Three great reasons to avoid farm raised Atlantic salmon; it is an unhealthy food choice, the farming practices trash the environment, and the nets kill marine mammals and birds.
According to The Globe and Mail, a humpback whale was found dead inside a British Columbia, Canada fish farm and so far no one knows how it got there. Some are claiming that the whale died at sea, but that seems unlikely.
“There is no visible trauma. It hasn’t been shot, thank goodness, it hasn’t been hit by a boat,” [Larry Paike, Director of Conservation and Protection] said Thursday. “So there are a number of possible scenarios. One it dies of natural causes, drifts into a hole in the predator net and once it bloats comes up underneath. That is kind of like trying to shoot a hockey puck from centre ice into a golf cup holder.
“A more likely scenario is it was feeding, became disoriented, confused … and somehow became encumbered with the ropes from the predator net, or the predator net itself, and then subsequently drowned.”
Mr. Paike said a necropsy would be done Friday to determine cause of death.
“Certainly water in the lungs would indicate to me it’s drowned,” he said.
Environmentalist David Suzuki says of the nets: “If net cages have problems keeping farmed salmon in, they also have trouble keeping out predators out. Fisheries and Oceans Canada reports that between 1996 and 2008, fish farmers killed 3,239 harbour seals and 7,678 Steller’s sea lions. Sometimes, the salmon farm nets themselves kill wildlife. In 2007, 51 sea lions got tangled in nets and drowned at a single farm.”
All to raise toxic fish: : Health details from the Environmental Defense Fund – Salmon » Atlantic salmon (farmed)
“This is an Eco-Worst choice. If you decide to eat it, we recommend the following due to elevated PCBs levels:
Women should eat no more than 2 meals per month
Men should eat no more than 1 meal per month
Kids age 6-12 should eat no more than 1 meal per month
Kids up to age 6 should eat no more than ½ meals per month”
Wildlife biologist Dr. Alexandra Morton has been working to save the once pristine waterways around Vancouver Island, B.C. where salmon farming takes place, and is passionate about saving the wild salmon from the ravages of the farming practices. She has created a fascinating film on the subject, Salmon Confidential (watch above, or on her website).
In the crowded farm conditions hundreds of thousands of farmed fish can quickly become infected by a pathogen and when a fish is sick, it emits the viruses, bacteria, or lice into the water around it. At the Cohen Commission one of DFO’s own scientists, Kyle Garver, testified that a single farm can emit 650 billion viral particles per hour during a disease outbreak.
The viruses, bacteria and parasites from these sick fish can quickly fill a channel. The inlets where these farms are placed are often around 1 km wide and 300 feet deep. 650 billion viral particles released per hour can quickly disperse through this small area.
Now when the wild salmon swim through these channels and inlets they are exposed to the plume of bacteria, viruses and/or lice- or whatever kind of outbreak the farms happen to be experiencing. The farms have become the gatekeepers to the wild salmon. Sometimes the wild fish are lucky enough to pass when there is no outbreak on the farm, but in many cases they are exposed to some kind of pathogen (lice, bacteria, viruses). The same dynamics apply with the amplification of sea lice, bacteria and any disease- whether natural or exotic.
And in the end, the farms produce a product that is not safe to consume in quantity.