the farmed salmon tastes pretty good too despite what others might say. About 10 years ago I worked in a sushi bar for about a year and the only salmon we served was farm raised. When I asked the owner about it he told me it was the only salmon available that was of high enough quality to eat raw.

[No.6]

Hmm.

Just about the time we find out that a food will contribute to our health, we find out that the same food, at least the variety we can obtain in a store, has lost the healthful property through mass production.

Note: the above is not blaming capitalism or Big Business or any other such rot. Sometimes, however, taking all the shortcuts doesn't get you anywhere.

[dennisw]

Once again demonstrating the advantages of controlled agriculture and animal husbandry over "hunter-gatherer" techniques..........

Get real. Farm raised salmon sucks. You have no taste buds, bud.

And commercial salmon fishing is quite a few rungs above "hunter gatherer" LOL

[dennisw]

I rather eat canned or frozen wild salmon than the farm raised crap. And it is crap.

[Squantos]

"If"......... it's like catfish farms its a mix not unlike dog food made from the beef and chicken industry byproducts........yummy !

Stay Safe

[bigfootbob]

"Two decades ago more than five thousand salmon boats fished off the coasts of Oregon and Washington. Only about 500 do today."

By the numbers of boats not out dragging nets and vacuuming fish, shows why the numbers of returning fish are HIGH.

This is good news for fans of property rights. We are constantly under assault by the regulators wanting us to cede control of our land for the benefit of the "Salmon." Of course the regulators rely on junk or what I call political science to make their land grabs.

[CO_dreamer]

http://www.ontherail.com/issues/issue_TCB/salmon/salmon.html

http://www.coopfoodstore.com/news/Archives/arch_2_03/ground_up.html

http://www.activeangler.com/articles/conservation/articles/orvis/salmon1.asp

http://www.elitefitness.com/forum/archive/5/2001/12/3/93194

It really isn't hard to find proof.

[discostu]

Ships have a limited hauling capacity and there's a limited fishing season. Plus boats sink. That limits how much supply is available and increased the cost. Plus there's all kinds of rather expensive equipment the boat needs to find and capture the fish and that equipment tends to get damaged by the harsh sea conditions. Initial setup of a farm is probably really expensive, but with the lower wear and tear it will last longer thus amortizing the cost over a wider range, and it will produce more fish thus amortizing the cost over more product.

The proof is in the pudding, think of how easy it was to find salmon in the 70s and compare it to now.

[CO_dreamer]

Well, I for one am at least glad they started labeling the fish, because they've also started carrying wild salmon and labeling it separately. Yes, it's more expensive, but I'm willing to pay a bit more for quality.

[Squantos]

Should'nt that post read.........

Actuawwy the fishing is pwetty poow and that's why the fishing industwy is in decwine. De fish just awen't thewe in the numbews they used to be. Hopefuwwy if the comewciaw fishewies go undew the sawmon wiww begin to wecovew. And the fawmed sawmon tastes pwetty good too despite what othews might say. About 10 yeaws ago I wowked in a sushi baw fow about a yeaw and the onwy sawmon we sewved was fawm waised. When I asked the ownew about it he towd me it was the onwy sawmon avaiwabwe that was of high enough qwawity to eat waw.

In honor of yer screen name......:o).....Stay Safe !

[CO_dreamer]

caviar emptor

OK, that was pretty good.

[Rebel_Ace]

And commercial salmon fishing is quite a few rungs above "hunter gatherer" LOL

Certainly the technology employed by fisherman today is "cutting edge", but the PRINCIPLE of "hunting/gathering" is no different than it was 10,000 years ago. Wild game, outside of your control, is hunted and captured for food. Some days the hunting is good. Some days the hunting is bad. It does not matter if the hunting is bad because your computer contolled sonar unit cannot detect fish, or if the hunting is bad because you did not pray to the "fish god". Bad day = no food production.

Get real. Farm raised salmon sucks. You have no taste buds, bud.

As far as getting real, then I suppose you only eat beef from wild cows, and pork from wild pigs, and chickens you manage to catch from your own back yard, or some such. I did not comment on the relative taste of the two fish sources, I only pointed out that when Mankind decides that something is good to eat, the way we insure a steady supply is to collect it, study it, learn how to raise it, then farm it for production. You aren't gonna feed 6 billion plus people hunting for food like aborigines did thousands of years ago.

Don't like the taste of domesticated food products? No problem, pay a premium for the rarer wild variety, or raise your own. Want 99 cent loaves of bread and 99 cent Whopper Jr's, then you are going to have oceans of wheat fields and cow farms.

[bigfootbob]

Your proof is bogus, non-scientific drivel. I've farm raised rainbow trout for over 15 years and I've never been offered by my feed supplier feed with antibiotics. No one routinely uses antibiotics. The fish farmer, cow ranchers, no one. I've never used antibiotics but perhaps there may be occasions when you might treat with them, added to feed never not here in the Northwest.

[Myrddin]

The farmed salmon is a nice product. But it is not as tasty or as healthy for you as a wild salmon.

Wild salmon feed off green algae as part of their diet. That contributes to the high concentrations of omega-3 fats in their flesh (and pollutants too). The farm raised fish do not feed on this algae, thus they have much lower levels of omega-3. From a protein perspective, the fish are of equal nutritional value.

[Uncle Miltie]

Glad to hear it.

Having witnessed the destructive ability of commercial fisherman to indiscriminately kill everything in their wake, I'm happy to hear they're going out of business.

Fish can be farmed and harvested like trees and cows can be farmed and harvested. You don't have to sweep the oceans clean to do it.

[Uncle Miltie]

"Farm raised salmon sucks. You have no taste buds, bud."

I respectfully disagree. I was raised catching and eating wild salmon by the thousands off the Washington coast.

The best eating fish, in my opinion, is a very fresh illegally small silver salmon. But by the time you take any other wild salmon from the ocean to a boat to a harbor to a city, it is not as tasty as an Atlantic salmon harvested that morning from a fish farm on Vancouver Island.

Heaven forbid they catch a salmon as it enters its home river. Then, it is both gastronomically atrocious (having hormones ravaging its meat), and ecologically disastrous (by-catch of wild steelhead being just horrific.)

If you prefer tough ("flaky") and fishy ("rich") salmon, then wild is the way to go. If you prefer firm and mild salmon, farm raised is preferrable.

Having slaughtered my thousands of wild fish, I'm quite done with that. When they're overpopulated like deer, I'll consider killing them again. In the mean time, the farm raises my beef, and the farm can raise my fish.

[TheEditor]

But you can get protein elsewhere fairly easily. Source of omega-3's are not terribly abundant in the average diet, and farmed salmon ain't helping. Many people read that salmon is very good for them but don't know that the presence of omega-3 is the big reason. It's about time someone figured out how to farm raise a salmon that more closely mimic the advatages of a the wild salmon.

Ever try making gravlax with farmed salmon? It ain't nearly as good as the "real" thing.

[Myrddin]

Frankly, I tolerate fish on my plate. I'm not a big fan of any kind of fish. The nuances of flavor between a wild or farm raised fish are in the noise compared to the decision to eat it at all.

I purchase molecularly distilled omega-3 capsules. You get much more of the healthy benefits, much less of the pollutants and you don't have fish on your plate.

[dennisw]

As far as getting real, then I suppose you only eat beef from wild cows, and pork from wild pigs, and chickens you manage to catch from your own back yard, or some such.

As a matter of fact I don't. I try to do the best I can. If I had deer meat I would eat it long before beef. There have been times when I was lucky and deer meat was the only meat available. I buy "natural, organic" poultry when I can. You would be amazed how much less fatty they are and how much stronger the bones are when you try to gnaw on them. But you don't care about that

I'm not here to preach. Go eat whatever damn salmon you want. Domesticated people should eat domesticated salmon

[dennisw]

If you prefer tough ("flaky") and fishy ("rich") salmon, then wild is the way to go..........

You seem to live in Wash State. The best Salmon I can get here (East Coast) is frozen king salmon from the Pacific. Nice and dark red. Wild.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Farm fish tastes like mush, but then thats why wild fish are so good. Eating a farm raised fish is like eating a seagull for thanksgiving dinner.

and farm phish are gray.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

JOIN THE LAWSUIT!!

"If you have purchased farm raised salmon from a store that did not label the product as artificially colored, please send us an e-mail. "

[RedBloodedAmerican]

This article says reduced, not stopped.

The farm-raised camp: Concern about wild salmon is understandable, they say. Global warming, bad forestry practices, overfishing and pollution already threaten some salmon populations. Farming salmon is a way to complement the threatened wild salmon catch. Because it is readily available year-round, farm-raised salmon is in the market when wild salmon is not.

All aspects of salmon health are being upgraded, say the spokesmen, including veterinarian inspections, reduced use of antibiotics, specially formulated feed for an optimum nutritional profile, precautions against escapes and a refined government inspection system. Farmers deny that their fish are genetically modified.

And are Pharm Phisheries run by environutz?

[gridlock]

As long as Farm-Raised Salmon is safe to eat and labled as such, I have no objection to it.

Not to say that I would eat it, though.

[Lowcountry]

I looked at each of your linked articles and not one of them comes from an objective source. I have seen the enviro creeps put out this propaganda on just about every form of food produced in America. In their minds if it ain't "free range" you shouldn't eat it. They have joined hands with the Europeans to fight off anything that threatens their ability to maintain artificially high prices in their markets. Meanwhile they could give a rats arse if half of sub-Saharan Africa starves.

Go read all the same articles about wheat, corn, barley, hogs, beef and chickens. They are probably available at the same links.

[CO_dreamer]

http://www.legis.state.ak.us/basis/get_bill_text.asp?hsid=SCR012A&session=22

http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Jun/06012003/commenta/61784.asp

Feedlot salmon grow fast, thanks to fish-feed pellets. The pellets are an amalgam of fish oils, grain and fishmeal from herring, mackerel and sardines. In the process of making pellet food, producers also inadvertently intensify the concentration of dioxins and Polychlorinated biphenyls that get fed to the fish.
PCBs and dioxins are known to cause cancer, high blood pressure and strokes, and farmed salmon have more than 10 times the amount of PCBs than their wild counterparts. At these elevated levels, women and children are advised not to eat more than one serving of farmed salmon a week, according to the U.N.'s World Health Organization.
But that's not all. The food pellets contain antibiotics to stave off diseases easily spread in the close quarters of farm pens. While the industry has decreased the use of antibiotics by more than 90 percent in the past decade, an internal audit by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency reported that a small percentage of farmed salmon tested positive for antibiotics. The agency chose not to recall the meat because of the rapid nature of processing and exportation.
There's more. Atlantic salmon don't look like wild salmon, so some aquaculture companies fold in a color additive called canthaxanthin to the food pellets. They lend the gray fish a sunset color that the J. Crew catalog likes to call "salmon."

http://www4.cnn.com/2002/HEALTH/diet.fitness/11/07/otsc.farmed.salmon/

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/134604786_salmon29.html

[beelzepug]

How nice that you can be so cavalier about someone else losing their livelihood. I have family members who have fished for years only to have their boats and licenses become worthless due to the government shortening seasons and imposing ridiculous catch limits so the tribes can catch all the fish. All the salmon fishermen I know are staunch conservationists and do their best to protect the resource. It's the foreign factory fleets with their 50-mile long driftnets and indians stretching nets across the rivers that have ruined the fishery. Put the blame where it belongs.

[CO_dreamer]

I'm not a scientist, but in my personal opinion, chickens raised free-range and fed whole grains are very likely better for you than chickens stuffed in cages and fed ground up who-knows-what. Same with eggs. Given the choice between a jumbo-sized Tyson hormone injected chicken, and a smaller, more expensive, organically produced chicken, I'll take the organic. Feel free to buy the cheaper chicken. It's a matter of personal choice.

All that I ask is that I have a choice, and the only way I can have a choice is by labeling. I didn't know until a couple months ago that I was eating farm-raised salmon that was artificially colored. Now I know and I can make an informed choice.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

You're talking dragnets which I don't think Americans use anymore. Japanese do tho, right into our fishing waters. We don't scrape the ocean floor anymore.

[RedBloodedAmerican]

Whats odd is some of the sites on the web claim that fisheries are controlled by enviro types, so that the "wild" is not depleted. So which is it? I have family that worked in commercial fishing/crabbing/clamming and they are not environutz.

[fishbabe]

its also not cheap ..most of the time its 5.98 to 7.98 a pound...

[fishbabe]

its a supplement like beta-carotene.. actually all fish meat is gray,even wild fish have gray meat... they eat krill,shrimp and algae to get the red color...

[Bluntpoint]

Give me a farm raised carp any day. Yum!

[kennyboy509]

wotz yer source on that?!

I think wild salmon are carnivorous.

What species of green algae do they eat?

[BurbankKarl]

I saw a huge decal the other day down here in LA.....FARM RAISED, ATLANTIC, TASTES LIKE CRAP SALMON

[RedBloodedAmerican]

I won't buy farm fish, and won't buy (in Florida) anything from out of State that has not been flash frozen at sea. But there's nice fresh fish here, I go to Hull's in Ormond for my seafood. (they have a website)

[Myrddin]

The reference comes from Barry Sears, "The Omega Rx Zone" on pages 66-67. Barry points out that wild salmon are feeding from a food chain that starts with algae. The algae are the source of the long chain omega-3 fats. Farm raised fish tend to be fed using soybean oil in place of fish oil or algae. This results in a higher concentration of omega-6 fats that are precursors to arachidonic acid. Arachadonic acid is not a healthy component of your diet. The ratio of arachidonic acid (omega-6) to EPA (omega-3) is twice as high in farmed fish compared to wild fish. The ratio of AA/EPA is 35 times higher in farmed fish vs isolated salmon oil.