'Environmental Nightmare' After Thousands of Atlantic Salmon Escape Fish Farm

http://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/08/24/545619525/environmental-nightmare-after-thousands-of-atlantic-salmon-escape-fish-farm

by merraksh • 9 years ago

163 180 9 years ago

npr.org

X86BSD2• 9 years ago

This is appalling. As an avid fly fisherman, these farms are disgusting. You can see how sick these fish are at the local costco. They put the farm raised salmon fillets right next to the wild salmon fillets. They are pale pink compared to the vibrant rich red of the wild.

These farmed salmon exist in this huge pen of netting, where they swim in their own filth and spread disease amongst each other and any wild salmon swimming through the filth that washes out from the netted pens. It hurts and damages the wild population as they spawn and swim through this sickness and get sick.

I wish they were banned personally, but if humans are not smart enough to not buy this sick farm raised salmon then we deserve to have salmon wiped from the earth.

It's such a shame.

danjoc• 9 years ago

if humans are not smart enough to not buy this sick farm raised salmon then we deserve to have salmon wiped from the earth.

Spoken like a true capitalist.

nathancahill• 9 years ago

The free market provides. And the free market taketh away.

mikeash4• 9 years ago

According to the internet (always reliable), the natural pink color of wild salmon comes from their diets. The most natural diet for farmed salmon would make them gray, and that wouldn't have anything to do with their health, just the fact that they'd be eating different things. But people won't buy gray salmon, so farms include a pigmenting agent to give them color.

1001101• 9 years ago

Yes, it's from the crustaceans in the natural diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Astaxanthin for background on natural and synthetic forms of the pigmentation.

I don't eat meat, but watching a documentary on sea lice in farmed salmon made me lose my appetite for everything. Getting a little queasy just thinking about it.

japhyr• 9 years ago

Here's the tool that's used to determine how much pigment to feed farmed salmon:

https://www.dsm.com/markets/anh/en_US/products/products-solu...

jMyles2• 9 years ago

people won't buy gray salmon

Isn't that called trout?

shoo• 9 years ago

fish farming salmon is interesting as it turns a large quantity of less desirable wild fish into a small quantity of more desirable salmon.

i.e. if people just ate the inputs directly then there would be more food for less environmental impact.

Taek• 9 years ago

This is how it works with cows too. And to a lesser extent, pigs. And to an even lesser extent, chicken.

All meat by and large has a much worse impact on the environment per-calorie than vegetarian diets.

jacquesm• 9 years ago

There is a fair chance that 'vibrant rich red' of that wild Salmon is actually the vibrant rich red of farmed Salmon fed food with carotens.

I've never seen actual wild Salmon whose flesh you could describe as 'vibrant rich red', it would be more of a hue somewhere between orange and pink. But I have seen farmed Salmon with that over-bright and saturated color.

X86BSD2• 9 years ago

I have never seen farmed salmon with any vibrant reddish color. They always look pale pink.

rayiner• 9 years ago

Most of this is handwaving. The color of the fish has nothing to do with it's health; it comes from certain materials in the diet. Moreover, farmed salmon has lower prevalence of parasites: https://munchies.vice.com/en_us/article/d755kx/almost-every-...

devrandomguy2• 9 years ago

The farmed salmon require constant medication to combat the parasites that thrive in dense populations of confined salmon. The wild salmon, however, do not benefit from the medication, but do pick up the parasites as they swim past open-net salmon farms. This is one of the many reasons why Pacific commercial fishermen are opposed to open net salmon farming specifically, rather than just to salmon farming in general; it is not just competition, it is literally destroying a species we depend on, and the ecosystems that depend on them in turn.

Sorry about the lack of a citation, I found out about this while handling tons of infested salmon over several summers, not by reading a study. Last I heard, a study was commissioned by the DFO, but the results were kept private by the BC government; communications by government sponsored scientists were tightly regulated, beginning during premier Gordon Campbell's time in office.

pcmaffey• 9 years ago

Or you know, we could just catch and eat all the wild salmon instead.

Farming is not the problem. Unsustainable farming is the problem. We can raise and kill and eat animals humanely (oh irony), just as we can grow food sustainably. The problem is that knowledge is not evenly distributed...

devmunchies4• 9 years ago

The planet can only support so much inefficiency. Humans are eating too much meat for our population. No animal farming is sustainable at this rate.

If people filled up on more plant-based foods and had a little meat for flavor we would have much less of these kinds of problems.

to_bpr• 9 years ago

these farms are disgusting

Commercial fishing has absolutely devastated our oceans. Farmed fish have long been proposed as the "sustainable" solution.

If commercial, open water fishing or fish farming isn't the solution to provide sustainable food, then what is?

alphaalpha101• 9 years ago

Sustainable commercial open water fishing is completely acceptable to everyone, surely?

devrandomguy2• 9 years ago

The local Coast Salish natives have been successfully farming oysters and other shellfish in the tidal zone for thousands of years. This actually improves the nearby environment by filtering the water, and sequesters carbon in the CaCO3 seashells. We could probably scale this up safely, if the DFO is still capable of regulating anything effectively.

We need to repair the DFO, the gutting of regulatory agencies is a root cause for many of these problems.

robotbikes2• 9 years ago

Sardines and other smaller fish are generally far more sustainable than the types of predator fish that humans have been pushed to prefer. There are also sustainable rates of fishing but our current economy doesn't work to incentivize this aside from the labels and NGOs approvals that go on certain seafood products.

jeffwass• 9 years ago

Thy are pale pink compared to the vibrant rich red of the wild.

Meat colour can be deceiving (at least for land-based mammals).

Eg - Some American supermarkets treat meat with carbon monoxide to keep it bright red for days.

http://www.thehealthyhomeeconomist.com/why-supermarket-meat-...

Edit - apparently farmed salmon are given pigments mixed with their feed to make their flesh more pink : https://qz.com/358811/heres-why-your-farmed-salmon-has-color...

mikeash4• 9 years ago

"Department officials blamed the structure failure on high tides caused by the eclipse...."

That's certainly creative.

colechristensen• 9 years ago

Isn't that true though? The sun-moon-earth in a straight line when the moon is near perigee _would_ cause unusually high tides.

mikeash4• 9 years ago

It would, but the tidal effect of a perfectly aligned sun/moon would not be much different from the tidal effect of a mostly-aligned sun/moon. It's really just another spring tide, which happens about twice a month.

Plus, the failure didn't even happen during the eclipse. It happened two days earlier, when the moon would have been 20-30 degrees away from the sun's position. That combination happens quite frequently.

The article notes that tides weren't abnormally high, and had reached greater heights at some point in every month of 2017 so far.

notgood• 9 years ago

Should read "Department officials were ordered to tell BS reason instead of pointing out the most likely reason: shitty quality of structure due bad management trying to save money on maintenance"

kwelstr• 9 years ago

Question is, why are they farming atlantic salmon on the pacific coast?

merraksh• 9 years ago

If $FISH is easier to farm or tastier or more valuable than $FISH2 and there are enough consumers in $CITY, I'd bet there will be a $FISH farm close enough to $CITY.

cperciva• 9 years ago

My understanding is that Atlantic salmon has a milder flavour and is more popular.

sogen• 9 years ago

same thing as why most stuff is made in $cheapcountry

kat• 9 years ago

Atlantic salmon are larger than native species on the coast, so more business value. They also grow faster than than native salmon.

foota• 9 years ago

I think parent is asking why on the _coast_

geezerjay2• 9 years ago

Atlantic salmon are larger than native species on the coast, so more business value. They also grow faster than than native salmon.

You've missed the point. Of course they do it because it makes business sense. That's the whole point of a business.

What remains a mystery is why on earth would they be farming an invasive specie right in the ecosystem they are a threat.

gallerdude• 9 years ago

Wow, it's like a vastly lamer and far less exciting Jurassic Park.

chrischen• 9 years ago

Or Chicken Run

francisofascii2• 9 years ago

life, finds a way

bamboozled3• 9 years ago

"The Atlantic salmon bring with them pollution, virus and parasite amplification, and all that harms Pacific salmon and our waters of Washington," Beardslee said."

I honestly think that the Joe Blog's of the world have no idea how detrimental fish farming like this is to the environment, people in my family see it as a nice alternative to eating mammals. It's sad things like this have to happen to bring it to public attention.

I hope in the future they teach children to find out where there food comes from and what impact it has on their environment before purchasing it. This stuff isn't cool.

chillwaves2• 9 years ago

Bamboozled is right.

ciconia• 9 years ago

I hope in the future they teach children to find out where there food comes from

Who's they? Isn't it our responsibility?

prawn2• 9 years ago

Ultimately yes, but many parents won't. Cover all bases by encouraging parents to do so, and educating children as well.

There are a number of basic life skills that go untaught during school years - personal finance being one of them.

meric2• 9 years ago

We could farm the fish we eat or we could eat all the wild fish...

devmunchies4• 9 years ago

Or get your protein from other sources [e.g. https://silk.com/products/protein-nutmilk] and eat less meat. Its the only sustainable way to support the growing human population.

Plant based proteins are more sustainable. With animal proteins, people don't think about how inefficient it is to have to feed those animals before they end up on your plate. If you want to liken it to computer science, its a O^2 kind of inefficiency.

tomjohnneill• 9 years ago

But farmed fish are fed fishmeal made from wild fish...

rhn_mk1• 9 years ago

I hope in the future they teach children to find out where there food comes from and what impact it has on their environment before purchasing it. This stuff isn't cool.

What's are the alternatives here? The ocean is overfished, mammals and birds require large amounts of water and either large areas of land or bring welfare concerns.

I can't clearly see that fish farming is any better than farming of any other animals. Did I understand you right?

jussij• 9 years ago

I don't disagree with you as such.

The problem comes when the fish farming industry doesn't stick to the rules and the government, who are meant to be overseeing the industry, decide to look the other way.

That exact situation has been going on in Tasmania for many years now and that type of neglect can only end badly.

More details: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-06-08/how-salmon-farming-got...

bamboozled3• 9 years ago

Fish farming is just as bad as anything else IMO.

Theoretical alternatives to the status quo are:

* Higher taxes and fines for those using detrimental and high-risk farming practices, thus driving up the price of meat, fish and poultry to deter over-consumption, people don't need to eat animals 7 days a week. Food is simply "too cheap".

* Public education and further studies into mostly plant based diets so people aren't afraid to face the stigma and uncertainty about not having animals every night of the week. It's ok to cut back.

* Eating food grown or caught as close to your residence as possible.

* Mandatory food labelling of products, detailed information about the origin and production methods used to produce said product.

* Monetary incentives to have less children.

sedachv2• 9 years ago

What's are the alternatives here?

The alternative is to stop eating carcinogenic, heart disease-causing foods made out of animals and animal secretions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rNY7xKyGCQ

pvaldes3• 9 years ago

Fish farming has bassically the same problems than traditional farming (problems that must be solved), but wins clearly in some aspects.

First of all is more efficient. We produce human food via cold blooded animals so we need to provide less animal food to obtain 1Kg of high quality human food. Mammals and birds instead will use a considerable amount of this energy just to keep itselves several degrees warmer than the environmental temperature day and night.

Is better also because reduces waste. Fishes are aquatic and have swimming bladders. Its bodyweight is carried by the water, so you are not investing in growing several Kg of heavy unedible skeletons that will end in the trash. There is more food in 100Kg of entire fishes than in a pig of 100Kg, and you'll need to allocate less volume of garbage dump.

At difference of agriculture or industry, if you have a farm fish you need to care for keeping the quality of the water in reasonable levels for life beings. This water is still available to other animals and plants.

More efficient use of energy and water and less waste is the definition of environmentally friendly. The ugly truth is that the number of humans is ever increasing but resources are limited. Cows, sheeps, pigs and poultry use also antibiotics and spreaded parasites and diseases in the past and of course the arrival of massive quantities of them 200 years ago was also a neverending 'environmental nightmare' for lots of species of trees, flowers or insects (and a bless to other, just like salmon farms). The difference is that you can have more people with aquaculture in the end.

belorn4• 9 years ago

What overfished means today is that the very few species that we want to eat is overfished. I have heard several estimates of how much fish is fished but then discarded, and the number is general around 75%.

If we look at lakes, there are plenty that is over populated because of eutrophication, but the type of fish that thrives in that environment also eats fish eggs of the fish we want to eat. Predators can actually go extinct by a combination of prey either the eggs and humans eating the adults.

Much of this could be solved if we just wanted to eat more divers selection of fish.

Pica_soO5• 9 years ago

The answer is 1/7. 1/7 of the calories needed to grow the amount of protein, that a cow needs. They dont need to heat themselves up. They dont need to build large bones to fight gravity. Sorry, i know its not cool to be for something nowadays, fish farming of all the farming, has the best ratio.

ge963• 9 years ago

And bugs

That was a good nat Geo article

Retric2• 9 years ago

Cows need to live a long time, which costs a lot of energy. Chickens are much closer to fish, but eggs are even better in terms of grain calories to protein conversion.

PS: Salmon on the other hand are horrible as predators they cost more protean than they produce.

schiffern3• 9 years ago

Aquaculture has the best ratio, but fish farming isn't the only way to do it.

The GreenWave folks seems to have a decent alternative. They base their aquaculture on filter feeders (oysters, mussels, scallops, clams) and autotrophs (ocean kelp, a salad green which btw is the source of omega-3 in fish), with the result that their farms clean up fertilizer runoff from terrestrial farms and reduce eutrophication. Their protein requirements are even lower than fish farms, requiring 0/7ths of what a cow needs (ie no inputs).

Here's an overview from the founder Bren Smith, who incidentally is pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjFPdTnclUA&t=4m20s (skip ahead to 8m for just the farm description)

trentmb• 9 years ago

What about insect farming?

the_gastropod3• 9 years ago

You didn't explicitly state this, but I think it's important to highlight: protein != meat. Farming fish is more efficient than farming cows, but it's still more wasteful than having people eat plants directly.

It seems to me that a lot of damage is being done because of the idea that getting enough protein is difficult unless you eat meat. In reality, it's difficult to be protein deficient if you eat 2000+ calories/day.

I'm not advocating that everyone go vegan, but clearly the amount of meat we eat today is unsustainable. I think a good first step to addressing that is some nutrition education, and dispelling the myth that protein = meat.

lostlogin3• 9 years ago

It's funny how a made up name, 'Joe Blogs' can look wrong. Joe Bloggs is apparently a UK, Canada, Australia, NZ thing. John Doe is American.

danmaz74• 9 years ago

It's still much better than depleting wild fish stocks AFAIK.

specialist2• 9 years ago

Over fishing, habitat destruction, and hatcheries have nearly wiped out wild pacific salmon. Fish farms will finish the job. Woot.

I volunteered for a decade for a group trying to save wild salmon. Towards the end, I attended the EPA hearings for adding 12+ local salmon runs to the endangered species list. So depressing. Then GWB got selected, pushing a clear "pave it all" agenda, the conservation effort fizzled; my peeps just gave up.

By comparison, Bush Sr signed the landmark federal legislation for wetlands conservation. Huge progress after the Reagan & James Watt era of environmental destruction.

I think there's been some policy progress since I left the scene. Our tribes, fishermen, and anglers have made (mostly) common cause. Still opposed by timber and developers, of course. (I don't know agriculture's current policy position.) And what can any one do about international treaties and open water and modern technology (fish spotting, tracking)?

Any way. My family loved to fish. Very involved with Trout Unlimited, Poggie Club, etc. My brother studied to be a marine biologist.

The deep irony for me is that conserving the wild fisheries would have immense positive economic impact. Ditto cultural. Our current policies (malign neglect) steal dollars from the majority to give pennies to a select few. Woot.

Edit- Removed pejorative reference to Watt's faith-based anti-environmentalism.

specialist2• 9 years ago

PS- NPR story says higher tides (solar eclipse) damaged pens. FFS. Amateurs. Cue Condi Rice (-esque) quote "No one could have foreseen tidal activity and poor craftsmanship could have led to an incident like this."

jackhack• 9 years ago

>Huge progress after the Reagan & James Watt era of pave every thing for Jesus environmental destruction.

I understand you have strong feelings and a point-of-view, but I'd like to ask you to please attempt to make your point without slandering a religion.

We really need to learn how to talk to one-another, again, without being so needlessly provocative and confrontational.

bbrian• 9 years ago

Related: Public urged to remain vigilant after Pacific salmon found in Irish rivers (August 14 2017)

http://www.independent.ie/breaking-news/irish-news/public-ur...

nikofeyn• 9 years ago

i wonder how this will affect the already struggling pacific northwest resident orca population.

pfarnsworth2• 9 years ago

The worst thing about this is that this company will get nothing more than a slap on the wrist. And their larger fish farm that they want will of course get approved, even though they can't handle a smaller one. It's incredibly offensive how little government officials actually care about the environment.

scott_karana• 9 years ago

Or, more likely, how powerless they are to do anything.

Talk to a local Conservation Officer. You'll likely come away with newfound respect, but also pessimism. ;-)

aeorgnoieang• 9 years ago

I'm not being flippant; I'm genuinely curious.

What's your ideal punishment? Death? Life imprisonment? Complete liquidation of the company? Fines or wage/income garnishment for executives and mangers and board members?

Shouldn't at least some government officials also be punished? I'm miffed that they're not routinely punished for similar (or worse) lapses.

And what exactly is it for which you wish they'd be punished? Potentially introducing an invasive species into the habitat of a protected species? Or failing to do more to prevent the actual introduction?

pfarnsworth2• 9 years ago

Companies that engage in environmentally-risky practices should be fined so heavily that they shouldn't attempt environmentally risky things unless they know they can do it properly. This creates a great advantage for well-run companies because it's basically a moat. Other companies that try it will fail dramatically because they'll get fined into oblivion.

This, to me, includes chemical factories. Whenever they have a gas leak, or an chemical spill, the fines should be utterly draconian. Personally I think a CEO of a chemical company should live no more than 1 mile away from one of her factories, but that's the environmental fascist in me.

Ineffective government officials should be fired with prejudice.

lucb1e• 9 years ago

Somewhere in the middle is the interesting bit (to me at least: "why is releasing fish an issue?"):

Warren said his main concern is that Atlantic salmon could out-compete native Chinook salmon and steelhead for food and spawning grounds.

dwyerm2• 9 years ago

We need good science media to explain these things to the rest of us.

For instance, where I'm from, a failed float switch allowed millions of gallons of treated drinking water overflow into the local streams. The EPA pitched a fit about a hazardous chemical release. It is really difficult to support and believe in the EPA's mission without an explanation why the same water you drink and spray on your lawn suddenly becomes a hazardous chemical.

dzdt• 9 years ago

Reference please? My Bayesian estimate is that it is much more likely that you misunderstood badly or believed fake news than that the EPA was upset about a drinking water spill.

jlebrech• 9 years ago

we should release fish small enough to fit through nets, so that they outbreed fishes we catch and the fishing industry goes bankrupt.

dsfyu404ed• 9 years ago

As bad as this is I hope some late night comedy show take it and runs with it. Lots of good xenophobia, immigration and west coast jokes could be made from this.

mmphosis• 9 years ago

https://thetyee.ca/News/2017/08/24/protect_salmon/

'Environmental Nightmare' After Thousands of Atlantic Salmon Escape Fish Farm

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